Amazon Ebook Copyright Complaints & How To Fight Stolen Ebooks

[Zeb_Carter]

"Hear, hear" is commonly heard in the British House of Commons, when a member says something memorable. It's an exhortation to "listen up", to pay attention to the import of the comment.

Of course, "hear, hear" is often used in a partisan sense when someone from one's party says anything at all. His or her colleagues shout "hear, hear" to sock it to the opposition (although Dr. Johnson, for all his qualities, was ignorant of the term "sock it to . . .

Thanks for the info, but I believe your countryman, Handley probably already knows that. As for the rest of us, I believe we have been sufficiently soaked in the ways of the Brits to understand it also.

 

[oggbashan]

Thanks for the info, but I believe your countryman, Handley probably already knows that. As for the rest of us, I believe we have been sufficiently soaked in the ways of the Brits to understand it also.

Hear, Hear, is the correct version as recorded in Hansard.

But the House of Commons still behaves like an 18th Century Gentleman's Club despite women Members of Parliament.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/unparliamentary-language-rude-words-banned-5234983

The Australian Parliament has interesting debates. Their list of 'Unparliamentary Terms' is much more colourful.

https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/unparliamentary-language-australian-edition/

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hear, Hear, is the correct version as recorded in Hansard.

But the House of Commons still behaves like an 18th Century Gentleman's Club despite women Members of Parliament.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/unparliamentary-language-rude-words-banned-5234983

The Australian Parliament has interesting debates. Their list of 'Unparliamentary Terms' is much more colourful.

https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/unparliamentary-language-australian-edition/

Yes, I understand. I was giving Handley the benefit of the typo. Fucking spelling Nazi's.

 

[sr71plt]

Naw, HP consistently misspells the term as "here, here." I usually follow up with a "hear, hear," but HP never has taken the point.

 

[SunnyJohansen]

I found this site to be closed down.
http://fetstories.com/en/

Do you know where I can find it, now?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I found this site to be closed down.
http://fetstories.com/en/

Do you know where I can find it, now?

Hopefully it won't be back ever.

 

[MindsMirror]

Numerous stories lifted

The ASSTR site seems to be a bad one for allowing plagiarist to lift works from others...
The thief (below) has taken stories from multiple authors here (including us):
http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/ashrith/

-MM

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I just don't get it, why steal someone else's work and claim it as your own and then put it up on another free site? Then again, maybe that author is the same one that is posting here, but using a different name. I don't know if she is, as I didn't check out all the stories at ASSTR.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

I searched for an unusual sentence I had written in a story that is no longer up on lit because I'm editing the hell out of it for sale. Imagine my surprise when I found almost the whole thing posted here.

http:// shareaccvip.forumcommunity. net/ ? f=8868386&st=30

I've already asked that it be taken down, but I don't imagine I'll have much success.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I searched for an unusual sentence I had written in a story that is no longer up on lit because I'm editing the hell out of it for sale. Imagine my surprise when I found almost the whole thing posted here.

http:// shareaccvip.forumcommunity. net/ ? f=8868386&st=30

I've already asked that it be taken down, but I don't imagine I'll have much success.

Is that link supposed to take you to your story? If it is, it doesn't, so maybe they heard you.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

Thanks for the heads up Zeb! I checked the site again tonight and that one chapter was gone but several remained. I sent another message to the site admin with all the links.

Yay!

 

[UnderMyKilt]

Stolen story on Gaynerdy.com

Is Gaynerdy.com a regular pilferer of stories or is my experience with them something new?

I just found my first story, "Best Friends Become Lovers" there. I originally submitted it here on 7/29/2004 and it appears to have been posted there on 10/20/2016.

It's at this http://www.gaynerdy.com/best-friends-become-lovers/

I have taken the usual steps in requesting that it be taken down.

On edit: They never responded to my email but have already taken it down.

The part that bothers me most, other than the fact that the site owner blatantly claims that it's his and even asks for feedback, is that it is not a work of fiction but rather chronicles my real life experience. As such, they have stolen a part of my life.

When I get a chance, I'm going to poke around and see if I find other Literotica stories thee.

On edit: I found this Lit story there. https://www.literotica.com/s/together-for-the-holiday

http://www.gaynerdy.com/together-for-the-holiday/#more-134466

....and this....https://www.literotica.com/s/all-i-want-for-christmas-5

http://www.gaynerdy.com/all-i-want-for-christmas/

...and no doubt more.

 

[MindsMirror]

Silence from Lit speaks volumes. There FAQ should be updated to reflect the hard truth. They are not obligated nor will they assist in helping get plagiarized work taken down.

The current verbiage that made us think Literotica would assist (when notified) from the FAQ is misleading at best. https://www.literotica.com/faq/05235347.shtml

If I submit a story to Literotica, do I still own the copyright?

Absolutely. You are simply granting us a non-exclusive right to publish your story on Literotica.com and granting Literotica the right to enforce the copyright on your story should it be used without your permission by any other publication - online, print, or other media.

While Literotica is not in any way required to enforce your copyright for you, you are granting us the right to do so if we become aware of anyone using your story without your explicit consent. The right to enforce your copyright that you are granting us includes the right to file DMCA complaints, file lawsuits, and any and all other necessary actions, both foreign and domestic, to prevent unauthorized people and companies from using your submissions without your permission.

The reason we require you to grant us the shared right to enforce your copyright (of course you also retain the right to enforce your own copyrights) is so that we have the legal power needed to protect your works from unauthorized publication on websites and in other media. As long as you grant permission to a website or other media to publish your stories, we have no right to enforce copyright law on them. Only websites or other media that publish/copy your stories without your permission are included in this granting of rights.

Other than these two issues, all rights to the story still belong to you, the author.

 

[sr71plt]

I think the administration's original post to this thread is pretty much an admission that you're on your own--that they aren't really going to do anything. That you might as well try bluff, because sometimes that works and nothing else really does. (But then I think they pretty much can't do anything effective about it and they don't want to directly admit they don't/can't do anything about it because that would kill a Web site that relies totally on the infusion of product they pay nothing for.)

 

[oggbashan]

I won't repeat my post here but ask yourself - Do I have any copyright to defend?

The frequent answer is No.

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=83044732&postcount=41

 

[OliviaM]

Ogg - here's the official FAQ on US copyright. You absolutely do have rights in the US from the moment the work is created. Registration is recommended in order to make absolutely sure your rights are unquestioned in court, but it is not a legal requirement.

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

 

[sr71plt]

Ogg - here's the official FAQ on US copyright. You absolutely do have rights in the US from the moment the work is created. Registration is recommended in order to make absolutely sure your rights are unquestioned in court, but it is not a legal requirement.

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. Wake up, Olivia. We've covered this ad nauseam on the board. Registration isn't just "recommended" in the U.S. system, it's REQUIRED to even get a court date in the United States. That was made a requirement on purpose--to keep the U.S. courts from being swamped with the "he said/she said" situations that the Berne Convention makes possible (and the reason that the United States didn't sign the Berne Convention for a hundred years). If you can't take something to court, all you realistically have going for you is bluff. Nice if that works, but it isn't going to work if you insist on misleading yourself about reality and know less about reality than the guy who ripped off your work.

Will you people ever stop fooling yourself on this?

Will you stop pretending even that any of you actually file for formal copyright in the United States?

 

[OliviaM]

Nobody is going to magically protect your copyright for you. People will ignore disclaimers, emails, DMCA notices, or whatever they feel like. Yes, you have to register through the US and go through courts if the infraction is a serious one that you really want to pursue.

In reality, yes, it's going to be really hard for someone who is putting things online for free to get anywhere without the cooperation of other parties, especially if you want to remain pseudonymous. It would be even more difficult to raise money and make an actual case. However, some of the posts on this are spun just a little too dark and may be giving people the idea that copyright doesn't exist at all unless you register and get lawyered up. I'll let people read the official FAQ and decide for themselves.

 

[sr71plt]

I was just pointing out that you gave incorrect information that perpetuates a false sense of security--that just isn't there. Sorry, Olivia, reality can be dark. Dressing it up with incorrect information doesn't add light or make anyone brighter for believing in something that doesn't exist.

The reality of the bottom line: If you aren't prepared to tolerate your created work being stolen and posted to the Internet beyond your control don't post it to the Internet to begin with. That's not negotiable or preventable and it can't be "pretended" away. What part of that can't folks understand?

 

[oggbashan]

Nobody is going to magically protect your copyright for you. People will ignore disclaimers, emails, DMCA notices, or whatever they feel like. Yes, you have to register through the US and go through courts if the infraction is a serious one that you really want to pursue.

In reality, yes, it's going to be really hard for someone who is putting things online for free to get anywhere without the cooperation of other parties, especially if you want to remain pseudonymous. It would be even more difficult to raise money and make an actual case. However, some of the posts on this are spun just a little too dark and may be giving people the idea that copyright doesn't exist at all unless you register and get lawyered up. I'll let people read the official FAQ and decide for themselves.

Your copyright exists even if you don't register it. It still exists after you have registered it. In the US, without registration, you have NO case at all.

But it doesn't matter whether you have registered it or not. The reality is that you cannot defend your copyright successfully in the US even if you spend thousands of dollars on lawyers. In many countries who ignore the Berne Convention? You haven't got the chance of a snowflake in hellfire.

A little too dark? Welcome to the unregulated internet. Your copyright is effectively meaningless.

 

[lovecraft68]

The copyright issue is not all that's in play. Lit does not need to prove copyright to have a story removed from another site. All they need say is the author posted it to their site, not "yours" therefore its property of literotica and that can be proven as easily as the date the lit story published compared to the date the stolen version was published.

The copyright laws have not changed in the last few years, yet when I first came here Lit routinely went after these sites and managed to get many of them shut down. IF they couldn't get it shut down they at least got the stories pulled.

The arguing over copyright laws is a moot point. The real point is lit now does absolute squat for the people who place their stories here.

The stories and authors built this site and are responsible for whatever income it makes yet are shown no appreciation whatsoever. At this point people are just being taken advantage of posting their stories here, that and being mislead by all the make believe rules to give the site some type of air of being morally superior to other sites.

The upgrades we are seeing are self preservation. If they don't get with the times they will be buried in Googles search engines so none of the overhaul has anything to do with making things better for authors or readers, but all about keeping lit profitable.

People are free to put stories here and lit has the advantage of having the biggest readership, but it needs to be understood that you are 100% solely on your own here in every way.

 

[sr71plt]

T
The copyright laws have not changed in the last few years, yet when I first came here Lit routinely went after these sites and managed to get many of them shut down. IF they couldn't get it shut down they at least got the stories pulled.

I challenge that. I've been here much longer than you have and I all saw--in looking at the wording of what was posted--was smoke and mirrors and assuming Lit. did something when there was no evidence they did. And whatever they did wasn't--and can't be--effective. The bluff request can be, and often is, just ignored, the material can go right back up--and has gone right back up. No one in power to do anything cares two figs about a dirty story willingly posted for free to the Internet in a fake name.

The only effective redress is if the host server of the Web site doesn't want to be in that sort of business and cuts the Web site off. So, Literotica could have/can try to approach individual instances (knowing there are hundreds/thousands of instances out there replenishing themselves every day) by going to the host server company. I have seen no real evidence over the past ten years that they have done so--or if it did so it kept the story off the Internet by thieves. If you think they have, I think their bluffing of authors worked with you for at least a period of time.

 

[MindsMirror]

Our point was that if the information posted in their official FAQ that they suggest you read before posting is misleading, then they should correct it. We never even looked on the forums until we discovered our work had been stolen. We had read the FAQ and the wording carried the tone of "we'll assist you if someone copies your work from our website". And that doesn't seem that far fetched, since they make money off of these stories we post.
-MM

 

[sr71plt]

They should correct a whole lot of things here, but they don't. Try asking Fern a question (https://www.literotica.com/aspasia/). Think she's been dead and gone for a decade. Try getting an e-mail to someone in admin who will open it.

You're on your own with about zero options. That's the point to take away from this discussion.

 

[MindsMirror]

Here's another site with many Literotica stories listed. http://wellsexstories.com