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. . . when some "author" rips them off?
Inquiring cats want to know.
I was perusing my Amazon recommendations yesterday and found Part 1 of a story, "She was a bad boy." on offer on Kindle Unlimited. Since, if the story focuses on growth of the hero(ine) as well as the forced femme aspects, I have a partiality to such stories. As it wouldn't cost me anything, I d/led part 1 for a quick look see.
Main character is Milo, a prankster on the verge of being expelled from his private school (St Andrews) and is sent by his Mother for his last chance to redeem himself to her good friend from Eastmore, 'Aunt' Janet.
Let's just say, that got my attention.
Okay, so far, it is a ripoff of Joel Lawrence's 'Season of Change' which has been in the public domain, for free, since 1992 at least when I first found it on an FTP site.
Michael has become Milo.
Beth has become Britt.
Jane has become Janet.
Near as I could tell in a quick scan, Marie is still Marie, Miss Franson is still Miss Franson, Carolyn Beale and Sandra are still running Marisha Chalet in Kingston. Even the dreaded Mrs. White is on hand.
Sigh. Part two is more of the same. Except the ending which is "To Be Concluded."
I find that interesting because I searched and could not find a conclusion to the original story, even after communicating with an author who said she had contributed to making Joel's tale a little more titillating. To my knowledge, the only conclusion to that tale that adheres to the original plot is my story, "A Second Season."
Pretty sure Joel is no longer with us, and am not sure about the contributing author. I have learned that only the 'owner' of a story has a prayer of getting any satisfaction from Amazon.
As I said, I am very curious about the promised conclusion. I probably still have the 5.25" Double-sided, Double-Density (DSDD) floppy I wrote Second Season on back in 1993, although heaven alone knows what I could find to read it with. Since I wrote it with a licensed copy of WordPerfect 5.0/5.1, my RL name is likely still in the file's metadata.
Remember the 'good old days' online when there was a community and a shared culture? Guess that is gone now.
Maybe that's one of the reasons my muse is on an extended Sabbatical?
Hugs
Hugs,
Tigger
Comments
Depends
It all depends on the amount of money that's been made, who calls the thieves out, and where they're geographically located (Both the original author and the thief). I obviously don't have their metrics, but I would bet it's 1% of the time or less they go after any sort of monetary recompense.
It's expensive to litigate and depending on where the parties involved live and if the hurt party has any legal pull they would rarely feel pressured to move ahead. The main reason though they wouldn't move to do anything though, is because they've made their money, and that's all they really care about. Doing anything about it other than removing a listing is costing them money.
With regards to the olden days, while I'm also nostalgic about how more 'close' the communities felt... there were always assholes around that everyone just ignored/etc. Technology has just made it easier for them to pull their crap. I don't believe there is percentage wise more than before they just have access to more resources these days. You see more of the happenings and results as well with the world more interconnected and borders meaning less and less.
I loved the old days!!
Compuserve Genderline
Feminet BBS (and others)
FTP
Usenet
BC for 18 years and a day :)
*happy sigh*
Ah, the memories
I remember when AoL started flooding the universe with their free 7 day trials, including internet access.
All of a sudden, our little non-commercial world of free access to information was flooded with spam and (gasp) newbies! Or as one guy on a school forum said, "Oh my god! you mean my parents can see what I'm doing here?!?!"
Culture shock all around.
T
a community and a shared culture
We're still here, only now instead of being on newsgroups we are in the closet... The Big Closet Top Shelf.
Yeah, I remember the "good ole days." When I was too worried about who might figure out who I was in real life... When I went to great lengths to see the my Patricia Marie Allen email was insulated from my RL email by a long chain of aliases five deep. No one in the community had my RL email much less an address or phone number. While I'm glad that the newsgroups and the Yahoo groups were there, I'm really thankful for Big Closet.
Here in this community I'm far closer to the folks here than I was back then. Several people here have my RL email and if some here were going to be in my area, I'd gladly give them my address so they could stop by. This community is far more intimate.
Sadly, others, outside BCTS don't want intimate, they want what folks in large metro areas have where you hardly know the names of your next door neighbors, let alone anyone down the street.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Plagiarism.
I've had a couple stories ripped off and just haven't bothered to try to get my money back. The way the BCTS members treat me, I feel like what I write is pretty worthless. Why would I get upset? Besides, the one who watches over me takes good care of me. I don't need the money.
Gwen
Amazon plays God
and likes to make out that they are untouchable. For most of us who are not multi-multi-millionaires or have a mega publisher behind us, they are untouchable and they wield so much power that it is frightening.
I'd just leave a 1 star review giving the truth about the plagiarism and politely suggesting that no one buys the 'damaged goods' and point them at the original text.
Plagiarism was why I removed all my best wildlife and landscape photos from the internet. That included the photo libraries most of whom seemed to act like Amazon. Yes, I lost a small income stream but one of the [redacted] who stole my work earned a lot more from my image than I ever did. That was the trigger to take my ball home with me. That was in 2008.
Things are much worse now for all types of original content creator.
Samantha
Previous comment
As I pointed out in my previous comment, and as you said, they are untouchable unless you have millionaire type money. They're only out for profit.
There's always been theft of original content, the internet made it easier, and now with AI it's only getting worse. I love the possibilities AI gives us, but there needs to be controls on what is used to train these things as currently they have no bounds. Trained on stories/art/etc that they don't have the rights to and their product is thusly created at the expense of everyone who 'contributed' to it's training but getting NONE of the profits.
I am not a lawyer, but
Maybe file a DMCA complaint with Amazon, especially if the are using your work in a non-derivative way? not sure what the limitations are...
https://destinationlegal.com/blogs/resources/someone-steals-...
Not Tigger's work
but Joel Lawrence's, who apparently is no longer around. Only the copyright holder can file a DMCA takedown demand. So, leaving the review might be a good idea, or just pointing Amazon to one of the sites with the original. Tigger wrote several more stories in this universe, all better, in my opinion, than the original.
Be careful
Amazon will remove reviews that point to here, Literotica or Fictionmania, so be sure to only say "a free story site" and if you are a 'repeat offender' they might ban you from writing reviews at all.
True story: they did it to a good friend of mine - who still manages to call out the thieves on Goodreads.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
Amazon, YouTube and story thieves
Amazon get their thirty pieces of sil... er, percent regardless of whether the story is being sold by the author or a thief. Their approach (only the author can report the theft) seems designed to punish the victim and reward the enterprising scumbag. This appears to be the standard playbook for big corporations: Google does the same with all the stolen content on YouTube. If you want to register a copyright claim there you have to state your real name and address, which they say might be shared with the thief as part of the legal process. Note: their approach also means the 'in memoriam' list is an open invitation to thieves.
Your best defence against theft is to publish your story commercially, before sharing it with anybody else at all. Basically, assume that anything you post here or on FM, etc. will ultimately end up as a stolen audiobook (more than a thousand stolen works on FemStories now) or as a stolen Kindle ebook.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh