Wholesale Fic Theft Alert

[lolmac]

Many thanks to a_phoenixdragon and juliet316 for the alert:

Head's-up!There's a blog out there that's been running since 2011.  The philosophy of the blogger seems to be "steal and repost without attribution, whine about Fair Use when caught, grudgingly attribute or remove only on demand

Comments

[lost_spook]

Judging by the content, it's not traditional stealing; they've simply got some system for automatically reposting onto their blog any LJ posts (or any from selected journals) marked with tags like "fanfic", including things like meme entries about fanfic and also announcement posts with links to AO3 or wherever, so they're clearly not even bothering to look themselves at what ends up there. If you crosspost from Dreamwidth, the post is complete with the crossposting link so your original entry can be found. It's set up therefore almost an RSS feed rather than a blog. I don't see any attempt to take the credit from the authors, but that's about all you can say for it.

[lolmac]

Ha, I hadn't seen that. But I did see the "complaint" page, complete with her insisting, to another author, that she has the right to do the unattributed reposts. My take is that when you post everything except the author's name on your own blog, you're tacitly implying authorship.

Apparently if you complain about your own fic, you can be placed on a "exclude" list, so the more we can choke her supply, the better.

[lost_spook]

I've complained. I also made a post about it and tagged, accurately enough for my LJ, with "fanfic". Lo & behold they have copied it onto the blog and are now accidentally warning readers against the blog itself.

:-D

[lolmac]

I shouldn't be laughing as hard as I am, but I am . . . !!!

Bless you and the others for spreading the word! I had gone into one of those weird moods of fretting that I'm making a Big Deal where I shouldn't. I no longer feel like an obnoxious pearl-clutching dork.

[a_phoenixdragon]

Not happy about this. None of my fictions are there, but a I recognize quite a few. Asking permission (and putting credit to the author somewhere in the post like 'written by') isn't that damned hard. A lot of people would be happy to agree. Something like this makes people wary of sharing and definitely NOT inclined to agree to having their fiction reposted elsewhere...

*HUGS*

[lolmac]

Yeah. EVERYONE I know would respond to a request to repost with "ZOMG YES THANK YOU SO MUCH". Skip that small courtesy, and it's one step from much-loved fan to Public Menace.

[a_phoenixdragon]

Exactly. Took the thought right out of my head there...

*HUGS*

RE: Wholesale Fic Theft Alert via @macbedh

[campylobacter]

>> I seem to be fortunate in that the blogger isn't interested in MacGyver or Stargate.

aughhhh YOU JINXED IT
http://fanfic-journal.com/2014/10/fic-rolling-stone/

Definitely looks like the blogger runs a script which indiscriminately scrapes LJ fic entries & auto-reposts verbatim. Therefore, authors who DON'T include Author: [name] in their own fic headers (which I always do because I've co-authored a few fics before) get reposted sans attribution UNLESS they also include links to alternate story archives.

Of course, it's still WRONG to repost without a link back or attribution, when the coder who wrote the script could've easily written an "IF lj-user: 0 GET: lj-user" line to the bot script to snag the LJ username & include it in the repost.

Anyway, I'm signal-boosting, too, because I suspect the blog is some mindless side-scheme to support some sort of nefarious network of spam/malware under the cloak of legitimacy.

Re: Wholesale Fic Theft Alert via @macbedh

[lost_spook]

Actually, I always include my author name in my fic posts headers, but look:

http://fanfic-journal.com/2014/10/fic-like-a-house-on-fire-dw-b7/

My username has been either not copied or removed by the script.

Re: Wholesale Fic Theft Alert via @macbedh

[lolmac]

I thought I remembered that your headers include your author name . . .

Have you responded to that fic posting with a takedown request? Oops, just saw your other comment. Sorry! The best approach seems to be to use the comment thread on a given fic to say "This is my fic, delete it NOW and never post any of my work again. Also, delete any other works by me that you've posted elsewhere."

Re: Wholesale Fic Theft Alert via @macbedh

[john_amend_all]

My guess would be that their script downloaded the LJ code of your entry, didn't recognise the user tag, and dropped it. It isn't a very bright script; I post my entries with 'Disable Auto-Formatting' ticked, and it couldn't grasp that, either.