What's disappointing is that Amazon didn't block book sales until the situation is cleared up.

I'm no techie either, so the part about typing in vs. copying search is an excellent tip.

Thanks!

This is disgusting, and I hope this is the first (and only) time this has happened.

I know that Charles Colton said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but to try and pass someone else's work off as your own is going too far.

I not only hope that KC gets this sorted quickly, but that this event doesn't put him or anybody else off from posting their stories here.

I've done two book reviews on the book's page on Amazon to let people know the story was stolen, and they're deleted within hours. So the author is obviously watching that.

However, he's not watching this: http://www.goodreads...s#other_reviews

So at least there is a place to notify people that it's plagiarized. Hopefully it helps drop some book sales (and KC has been there today, putting the word out).

While this is the first time I've heard of it happening where the person was selling it on Amazon, we did have other cases in the past, most notably someone reposting DomLuka's Desert Dropping as a Harry Potter fanfic (the whole story was the same, just the characters changed to Harry, Ron, etc). But when you have such a memorable opening line of "Arizona. Ari-fri-kin-zona." - well, it was easy to figure out. The mistake that person made was only posting part of it, and readers trying to find the rest by searching, and instead finding the original Dom story.

It is disheartening to hear of stuff like this happening. Even though this doesn't happen often, this sort of thing still makes some writers, including myself, leery of posting anything on line..I hope that the situation is corrected soon.

Hate to say, I can see them not pulling a story - imagine the damage that unscrupulous people could pull on an author by constantly reporting their story as piracy. Now if Amazon drags and takes more than, say 3-5 days, I could see the lingering damage, but as long as they act quickly, it's more of a case of avoiding unintended consequences from acting too fast.

That's a true shame that people would resort to this type of thing. My thoughts go out to KC in having to go through this. I only had it happen once and it wasn't Amazon but it got resolved quite quickly.

Hopefully yours will as well.

I send out a warning e-mail earlier on today and I have just heard back from a friend who sadly bought this book a few weeks ago

He has been told by Amazon, sorry but no refund - refunds for Kindle e-books must be received within seven days. He is so not happy, but hopefully once all of this is sorted, Amazon will make an exception to their refund policy.

He is not concerned about the cost (which wasn't much), but he is not happy about it seeming that he is supporting copyright violation. I can imagine there being a lot of people clamouring for a refund once this all becomes known.

He sends big hugs to KC and hopes that this gets sorted quickly

The last thing I want is for people to be scared to post their stories here on GA. As soon as the Admins were notified of the situation they got in touch with me to inform me of what was going on. GA has been so helpful and has given me advice and support during this ordeal.

Whomever the person(s) are that committed this thief, trolls GA, since they stole the story here. I hope that this person knows that I/we are on to them and that they don't try this again. The tips that Cia has given are good. Also document your work. I have documentation on my story dated before I even posted it here on GA.

Thanks for all of your support. I will keep writing and posting here on GA and I hope all of you do the same. As shocking as it is, I believe that these stories are the heart and soul of Gay Authors.

Thanks!

KC

seriously, they freaken sold it as their own?... Now i want to track everything on amazon. Hope Kc Grim is fine.

Crumbs. Not a good thought.

Erm I really don't know if this will be of any help at all, but the Blogging world use a Company called DMCA (www.dmca.com) Which is an organisation that protect digital content, and will undertake legal proceedings on behalf of content that they find to be plagiarised. They also specialise in detection of plagiarism and copyright infringement on everything from written works to photographs and other digital information.

I know that in the music world, proof of ownership/copyright is achieve when the completed work is singed by the writer, and sealed in an envelope, posted to your home address on the day of completion and kept unopened until it becomes needed. The proof of ownership lies in the signature within a sealed envelope and date stamped by the post office, and is accepted as indisputable proof in a court of law of your rights to the work in question.

I am not sure if this is the same for books or stories, but it'd seem logical that it follows the same procedure.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US is fairly robust and quite ruthless about the protection of Intellectual Property, and I wouldn't be at all surprised is a Lawyer/Solicitor couldn't do something with this kind of thing, if you choose to go down that road. I know a mate who used DMCA to do a Takedown on his behalf for infringement of his Companies Logo, and was given a damages award by a US Court despite the fact his company was based in the UK.

Just as a suggestion is it not worth having a chat with a company like DMCA and seeing if something can't be set up to protect our stuff?

Well, I didn’t know that there would be so much involved trying to prove that my story is actually mine! I’m exhausted! Gonna take sleeping pills and start working on this mess again tomorrow! Thanks guys for all your support!

Aww. I'm so sorry to hear you are going through this KC. IF there is anything that can be done to help let me know.

Sorry someone is profiting off ya, KC, but at least you know one thing, your book would make a profit, lol. Take it as both a compliment and an insult that someone would do this to you.

Sorry to hear about all of this KC. It's AWFUL!

KC, it was really nice to see all the things people have commented about on the places you could buy the book. You have quite a following, and people went out in full support of you. Amazon can't keep it for long, when they are getting so many complaints, and no doubt, you will get information on who is doing it.

I've been informed that Amazon will give a refund to anyone who purchased "Embraced by Shadows" by KJ Fleur but you have to make the request. It should be a quick process through the Kindle Customer Service Support Chat and will only take about 5 minutes.

However, they will not remove the story or block it from purchase until they get my information with proof that I own the story. It was shipped out today. I paid extra to have it there tomorrow. So, hopefully this will be resolved quickly.

Thanks so much for having my back. All of the comments and reviews were great!!!!

So, I'm trolling through the blogs out of boredom, and because I'm stalling going to bed, and I came across this. Stealing somebody's story is vile enough, but to then go and claim it as your own and sell it? It makes me sick.

Sorry you had to go through that, Grimmie. I know this is late, but better late than never.