justgaystories.com

[nonici]

--

Edited May 14, 2007 by Nexis Pas

[Graeme]

I haven't seen this topic discussed elsewhere here at GA, though there may be an old thread somewhere.

 

I agree with you -- to start with, copying stories is a breach of copyright. You CAN get away with a link to stories hosted at another site, but copying without permission is not allowed. Worse -- copying and not attributing the source is THEFT! He can't argue that he's copied them for personal use, because he's put them up on his site for others to read.

 

I'm not sure of the correct way to approach this, but there are a few lawyers here who can suggest some courses of action.

 

I doubt any of my stories are on that site, since it looks like it is mainly culled from Nifty, but I share your distress. I'm also very annoyed by what this person is doing.

[MMandM]

If you cannot email the site administrator asking for your stories to be removed contact his Internet service provider.

 

Copyright will apply whether there is a copyright notice or not. Having said this, it is still certainly worth placing a copyright notice on your work. A copyright notice reminds others that copyright exists, and may therefore help to deter infringement.

 

In the US, a notice was required to retain copyright on works published before January 1st 1978, but this was the exception not the norm, and is certainly no longer the case. Also, once the US signed up to the Berne convention, US law was amended, and the use of copyright notices became optional on work published from March 1st 1989. Posting on the Internet is publication.

[nonici]

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Edited May 14, 2007 by Nexis Pas

[clay49]

I have a copyright notice on my stories, and many of the items borrowed without attribution have strong statements about not reproducing the items without permission. That didn't deter this guy. How does one determine who is the internet provider? The site seems to be a blog.

Nex

I just tried to go there and got this off a google search

 

Forbidden

 

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS) Server at www.justgaystories.com Port 80

[TalonRider]

Even if you do put a notice on your work, whats to prevent this guy from removing it before it gets posted?

 

Jan

[C James]

I have a copyright notice on my stories, and many of the items borrowed without attribution have strong statements about not reproducing the items without permission. That didn't deter this guy. How does one determine who is the internet provider? The site seems to be a blog.

Nex

 

It might be wishfull thinking on my part, but perhaps someone already has taken action? I can't access the site.

[TalonRider]

I just tried and got the same message so maybe someone did take action.

 

Jan

[Graeme]

I was able to get on a couple of hours ago and can't now -- yep, it's down

[nonici]

--

Edited May 14, 2007 by Nexis Pas

[old bob]

Next time someone steals your work, try emailing the administrator of the site your work was hosted on. If your rights are infringed in the future, perhaps an approach other than rolling over and admitting defeat would be more productive?

Rob

Wow ! THANKS Rob. You are right .This was a good example of community work

Its very important to have strong friends and to ask early enough to help.

The next time, the authors will certainly be "productive"

[Bondwriter]

I guess when you're new to the game it's not this easy to solve such a case. This is precisely why a forum like this is useful. Taking action, sure, but which one? I have stories on sites where it's almost impossible to get in touch with the paople who manage it.

 

What I mean is that Nexis' question didn't need the (hopefully unintended) scornful tone in the replies.

[Krista]

I guess when you're new to the game it's not this easy to solve such a case. This is precisely why a forum like this is useful. Taking action, sure, but which one? I have stories on sites where it's almost impossible to get in touch with the paople who manage it.

 

What I mean is that Nexis' question didn't need the (hopefully unintended) scornful tone in the replies.

 

 

Yeah, I agree, some of the replies to his question did sound to me, a bit scornful in tone. I certainly raised an eyebrow a few times. I know I would have asked the same question he did and he shouldn't feel ashamed for asking a question like that. If you don't know the answer or a way to get the help or desired action taken the next best thing to do is ask and hopefully someone knows.

 

 

Krista

[Bondwriter]

To a writer, your work is like your baby. Why would you have your writing posted on a site where the managers don't respond to you and you can't count on them when you've got a problem? I am not trying to be snarky there ... it's a sincere question..

Because you're bad with computers and haven't spent the last ten or fifteen years online.

Because you don't feel too good for writing stories with homoerotic content. You will certainly not call your lawyer friend over such a matter.

Because you've been writing on your own for years and would like to give a try having people read it, and take the first site you find because you act on impulse.

(I'm guessing the first applies to Nexis, and maybe 2 and 3, which apply to me indeed; 3 was not GA in my case, but when I first posted a couple of years back, I knew nothing about copyrights and stuff, I just wanted readers)

I recognise that he is, perhaps, inexperienced, but the rational first course of action would surely be to contact the administrator of the site on which your work has been published to seek their advice rather than posting about it on a completely different site.

I've learned something today. Having noticed a few weeks back a lycos site that had parts of a story of mine along with others, all taken from the same site, I did email the site's administrators, and will see what happens. I did not get a reply within ten minutes, though.

 

I was being scornful about comments that "nothing could be done". Your writing is your work. You own the copyright for it. If somebody steals your work you should not give up without at least trying something as basic as sending a single email.

I might be biassed towards Nexis, but I didn't read a "nothing can be done" comment. Well the fact he deleted his post won't help to settle the matter, and so, so be it. I think that something really basic can be done also in the line of posting a message on a board that gathers people who are experienced with posting stories on the internet. I'm just sad the writer who impressed me the most over the last few months (and there are quite a few excellent authors here) didn't get the same nice sense of community I did, especially since I got him to come over. I'll still get to read his stories, in text format on Nifty. And advertise them in the Story Caf

[Krista]

When are people starting to use abrasive tones to be helpful? I don't see the connection - if you want to promote an open site where people who don't know answers can come and ask the questions then I would think you'd want to answer the questions in a way that seems open minded. Not seeming above the question or seeming more intelligent than the person doing the asking.

 

Now, there is no reason for a person to be scornful when they answer a plea or a rant for help. A lot of people don't want to be put down when they ask a legitimate question. His question wasn't stupid. He wasn't out of line in any way. He's probably just as dedicated to his story and its safety as you are of your own stories and projects. So there's no reason for a person to put another down for asking a question.

 

 

So I'm sorry - I just don't get the reasoning behind it.

 

 

Krista

[MMandM]

I may have missed something but I didn

[clumber]

I recognise that he is, perhaps, inexperienced, but the rational first course of action would surely be to contact the administrator of the site on which your work has been published to seek their advice rather than posting about it on a completely different site.

 

If I remember rightly he didn't post it on the site. He posted it on Nifty and someone just copied it into their own site without asking him or saying it was his. I'm also fairly sure he said he'd tried to contact the person running this site and haden't had anything back.

Edited May 17, 2007 by clumber

[Bondwriter]

OK, I took the advised course of action. It's now been two days since I emailed the site that had its stories plundered and posted with a lousy index, not all chapters, etc.

1/ I haven't heard from the webmaster/ administration.

2/ The said copy site is still up.

Personally it doesn't make me utterly angry. If people like a chapter, there's my name and the title, and they may easily find a good version. I just don't see the point in duplicating (poorly) content that already exists. But well, people are weird.

 

And BTW, Nexis leaving the site has nothing to do with this thread, but with feedback he got he deemed insulting. From what I understood, it's the whole "posting stories on the Internet" that he gets out of.

[Luc]

Next time someone steals your work, try emailing the administrator of the site your work was hosted on. A good site administrator will want to take action to protect the work of their authors. When I read this earlier I emailed David over at Nifty. A couple of minutes ago he emailed me to tell me the site should now be down. Apparently it is.

 

If your rights are infringed in the future, perhaps an approach other than rolling over and admitting defeat would be more productive?

 

Rob

 

 

I have what is probably a very stupid question. What action can the administrator of the site where your work is posted take? What power does that person have?

[Bondwriter]

As I don't know what site you're talking about I can't comment about the actions you should be taking.

He! He! I'll tell you the sites once the case is settled, I don't want to see the problem solved in three minutes by someone else who'll then be coming to rub my nose in my ignorance!

I still see the small tripod site that has collected stories and poorly assembled them as rather pathetic, and since the story is already on three sites, two of them free and well-known, I don't feel as strongly as other people. I doubt anyone will ever buy the story anyway, I think I'd even have granted authorization to the site owner had I been asked.

 

Update:

1/ Still no news of the original site (I'll check for other email addresses and get back to them today).

2/ I filled in a form at Lycos/ Tripod. Here's their reply:

Dear bondwriter@walla.com,

 

This is an automated message to advise you that a technician has responded to

your question. You can view this response and track the progress of your

inquiry online, or see the included reply below:

 

Ticket Ref : 9405-UHLV-2350

Ticket Subject : Copyright infringement

 

Reply:

I am writing in response to your e-mail regarding content hosted through Lycos on one of our free homepage services, Tripod.com and Angelfire.com. You should understand that the content to which you have referred have has been stored on the Lycos system solely at the direction of a Lycos user and has not been initially reviewed, monitored, or edited by Lycos employees. Lycos users bear sole responsibility for such material, and Lycos, Inc. has no knowledge of the specific contents of member directories.

 

Lycos, Inc. fully complies with all intellectual property laws. In particular, when the owner of an exclusive right is concerned that this right is infringed by material placed on a provider's system or network by a subscriber of that provider the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") provides certain procedures to ensure that infringing materials are removed without wrongfully injuring the ubscriber or unduly burdening the provider.

In such instances, the owner of an exclusive right should send to the provider a notification containing the following information:

 

1. A physical signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

2. Precise identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.

3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material including exact URL's and references to specific files.

4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party (the copyright and/or intellectual property owner, not the alleged infringing party) may be contacted.

5. A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. The phrase "good faith belief" must be used.

6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right is allegedly infringed. The phrase "under the penalty of perjury" must be used.

 

If you are able to provide the missing information, please submit an appropriate notification meeting all of the above requirements to Lycos Inc.'s registered agent for receiving such notifications:

 

Registered Copyright Agent

Lycos, Inc.

100 5th Avenue

Waltham, MA 02451

Facsimile: (781)-370-2990

 

Upon receipt of a proper notification, Lycos, Inc. will respond expeditiously to remove or disable access to the materials properly identified in the notification. Lycos, Inc. will provide a copy of the notification to the subscriber and give the subscriber an opportunity to respond.

 

This letter is written without prejudice to any right, remedy, or defense that Lycos, Inc. may have which has not been asserted in this letter. All such rights, remedies, and defenses are expressly reserved. If you have any questions about this letter, please do not hesitate to contact Lycos, Inc's

registered agent. For legal advice, you should consult an attorney.

 

--

Lloyd D.

Customer Service - Lycos

 

This is exactly the kind of message that makes me happy in the morning. So, basically, they say I should send a letter asking to remove the file (if I understand the legal/ cover-your-ass mumbo-jumbo). It doesn't matter for them apparently that ALL the site is made of material borrowed/ stolen without asking. OR, this is (as is stated), the first automated reply, and real life people will actually look into the problem later on.

[GaryKelly]

Well, plagiarism is rife...just checkout how many peeps wear Nike T-shirts. Anyway, if someone plagiarizes my stuff, I hope they're famous. I'll wait till they sell 10 million copies of my book and THEN sue.