2/2/23 Redactions for 'The Heart of Pleasure'

Hello to all of my readers. So it has been a long journey of some three going on four years for this story now. And in all that time, my content has never been a problem for any of the viewers who spent the time to invest in my story... Although I suppose it was inevitable for the axe to fall eventually, and to be honest it was a mistake on my part and I only have myself to blame.

So anyone who's gotten more than twenty something chapters into The Heart of Pleasure, will know that I've used song lyrics in some of my chapters. Well, not too long ago someone on this site took it upon themselves to decide that this couldn't be allowed to continue and they reported my story to the moderators. On 2/3/23 my story got taken down until all of the copyrighted content could be removed from my chapters.

Now as for why this happened in the first place, it was a genuine mistake. I read the rules when I first join the site... But adding music wasn't originally something that I had planned. And by the time I got to having the idea, I was already so far away from having written chapter 1. Now from my understanding of musical copyright law, it isn't an infringement to share or repost lyrics unless I am making money off doing so or that I am claiming the words as my own. Well this is a free fanfiction site for parody use content only, and I always included proper citations for proper ownership for any of the songs that I used. So I honestly didn't think I was doing anything wrong. But regardless of if me using songs was a legal infringement or not, if it's just a general rule of the website on FiMfiction then I can understand and abide by that.

Now why did I do this in the first place? There's a lot of reasons, and it's not why some people might expect. I understand that lyrics in written stories might not be for everyone. But it's not as simple as that. I wasn't adding songs just to post big blocks of lyrics in order to make my story more interesting. It wasn't a gimmick or a hook to try to make up for me not being able to write a scene without the aid of music. What I did was to try to do something different... where I actually included the music into my story tastefully to make it even stronger. The lyrics were added more into the form of being able to read through a music video that was happening, rather than just sitting by itself as a block of something to try to follow along with at the speed of the song.

Every single song was CAREFULLY chosen for each specific scene. And when I say that I spent HOURS... DAYS... WEEKS... I really mean it. I didn't just add songs at random because I liked the music. Every single song choice was scrutinized over to make sure that it fit appropriately for the chapter. The lyrics, the tone of voice, the mood of the music... It all had to fit. And I didn't write in chapters just for an excuse to add songs. Many of the choices I made created emotionally defining moments for characters in the story. Other times the lyrics came together to create amazing moments that were beautiful, awe inspiring, badass, romantic, or just breath taking. And some scenes needed music to emphasize the plot. It's difficult to write out a scene as a lounge singer without them having a song. And it's not easy for someone to be a rockstar if they don't have any music. Equestria is a world that is improved by music, which is why the canon show has songs in the first place.

But despite all that, it doesn't come down to whether I had a good reason for adding songs to my story or not. The rules are clear so my story had to be taken down for a few days as I went through 130 chapters worth of content removing all of the lyrics. The story should be back up now by the time this blog comes out. But while everything that I had written is still there, the lyrics have all been removed, even if the chapter that was written kind of falls apart without those words.

So what happens next? Well the story will continue. New chapters will come out as quickly as I am able to write them. And as for previous chapters, there will either be a rewrite or a different kind of fix posted in their place eventually. But that will take time. And as for now, many future chapters which I had been planning on writing might be in danger of my readers never seeing them in their original intended glory because of what's happened. But we'll just have to see how it goes. I am not without ideas for what to do about the situation. There are many different directions that I can go in response to this development. But for now, I wanted to share the situation with all of you with this blog to let you all know where things stand. Please be patient with me as I'm doing the best that I can with this situation.