About that fic-stealing website · 1:57pm Apr 14th, 2015
First, I'll let Alexstrazsa fill you in on the deets:
Hey everyone. I come to you without my usual blog of "nothing," and instead with a PSA. There's a website floating around known as Ebooks Tree, and they've been caught selling Fanfiction. Now you might think "Oh, that's not so bad, sign me up!"
Well, normally it'd be great, except they're doing it without permission from the author. They're just straight up stealing stories from other websites and then slapping them on their webpage. Hell, our own Obselescence is a victim of this, as you can see with his story In Memory Of.
Luckily, I was fortunate enough to not have my work stolen, but you might not be so lucky. I recommend going to the site and searching your author name. Try all your usernames and Fanfiction accounts, too, because I have a friend who had her 5-year-old anime fanfiction stolen, all the way from fanfiction.net.
So yeah, let everyone know. Be on the lookout for your own work and the work of others. This site has absolutely no permission from any of the authors that it posts work from.
If you do find your work, you'll need to check out their DMCA Policy, then write an e-mail about it using their Contact page. Good luck.
(To go into greater depth into how they make money off of other's work, you need to sign up for their service in order to download stories. It's free for the first couple days, then they start charging you.)
This post provides instructions for how to request a takedown.
However, the thing I want to mention is what I found out when trying to use the site myself. If you type anything into the search bar, you will get a result. I've found actual fanfics there -- none of my own, though, it seems -- but the point is, don't freak out if it asks you to sign up to view the "full version" PDF of your story. That result is spurious and meant to trap you into their shady-ass signup page.
What you need to look for are book covers. Even if there isn't an image with the story result, there will at least be a blank filler book icon next to the title. Also check the result number: if it says "books (0)", then the only result is fake.
Which is not to say that this site shouldn't be flooded with takedown notices, because they're fucking terrible and deserve it. I'm more saying this so you don't freak out over seeing what appears to be your work there. (And on that note, who really needs to hear about this site is their ISP, though I don't have that info. see archonix's post and ferret's reply for info on how to do that!)
Sweet! I've got two!
I don't know whether to be relieved or upset that nothing I've written has been stolen...
Damn... they've got A Cup of Joe. It seems like they just ran the list of the most popular authors and scooped up their most popular fics.
*searches*
Hey, my story it on there! Awesome!
Uh, is it wrong that I'm excited that someone decided my story is good enough to steal?
THEY TOOK "RAINBOW DASH CAN'T MAKE SKELETON JOKES TO SAVE HER LIFE"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Ditto.
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I know, it's kind of insulting not to be able to find yourself there. :(
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Are you guys going to do the "Takedown Notice," or just let it ride? I don't want to reward that site for using my work, especially one meant as a story about veteran's issues, but then again can I really claim a fan fiction to be my own intellectual property in a DCMA complaint?
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I am. They're selling fan fiction, which could start a whole heap of trouble if it gets big enough, and I don't want my name/stories involved. Plus, they stole my story without permission and sold it. Illegal is illegal, brah.
2982787 Sent mine already. As awful that the stories that they took are, I didn't give them permission to post them.
Actually, I don't want anyone to see those stories on account of how bad they are.
I've got none. I should probably be relieved that I don't have to deal with getting them taken down, but it's kind of depressing that the theft-bots don't think I've got anything worthy.
Their ISP appears to be a company called Moniker. You can complain directly to them here.
2982792 Ao3 also has info on how to directly speak to the isp.
They have two of my writeoff entries. Not even particularly good writeoff entries. Well, I've sent a complaint. We'll see how effective it is.
They don't have anything of mine. That's good, I suppose.
lol they even have Past Sins. http://www.ebooks-tree.com/ebook/16ws1v.html
Aww hells no. They even have Prancy Pants' http://www.ebooks-tree.com/ebook/158043.html Flight of the Alicorn. and of course they'd have Fallout Equestria series http://www.ebooks-tree.com/search.php?q=Equestria%20Fallout
Yeesh. I better pass the note around. :P
Come to think about it. WHY isn't this a site-wide post? This is affecting ALL fanfiction websites and FIMFICTION is the EASIEST to steal from what with supporting ePub and stuff. TO think there is someone out there getting money off peoples free or even commissioned fanfiction is a bit of a thing that warrants a nice big SITE POST me thinks.
EDIT: Then again, with how easy it is to make dupe sites like that, especially one that tries to make you download PDFs of "no results" as if they were stories, derp, I can imagine this becoming a problem for many websites from here on out if they even so much as made any remote profits off of their stolen goods.
Wow, these guys are shitstains.
Seriously, everyone affected ought to send in the complaint. It doesn't matter if the work is derivative or not. We technically aren't supposed to be making money off these, and neither should they, especially not with stolen goods to boot.
Best of luck to all those affected. Hope to see this come to a speedy resolution.
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I think we should have a club for authors who (depressingly?) didn't get their stories stolen—for which I'd also be a member.
Because it's apropos and because it's got some sneaky reference cred, I think we should call it "Present Perfect's Pity Party".
2982974 You know, you think you're over here writing some quality fiction, and then people refuse to steal it and use it nefariously to make money! C'mon, people! I'm theft worthy! Steal my quasi-intellectual property so that I can be properly indignant!
Also, I agree that PresentPerfect's Pity Party is a good name, but only if we make Present sit outside in the rain. He can't come in.
Aw snap son! They even had one of mine from the WriteOff site! I have since sent in a DMCA request to them. Thanks for the heads up and info, PP!
>tfw you're not important enough to have your work stolen but saying that feels wrong except actually it feels bad in a weird way
reactiongifs.com/r/nsr.gif
My story's on Pirate Bay, which is really very flattering.
Apparently I'm important enough to have my work stolen... takedown requested!
There really should be a site post about this.
None for me... then again, I'm kinda glad about that.
eBook Tree stole 40 fanfics. That's four tens. And that's horrible.
The only ones of mine taken are write-off entries I never published.
Like, really guys? Got a story that's pretty popular sitting just over there, you know... if you wanna...
...
I'm weird.
For anyone checking if they've been hit, the thieves were considerate enough to use correct author names. So rather than searching by title (searching that website for "Thesis" was a non-starter) you should be able to just search your username and probably find all hits.
Though, while the search results have already changed, when I checked last night for "Pav", the first result was Molecular Cancer.
Rude.
OH SWEET TAPDANCING CHRIST
I searched "Pav Feira" but just thought to search "PavFeira".
Guys, they have "Further Than Before"
Literally my worst. Literally. Worst. Even "Better Batter Bitter" is better than that...
mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/img-2959073-1-wpa2Si0.gif
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I know that feel...
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The link that talks about how to do the takedown notice also includes some info about how and why you're able to claim copyright over your fanfics.
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I dunno, Alex should have done it. This isn't my call, unfortunately. :B
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Screw you, Bound. :V
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You guys suck. D:
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OH FUCK they took A Couple of Tossers!
...? C'mon, guys, you can do better than that. :/ Looks like I'm in the fanclub now.
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So now begins the debate of who has it worse: the people whom ebook-trees-senpai did not notice, or the people who have stuff up there but only stuff you're ashamed of.
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My favorite thing is when all of us are ashamedly egotistical in different ways together.
2983560 It's like an author meet up. Or a therapy session. Or an author meet up therapy session.
No sign of Cards Against Equinity. Clearly these bots don't know quality when they see it!
Ahahahahaha.
I think they might have scraped the write-off website, given that my only two stories are both write-off stories, and one of them was never published on FIMFiction, and it seems unlikely they would randomly grab only ONE of my minifics. In fact, they were both from the same write-off competition.
I want to be flattered by this, but, alas, I'm pretty sure they just used a scraper bot to try and find like, every book that was anywhere on the internet and stuck it on their site.
EDIT: Yup. Pretty sure they scraped all of the Just Over the Horizon stories.
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I'd be willing to join such a group!
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Okay, that explains things.
I sent my DMCA request yesterday, just for my own fic. I didn't receive any email reply from them, but when I search now, it looks like my story was removed. Additionally, I searched for a few others from Writeoff Association contests and cannot find them anymore, either. Past Sins is gone. CiG's stories are gone... They might've just summarily removed all horsewords from their site? D-Did we win?
*starts rolling out his George W Bush Mission Accomplished banner*
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AO3 seems to have had similar widespread success. Sounds like they got caught in the act and are currently trying to ditch everything.
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Nope. I was asleep at the wheel yesterday and didn't send a request in, and there are still three Horizon stories on the site.
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Two Writeoff fics and one PFV fic. Huh. Weird that yours didn't get removed in the swath of Writeoff removals and PFV removals. On the plus side, they do seem to be listening to DMCA complaints.
2983770 Yup, can confirm all three of my (not really great) entries for that contest are in there, and nothing else with my name on it. Meh, it's all public on the internet anyway, and I seriously, SERIOUSLY doubt anyone would ever actually pay for those there. Not worth the effort for a takedown notice. They'll get caught when they sell a book that actually has a publisher (and lawyers) behind it soon enough.
LOL, guess I'm not famous enough to have my shit stolen...yet