ecdavis
Troubadour
Today I found someone took the first chapter of my first book, including some original artwork (that wasn't very good, by the way) and put it on a website called 'uwroteit.com'. The thief that stole it was named 'Gaurav Bharadwaj' and took out my name, my copyright notice, and added 'The End' at the end of chapter one, to make it into a really poor short story. I was completely surprised that someone could be so desperate that they'd steal a chapter and put it on a website, apparently to try to win a monthly contest.
I was miffed, so when I got home from work I e-mailed the site and threatened them with legal action unless they take the stolen stuff off of their site. So far the 'short story' hasn't come down yet.
My work is all on-line on Booksie; I haven't 'paper published' any of my books, as I know they are probably too poor for that, and so I knew on-line 'publishing' was a danger, as it is extremely easy to steal and then edit on-line stories, then put them some place else as their own.
It still is rather frustrating. I even signed up at uwroteit using a fake e-mail address so that I could comment on the thief's 'work'. It was rather funny giving my own first chapter 1 out of 5 stars. Then I let everyone know that the story was stolen and that the owner was going after the thief.
What a wonderful experience to go through; you're a nobody fantasy writer, thrilled to get your stuff on-line and then have 2,500 people actually read the first book, only to have someone steal some of it, including your own, very amateur artwork, and post it at another website as their own.
I'll bet that the site leaves the thief and my stuff on-line too. Even though it is in their 'terms and conditions' that they will remove stolen stuff from their site.
Anyone else have a similar experience? I'm really surprised that a thief would use my stuff to try to win some prize. He must have been really desperate.
ecdavis
I was miffed, so when I got home from work I e-mailed the site and threatened them with legal action unless they take the stolen stuff off of their site. So far the 'short story' hasn't come down yet.
My work is all on-line on Booksie; I haven't 'paper published' any of my books, as I know they are probably too poor for that, and so I knew on-line 'publishing' was a danger, as it is extremely easy to steal and then edit on-line stories, then put them some place else as their own.
It still is rather frustrating. I even signed up at uwroteit using a fake e-mail address so that I could comment on the thief's 'work'. It was rather funny giving my own first chapter 1 out of 5 stars. Then I let everyone know that the story was stolen and that the owner was going after the thief.
What a wonderful experience to go through; you're a nobody fantasy writer, thrilled to get your stuff on-line and then have 2,500 people actually read the first book, only to have someone steal some of it, including your own, very amateur artwork, and post it at another website as their own.
I'll bet that the site leaves the thief and my stuff on-line too. Even though it is in their 'terms and conditions' that they will remove stolen stuff from their site.
Anyone else have a similar experience? I'm really surprised that a thief would use my stuff to try to win some prize. He must have been really desperate.
ecdavis