Tuesday, January 31, 2012

'E Wot Takes

Wot isn't his'n, when e's nabbed will go to pris'n.

A quick note - if you are an author of fanfiction, or original fiction which you have posted online, you may be interested to know that there is a person uploading to her own site - here - (and its mirror site - here) - without permission - vast quantities of fanfiction.

From the looks of it (style, layout etc) the author list is largely (but not entirely) cribbed from The Royal Academy of Bards.

If you did not give your permission - and it seems that she didn't ask anyone for permission - and you don't want it hosted there, you might want to drop the archive owner a line and complain.

Though whether it'll get you anywhere is another matter, since people have been complaining and all she's done is post a note saying basically "if I posted your story without your permission it's because I love it". No apology, no immediate removal. Just a justification.

Lady - word of advice - if you love a story and you want to recommend it - start a blog. Start a notification/recommendation list. Link to it. Ask permission to host it. Don't steal it.

Ze

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Megafiction seems to have vanished. I think its a shame because I liked the large files they used, making it easier to download the fic. I also think its a bit rich for anyone to be nasty about permission to archive when fan fiction by definition breaks copyright. Surely us Xenites should stick together.

zero2aries said...

Blimey. You've been nursing this for how long??

judy said...

I agree I been searching for megafanfiction site for a couple of months. hasn't been long since I used to visit it daily before I had internet connection problems. and I LOVED it because of the files were joined together instead of bunches of little sections.much more enjoyable to read.having the different downloadable formats was icing. it was excellent and ggorgeous. don't know why everyone in an uproar.it's not like the person was charging anyone.and each work was under the author name.no one was stealing anything or trying to take credit for anyone's work, just made it even easier for us to enjoy these works of fictions. no one else was bothering to put all the parts together to make it easier to read. one story I know had 46 small bits. and this was the ONLY place the story was all in one continuous file and in a downloadable format not just html.

zero2aries said...

I'm always slightly astonished - and baffled - when people (who aren't spammers with incoherent posts & porn links) post comments on post that are three years old.

In a way it seems pointless to reply... but I'm sick of the "but it's on the internet for free" excuse that so many people use - so I will.

Posting on the internet does not give anyone the right to take what you have posted and load it up to another site - however well intentioned they may be - without the permission of the creator. Unless a work is published under creative commons it remains the exclusive property of its creator.

Yes, fanfic breaches copyright of characters - IF the original characters are used. (Uber fanfic is a more grey area). BUT copyright in the work remains with the author.

If you love a story - recommend it. Link to it - so that the original site gets the traffic. DO NOT take it, copy it, host it on you own site (thereby grabbing the traffic) WITHOUT THE WRITER'S PERMISSION.

Apart from anything else it's simply good manners to ask.

Most writers are happy to give that permission.

And if the writer is no longer with us (if you're that big a fan you should have some idea that a writer has died) the don't post it - link to it.

If you can't contact the writer because the email no longer works - don't post it - link to it.

If the writer has removed the story from the web - don't post it!!

RESPECT THE WRITER.

What is so hard to understand about that??

zero2aries said...

If that seems difficult, look at it this way...

You've baked some cookies.

You share them with a couple of people.

They all say how great the cookies are. They mention to friends that your cookies are great.

Somebody overhears this and decides that your cookies need sharing.

So they march into your house - uninvited - take your cookies without asking permission - and wander out onto the street, offering your cookies to a whole load of strangers saying X baked these cookies aren't they wonderful.

Are you then going to say "Well, she's not claiming credit for my cookies. And after all, I did offer the for free to A, B, & C so I guess it doesn't matter if she's offering them to L,M, & O".??

Or are you going to be a bit miffed that she didn't ask. Especially if you would probably have given her some cookies if she had asked.

It's simple.

ASK FIRST.