Also, teacher-student relationships are really not my thing, but that doesn’t mean that plagiarism of them is inconsequential. If someone is willing to plagiarise The Teacher, what’s going to stop them from plagiarising my story, too? Or anyone else’s for that matter. Commenting on poor grammar or bad writing or cliche stories doesn’t make the crime any less of a crime. We should be protecting everyone’s intellectual property. Otherwise, don’t expect people to care when it happens to a story you love or wrote.
5 Likes
I remember reacting to stories that were blatantly copying my work, stories that hadn’t been updated or were discontinued.
I have spent so much time getting videos on YouTube and copies of my stories removed from various platforms and maybe I could’ve spent more time doing it “the right way” like you suggest but in reality, it shouldn’t even be happening in the first place and it seems to me you’re more interested in making me out to be the bad guy than you are getting justice for the ones who have had their work stolen. Maybe you don’t know how it feels, maybe you do but don’t care as much as others do, but it just gets tiring to fill out forms and prove you’re in the right, time after time.
Mostly, if there’s action taken, the stories just get removed, nothing else. Not as much as a slap on the wrists unless you continue to do it. Do you seriously blame the victims for making an example of those who steal from us? Occasionally publicly pointing them out in the hopes that this prevents people of making thei same mistakes and having you go through the whole copyright process yet again?
I guess we all deal with frustrating situations differently. Some make fun, some “publicly shame” some do it the “right way” and some do it all. That’s just the industry, I guess. Sue me.
I’m gonna leave this here as well. 
2 Likes
Thank you. I completely agree. There are worse things I could do. If you take the few times I’ve actually said something about it publicly and compare it to the many times I’ve had work stolen, I have taken more swings than I have given. 
3 Likes
As an artist, art thieves get no sympathy from me. People who think it’s ok to steal have never created anything they’re proud of. Call me mean I guess, but I really can’t find it in me to care if they get shamed for it. In the real world people get sued for this kind of thing.
6 Likes