A Wattpad rant and I'm super upset

[Panpan]

So I upload my content on Wattpad as well. I received a message last week from some person claiming I stole their work and they would be reporting me. I was able to find their 6-chapter story on Wattpad and literally the only thing similar was the MC's name and the topic (vampires).

I received a notification this morning that my novel was removed for copyright, which meant Wattpad didn't even compare the novels and just automatically removed my original work without checking the contents. I filed a counter-claim just now.

I wasn't worried before because they're not the same, yet here we are and I'm freaking out that they'll come for my Tapas account next, when both of my works are popular on the site. Like, this was an idea for a novel I had overnight last summer and researched the names to go with my MCs; I spent almost three weeks straight in my free time writing the first 40 chapters from ideas I'd get trying to sleep, so it's very upsetting when someone makes such claims.

[silverraven0]

Have you emailed their costumer service? Or messages their ambassador at least to compare your works? The ambassador is a real human at least, so you might as well try.

[Panpan]

Is there an email for the ambassador?
I actually contacted their customer service last week (and Tapas’s customer service too because they threatened me on here) but I never got a response. Tapas responded to my concerns saying they’d look into it.

[silverraven0]

No, i only know you can message them directly and not via email. Haven't been on Wattpad for long, so can't help much.

https://www.wattpad.com/user/Ambassadors/conversations

[darthmongoose]

The law is on your side here. Submitting a false DMCA is a crime with pretty severe consequences.

It's a silly example, but there's a good summary of a similar case here:

Basically a creator tried to DMCA takedown a competing author for also creating a heterosexual omegaverse story with some similar tropes (that are common to the genre). It's very easy to submit a DMCA and companies tend to assume good faith and take the "offending" content down.

[redfish]

Hope you can get the wattpad issue sorted!

[Panpan]

Thanks for the video! I’ve actually heard of this story.
So my novel in question is a BL omegaverse with vampires. There’s currently 30 chapters and I could see it going to 200 when it’s over; their novel that they claim I took the idea from was created last year (I checked and it hasn’t been updated in a long time after chapter 6) and from what I can tell by the synopsis, it’s a female-male vampire story that uses the word alpha for the MC male but it doesn’t state it’s omegaverse. It’s purely coincidental that this character shares the same name, which I researched specifically for Irish names.

I literally created some of my own omegaverse terms (that I was considering copyrighting myself) and made a list of word descriptions for a chapter with commissioned chibis, so I have no idea how they were able to claim copyright on that chapter.

I believe they’ve also tried to claim copyright against other authors based on their message to me.

I really hope Wattpad responds to my counter claim and not respond to some copy-paste message saying I lost.

I have no doubt they’ve contacted Tapas to get my novel down too, and I really hope they’re at least on my side.

[Panpan]

Okay, so this author who filed a claim against me deleted their chapters from Wattpad and Webnovel…
I have no idea what this means.

[EncryptedWriting]

The issue with WP is that the stories (certain genres) can be so similar, with the same scenarios, that WP really can just do whatever they want. I 100% believe you'll win your claim because I 100% believe you're telling the truth here. What a petty thing for them to do.

[fleurravenbooks]

Do you think they might of seen this thread? You did say they are on Tapas as well, but that means that they admit they are in wrong....so you should be able to win your claim

[Panpan]

I think they only created an account on Tapas to threaten me because there were no novels on their account. Also, their account is gone now so they might’ve deleted it

[KennethLopezJr921]

Ngl the person who reported your work sounds like a total piece of shit. Hope you get it sorted out!

[Calandria]

This is very rare, there are dangerous people on the Internet.

[system]

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