Ever experienced Plagiarism? How do you deal with it?

[domisotto]

Just use their report feature. It has a tab for plagiarism in it.

[milejdyvan]

As you share something on the internet, then yes, you are the copyright owner of said creation. I can't give you advice as to whether or not you should file for a copyright claim as I am not familiar with your story or the plagiarized version, but if you want, you can send me a DM with your proof and I'll help you with sending the report to Wattpad. And also, you posting it on another site does not mean that you can't file a copyright claim. For example, when a published author's story is plagiarized on Wattpad, it is still theirs and they can file a claim regardless if they use Wattpad or not. You would be surprised how many people try to get away with sharing other's works on there.

[fiddlyturtle]

That would be really kind and helpful of you. I'm DM you the plagiarism notice I made with all the proofs.

[Tanako]

So help me understand this. Again I just need a better understanding. So your story is based on a kpop group, did you use their actual names or did you change it? Is the story similar to what they go through on a daily basics?

Not to say you don’t have a valid point. As far as I’m concerned no one should steal another persons hard work. What I’m trying to get at is, don’t you think that fan fic in some way is taking someone’s concept then writing your own story? Wouldn’t that be considered as plagiarism? I understand that lots of people do fan fics and a lot of people are interested in them. But what I think is going on is that wattapad isn’t taking it serious since your story is in fact a spin off of a kpop Group.

And to be honest I don’t think they would do anything about it unfortunately. But don’t let that stop you from trying.

[fiddlyturtle]

Hello, the issue has already been settled. I filed a report in Wattpad and they immediately took action and took the plagiarised story down. So, everything is good now.
Well, copyright and plagiarism are two different things. While writing fanfictions, we don't have any claim over the characters and the band. So, we can't claim copyright on them as they're real people. But the stories and ideas we write still come from our own heads and thus the fanfiction is something we can claim as ours.
I don't know about other platforms but it seems that Wattpad also considers fanfictions in their copyright terms. Wattpad has a whole genre named fanfictions so it falls under their responsibility too.

[domisotto]

Glad it was resolved.

[milejdyvan]

I came here to respond with this exactly about fanfictions and copyright, and now I feel like a proud mama reading your response you go girl!

[domisotto]

I find the fanfictions about the real people a no-no, but plagiarism still applies to the text itself, independently of copyright

[Prisim]

It happened to me. I originally posted my books to FictionPress and someone on Wattpad plagiarized it. I simply contacted Wattpad through their support system, provided them links to my original books, and they immediately took it down. As long as you can prove it's yours Wattpad is very good about removing it (where they struggle is when the copyright owner isn't available to report it themselves because they're the only ones who can report it unless it's a published book on Amazon)

You're not going to win any kind of lawsuit or anything like that, so just report it to Wattpad with proof it's yours and they will handle it.

Edit: I'm glad to see it has already been resolved.

[Dysis]

My question is: How should you be dealing with it in sites besides Wattpad?

[domisotto]

I guess, if a site doesn’t have an appeal process like Wattpad, you could only hope that it is such a dump that you wouldn’t lose anything anyway.

I think the advice is to periodically search the net for passages from your work and pursue removal via site specific protocols if you catch some cheap hack copying your work.

[Dysis]

Oh, okay. Thanks.

Then again, if a story grows there, wouldn't we be gaining traction anyway? Maybe we can leave a comment saying that they copied our work an hour or two before reporting it to Wattpad, then people will know where to go to read further.

[milejdyvan]

Every site which doesn't want to get sued WILL appeal you if your work is stolen. Having stolen work on their apps is not just a bad look on the person who stole, but mainly the app. Why didn't they do anything about it if they knew about it? Hence if you just let them know, they will take it down. Especially since there has been a recent crackdown on illegal sites when it comes to different mediums. Manga illegal sites have been hit hard as well. To put it simply, no serious publisher would let plagiarized material on their site unless they are asking for big trouble and massive financial cuts (whether they get banned from certain mediums or lose partners,...)

[Dysis]

Oh, that's good. I actually thought there isn't anything to protect one from plagiarism unless it's copyright material.

[milejdyvan]

The thing is that you are the copyright owner of the content that you create. Copyright laws depend on the country, but since Tapas is located in America, we have to abide by their laws. But that's not a bad thing for us since they're really strict about it. Unless you sign a contract where you would be sharing or stripping yourself off copyright, you are the only owner of copyright for your content. So yes, you are absolutely protected from plagiarism. The only way you wouldn't be protected from plagiarism is if you were to live in a country without copyright laws, where somebody could just claim your work as theirs and you couldn't do anything about it legally. But again, we are on the internet so voila!

[fiddlyturtle]

Well, that depends. But it most probably won't. Why would people believe a single or two comment you leave when they have been reading the story from another person all this while? And people won't get notified about your claim unless they come back to read the story another time and discover your comment there. Even if they do, they won't believe you unless you can show solid proof.
And if we're talking about fanfictions, that's a whole different story. People only come to read a fanfic with the elements and characters they're interested in. Even if the story is good, they won't go read yours if your one has different characters.

[fiddlyturtle]

Yes! I learned from the best! <3

[Dysis]

I was just joking.

[fiddlyturtle]

Ah, okay. I thought you were actually considering it lmao.

[milejdyvan]

Oh come on she gave you a good response! 🤣🤣🤣 Don't be like that.