Ever experienced Plagiarism? How do you deal with it?

[fiddlyturtle]

This person copied one of my stories word by word and only changed the names of the characters. Like I wrote it for one fandom but they replaced the characters with a different fandom but all the words are exactly how I wrote it.
I've already notified my readers who read that story and they're helping me by commenting on the plagiarised version. I've also contacted the person who plagiarised it but they either haven't seen all the commotion yet or they're just avoiding it. Not sure.

[milejdyvan]

I do not know if it is a good idea to send your readers to them to comment, as this could boost their story in the algorithm and make it harder for you to claim plagiarism. (As they could also say that YOU plagiarized them). Especially if you notify them like this with multiple people who could misunderstand the situation because they are not you. It already happened, but still I would advise you to ask your readers not to get involved. This is why it is safer to simply PM the person who stole your work. At this point, I would say that your best choice is to contact Wattpad support ASAP, so that they are aware of this situation from your side. Wattpad is not a perfect site and if not taken with proper cautions, it is likely that the wrong story could be striked/deleted (yours).

[Maps]

Does wattpad have post dates? You can maybe show staff the date you posted as opposed to the date they posted and ask for them to assist you.

[MeltingCORE]

Heya! I actually made a topic on plagiarism last week haha. I have unfortunately experienced this with my ocs and concepts where people in the past have taken my ideas and repainted them with their own ocs. It understandably ignites negative feelings and I'm so sorry someone plagiarized your fan fic. People need to respect fan fiction more. ;w; What I have personally done when I've caught people plagiarizing my writing is I actually take screenshots of when my work was uploaded and then theirs. (Glad I have my novel site that's existed for years! It's where my novel was originally posted for about 5 years.) ...That way there is proof. I don't think I'm Stephen King but I am aware my writing style is unique to me. I'm not dumb, ya know? I can tell when someone is using me as a template. I'm sure that's how you feel about your work too. And I also agree with the others, you definitely also should try to talk to the person.

I think an issue is sometimes people don't understand what plagiarism is; if you're taking someone else's paragraphs and slightly tweaking them... You're stealing. That's plagiarism. If you're taking someone else's concept for a character? Or a concept for a story? And just slightly tweaking it with your own ocs? You're stealing!

I'm a graduate student so I take plagiarism super seriously. Plagiarizing a research paper will get you expelled in my university. (And it's rude to steal people's hard work on their writing.)

[domisotto]

Wattpad frowns on instigating public personal attacks. If your story is plagiarized, report that user to staff, whoever they still have left there. They will investigate and take the offending story down, potentially banning the user.

[fiddlyturtle]

@milejdyvan my story is in another site. I wrote that story in 2015 whereas the one who plagiarized it and posted it in Wattpad made it a fanfic for a drma that only started airing in 2019. I have stated those as proof with screenshots. Do you think that will help? Also, my work if a fanfiction for a kpop group.
Wattpad has a whole genre named Fanfiction but they have no option to report a plagiarism. When I go to report the story, the only option that goes close to the matter is copyright infrigement. But I'm not sure whether choosing that option would be right because fanfics don't fall under copyright infrigements.

[fiddlyturtle]

@MeltingCORE I have tried messaging that person but I still haven't gotten a reply. If that person doesn't reply, then I don't know how to ask them to take it down.

[fiddlyturtle]

I don't use Wattpad other than reading stories so I can't be sure but it seems like only the one who posted a story can see the date. However I have taken a screenshot of my story that was written 5 years ago. And the plagiarised one was posted as a fanfiction of a drama that aired last year. So, it's pretty much obvious that I wrote it first.

[fiddlyturtle]

@domisotto @milejdyvan Does Wattpad have an email address that I can contact?

[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.