Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out

and if you turn to ur left you’ll see the emos

The hilarity behind these tags is not lost on me.

Like, sure, Jay's 1000% cool with death jokes when he's the one making them. Not so much when he's on the other end of it

What do you think would be the best (read, most hilarious and/or most traumatic) way for the Owl Song Titans or JLA to figure out what exactly the Talon part involves?

Apart from all the horrible little details about his life Dick lets slip over the years, I think the one that genuinely makes them “what the fuck” is if Dick casually gets killed in front of them.

And I’m not talking hypothermia hibernation state killing, I’m talking about shot-in-the-head-dead, or casually getting run over by a truck, or even having his neck audibly snapped.

You see, Bruce and Jason totally know Dick is gonna be fine. At this point into their careers, they’re more exasperated about Dick’s lack of self preservation than anything. Jason totally witnessed Dick walk into oncoming traffic more than once just because he saw an “on sale” advertisement for his fave cereal across the street.

Usually Dick just sits back up and keeps going like nothing happened. Broken bones are a hassle, sure. But his pain tolerance is genuinely concerning, so…

Anyway, Dick’s mischief extends to everyone who doesn’t know about his unique condition, so instead of sitting back up and laughing it off like he usually does, he plays dead for a moment. (Reader’s choice of it’s with the JLA or the Titans.)

And everyone is freaking out because, omg, Talon/Nightwing is dead. Omg. OMG. Someone watch Batman, he’s about to lose it. No, [insert name], CPR isn’t gonna cut it for a frigging head shot-

And then Robin just jams his hands into his hips and— nudges Dick with a boot. Repeatedly. Launching into an entire essay of how he’s gonna revoke cereal privileges if Dick keeps doing this shit and giving him a heart attack because “you totally could have dodged that you stupid bird” and then just devolving into angry hooting and chirping and-

Oh no. Robin’s lost it. Batman is about to-

But Batman just sighs, turns away, and proceeds to begin cleanup duties and-

Oh, okay. This is worse. They’re in denial.

But then Nightwing sits up with a pout because, oh no, Robin is totally serious about those cereal privileges now, and he’s NOT risking that.

Everyone screams. Someone faints.

Dick grins.

Bruce definitely regrets allowing Dick to choose how he goes about disclosing his Talon secrets to the others.

"Writing is art, not content."

-irrlicht-writes

I got a comment today that said smth along the lines of "I didn't wanna be weird commenting on a four month old fic"

Baby, bless your heart but four months isn't old by any means and ao3 isn't fucking instagram. Comment on fics you like, regardless of how old they are! The worst that could happen is you make an author's day. Writing is art, not content.

Not my dumbass aggressively trying to fix the volume and cursing out my audio when THERE'S ABSOLUTLEY NO SOUND OP 😭😭😭

We've all seen baby man Danny doing crazy stuff like take over the world and become president, mayor, defeat cults, or become a pet.

So imagine the typical baby man Danny being adopted by the Batfam

But one of the bat kids having the bright idea of giving him dog buttons

Made a real quick animation