Attn all authors ~ Story theft!!

[alwaysjbj]

Thanks to sevendeadlyfun for THIS POST (f'locked, unfortunately, although if you check her personal LJ she has posted it there too) letting us know that a heap of authors have had their fics translated into Italian and reposted without permission.

You will find the list of stories in their Archive Fic List


And also on their Web Forum

I joined the forum, found my story and asked to have it removed...which it was very quickly.

ETA: As I had to join their forum in order to comment I figured I may as well make a post there too! Posting people's work without permission is THEFT!! (Which... surprise, surprise... has been removed!)

Comments

[grave-tidings.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this counts as plagiarism, but it certainly counts as theft, so you might consider reporting them to the LJ community, StopPlagiarism. They're dedicated specifically to ferreting out this sort of thing and pressuring authors/fans to knock it off.

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

I believe Sevendeadlyfun has already done so, but as you say it isn't technically plagiarism, so I don't imagine there is a lot they can do.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Definitely not OK. Glad to see people are on it already.

That post of yours seems to have been removed already, btw.

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

LOL I wondered how long it would last!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Heh. Funny how plagiarists are always so apologetic and willing to do right... AFTER they've been caught. And how they always feel persecuted when people point out what they're doing.

[gillo]

Your comment appears to have been deleted ("cancellata") already. Not exactly surprised.

The stupid thing is that I imagine a lot of writers would have been flattered to have been asked permission to translate their work and agreed happily. WHEN ASKED. It's the sheer discourtesy that grates.

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

No, no great surprise that my post was taken down VERY quickly! lol It's obviously okay to steal people's work and post that...but not okay to let people know that it is wrong.

They are claiming that they did try to contact authors and that they didn't get a reply so they took that as permission. *rolls eyes*

I've had the same email addy for years (so their 'the email addy must have changed' excuse is hardly valid) and I never recieved an email from any of them. (I was asked years ago if someone could translate one of my fics into German, and I declined.)

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

LOL Yeah, exactly!

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Your post isn't there now. I just clicked the link and it seems to be gone.


Gabrielle

[rahirah]

Uh huh - in fact, someone asked me exactly that a few months back, and I told them sure, go ahead. It only takes a minute to ask...

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

Yep, it seems it was terribly rude of me to point out that what they are doing is wrong.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you really are a bad, rude girl...


Gabrielle

Calm Down

[(Anonymous)]

WBS it's a forum

A forum is composed by a community of users

As founder, I have to trust in the good faith of my users when they say they ask for permission to the authors.

I have never had problems like this before, because the most of my users say the truth, or people involved had the intelligence to comprehend that errors happens and they don't belong to some kind of conspiration. In fact, is never happened in WBS that an author declined the permission and the translator posted anyway, or anything like that.

I deleted your post because an overstate mistake is not worth to break the quite routine of all my users. You just have to solve with the translator of your story - maybe reminding yourself that she spent a lot of time to translate your story, never taking the merit to have written it, so I don't think mockering her apologies makes you a person so nice to allow you to criticize (and sorry for my english)

The point is: if you had a problem with a user, a problem that had been solved in the very moment I learnt it, it doesn't mean ALL authors have the same problems and ALL translators don't ask permissions.

So, referring at WBS as a forum in which “a heap of authors have had their fics translated into Italian and reposted without permission” is superficial, overconfident, unfounded and it's a calumny.


b_fly, WBS founder

Re: Calm Down

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

Firstly, I haven't had an apology! My story WAS removed when I asked, so I am reasonably happy about that.

Secondly, all I said in my post was that to take someone's work and repost it without permission is theft...so people should make sure they have said permission BEFORE posting. That was not accusing anyone, or making unfounded accusations, or breaking anyone's routine, as you put it. And, as there are quite a number of author's who have had their work posted there without permision (do you think we don't talk to each other? Word gets around VERY quickly...especially on LJ), or even any contact--and my email address has NOT changed in years, so obviously no attempt was made to contact me--I would hardly say that this is a one time mistake.

Lastly, and trust me on this one... I AM calm...you really don't want to see what happens if I get angry...and telling me to calm down is the quickest way for you to find out!

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Actually I'm more upset that I'm not on the list! Did I do something wrong?

[gillo]

I seem to recall people saying similar things when that idiot child (babybubblebutt? Something like that) stole vast numbers of fics and icons and presented them as her own a couple of years back. At least if they're stealing one's work they're reading it!

Seriously, I imagine the thief creamed off the contents of one or two archives. Perhaps one needs to know the right places to appear to become a victim? ;-)

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

I thought it was FFN, but I tried there and I rarely even get flamed. :D

I want to tell...

[sasy-1803.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm a lovesbitch member and I would like to tell something. I don’t translate stories but in spite of this I obviously know that is not a right thing to publish someone else's story without permission. I know very well the spirit of our web site that is simply a place to write and read stories with characters that we love so much. So, what I want you to know is that we read and translate that stories for passion and not for fame, and an error like this has been done simply because the translator was so excited to show the story, that she liked so much, to the other members that she couldn’t wait. Which could be the further reason? We love everything about Spike and for that reason in every story we translate, we also tell writer's name. That's why Italian readers know very well foreign writers, the kind of stories they write, the way they write them and search more stories of the writers they prefer.
I apologise and I hope this fact could help us to be more patience and you to understand how we simply love you're stories that make us enthusiastic. We spent lot of time translating, simply because we wanna do it the best we can, to show the story with the same words you used, to make it (we try:)) identic to the original.
I love our site because make me know lot of cute person thanks to a passion for Spike and we just want to continue reading, translating and writing. I hope it'll be still permitted.
Thanks.

Bye, bye.

Re: I want to tell...

[diabola79.livejournal.com]

I probably should stay out of this, but whatever.

Apart from the fact that I don't quite understand how a site that hosts translated stories cannot have a policy in place that ensures that no translation gets published without written permission from the original author - as in directly from the author, not just the translator saying they agreed; there is something else you might want to keep in mind.

You're surprised an author gets angry to find there story has been translated and published without their permission, when they should be happy about the greater exposure instead, when the story was clearly credited to them and not the translator? Why? It's not surprising at all when you consider that the author has no way to know if the translation is any good; if it is true to their writing style, or hell, even if it has been spell-checked.

A while ago a friend of mine was asked whether someone may translate one of their stories into German. Said friend agreed on the condition that the translator would have me check the story before it was published (German being my first language), so she'd have a way to verify whether the translation was any good. The person doing the translation put in a lot of effort, and while she did a good job of translating the "story" (as in plot), she wasn't able to do justice to the original writing-style. In the end the project was abandoned, because she simply didn't have the experience or training to change that, and I wasn't about to give my OK on something I felt wasn't correctly reflecting my friend's writing skills and style.

Professional translators are more than just people who are fluent in two or more languages, they need to know just as much, if not more than "normal" authors about style and grammar, since they have to be able to keep the "feeling" of a story alive while translating it into a different language. Simply retelling the story in somewhat similar words may be alright for texts where only the content matters, like a manual for example, but not for a literary text.

Now, I'm not saying the people translating for that site aren't able to do that, but the point is that the original author has no way of knowing. For all they know, the translation could give an entirely wrong impression of their writing skills, and have readers laugh at them and dismiss them as horrible writers. Bad publicity is better than no publicity definitely doesn't apply here! Again, I'm not saying the translations are bad, but since they were done behind the original author's back, you have to understand that you can't expect them to jump in joy over something that may very well reflect poorly on their skills.

Aside from that, what has love for the characters to do with anything? Just because someone likes the same characters as someone else doesn't mean they have to be OK with everything that person does. Especially not when that includes changing and publishing their work without permission; credited or not.

If you really care for the site in question, you might want to talk to the admins and suggest they hurry up and start enforcing a policy like the one I mentioned earlier. Because if they don't that's just asking for more of the same kind of trouble.

[diabola79.livejournal.com]

Not 100% sure this link will work without the add-on, let me know if it doesn't.

I have this little security tool on my PC, it's called SiteAdvisor (McAfee). They check websites for security risks. Upon following the link to that site's forum, it turned nice and red. this (http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/forumfree.net?aff_id=0-231&suite=true&premium=false&client_ver=2.6.0.6253&client_type=IEPlugin) is what I got upon looking at the details. (if the link doesn't work, you could try removing everything up from, and including, the questionmark) I can't read any of the comments of course, them being in Italian and all, but I think it wouldn't hurt for everyone who visited there to have their Anti-Spyware software do a complete scan of their PC. Could be the information is old, or that you have to download something to be infected, but better safe than sorry, right?

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Dia! I ran Spybot and AVG and the puter came up clean...but then Spybot does stop a lot of the crap before it can get onto the computer.

BTW...Turn on your YM!! lol

Re: I want to tell...

[alwaysjbj.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with wanting to translate the fics...but obviously some of your members do not realise that it is wrong to do so without the author's permission. That doesn't mean I would want my stories translated, I wouldn't (for the reasons that Dia states in her comment), but I am sure there are authors out there who are more than happy to have their work translated...with permission!

My post to the forum wasn't rude, or angry...I was simply saying that to repost people's work without permission is stealing...which it is...and if you have members who don't realise that then they need to be made aware of it. So your moderator removing my post (without so much as a comment) was, in my opinion, condoning the posting of people's work without their permission. And contary to your moderator's claim that it was a one off mistake, I know that quite a few authors were posted there without permission.

I'm sure that not everyone on your forum is doing the wrong thing...but when the moderator is seemingly condoning such behaviour then it is quite likely that it will happen again!

Anyway, thanks for trying to clear things up a bit... I hope you continue to enjoy reading fanfic.