Plagiarism. It's an author's worst nightmare, and it's as widespread and annoying as mosquitoes. It gets our blood boiling since someone stole our book.
It happens everywhere and anyone can be targeted, even when books are traditionally published. No site or app is safe from a truly determined thief.
About half the time, it's a reader who doesn't understand that they aren't allowed to 'share' your book with others by reposting it. The other half of the time, it's intentional, and they were hoping you wouldn't notice.
The only upside to plagiarism is that someone thought your story was good enough to be worth stealing.
If you wish more details on copyright, there are many sources out there, including this one on Wattpad: support.wattpad.com/hc/en-us/articles/216192503-Copyright-FAQ
Fanfiction is a grey area with a lot of the decisions being left to you. I touch on this at the bottom.
How to Check:
Sometimes we find out about a stolen story from friends or followers. More often, we have to go searching for them. I do this about once a month or so.
Open your story, and in your summary and first chapter, select several unique sentences that do NOT contain character names. (Most thieves change names and a few minor details to slide under the radar).
Go to Google, and paste that sentence between quotations marks. (Quotation marks make Google search for an exact match and not just look for key words)
Then scan the search results to see if any might be your story. Some results are to be expected, such as Goodreads (a review site), other reviews, and links to your real story.
Often, we also see results for things like 'download pdfs', and when we go there, it's a sketchy site with a weird name that wants an account or a credit card number. These places usually don't have your story - it's a fake ad tied into your search terms to try and lure you in. You can ignore these or submit a Google Search Removal Report (below).
For Wattpad writers, we'll often see results for illegal mirror sites like Truyen, Teenfic, NovelHD, and a few others. (These sites pop back up as fast as Wattpad takes them down, which isn't easy since they're often hosted in countries that don't care about copyright). (If they show your name as the 'author' and the reads/votes from Wattpad, it's a mirror site)
Sometimes you'll get a match on a site like Amazon or another writing app where someone posted your story.
How to Report:
It's great when a book takes off, but a letdown when it gets stolen. Thankfully, Most sites are honest, and if alerted to a stolen work, they will remove it if you submit a DMCA takedown request. (The author or agent has to submit this)
The details on how to submit this will vary by website. They will have a Copyright Infringement links somewhere with instructions. Some, like Amazon, have a form to fill out (more details on Amazon below).
Some want a specifically-formatted DMCA takedown notice emailed to them. There are many DMCA templates on Google. Some you just replace a few words and others are fill in the blank.
Edit template version: www.pixsy.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-notice/
Fill-in-the-blank version: sfwa.org/2010/07/27/sample-dmca-generator-for-authors/
Most sites will remove the stolen work within a few days. So far, the only ones I haven't seen honor a DMCA takedown were mirror sites. Mirror sites are a constant headache. They target Wattpad and various other sites and writing apps. As fast as the sites are taken down, they pop right back up. It's an arms race, just like where musicians try to keep their songs from being illegally copied and people just as determinedly find ways around the new protections.
YOU ARE READING
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