Content Theft - Tumblr Posts

Do not reblog or support content from @cyberdelph.

They're a repost account using stolen artwork and although they include a link to the original content they do not actually have permission to be reposting it and are in many cases violating the original artist's personal rules.

I've reached out personally to several of the artists and they weren't even aware their art had been taken. Artwork has been stolen from DeviantArt, Lofter, Pillowfort, Instagram and Twitter. Cyberdelph is unfortunately not the only "art sharing" (i.e; reposting other people's artwork) account on this platform but they are one of the biggest and have somehow managed to evade being taken down.

I'll be cross-tagging some of the fandoms and ships they use to broaden awareness.

By the way if you follow accounts on Instagram and Tumblr dedicated to sharing a huge quantity of fanart, especially about one thing in particular and with a huge range of art styles, 99% of it is stolen.

They call themselves "fan accounts" and "sharing accounts" but that's just shorthand for; "I steal other people's hard work and art so I can repost it and farm clout."

You'll usually see, at the very bottom of the caption, something like: Credit to creator. DM for credit. By ____

I implore you, no matter how good the art is, please don't feed into them. If you actually look into the people they're stealing from you'll usually find the original artist both doesn't allow reposts and isn't even aware that their art has been stolen.

They do not care about artists. Only how their art can benefit them.

YOU CAN NOW REPORT STOLEN CONTENT ON WATTPAD WITHOUT BEING THE ORIGINAL CREATOR

Wattpad Help Center: Reporting 'Published' Content If You Are Not The Owner

You can now report stolen content which has been wrongfully uploaded to Wattpad by thieves if you are not the original content owner by reporting it as a 'copy' of existing content.

I do not currently have any first-hand information on how reasonable or effective this is. Wattpad is not known for its readiness to protect content owners, however this is absolutely a step toward reforming the website and its policies on copyright and content protections.

However the only way to actually prove how important it is to protect copyright and just how badly Wattpad needs to start taking content theft seriously to actually and properly use this feature. If you are scrolling Wattpad and see "collections" or "re-uploads" of stolen works, please take the time to effectively report it.

Wattpad is full to the brim of stolen fanfiction and fanart. This is a step in the right direction toward teaching people proper copyright and consequences.

“Credits to the owner!!”

…Are the credits in the room with us?? 🤨

Idk if you guys care,but there is this YouTube Channel who steals people's animash vids and reuploads them without crediting the og creators

Get their channel taken down

@puffythepig

Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner. 

We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.

To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option. 

For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc. 

Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.

You've got to be kidding me. Did shit like this happen so often in the 2010s, or have people just gotten more fucked up?

I've been wanting to write for LEGITIMATELY OVER A DECADE, but I struggled heavily with my autism, chronic anxiety disorder, and depression over the years. Have I actually missed my chance?

The amount of disrespect to creators and their hard work always appalled me, but I never felt unsafe at the thought of putting a story I write online. That's sure changed since last year...

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!