Reporting Plagiarism On Fan Fiction Platforms.

Reporting plagiarism on fan fiction platforms.

It seems to be getting worse and worse, doesn’t it? My stories and even my published books - which I write to support a charity that means so much to my family - have been stolen and republished for profit. Several times. But most of them are behind paywalls on Eastern European and Asian sites and I’ll never get them taken down. But if you’re finding your stories - or someone’s you know - on one of the more popular sites, you can contact the site and submit a DMCA takedown request. They’ll often just pop up under another name, but once the content is flagged, it’s much easier to track. Don’t let these parasites get away with it! More than you know are actually making money off your material.

When you do file your report:

1. Make sure you include the URL of the stolen material and screenshots of any interactions you may have had with the thieving scumsucker. DO NOT threaten the plagiarist! This should seem obvious but I know it’s easy to get angry.

2. Include relevant passages and matching material from the original work, and the URL for the original work, including contact info for the writer who owns the material. The more info you give them to work with, the faster the process.

Wattpad - I hate that you can’t report someone else’s work, the original owner of the material has to file the takedown request. AND they force you to create an account to do it. But since Wattpad is one of the biggest platforms for stolen work, please do it! Here’s the info on filing a report, though they didn’t update it to clarify that the place to report the story in on the left of the story, click on the three dots below social media sharing links.

Tumblr - They seem to take longer to respond, but you can also report someone else’s work as being plagiarized as well as the original poster. Instructions on filing the report are here. This seems to be a site where multiple reports - aka the squeaky wheel - do make them pay attention.

Archive of Our Own - They will ask you for a link to the stolen work, relevant excerpts (this moves the process along so much faster) and a specific citation of the original material. You can file the complaint with the Policy & Abuse Team here.

FanFiction.net - There’s some speculation that no one’s actually running the ship at FF.net anymore, another reason I took down my work. (The first was a group of white supremacist weirdos who decided to have an issue with how I wrote Loki.) However, the best way to do it is scroll down to the bottom of the stolen material where you’ll see a link to click labeled “Actions.” Click it and then click on report abuse.

If anyone else has more advice and/or links to add here, please do! I am not an expert and the more we all know, the better. Let’s look out for each other. We all put too much of ourselves into our work to let someone else steal it from us.