Okay, so. I got a notice from the extremely lovely Authlim of Xvim letting me know that my story Cinders--yeah, the serial one I wrote here, the one I put up on Literotica for free just like so, so much of my stuff--has been plagiarized by one Felix Ferrero and put up on Amazon.co.uk and smashwords, along with the works of several other authors--J. Vaughn's RoughBoys, anybody? fantasyhunter2's They Are A-OK, and others. I've already contacted Amazon and smashwords to get the stories taken down, and hopefully they'll come through quickly for me.
This is the first time it's been thrown at me that my stuff is being plagiarized. I'm sure it's happened before, I may have blocked it from my mind, but this time it's not only blatant, it's also not only me! Yeah, copy some of the most popular authors on Literotica, don't even bother to rename the frickin' stories and see where that gets you! Really? Just...really? My free work is meant to be just that, a gift for readers, and it annoys me to no end that someone else is trying to profit off of it.
Felix Ferrero has a website, and a facebook, and presences on the Amazon and smashwords platforms. I'm not going to contact him directly, at least not yet, because I despise drama and hopefully can get this taken care of without a lot of fuss. But that might not be the case, and if it isn't, I'm looking for advice. Has anyone had to deal with this before? What steps did you take? Do you follow another author who's been through it? Feel free to pass on some wisdom.
You are a pain in the ass, Felix, and not the good kind.
And Authlim of Xvim, who left me a comment about this earlier, you are awesome for bringing this to my attention and you deserve a short story, at the very least. I'll contact you.
Sadly, no advice. I'm so angry I can't see straight. I did contact Felix directly and give him a piece of my mind. Wish he was here in person so I could strangle him. I am seriously considering legal action. I know I would probably not get my money's worth, but it's the principal of the thing.
ReplyDeleteGrrrrrr! This makes me wish I had some skill with internet sleuthing so I could find this guy in real life and kick him in the nuts.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry this has happened, Cari! :-(
Me too, darlin. J Vaughn is a huge help getting this stuff taken down, and his website's already inaccessible, but...oh, so many words I want to throw at this person. So, so many. Be careful or you may tip me into a rant at you:) Thanks for the support though, I will treasure the image of you kicking this asshole in the nuts.
DeleteSo sorry to hear this happened to you. Your stories were one of the reasons I posted some of mine on Lit and I love Cinders.
ReplyDeleteTwo of my Lit stories got stolen and published last year and it was a horrid mess because Dreamspinner had just published the real book, the one I wrote and I only found out about the other version published sooner than I could after a reader thought I was the one plagiarizing. :( Like I said, a mess. But even published books (JP Barnaby, Eden Winters) are being repackaged and sold to unsuspecting readers anymore by these fly by night crooks. I hope your book gets taken down soon.
Advice: I have a boatload. I'm sending you an email addressing the questions you ask. I hate plagiarists with a passion and am sorry, so sorry, one got to you! :(
People like this are awful! I am a student living on a minimum wage, so I can't buy the stories I like in the moment. Thanks to wonderful people like you and Tali and J Vaughn I can read good stuff for free. But I would never dream of copying it. Or I would dream of it and if I have an established comunication with the author I would ask, but it would be for me in private offline and not for sale. And when I finally have a paying job, then I know whose books to buy online! Love from Germany and I hope it gets sorted soon!
ReplyDeleteHi Jana! Yeah...this guy sucks, but people have been very supportive. I'm not going to stop offering stuff for free, I'll just have to get more careful, I suppose. We're paying it forward, baby!
DeleteI'm so sorry to hear this happened to you Cari. I've seen this happen with a few authors that I follow and Lit has usually been somewhere in the mix. Most of those authors ended up pulling all of their stuff that site - which is understandable but really unfortunate. I first discovered you and a number of my other favorite authors there.
ReplyDeletePeople behaving badly doesn't surprise me any more but it definitely still pisses me off. Trying to make money off of someone else's talent - especially when they were generous enough to share it for free - is beyond low. I agree with Tiffany, a kick in the nuts is definitely in order!
start copyrighting your work if you can and get a lawyer for when this stuff happen. remember when that guy stole harry potter from the rightful owner and tried to pass it as his own?, it ended in court she won but best to copyright it so its clear off the bat who had the idea first.
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