Nothing in Particular

Mirror Sites, Part 2

I wrote Part 1 (the previous chapter) on 7 September 2021. Today is 8 July 2022 as I start writing this. It's been 10 months, so let's see how things have changed! I've been reminded once again of the existence of mirror sites, and I thought I should give whoever sees this an update on the mirror sites.

Once again, you may refer to the first chapter of this book "Important Notes" for some other information on mirror sites.

In Part 1, I mentioned teenfic dot net (Teenfic), novelhd dot com (NovelHD) and truyen4u dot net (Truyen). These three websites have changed slightly. Let's see how they're doing!

NOVELHD DOT COM (NovelHD)

This website manually copies books and publishes them. It is NOT a mirror site. They find books online, copy them manually and publish them on the website.

If you edit your book, the changes won't reflect on NovelHD. So if your book is there, editing your book with a note to direct them to Wattpad won't work, sadly.

I have a book up there, and they don't credit me. Previously, I had two books on NovelHD, but one of them has since been removed since they revamped.

NovelHD is now called NovelWW, and it's slightly different. How do I know? NovelHD redirects to NovelWW. Anyway, it's a bit different. Previously, I was credited for my two books (they write my Wattpad username under "Author:"). Now, I have one book up there, and the author part is blank. Other people are credited, though, strangely.

I find it so amusing to see NovelHD (now called NovelWW) censor the word "sex" but not "fuck" or "shit".

Honestly, I don't even care about NovelHD. I just find it so embarrassing to see my unedited work online somewhere... but at least whoever reads NovelHD won't know it's me unless they see my name on the cover :P

And even then, I bet there are many Calista Chuas in this world ;)

TRUYEN4U DOT NET (Truyen)

This one is weird. I can't find any of my works on it, though I was sure it was a mirror site of Wattpad back in September. If you click something, it'll have a pop-up site, so do be careful. As I've mentioned in the previous chapter, get an antivirus software and ad blocker and preferably use a MacBook because fewer viruses are designed to infect MacBooks (just fewer, not none).

It's called Truyen2u now, by the way.

I think it's a partial mirror. (The definition is written in the latter part of the chapter.) Things I search up on Truyen don't show up on Teenfic and vice versa. But everything I search on Truyen shows up on Wattpad, and it's the same for Teenfic. This leads me to conclude that Teenfic is also a partial mirror. It only shows some results, and other results are displayed on Truyen. I can find my books on Teenfic but not on Truyen.

The difference between Truyen and Teenfic, though, is that one has pop-up sites and one doesn't. Teenfic is full of English, while Truyen is full of Vietnamese.

After searching usernames that appear on Truyen, I have concluded that Truyen only copies Vietnamese-language books. I don't have Vietnamese books, which is why I'm not there. If you have books written in Vietnamese, you'll probably find yourself there.

TEENFIC DOT NET (Teenfic)

Finally, we've reached the website that everyone knows and has freaked out about. It's probably the one you've heard being talked about if you're here.

I used to think that it was a mirror site. It seems like everything that is on Wattpad is on Teenfic. However, after digging deeper and looking at Truyen, I have concluded that it's a partial mirror. Teenfic only copies English-language books (or non-Vietnamese-language books).

If you write English books, you're probably there. Teenfic is an English website. It does not have pop-ups, but it has a lot of ads. My ad blocker detected 18 ads in the home page.

Don't worry. Just know that you're not alone. We're all affected. I'm affected too. If you really don't want your book to appear on Teenfic, your only option is to take them down from Wattpad. I honestly think it doesn't really matter. Most people haven't even heard of Teenfic. Unless they're specially looking for a website that plagiarises content, they won't find it. And they have no reason to do that because Wattpad is free! Well, except Paid Stories. But these mirror sites don't show up on Google unless you explicitly type the link out.

All's well.

WHAT IS A PARTIAL MIRROR?

According to Wikipedia, "The maintainer if someone mirrors choose not to replicate the entire contents of the upstream server they are mirroring because of technical constraints, or selecting only a subset relevant to their purpose, such as software written in a particular programming language, runnable on a single computer platform, or written by one author. These sites are called partial mirrors or secondary mirrors."

Teenfic copies only English books. Truyen copies only Vietnamese books. They are partial mirrors. Whatever changes you make on Wattpad will reflect on these websites. Wattpad authors of English books only have Teenfic to be concerned about.

Your book is not stolen, per se. It's just on a cheap copy of Wattpad. The problem is these mirror sites allow people to copy text from it, making it easier for people to manually steal your book.

If you write a note on Wattpad telling possible readers on Teenfic to read your book on Wattpad, it will show! However, as I've stated in the previous chapter, don't write "Wattpad.com" because it will be changed to "Teenfic.net". I suggest writing "@<username> on Wattpad".

If you want to write a note to possible readers on mirror sites, you can sample those I have written on my books. Write the note in a chapter, not in the description box. In some websites, things written in the description box of Wattpad do not show.

———
Cheer up! I know you probably feel very upset to see that your work has been stolen, but that's just how the Internet works. Every work you create has a risk of being plagiarised, even if it's not online.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful! <3