I found a post earlier on Tumblr by one of my close friends online friend. Her story on AO3 was found on Wattpad earlier today and was horrified by what the person was saying about her book. The person claimed that they had written the book, even leaving author comments in the middle of the story and at the end asking if the writing style was too bad or not for the reader, and then exclaiming that she had taken no time at all to write the chapter.
Now, I do not know about AO3, but I do know that Wattpad does not let anyone copy the text, unless you copy the entire page, and I still do not think that it will copy the story text. But, I do not know for sure since I do not have AO3, AO3 does not have this blocking technique. When the writer was told this, she was livid. She went and reported the story, claiming copyright issues. The story was taken down, but the writer was not reported, or had severe consequences. Instead, the reposter complained, yelled at the writer, and then blocked her on Wattpad and on AO3 to be talked to again.
Now, why would people repost stories? For attention? To feel good in something that they pretended to accomplish? I do not know. But I do know one thing. If I find out that someone had did this to one of my online friends, and I had reached the culprit before the story was taken down, believe me:
YOU WILL HAVE A BAD TIME.
You do not have a right to post that story on a different website. That story is not yours. If you want people to see the story, share the damn story. DO NOT REPOST IT. If you are not claiming it o be yours, DO NOT FUCKING REPOST IT. I do not give a damn if you credit the original writer, it is not yours to repost. The writer had given time and much brainpower to share the story that they had created for their audience, on the website that they chose to post it on. The same thing with artists does happen to writers, and I hate to see it happen.
I do not want to write (THIS BELONGS TO GINGERPRODUCTIONS @ Ginger_Daile TWITTER) in between paragraphs. It is not right for the reader, or for the author to do so. It makes it worse, because with Wattpad, people have to type word for word usually to copy the story, which gives them a choice to skip over the rights to the writer. Why put that much effort into copying a story, when you can try to create your own?
