#posted it yesterday but tumblr deleted it?????

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

[just-barrow]

true love

[royalarchivist]

Pac: Is it possible to become a werewolf hunter? I want to become a werewolf hunter. Guaxinim turned. He turned into a werewolf and he didn't even consult me to see if I approved of this, you know? So I'm mad at him.

Milo: So you'll become the hunter

Pac: If he says he wants me to play the hunter, then I'll become the werewolf hunter.

Milo: Aaaa... Romeo and Juliet?

Pac: It's not Romeo and Juliet!

Regardless of whether or not Pac sees his and Guaxinim's "situationship" as a Romeo and Juliet situation or a yin and yang thing – Arkanis definitely going through its Twilight arc. (Thank you again to Kia for the translation help!)

[ Full Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

—

Pac: Sounds like GuhZera, right? I'm spending too much time with GuhZera. Speaking of, how is your pai? How is your pai? Talk to me. Open your heart and tell me about your pai.

Milo: No.

Pac: No? [Laughs]

Milo: [Tosses him something] Take it.

Pac: What's this? What's this here?

Milo: Protect yourself.

Pac: "Protect yourself?" What do you mean? [Laughs]

Milo: He became Edward prepúcio.*

[* Crepúsculo is Twilight, but Milo typed 'prepúcio' (foreskin) so he's saying "Edward foreskin"]

Pac: He turned into Edward... prepúcio? Ah, he turned… Milo, but– Why are they saying everywhere that I'm Bella? Do you know?

Milo: BECAUSE GUAXINIM BECAME A WEREWOLF

Pac: I don't believe it son, I don't believe it. Is it possible for us to become... werewolf hunters? In this mod?

Milo: I ALREADY AM KKKKKKKKK

Pac: "I already am?" So let's become werewolf hunters! Let's go, let's go.

Milo: – but for vampires.

Pac: "For vampires?" Ah ok, but of werewolves, is it possible to become a werewolf hunter? I want to become a werewolf hunter.

Milo: I don't know about werewolves. I think hunters hunt everything.

Pac: Guaxinim turned- turned- turned.. He turned into a werewolf and he didn't even consult me to see if I approved of this, you know? So I'm mad at him. That's all, that's all.

Milo: So you'll become the hunter

Pac: If he says he wants me to play the hunter, then I'll become the werewolf hunter. Like that guy in the- the- the three little pigs story, you know?

Milo: A relationship that's like yin and yang.

Pac: Ah no, I don't believe that. ...I don't believe it.

Milo: Ice and fire.

Pac: IT'S NOT THAT! IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! It's not like that! It's not a yin-yang thing, no! Because they say opposites attract.

Milo: Aaaa... Romeo and Juliet?

Pac: It's not Romeo and Juliet! Oh my god. Let's go, let's go son. Let's go–

[matutito]

first kiss

this is a sorta redraw of a painting i did late january/early february, now deleted

[lonely-fried-art]

scribbles of the core 4 kids as smelly 7th graders

[kyuhu]

would be great if tumblr would actually show me posts of the blogs I follow instead of 5 repeating ones I've seen 20 times already

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 11: Angst In My Pants (The Decline And Fall Of Me)

Album two of two in the series of Sparks' immaculate new wave releases! Iconic in every way imaginable from the music to the artwork to ONE music video. I think it's more musically (and lyrically!) varied and mature in tone (besides... a couple exceptions. Yes, an album called Angst In My Pants) than its predecessor, which is a very good development. These songs will leave you chuckling and bopping along and also pondering the intricacies of human existence. Ok, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but it can't be denied that behind much of the earnestness and theatricality here, there's lots of quite emotional, introspective and thought-provoking stuff to be found.

Thematically, this album goes everywhere. One moment we are in Sextown U.S.A, the next we're visiting Disneyland, California where we make friends among people and animals. On a more serious note though, I think the biggest emotional whiplash one could experience between different songs on an album is between Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes. And yet there's still a very prominent element of humour, even in those songs that are on the more serious or dramatic end of the scale.

I said a few days ago that I'd try to return to the topic of Sparks' brand of humour and how it works, but I don't feel intelligent enough to analyse that today. And I'm pretty sure that from what I've seen, Other People And The Maels Themselves (Said It Better Than Me). So instead, as a little send-off, please remember: if a mouse can be special, well, SO CAN YOU!!! 🫵

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Angst In My Pants: literally no other song like this one in this world. I can't tell why that is but it's just. So great

I Predict: I had a weird kind of effect where I heard this song in my early days of Sparking and it felt VEEERY familiar to me. I think it was due to the genre / style here, it reminded me of something specific, at first I thought it was very glam rock but I'm pretty sure that this is not it but something else (and I don't know what to call it in that case!). Anyway, banger song

Tarzan And Jane: whoa wait, am I already skipping to the third-to-last song on the tracklist?? I guess I am. This one's great and one of my early favs too (I wonder how long it will take until I run out of things to say about my fav songs and it all just becomes this list of 'it's very good and I like it a lot. next.')

The Decline And Fall Of Me: it's great!! I like it!! And, of course, "check out my pizzas"

Eaten By The Monster Of Love: personal reasons that lead to a printed and framed mini-comic of my making appearing on my desk, which features some of the lyrics of this song, which caused me to have it permanently stuck in my head for a pretty long period of time. And this way I ended up liking it much much more than I did in the beginning, when it still seemed somehow pretty unremarkable to me

[tetedurfarm]

so i been thinkin

this blog has been rabbits only with very little discussion of my day to day for many years, and my other occasional farm-related posts i usually just put on my main. but lately i've been kinda wanting a more farm-specific blog to share more of what goes on out here and other projects i'm doing and i'm curious if you guys would like to see those posts here, or if you'd prefer if i kept this blog to just rabbits?

[evuwus]

posting a fanart I am proud of and not reaching the fandom feels like a heartbreak. I know it isn't tumblr etiquette, but I will be reposting it in the next few days so it gets a better chance to be seen :3

[barklikeagod]

barklikeagod is in my hands again

[pawl3ss]

Guys, yall wanna know my new obsession ? ?¿?

[needlefail]

Hewwo can anyone hear me

[bmcblr-remake]

AUDITIONS INFO

if you want to be like mentally prepared on whats to be expected or something idk

---- all auditions here ----

actors/auditions FAQs

----

what you will be doing:

if you get a conducting video: you will be asked to sing along to a video of someone conducting. we are using conducting videos to make sure everyone is in sync, and i need to be sure you can follow conducting. it shouldnt be hard its sort of like a metronome you just need to be able to keep tempo, and understand when to start singing after a pause. there will be an example video (conducting along to the og soundtrack) and the actual backing track (conducting along to instrumental). please be sure the backing track is playing in the background and audible

if you do not get a conducting video: there will just be a backing track. if you dont get a conducting video dont stress about starting at the right time after a pause, just be sure you can keep tempo. we will still be using conducting videos for the actual remake, you'll just have to learn along the way if you get cast. please be sure the backing track is playing in the background and audible

----

what im mainly looking for:

your own portrayals of your character. im giving you complete creative freedom. say your line a different way, or faster or slower if you want. take a breath in the middle of the verse. make reaction noises. pitch your notes higher or lower if you have to go the troy iwata rich route. pretend youre actually doing the show live, some minor changes can be made here and there

you can keep tempo. of course if we have conducting videos it would be easier but if we dont, try your best and dont stress about starting at the right time after a pause. just be sure you can keep tempo while youre singing

not mic quality lmao. you dont need a professional mic or anything as long as whatever youre using is decent quality it should be fine. BUT please use whatever you will be using if you get cast. phone mic, singing recorder app, voice notes app, whatever

----

what you will need to submit:

MAJOR CHARACTER

REQUIRED:

an approximately 1 - 1:30 minute audio clip of a song from bmc. the required song for each character will be listed below

an approximately 1 minute audio clip of spoken lines of choice, recommended from bmc. i know there arent a lot of continuous spoken lines so you can just say your lines and pause when the other character is speaking if you pick a scene like that

OPTIONAL:

any song that makes you look good! give me anything you did best in, it can be from bmc but it doesnt have to. can be as long as you want. please be sure the video is fairly recent i need to see what you can do now, not what you could do 6 months ago

(edit we most likely will not be adding lgw)

-- REMEMBER I WILL BE ALLOWING A COUPLE MONTHS OF WIGGLE ROOM FOR AGES. you will just have to specify in the audition form

jeremy: required song: more than survive/voices in my head. take your pick age limit: at least 16 and up

squip: required song: the pitiful children age limit: at least 16 and up

christine: required song: i love play rehearsal age limit: at least 15 and up

michael: required song: michael in the bathroom age limit: at least 15 and up

rich: required song: the squip song. will NOT be required to screlt please dont kill your voice age limit: at least 15 and up

jake: required song: halloween. specifically his solo age limit: at least 15 and up

chloe: required song: do you wanna hang age limit: at least 16 and up

brooke: required song: do you wanna ride age limit: at least 15 and up

jenna: required song: the smartphone hour. will not be required to hit her high ass notes age limit: at least 15 and up

--

MINOR CHARACTERS:

REQUIRED:

a 30 seconds - 1:30 minute audio clip of a song from bmc. the required song for each character will be listed below

a 30 seconds - 1 minute audio clip of spoken lines of choice from bmc. recommended spoken lines for each character will be listed below

-- you guys are a little more relaxed lmao you wont have to do 1 minute clips. a little shorter is fine

mr heere: required song: the pants song. 1 - 1:30 minutes long recommended spoken lines: your choice but i recommend the argument with jeremy

creepy stock guy: required song: "it's from japan..." literally the only bit he sings. not sure if backing track will be provided yet recommended spoken lines: again literally the only bit he says

mr reyes: recommended spoken lines: idk anything he says take your pick. i dont think he sings

note: it is very highly recommended you are close to the og range of your character, so the sheet music writers dont have to transpose stuff and do more work. dont worry if you cant hit every single note! remember im being very lax with creative choices. this is from the concord records website so im assuming its accurate

you will be emailing your auditions files to bmcblr.remake@gmail.com and then filling out a form to verify your age.

JEREMY AUDITIONS: opens 29th may

EVERYONE ELSE: opens LATEST 10th june

----

IMPORTANT:

i WILL be asking for your age unfortunately. please dont lie about it, some actors are uncomfortable with certain ages and we have to respect that. also ill be able to tell when you start singing i promise you i wont share or remember it afterwards and i promise you i dont care lmao

speaking of remember there ARE age limits to all major characters. i might allow 2-3 months of wiggle room, 4 if we're pushing it, but you'll have to specify in the actual audition and ill have to check if your potential co-stars (wow CO-STARS we're getting serious huh) are comfortable with that

feminine and masculine voices wont matter! if you have a fem voice and want to audition for michael go ahead. if you have a masc voice and want to audition for brooke im not stopping you. as long as you can hit the notes well you should be good. if anything this makes bmc more gay and thats very on track with tumblr

there is a chance i will do callbacks and you might be casted as another character if i (or future casting crew) think you fit! but that being said please dont try to cheat the auditions and audition for one with the other in mind

there will be a "main" actor and an understudy who will also act as the characters squip in the play. the squip might have a main and then two additional others for the robot effect instead of just three mains, cause of different portrayals and whatnot. i might open additional auditions if there arent enough people interested in a character like jake and chloe, but AFTER the others are casted for the sake of fairness and all. if i dont, then the two other voices from the squip will step in

EDIT: we're not doing any of that lol

most importantly have fun with it! remember this is not a serious project we are just making our silly little remake

auditions will open a couple weeks later depending on the conducting videos cause lemme tell you end of school year is not the best time to do this

(this post will be edited if needed)

[chiistarri]

need 2 isolate myself and unfriend everyone #asap

[starswirly]

[ * d did tumblr just eat one of my queued posts. what yhe fuck webbed site :[ ]

[topgun-il]

xdinary heroes @ weekly idol via naver