#though some drag their feet sdlfkjas

[not-poignant]

hey pia! i love your work, hi!!! im a young writer interested in posting some of my big projects online (not that i really expect them to get any traction lol). i was wondering how you protect your work from plagiarism, or how you deal with people plagiarizing your work. it seems like the internet is kind of the wild west, and that’s only sometimes a good thing :/ im probably a bit too poor to afford any sort of copyright or whatever online authors do, but maybe i can save up? 🙏🙏

PS - i didn’t actually care whether or not this ask was anonymous, but from my experience on tumblr it seems like an unspoken rule🤨 so i guess i’ll turn it on🫡

Hi anon!

Tbh the only real difference between anon and attaching your name is that I have the choice to reply to you privately if you send an ask under your name (which is sometimes preferrable if the question is personal or really niche!) and that gives me more options. Anon forces me to only answer publicly (which is probably why you're seeing that so much!!), but the downside is that sometimes I have to delete anon messages when I don't want the responses or even the ask/s on my public blog.

Anyway! This is something I'd respond to publicly anyway, because I think this is a fear a lot of new and young writers have. The tl;dr is that copyright is often assumed on the internet, provenance makes it easy to send DMCA takedowns, and letting a fear of piracy stop you from putting your work up is one of the biggest ways I see new authors handicap themselves on the web currently (idk if it's confirmation bias or what but it seems like I see this several times each month atm from specifically new authors), and it's like...not a thing...to be hampering yourself with.

Okay, now for the longer explanation:

The first thing with copyright is that it by and large depends on your country and what you want to do with the story. In Australia, every created work by default has legal copyright protection simply by being created by someone. We don't need to pay to apply for copyright on creative works, we automatically have it and if we can prove provenance (i.e. if we can demonstrate we created it first, with like a document date etc.) we are legally protected.

So I can't answer for the country you're in, anon, but honestly, this is how it works on most of the internet where you're likely to put a project online. AO3 will respect that a work is yours if it gets stolen, if you can prove you came up with it or published it before another person did (literally all you need is a screenshot or a link). In the Properties or Details of most of your documents, the 'date created' is your best friend.

I've had my work stolen quite a few times over the years. It's been stolen the most from AO3 over to Wattpad (it's almost like Wattpad authors don't realise that sometimes we look lol).

In one case, blanket commenting on one of the fics that the original fic was on AO3 *and complete and not stolen* was enough for the author themselves to take it down. x.x Otherwise what you generally do is send a DMCA takedown notice, which almost all creative sites give you access to when reporting theft (your readers cannot do this for you, you must do it.)

Similarly, on AO3, if this happens, you can just report it. The big downside here is that it can take the volunteers there some time - sometimes up to two weeks or more - to get on top of that, so it might feel like nothing at all is happening. Patience is recommended.

Look, theft happens, you can't avoid it. It is a normal part of putting your work out there in the world. And I can't tell you how many new authors I know who kind of shoot themselves in the foot trying to prevent the acts of thieves, while not realising they're hampering themselves in the process.

Pirating is the worst, but so is never putting your work out there, or waiting for a magical protection from piracy. It doesn't exist - and there's a general rule where the more steps you introduce to stop or reduce piracy, the more you actually alienate your general readers - think about how having right-click disabled on a website can feel, for example. It's considered hostile internet architecture that is often very inaccessible.

(There's also a phenomenon where the authors most scared of theft are the ones least likely to encounter it, because their works are new, and they'll need a lot of time to build up readers and engagement in the first place. Most of the time, those who plagiarise don't want to take the works of new/young authors over the works of experienced authors who just won't think to check the sites they're using. By the time you're popular enough for that to be an issue, you'll probably have more confidence in yourself and your ability to handle this. I will say theft of ebooks on sites like Amazon etc. is way more common than theft of original stories and fanfics on AO3, but both happen more often than they used to, that's just...sadly a part of life.)

Also, applying for copyright doesn't mean your work won't get stolen. You'll still have to send DMCA takedowns, and you'll still have to get in contact with websites. A lot of the time websites have a form you can fill out. You still have to do all that labour and pay to register copyright. The filing of copyright is sadly not a magical shield against theft of a creative work. It does make it easier to take someone to court, but that's expensive, often not worth it, and the labour someone can spend chasing down thieves is often better spent amongst the readers who actually give a shit (they're the ones who often notice the theft in the first place when it comes to serials).

If you plan on publishing ebooks, there's software and organisations you can pay a monthly fee to, who just exist to issue takedown notices to piracy sites so you don't have to. I've never used these personally, but from what I've read on Facebook writing groups, they're often not worth it compared to the past, because new sites spring up all the time. But different authors have different experiences with online theft (and different levels of income to combat it) so you'll hear different things on that front.

I'm...pretty zen about it. To me, it's only a worry when I have to send someone a notice about it, which I don't actually have to do all that often. Like, it sucks, but almost always it never happens as much as a new author like yourself fears it will. That doesn't mean you won't hate it when it happens, but you'll live, and your works will keep finding readers, and it won't be what you're likely imagining it will be. It's for most authors, just an occasional giant pain in the ass that we forget about a day or two later sdakfjdsa

[if-found-return-to-gusu]

Spa Date with Lan Zhan Continued Part 2

Sorry… sorry I had to collect myself for a minute. Just… a lot of feelings right now. I shook it out and screamed into a pillow but now I’m back. 

We’re good. We’re fine. 

I just… i need to be careful. 

I can’t read too far into this. He took care of me for one day because he’s an amazing person and the kindest friend I’ve ever had. That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything… anything more than that. 

It doesn’t mean he…

Because if I let myself think…

and if I’m wrong….

No. I can’t do that. 

Okay

A;lskdjfa;ldkjfas;dlkjfa;sdlkfja;sdlfkjas;

REBOOT

Where was I?

Oh yes he dished up all that food and I sat there salivating over it like the goblin I am. I was just thinking that there was only one thing that could make it better when he pulls out a bottle of fucking WINE! Like a fucking MIND READER. Except he’d have had to mind read into the FUCKING FUTURE because I know he didn’t have it on hand.

and and and and!! It was Emperor’s Smile! 

I know I mentioned that once before but it’s SO expensive I figured I’d never actually get to try some. I think I must have just completely freaked out for a second but Lan Zhan was ever patient with me. I said we should drink it together because I felt bad he’d spent SO much money on me, but of course he doesn’t drink. I knew that but still.

Well there was nothing for it. It’s not like he could take it back now that it’d been opened and it would have been a shame to waste it so I just figured. Fuck it. We’re already in. 

I decided that I’d drink it slow though. I wanted to savor it. Who knows when I’d ever get a chance to drink it again? So we started to eat and I got my first taste of that wine. 

Oh I don’t know if y’all’ve ever heard of it. They say it’s the smoothest wine you’ll ever drink. Nice and mellow. And oh my GOD they aren’t lying. It’s DELICIOUS! Just ooohhhhh. Nothing like it!

I sat close to him again. I couldn’t stand being any further away than I needed to. Our ankles were brushing against each other we were so close. I think I felt him nudge my feet every now and then and I thought he was trying to push me away but he wasn’t. I think he must have just been shifting to get more comfortable. 

Or maybe he was and I’m just dense. 

But I’d already been so selfish all day I decided to take a little more and keep the contact going. 

I really hope he didn’t mind….. 

When I finally ate so much food that I found I was glad to not be wearing pants any more lest I have to unbutton them to make space (Robe. Thank you for your heavenly duty of hiding my expanding gut), I started investigating what else Lan Zhan had set up. 

And I saw this little basket with sheet masks. I half layed on the floor so I could reach it without having to stop touching Lan Zhan and dragged it over. 

Which was very difficult because of the aforementioned GIGANTIC TUMMY FULL OF DELICIOUS FOOD! 

And I found this one that said it was made of gold! Told Lan Zhan I should use it to pay my rent or something stupid like that. I wish I could remember what I actually said because he laughed at it!

Laughed!

Lan Zhan!

Laughed at my stupid nonsense! Just

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

I know I said that the guqin was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard but Lan Zhan’s laugh, short as it was, could give it a run for its money. 

It was really hardly more than a sharp exhale. A huff of air. 

But just

Oh.

If I could hear that noise all the time. 

I need to find more ways to make him laugh. Does he have a thing for stupid jokes? Mmm… but then he’d laugh at me all the time. I’m the worlds’ stupidest joke after all.

Aaahha hah…. I digress

Well anyway I kept digging and found one for fatigue and called dibs RIGHT away.

Held it to my chest ready to FIGHT! Not that I’d need to but STILL.

…. On to part 3! (how is there still so much to say??)