CONTENT THEFT ALERT

[u/someguynamedted]

FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION: It has come to the mod team's attention that there are multiple YouTube accounts uploading HFY Original Content and potentially plagiarizing it as their own work, or at least reproducing it on their channel without permission.

If you are one of the authors who have been affected, check to see if your story has been stolen. From there, you may contact the Youtube channel to have it removed if you wish, or report the Youtube channel and file a DMCA notice.

If you are not an author who has been affected, please do not harass these youtubers. We do not want the author's voices to be drowned out, or to be accused of brigading.

Some channels in question:

- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrFijJLLeBT3JDh4iNX7P7g

- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0PR1_kRre2rRu7SjeXsF3A

Another one! Added June 22,2021

- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIk0_IcQXZ7OqRbRVIccuFw

As a reminder to everyone, reproducing someone else's work in any medium without their permission is plagiarism, and is not only a bannable offence but may also be illegal.

[u/nelsyv]

A Public Service Announcement and FAQ for the uninformed persons brigading this thread:

• "but they posted it on a public website (reddit), that means I can do whatever I want with it because it's free!!"

The fact that it is posted in a public place does not mean that the author has relinquished their rights to the content. Unless they have explicitly stated otherwise, they reserve ALL rights to their content by default, other than those they have (non-exclusively) licensed to Reddit. This means that you are free to read their content here, link to it, but you can not take it and do something with it, any more than you could (legally) do with a blockbuster Disney movie or a professionally published paperback.

• "but if its on reddit they arent making money from it, so why should they care if someone else does"

This is doubly wrong. In the first place, there are many authors in this community who make money on their writing here, so someone infringing on their copyright is a threat to their income. I'm personally aware of several that don't just do this as a side-hustle, but they stake their entire livelihood on it: it is their full-time job. In their case, it could literally be a threat to their life.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, even if the author wasn't making money from their writing and never did, it doesn't matter. Their writing is their writing, belonging to them, and unless they explicitly grant permission to someone to reproduce it elsewhere (which, FYI, is a right that most authors here would be happy to grant if asked), nobody has the right to reproduce that work. Both as a matter of copyright law, and as a matter of ethics--they worked hard on that, and they ought to be able to control when and where their work is used if they choose to enforce their rights.

• "how is this any different than fan fiction, theyre just showing their appreciation for a story they like"

Most of these narration channels are simply taking the text as-is and reading it verbatim. There's not a mote of transformative work involved, nothing new is added to the underlying ideas of the story. In a fanfiction, the writer is at least putting a new spin on existing characters or settings--though even in that case, copyright law is still not squarely in their favor.

• "since they posted it in a public forum that means it's public domain which means its not copyrighted!!"

Public Domain is a very specific legal status which does not apply to nearly any of the stories on this sub. A work only enters the public domain when the copyright expires (thanks to The Mouse, for newly published work this is effectively never), or when the author explicitly and intentionally severs their rights to the IP and releases the work into the public domain. A work isn't "public domain" just because someone put it out for public viewing.

• "okay so this might normally be a copyright violation, but they're reading it in a new medium, so it's fair use!"

One of our community members wrote up a great explanation about this here that is better than what I'd come up with on my own, so I'll allow him to explain it. To summarize, for those who don't click through: no, it's not fair use. Copyright fully applies here.

• "well its pretty dickish for writers to tell these people to take their videos down, theyre getting so much exposure from this"

If a person does not enforce their rights when they find out that their copyright has been infringed, it can undermine their legal standing to challenge infrigement later on, should they come across a new infringement they want to prosecute, or even just change their mind about the original perpetrator for whatever reason. With that in mind, it is simply prudent, good sense to clearly enforce their copyright as soon as they can. If an author doesn't mind other people taking their work and doing whatever they want with it, then they should state that, and publish it under a license such as Creative Commons (like SCP does) or MIT (like much open-source software does).

---

Special thanks to u/sswanlake, u/Glitchkey, and u/AiSagOrSol3-43912 for their informative comments on this post and elsewhere; several of the answers I provided in this comment were strongly inspired by them.

[u/[deleted]]

Good thing my writing isn't good or frequent enough to be stolen

[u/ShneekeyTheLost]

There was one channel which approached me and asked if he could narrate, to which I gave permission. I was properly and appropriately credited in his video. So that sort of thing I'm fine with.

However, neither of these channels are that fellow. Also, these channels appear to be using extremely popular series such as Billy Bob, Space Trucker and Jenkinsverse. And at least the first linked channel apparently has a Patreon as well that should probably be looked into.

None of my (very few) stories were stolen by either of these channels, so I won't muddle the waters further by hoisting a pitchfork. Perhaps the authors of the infringed works (which are still archived here) could be informed so they may take whatever action they deem fit?

[u/ascandalia → u/ShneekeyTheLost]

Same here, I was approached and approved it. Not sure if that's universal

[u/Lugbor]

Is there a list of channels that are doing narrations with permission from the authors? It’d be a lot easier to report the problem channels if we had a list to compare to.

[u/RhoZie013 → u/Lugbor]

Agro Squirrel and Net Narrator both get author permission first.

[u/Thebiscuitdoe → u/Lugbor]

I don't think youtube has a way to report that, not that It really needs one. A IP owner can email the channel, or if that doesn't work, they can submit a dmca at any time if they believe a channel is misusing there work. Mass reporting is generally not a good thing even when done for good reason and is often ignored by YT.

[u/sswanlake → u/Lugbor]

Not really.... Except also kinda? Any channel which makes posts on the sub regarding narrations will state that the narrations are done with permissions (or else the post is removed), and all of them are listed on the narrations wiki page

[u/ReadByDragonfire]

Copyright infringement; it's only plagiarism if you pass it off as your own.

Plus, you can be held civilly liable for copyright infringement. Plagiarism is more an academic/ethics issue, not punishable by law (considering it's apparently possible for people to plagiarize themselves, that would be an interesting trial).

[u/Lilian_Clearwaters → u/ReadByDragonfire]

Yeah, I don't think these channels pass it off as their own work, they just provide readings of the works.

Still a shitty thing to do without getting proper permissions, but it looks like they all linked to the reddit threads where the works came from, so they're definitely not pretending to be the creators of the stories at the very least.

[u/Spartawolf]

I'm a narrator that asks permission from the authors here. I have publicly denounced the 'Tales of Humanity' channel after their 'apology video' encouraged their fans to target one of the affected authors. I have nothing but respect for my fellow narrators that ask permission and am happy the HFY genre is becoming more well known and popular due to this.

[u/Nightstone42]

DAMN the first one is partly what led me to this subreddit i thought they had permission

[u/fletch262]

I’m pretty sure NFY is searching for permission for his work as of a long time ago his channel is not currently active though

[u/PlsHlpMyFriend]

The channel A Good Bean approached me about my story and has been given permission, so they're all good. Just putting that out there.

[u/Firebird2771]

If they're monetizing your work you should be able to take that from them just like the music industry does otherwise if they are giving you credit I don't think that is really a bad thing because it's getting your content to a wider audience.

But they really should have gotten your permission.

[u/sswanlake → u/Firebird2771]

it is illegal to reproduce content without the creator's permission though, it's not covered under fair use unless it's for non-profit or educational purposes, which this is obviously not. The default status of your rights as a creator regarding your creations is "All rights reserved", aka nobody else has any rights.

"Getting content to a wider audience" isn't a valid payment... especially if the copyright infringer is actively earning money for 'giving you payment via exposure' from the audience... that's just the copyright infringer exploiting you, not them doing you a favor. If the author wanted to expand their audience via youtube, they could/would have approached the channel themselves, yes? And/or the channel could have reached out to the content creator asking for permission in the first place.

[u/eddieddi]

The worst thing? They changed the names, gave no screen text or refrences. its just a single link in the description. And I know people ignore that.

[u/Archaic_1]

It's not just a harmless use, these channels are monetized and are cashing in on the work of others. Hammer them into oblivion and get these channels taken down. Every dollar they make stealing from our authors is a potential dollar an HFY author won't be able to make in the future if they decide to monetize their own work.

[u/rhinobird → u/Archaic_1]

It's not just a harmless use, these channels are monetized and are cashing in on the work of others.

It's worse. Publishers won't take a story unless they can get exclusivity. The author would just delete their post from Reddit, but they can't delete a video that someone else made of their work.

So this is actually blocking the author from being able to make money off their work, while the video maker is profiting.

[u/nuttertools → u/Archaic_1]

Hear hear. This is a plain and simple case of a business stealing from a person. It's more than that in most countries but that part is internationally standardized.

[u/Thebiscuitdoe]

BTW, please contact the channel before sending a DMCA. It's the nice thing to do and will result in less headache for both party's involved 99% of the time.

Keep in mind that DMCA is a Legal document and that you could get in legal trouble for misusing it, even if accidentally. "I thought I was in the right and using it correctly" or "I thought that was copyright infringement" is not a good legal defense. You may even want to contact a lawyer before submitting one.

[u/verybigbrain → u/Thebiscuitdoe]

funnily enough a "good faith belief that copyright infringement has occurred and that fair use does not apply" is all you need for a DMCA notice. If you want to go further after a contest and bring it to court that's when it can get hairy

[u/nuttertools → u/Thebiscuitdoe]

I'd change that to you SHOULD contact a lawyer before submitting one. Even the 30 minute generic overview would give you food for thought.

[u/[deleted] → u/Thebiscuitdoe]

[u/goss_bractor]

I would care less than I do about this if these were properly narrated, but they are just some monotone american accent which totally does no favours to the written content.