What can I do about theft of stories from here

[justforfun]

Has anyone had any success in fighting the theft of stories?  A member here pointed out that my story, "The Trainer"

 is being ripped off and republished for profit by a website "AB Discovery"

https://abdiscovery.com.au/the-trainer-an-abdl-short-story/, who sells it both on the website as well as on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Trainer-ABDL-Femdom-story-ebook/dp/B0CM7853N8

The Trainer: An ABDL/Femdom story Kindle Edition

by Terry Masters (Author), Rosalie Bent (Editor), Michael Bent (Editor) Format: Kindle Edition

 

Do I have any recourse other than complaining and public shaming?

[Little Sam]

You can send them a DMCA take down notice. Whether they'll do anything about it or not, I've no idea.

[Elfy]

Unfortunately AB Discovery have a history of stealing the work of others to profit for themselves/themself. I would raise a fuss about it wherever you can, they already have a lot of bad blood in the ABDL community. You can also demand they take it down by contacting them and threatening legal action.

With Amazon I know you can make a copyright claim and they will remove stories if you can prove they're stolen. Ie. you can link them a thread where you posted it before they published it or something. I had a person steal a bunch of my Patreon content to sell on Amazon and I had to go through that process to get them removed myself.

[justforfun]

Thanks.  I'll at least pursue the amazon part; I don't know where they get the bulk of their money, but I'm hoping it's the easiest, anyway... 

[ValentinesStuff]

1 hour ago, justforfun said:

Thanks.  I'll at least pursue the amazon part; I don't know where they get the bulk of their money, but I'm hoping it's the easiest, anyway... 

Please do, the Bent's have published a number of stories on Amazon that I believe are stolen. Amazon only allows the copyright holder to file a complaint though. 

[~Brian~]

2 hours ago, ValentinesStuff said:

Please do, the Bent's have published a number of stories on Amazon that I believe are stolen. Amazon only allows the copyright holder to file a complaint though. 

Oh BOY....Have they!!  They have done that - I would follow @Elfy's advice:  There was a discussion about that in the past, and their actions (stealing stories) has been discussed:  I don't like when people STEAL stories and try to call them their own, when another has written the content. 

Brian

[Cute_Kitten]

Sorry you're going through this OP. Theft sucks. This isn't the first time I've heard bad things about the Bents- I remember a few years ago there was some kerfuffle involving them being transphobic? Homophobic? I'm not sure. I just remember some dirty laundry of theirs getting aired. It appears thieves can be added to their list too.  I'd second the recommendation to file a DMCA take down on Amazon and anywhere else your stolen property is posted.

[Kita Sparkles]

Hi. 

ABDiscovery is my publisher. I have 10 stories published through them. The Bents have always been fair and treated me right. The story that they are Transphobic is a lie that was started up by someone who used to be popular in the AB community and got in a snit with them over something completely unrelated. 

There have been rumors of unauthorized use of art. NEVER of stories. I can not say what is the case with this story; I CAN sat that the stories were supposed to be coming from a CD of old stories written by someone who died.  But I can not speak to what happened from there. 

I did want to speak however as a character witness of the Bents, who have been unfairly characterized and had reputation assassination done to them through people misunderstanding and spreading stories they did not know the entire truth to. Thing is - you mess with someone's livelihood when you start doing that without having ever spoken to the people themselves.  And by doing that, you mess with the work of all of us who have published there. 

[ValentinesStuff]

@Kita SparklesIt's strange, but one of the oldest stories I remember seeing around the internet is Shelagh - The Mind Mistress. Alas I don't know the authors name. My Retraining is another story I have. Promises, Promises is on Fictionmania written by "Johnathan," he has 3 other AB stories there (I will admit that I am not sure that this is the same story). Diaper Research is another. In the anthology Sissy Baby Stories, Tami - Sissy Baby is originally titled My Wife, My Mommy. Oddly these are all published under the name Terry Masters, along with the Bents. The Surprise: An ABDL/Hypnosis/Sissy Baby book admits the story was written by Mikey of BBW.

 

So no matter what you think of the Bents, it really looks likey are publishing works that don't belong to them. Just because someone has died doesn't make their work public domain.

[Kita Sparkles]

@ValentinesStuff

As I said, I don't know the details about who brought what to them. The insinuation seems to be that Terry Masters is the name that one of those two people goes under now, and that Mikey of BBW died.  If they were worked on by both Mikey and this person (now known as Terry Masters), then he would have the rights to them. 

There have been times, I am sure you remember when we were both on ABDLStoryForum, that someone came along and had taken a story and added a bunch to it, swallowing up the old story with their own, but they had that old story word-for-word. That would be a problem to me. Jenny's Potty Training was such a story. 

@ValentinesStuff
At any rate, as I said, my point is not to present or defend the intricacies of international copyright laws. More to the point, there are two things in view:

1. When you simply say ABDiscovery does this or that, you implicate many authors who have nothing to do with what you are talking about.  Quite a bit like when a certain someone with failing popularity attempted to implicate one of my books here before because she had a snit with ABD, and was roundly told to let it drop. Which she did. 

2. When you say ABDiscovery did something, you might want to make sure THEY did it. They get a book from an author who claims to have written it. It is not the publisher's fault if an author lied.  Neither is it authors' faults if a publisher lies. 

This kind of thing tends to toss us all in a same basket, which isn't fair. 

 

[ValentinesStuff]

10 minutes ago, Kita Sparkles said:

@ValentinesStuff

As I said, I don't know the details about who brought what to them. The insinuation seems to be that Terry Masters is the name that one of those two people goes under now, and that Mikey of BBW died.  If they were worked on by both Mikey and this person (now known as Terry Masters), then he would have the rights to them. 

There have been times, I am sure you remember when we were both on ABDLStoryForum, that someone came along and had taken a story and added a bunch to it, swallowing up the old story with their own, but they had that old story word-for-word. That would be a problem to me. Jenny's Potty Training was such a story. 

@ValentinesStuff
At any rate, as I said, my point is not to present or defend the intricacies of international copyright laws. More to the point, there are two things in view:

1. When you simply say ABDiscovery does this or that, you implicate many authors who have nothing to do with what you are talking about.  Quite a bit like when a certain someone with failing popularity attempted to implicate one of my books here before because she had a snit with ABD, and was roundly told to let it drop. Which she did. 

2. When you say ABDiscovery did something, you might want to make sure THEY did it. They get a book from an author who claims to have written it. It is not the publisher's fault if an author lied.  Neither is it authors' faults if a publisher lies. 

This kind of thing tends to toss us all in a same basket, which isn't fair. 

 

It's SIX different stories I found in just a few minutes of searching, and I did not check them all. Plus the OP.

I'm not accusing you of stealing stories, but I am highly suspicious of theBents. I'm not sure what sort of agreement you or the other authors have ABDiscovery, but in general the publishers are the ones that sued over stolen IP. They then get to sue the "author." 

I would point out that you jumped into the basket, no one threw you there. Funnily enough I would likely have purchased your books, and almost did, if you had self published them instead of involving the Bents.

[spark]

I'll point out nobody should ever take legal advice from an anonymous social media platform, especially from something as complicated as copyright law.  My guess is most of us don't understand even the true basics, even if we think we do.

To the OP: you have to decide just how far you want to pursue this.  I believe the first step would be to contact the publisher with the claim that the material is stolen.  Unless you've already had some direct negative interactions with ABDiscovery (not just hearsay allegations), you should attempt to resolve the issue with the publisher.    It's the one that causes the least amount of stress.

If that doesn't work, then decide if you want to pursue a legal solution.  AFAIK, that will only address the financial loss, and not the emotional loss.   If you posted it on a free forum, I'm not exactly sure how much you gain by pursuing legal action.

[ValentinesStuff]

Barbara's New Baby Girl: An ABDL/Sissy Baby novel. Originally by Baby Bobby is yet another by Terry Masters. @baby bobby is that you?

[justforfun]

On 11/10/2023 at 3:30 PM, Kita Sparkles said:

There have been rumors of unauthorized use of art. NEVER of stories.

Well, I can unequivocally tell you that the story of mine that they are selling is stolen.  I did not give them, or anyone, permission to reprint it.  I'll also note that the Bents are listed as editors on the Amazon listing, not just publishers, so they are a little more culpable than just "someone gave me a story to publish".   They are in the "seriously slimy bad people" bucket, and I would like to find a way to make it very uncomfortable for them to continue to profit from their illegal activities. 

I have sent a note to them and have not heard back.  I have also sent a message to Amazon, although I'm not sure I'm using the right path there.  It's not something I'm dropping.

[DiaperedAllTheTime]

I just found out my Diapers and Divorce series that was started here in March of 2019 was stolen by Terry Masters.  I reached out to AB Discovery who did take the time to answer me back and did offer me free audiobooks.  They claim Terry says he got it from someone on WMM in 2018 which is impossible as I started the story after that.  It was published on Amazon in February this year.  I spent countless hours writing this story and I am beyond disgusted.

[BabySofia]

19 minutes ago, DiaperedAllTheTime said:

I spent countless hours writing this story and I am beyond disgusted.

That is horrible... I hate that people are out there taking advantage of most being unable/unwilling to out themselves to fight for their rights here. It's actually part of why I've made sure to publish on Amazon myself, just so if someone else tries, it'll get blocked. You might look at your timestamps for file creation? 

You could probably prevail in court, especially when a motion for discovery to prove that statement of 'got it from someone' would probably poke that into falsehoods. Sorry you've had this happen!

[DiaperedAllTheTime]

1 hour ago, BabySofia said:

That is horrible... I hate that people are out there taking advantage of most being unable/unwilling to out themselves to fight for their rights here. It's actually part of why I've made sure to publish on Amazon myself, just so if someone else tries, it'll get blocked. You might look at your timestamps for file creation? 

You could probably prevail in court, especially when a motion for discovery to prove that statement of 'got it from someone' would probably poke that into falsehoods. Sorry you've had this happen!

Thank you for the kind words.

[ValentinesStuff]

6 hours ago, DiaperedAllTheTime said:

I just found out my Diapers and Divorce series that was started here in March of 2019 was stolen by Terry Masters.  I reached out to AB Discovery who did take the time to answer me back and did offer me free audiobooks.  They claim Terry says he got it from someone on WMM in 2018 which is impossible as I started the story after that.  It was published on Amazon in February this year.  I spent countless hours writing this story and I am beyond disgusted.

Contact Amazon, file a claim. Only the actual copyright holder can do this. "Terry Masters" and the Bents have stolen and published many stories from around the internet. Until the actual authors do something to stop them, they will keep profiting off of other's hard work!

 

At the bottom of the page the book is on is the link to report the story.

[DiaperedAllTheTime]

3 hours ago, ValentinesStuff said:

Contact Amazon, file a claim. Only the actual copyright holder can do this. "Terry Masters" and the Bents have stolen and published many stories from around the internet. Until the actual authors do something to stop them, they will keep profiting off of other's hard work!

 

At the bottom of the page the book is on is the link to report the story.

That unfortunately is not possible.  I never copyrighted it.  So Masters own it now I guess.

[BabySofia]

11 minutes ago, DiaperedAllTheTime said:

That unfortunately is not possible.  I never copyrighted it.  So Masters own it now I guess.

You do not have to show a burden of having sent it to the Library of Congress or anything. A simple title and your pen name should suffice with a shot of when you published it would suffice in theory. I think even there being a question of legitimacy would make them pull it. I'd try the report it. I agree with Valentine, standing up to these idiots is a sad necessity. 

[DiaperedAllTheTime]

30 minutes ago, BabySofia said:

You do not have to show a burden of having sent it to the Library of Congress or anything. A simple title and your pen name should suffice with a shot of when you published it would suffice in theory. I think even there being a question of legitimacy would make them pull it. I'd try the report it. I agree with Valentine, standing up to these idiots is a sad necessity. 

Thank you so much for your kind advice.

[ValentinesStuff]

4 hours ago, DiaperedAllTheTime said:

That unfortunately is not possible.  I never copyrighted it.  So Masters own it now I guess.

As soon as you wrote it, you copyrighted it. There is no process you have to go through to file for a copyright. 

[zzyzx]

46 minutes ago, ValentinesStuff said:

As soon as you wrote it, you copyrighted it. There is no process you have to go through to file for a copyright. 

Technically, as soon as I post this reply, my reply, under US copyright law, is under copyright, and I "own" the copyright of what I write in this reply.  Its been a while since I've ready Mikey's terms of service, but this would be something dealt with there for what is posted for this board (to permit this board's usage).

[oznl]

6 hours ago, DiaperedAllTheTime said:

That unfortunately is not possible.  I never copyrighted it.  So Masters own it now I guess.

I think not.

Even if this somehow couldn't be resolved at the Amazon level (which would be easiest), the publishing entity in question is Australian and thus subject to the Australian Copyright Act of 1968 (Commonwealth).  As I understand it, there is no requirement for you to "copyright" your original work in order to benefit from copyright under that act.  Copyright is automatically granted to the author of the work.   If you can prove prior publication, you have the copyright under Australian law.  Explicitly asserting copyright in your text is a strategy, not a requirement.

https://www.legislation.gov.au/C1968A00063/latest/text

I believe that changing the author's name is a "false attribution" under the act which is something of an insta-fail.  Here it is in chapter and verse (from the act cited above):

195AD  Acts of false attribution of authorship of a literary, dramatic or musical work

  If the work is a literary, dramatic or musical work, it is an act of false attribution in relation to the author of the work:

 (a) to insert or affix, or to authorise the inserting or affixing of, a person’s name in or on the work, or in or on a reproduction of the work, in such a way as:

 (i) to imply falsely that the person is the author or an author of the work; or

 (ii) to imply falsely that the work is an adaptation of a work of the person; or

 (b) to deal with the work with a person’s name so inserted or affixed, if the attributor knows that the person is not an author of the work or that the work is not an adaptation of a work of the person, as the case may be; or

 (c) to deal with a reproduction of the work, being a reproduction in or on which a person’s name has been so inserted or affixed, if the attributor knows that the person is not an author of the work or that the work is not an adaptation of a work of the person, as the case may be; or

 (d) to perform the work in public, or communicate it to the public, as being a work of which a person is the author or as being an adaptation of a work of a person, if the attributor knows that the person is not an author of the work or that the work is not an adaptation of the work of the person, as the case may be.

That's even BEFORE we get to the question of damages.

This isn't legal advice.  I'm not qualified to give legal advice but I do know a little of the local law and on the face of it, with the facts as you've recounted, the "publisher" and possibly a co-respondent "author" would not have a legal leg to stand on.  Their best option upon receipt of a legal snot-O-gram would be to soil their nappies immediately, appoint their own solicitor and settle with you.

 

[AbyMatt]

Copyright has been automatic since at least the passing of the Berne Convention. You can register your work but it's not necessary. Send them a DMCA takedown notice.