Regarding Rules 3/7, and turncoat authors who burned their work

[magic9mushroom]

Certain porn authors burn their freely-released work as part of an attempt to become a professional writer, sometimes in an attempt to start selling that work and other times due to wanting a public image "untainted" by porn. We have quite a few threads here that have had their story posts removed as part of this practice.

Is it against the rules to link to archived versions* of this work? (Asking because some people might consider this piracy.)

Furthermore, if it is permissible, does posting a link to an archived intact version of a story count as a "significant contribution" to dead threads that have had their story posts burned? Certainly, it would greatly increase the amount of story accessible in said threads from "zero". (Yes, I want to piss on some of these people's "QQ graves" by making the threads they've disembowelled contain access to their work again.**)

*Snapshots of free off-QQ sites, as QQ's NSFW section is not crawlable.

**NB: I get that you don't really like people posting stories that they didn't write without permission; I'd be sticking to links.

 

[ThedudeManBro]

Now that you talk about it I think I still have a handful of Pef's Worm porn before he nuked it... Huh.

 

[tacobowl8]

So, to answer your question:

Posting an archive or simply just purged stories that another author did is indeed against the rules. Partly for Rule 3, because that is the author's works, and regardless of if they purged them, they are still theirs, so that would be a mild plagiarism/linking to pirated material. It could also be smacked under Rule 1, as that is definitely being a dick.

Following that, if you did this to try to reopen a thread, that would also tack on a Rule 7 violation.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Actually, I forgot about this, but QQ actually has an explicit immunity in the case of works that have been published on QQ:

You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service.

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That's from QQ's TOS; anyone who published a work on QQ can't revoke QQ's licence to display that work.

I also forgot that mods do actually have version control, so you can actually still read all those fics on here and could let us peons read them again too by revoking the wiping edits and post deletions - with legal immunity, as noted.

 

[Dissimilate]

That's from QQ's TOS; anyone who published a work on QQ can't revoke QQ's licence to display that work.

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This is NOT legal advice, but that line from the TOS would cover only the owner of the QQ website. Not Mods, not other story writers and certainly not random story readers. If it went to court under the grounds of theft and plagiarism, the Judge would almost certainly ask if it was the owner themselves who reposted a deleted story and why exactly they thought they needed to repost it. If it was not, the next question would be why the owner allowed the reposted stolen story to stay public.

 

[randomlightning]

I feel like, based on the original post and thread title, that this whole thing is coming from a place of vitriol and a weird parasocial attachment to authors. If an author decides to delete their fanfiction, that is their business, not their reader's. I don't really see a point in trying to rules lawyer, and just actual lawyer, your way into being able to post writings that an author doesn't want posted.

I promise, there is plenty of new smut for you to read.

 

[Vanbers]

I feel like, based on the original post and thread title, that this whole thing is coming from a place of vitriol and a weird parasocial attachment to authors. If an author decides to delete their fanfiction, that is their business, not their reader's. I don't really see a point in trying to rules lawyer, and just actual lawyer, your way into being able to post writings that an author doesn't want posted.

I promise, there is plenty of new smut for you to read.

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I think it's more from a place of "Hold on, what the hell? Where'd that story I really like go?" rather than some parasocial connection to the author.

Which, I mean, I definitely get. That exact thing has happened to me enough, where I go back to read something I remember liking and every chapter is nothing but a ".", and it annoys me enough to start mentally sorting that username/profile pic into my 'kind of a dickhead' mental category.

 

[CriticalFailure]

I feel like, based on the original post and thread title, that this whole thing is coming from a place of vitriol and a weird parasocial attachment to authors. If an author decides to delete their fanfiction, that is their business, not their reader's. I don't really see a point in trying to rules lawyer, and just actual lawyer, your way into being able to post writings that an author doesn't want posted.

I promise, there is plenty of new smut for you to read.

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I think it's more from a place of "Hold on, what the hell? Where'd that story I really like go?" rather than some parasocial connection to the author.

Which, I mean, I definitely get. That exact thing has happened to me enough, where I go back to read something I remember liking and every chapter is nothing but a ".", and it annoys me enough to start mentally sorting that username/profile pic into my 'kind of a dickhead' mental category.

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It is more a case of "hey, I liked reading that thing. Why did it disappear?"

And in a similar vein to how some old games or media can only be reasonably be acquired by piracy sometimes (because it is not sold anymore, etc.), I personally do not see a problem about someone reposting something that was lost for everyone else's convenience, as long as they indicate they are just reposting something gone. Especially since they posted it on the public internet.
Like that "Shield Hero's bitch" (paraphrasing) fanfic I read a few months ago that was explicitly a repost because the original author deleted it for some goddamned reason.

But if THAT is apparently illegal here somehow, but I still think it should be fine for someone to have storage somewhere off-site (whether as pdfs/txts, or posted on AO3, etc.), and be perfectly fine to link to it upon request, etc.
(again, if it was first posted for free on the internet anyway)


Mods, can you give clarification on this? On-site restoration of deleted/lost works is apparently not allowed. But what about offsite linking?

 

[randomlightning]

I think it's more from a place of "Hold on, what the hell? Where'd that story I really like go?" rather than some parasocial connection to the author

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Except the title of this thread calls them "Turncoats," as if they betrayed us somehow, when that's not at all the case.
Not to mention the more blatantly vitriolic reasoning of:

Yes, I want to piss on some of these people's "QQ graves" by making the threads they've disembowelled contain access to their work again

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Which definitely reads as taking it personally, as if they felt entitled to the works of the author, somehow.

But I digress, as the crux of the question is probably answered by looking at this from a Rule 1 perspective: The author removed this work for a reason, and clearly doesn't want it visible anymore. Would it be a dick move to repost it, or link to an archive against their wishes?

The answer, by the way, is yes. It almost certainly would.

 

[doll]

(again, if it was first posted for free on the internet anyway)

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That's not how it works. For the same reason that QQ doesn't host images directly, Rule 3 is supposed to prevent the site owners from having to deal with emails about takedown requests and the like in the first place. If you post the story directly to the site, QQ is hosting it itself and if the author wants it taken down they're going to email the owner.

A direct comparison would be to unauthorized translations of other's works, which is similarly not allowed.

 

[LurkingInTheDeceit]

For the same reason that QQ doesn't host images directly,

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I'm almost certain we do host images directly, though I don't think that's always been the case. My SOP for posting images is to upload it to Discord, copy and paste that link into QQ, then delete it from Discord. I presume we keep it in-house because of the chronic unreliability of external hosts, as seen by some early threads which are littered with broken images.

 

[AztecCroc]

I'm almost certain we do host images directly, though I don't think that's always been the case. My SOP for posting images is to upload it to Discord, copy and paste that link into QQ, then delete it from Discord. I presume we keep it in-house because of the chronic unreliability of external hosts, as seen by some early threads which are littered with broken images.

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We do not. When an image is embedded on a Xenforo site it is cached to reduce the amount of calls to the original host site to load it. Then after a configurable amount of time of the image not being needed or after a certain amount of time passes the image will be purged from the cache and Xenforo will go get it from the source again if someone then tries to load it. QQ just sets these settings to forever and keeps everything in the cache forever in order to not be affected by the outside issues with image hosting sites. The image file never actually exists on QQ's servers, same as how images cached by your browser aren't actually on your computer/phone.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Except the title of this thread calls them "Turncoats," as if they betrayed us somehow, when that's not at all the case.
Not to mention the more blatantly vitriolic reasoning of:


Which definitely reads as taking it personally, as if they felt entitled to the works of the author, somehow.

But I digress, as the crux of the question is probably answered by looking at this from a Rule 1 perspective: The author removed this work for a reason, and clearly doesn't want it visible anymore. Would it be a dick move to repost it, or link to an archive against their wishes?

The answer, by the way, is yes. It almost certainly would.

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So, you've got a couple of things right and a few things wrong; my read is that you're casting around basically blindly for my motive, because the paradigm I'm working from is unknown to you*. Reasonable! It's rarely fully and explicitly held nowadays, even in places like this forum, and I didn't exactly explain it. It wasn't especially necessary for me to explain it to make my request, which is why I didn't, but I suppose under these circumstances I should in order to clear up the confusion.

I hold to the old view, the view before people got used to copyright, of myth as the common property of humanity and co-operative mythopoeia as a valuable pursuit. This site is a repository of stories, most of them stories created by modifying and often combining other stories - or, as moderns unused to old-school mythopoeia call it, fanfiction and crossovers. This is, though most here don't realise it, a very old tradition, older than writing; most myths and stories that go back into oral tradition have been changed and combined many times.

In this paradigm, you have the right to tell new stories - including those based on existing stories, despite the claims of modern copyright holders - and you have the right for your contribution to the mythic commons to be recognised (i.e. plagiarism, passing someone else's work off as yours, is bad). What you do not have is the right to undo your contributions, because others have the right to retell and to innovate on your story. To erase a story from the commons is theft.

So yes, I do consider authors who burn their QQ work to be traitors to the cause. Within the mythopoeic paradigm, they joined and contributed to a communal repository of myth, and then they used their access to burn part of that repository for their own gain. From this point of view, they are the ones who have committed a breach of not just etiquette but ethics; they have made QQ less complete than it was. This is not a question of me taking it personally or of feeling personally entitled - indeed, all the stories I was asking permission to link to are stories that I, personally, can still access (I can only link to stories if I already know a URL that contains them; I am not a non-deterministic Turing machine). There is certainly antipathy, but only the normal sort one has for people who have chosen to do evil; wouldn't you feel antipathy toward someone who stole from a stranger? And I certainly feel that the rest of the public is entitled to retain those parts of the commons, which is why I would appreciate the opportunity to return them in an accessible fashion.

*I'm reminded of this video, about a similar moral point.

The image file never actually exists on QQ's servers, same as how images cached by your browser aren't actually on your computer/phone.

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A "cache" is a local copy of something. QQ's cache of the image literally is a copy of the image stored in QQ's servers, and images cached by your browser are on your computer/phone (modern browsers don't tend to have an actual "offline mode", but cached images are definitely still stored locally and can be retrieved without Internet access - there's long been a nightmare scenario of "some chucklehead posts CP on a forum, you view the thread before it's wiped, now you're possessing CP because it's in your browser cache and an exhaustive search of your computer will find it").

 

[ALandWithNoName]

Is it against the rules to link to archived versions* of this work? (Asking because some people might consider this piracy.)

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**NB: I get that you don't really like people posting stories that they didn't write without permission; I'd be sticking to links.

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i take it the question is more, are links to delisted stories treated the same as a direct repost?

i also take it the answer is, no reposting or linking without proper permission.

did i get it?

 

[randomlightning]

So, you've got a couple of things right and a few things wrong; my read is that you're casting around basically blindly for my motive, because the paradigm I'm working from is unknown to you*. Reasonable! It's rarely fully and explicitly held nowadays, even in places like this forum, and I didn't exactly explain it. It wasn't especially necessary for me to explain it to make my request, which is why I didn't, but I suppose under these circumstances I should in order to clear up the confusion.

I hold to the old view, the view before people got used to copyright, of myth as the common property of humanity and co-operative mythopoeia as a valuable pursuit. This site is a repository of stories, most of them stories created by modifying and often combining other stories - or, as moderns unused to old-school mythopoeia call it, fanfiction and crossovers. This is, though most here don't realise it, a very old tradition, older than writing; most myths and stories that go back into oral tradition have been changed and combined many times.

In this paradigm, you have the right to tell new stories - including those based on existing stories, despite the claims of modern copyright holders - and you have the right for your contribution to the mythic commons to be recognised (i.e. plagiarism, passing someone else's work off as yours, is bad). What you do not have is the right to undo your contributions, because others have the right to retell and to innovate on your story. To erase a story from the commons is theft.

So yes, I do consider authors who burn their QQ work to be traitors to the cause. Within the mythopoeic paradigm, they joined and contributed to a communal repository of myth, and then they used their access to burn part of that repository for their own gain. From this point of view, they are the ones who have committed a breach of not just etiquette but ethics; they have made QQ less complete than it was. This is not a question of me taking it personally or of feeling personally entitled - indeed, all the stories I was asking permission to link to are stories that I, personally, can still access (I can only link to stories if I already know a URL that contains them; I am not a non-deterministic Turing machine). There is certainly antipathy, but only the normal sort one has for people who have chosen to do evil; wouldn't you feel antipathy toward someone who stole from a stranger? And I certainly feel that the rest of the public is entitled to retain those parts of the commons, which is why I would appreciate the opportunity to return them in an accessible fashion.

*I'm reminded of this video, about a similar moral point.

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…alright dude, this is some word salad nonsense, you're mad that someone deleted smut you liked. Nevertheless, I will do my best to interpret this absurdity.

I'm gonna try and put this as simply as possible. When I write my kinky smut, or even my fun Star Trek fanfiction, I am not contributing to some "mythic commons". I am writing silly stories for fun, and sharing them because I feel like it. I post them here, not because this is some vaunted commons of narrative innovation, but because this is a forum where NSFW stuff is welcome, and I enjoy questing.

And I do have the right to delete any of my fics, or all of them. I could do it right now, and the moderators and administrators would not stop me, because I am allowed to do that.

And if I did that, I would not become a "traitor to your cause". I am not fighting for some made up cause. And it would not be an "evil" if I deleted my stories. Hell, I've read my earliest works, it might be a good deed to delete some of that stuff. But in reality, it would simply be…an action. One I could take with a few clicks.

Look, I don't know how else to put this, but it truly isn't that serious. It's smutty fanfiction, not a common myth being built.

 

[Drak4806]

I feel like i have ask since you felt the need to make a thread about this did someone recently delete all their shit? It's always really fucking annoying when an author deletes all their shit so id like to know if an author I've read in their past got rid of their stuff before I go looking for it to reread.

 

[Wild Transient]

…alright dude, this is some word salad nonsense, you're mad that someone deleted smut you liked. Nevertheless, I will do my best to interpret this absurdity.

I'm gonna try and put this as simply as possible. When I write my kinky smut, or even my fun Star Trek fanfiction, I am not contributing to some "mythic commons". I am writing silly stories for fun, and sharing them because I feel like it. I post them here, not because this is some vaunted commons of narrative innovation, but because this is a forum where NSFW stuff is welcome, and I enjoy questing.

And I do have the right to delete any of my fics, or all of them. I could do it right now, and the moderators and administrators would not stop me, because I am allowed to do that.

And if I did that, I would not become a "traitor to your cause". I am not fighting for some made up cause. And it would not be an "evil" if I deleted my stories. Hell, I've read my earliest works, it might be a good deed to delete some of that stuff. But in reality, it would simply be…an action. One I could take with a few clicks.

Look, I don't know how else to put this, but it truly isn't that serious. It's smutty fanfiction, not a common myth being built.

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I hard agree with this. I mean I get it being annoyed when a fic I like suddenly is deleted by the author but ultimately it's their prerogative to do so.

Some time back there was this neat Code Geass/Harry Potter crossover fic on FFN with Lelouch being reincarnated in the HP world as Sirius Black's out of wedlock son.

Then suddenly the author deleted it. On the guys profile bio he stated he was sorry that he deleted it but explained that he no longer felt he could continue it due to religious reasons.

Was I dissapointed and annoyed? Hell yeah I was but I wasn't going to contact and badger the guy about it.

 

[flyingfrogs]

It sucks when authors delete their stuff and I wish they'd only do it when absolutely necessary, but I don't think it would be reasonable to forcibly prevent them. Some deleters might be worried about their smut being connected to other parts of their lives; is it really decent to facilitate that against their wishes? And setting aside the moral angle, I think a proactive "no deletions ever" policy would ultimately reduce the number of smut writers, since they'd be saying, "I am okay with this existing semi-publicly forever and ever no matter what"; I doubt many people are interested in locking themselves in in that way, however unlikely they are to become authors or politicians.

 

[ZurigaSungama]

I hold to the old view, the view before people got used to copyright

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This is, though most here don't realise it, a very old tradition, older than writing;

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and you have the right for your contribution to the mythic commons to be recognised (i.e. plagiarism, passing someone else's work off as yours, is bad).

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I call bullshit. In the old days, the real old days like you're talking about, nobody gave half a shit to keep track of who came up with a story, or a song, or a joke, or what the fuck ever.

 

[chinlamp]

I can understand both sides, but at the same time we see this problem with streaming services and series they make that have no hard copies. They can, and have, just... deleted the existence of movies and shows, ones people have liked, and unless someone went to the steps of downloading it through capturing the stream, it's gone, for good. It's the same as what's happening here in this mentioned case.

People are up in arms against the streaming services doing that, so seeing people being on the side of the authors here is weird lol.

That said, I guess if you have links like that, you need to find the equivalent of a fanfiction pirating site to share them on, QQ ain't that.

 

[Vanbers]

That said, I guess if you have links like that, you need to find the equivalent of a fanfiction pirating site to share them on, QQ ain't that.

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Eh.

When it comes to discontinued, deleted, and abandoned stories, ones that you can't find anywhere, I feel like it classifies more as 'abandonware' than piracy. So it shouldn't really count as that.

Now, I don't think you should be allowed to repost it to the site, because that's still plagiarism if you don't have the original author's permission. But also I don't think it's wrong, or should even be against the rules, to like, be able to link to an off-site thing like googledocs where you can find the story.

Basically, if you can't get your hands on the story through any reasonable means, then frankly people sharing it via links should be a-okay.

 

[chinlamp]

Eh.

When it comes to discontinued, deleted, and abandoned stories, ones that you can't find anywhere, I feel like it classifies more as 'abandonware' than piracy. So it shouldn't really count as that.

Now, I don't think you should be allowed to repost it to the site, because that's still plagiarism if you don't have the original author's permission. But also I don't think it's wrong, or should even be against the rules, to like, be able to link to an off-site thing like googledocs where you can find the story.

Basically, if you can't get your hands on the story through any reasonable means, then frankly people sharing it via links should be a-okay.

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Ah, but you see, according to streaming services/gaming companies/software companies, even if it's abandonware, it's still piracy. I'm just going with how it's all been executed in the past in other areas, even if things aren't a 1 to 1 considering fanfictions already murky legal status across the world. And also even though I think that mindset is complete bullshit lol.

 

[D72]

Aside from Piracy, I think "take down your fanfic" is less a request from agents and more a "do it now" command.

 

[randomlightning]

I can understand both sides, but at the same time we see this problem with streaming services and series they make that have no hard copies. They can, and have, just... deleted the existence of movies and shows, ones people have liked, and unless someone went to the steps of downloading it through capturing the stream, it's gone, for good. It's the same as what's happening here in this mentioned case.

People are up in arms against the streaming services doing that, so seeing people being on the side of the authors here is weird lol

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I think the crucial difference here is that it's usually the companies behind the streaming services removing them, not any of the actual creatives responsible for creating the show or movie. Often you'll even see the creators of the show or movie upset about its deletion.

But that's not quite what we're talking about here. In this case, the author themselves has removed it. The very person who created it. I'm sure you can understand how that might be perceived differently.

 

[magic9mushroom]

you're mad that someone deleted smut you liked. Nevertheless, I will do my best to interpret this absurdity.

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Okay, I think this dialogue has run its course. I tried my best to convey where I'm coming from, and you're still suffering from misinterpretation and blank incomprehension. Not your fault - if anything, it's mine, for not being able to explain better - but I don't see what else there is to do here.

I feel like i have ask since you felt the need to make a thread about this did someone recently delete all their shit? It's always really fucking annoying when an author deletes all their shit so id like to know if an author I've read in their past got rid of their stuff before I go looking for it to reread.

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The burnt thread that prompted this happened a while back (though also quite a while after the thread died), but I recently remembered both that this had happened and that I do know where to read an archived copy (which I won't link, because, uh, I just got ordered not to ).

Some deleters might be worried about their smut being connected to other parts of their lives; is it really decent to facilitate that against their wishes?

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You may notice that Bad Hair Day is still up, despite a lawyer in my country (a.k.a. Ford Prefect of SV fame) telling me it's CP and my identity being in danger of, and then actually, being publicised. (I mean, technically I took it down on Yandere^2 Forum, but that was in my capacity as a moderator there in hopes of forestalling the forum getting nuked from orbit - a very real concern, given it eventually was anyway - rather than anything personal, and in any case I left a link to the AO3 copy for anyone to follow.)

So I have actually put my freedom where my mouth is when I say:

In the old days, the real old days like you're talking about, nobody gave half a shit to keep track of who came up with a story, or a song, or a joke, or what the fuck ever.

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I mean, fair cop, but AIUI that's mostly because of how hard it is to keep diffs without writing.

Aside from Piracy, I think "take down your fanfic" is less a request from agents and more a "do it now" command.

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They can't legally force a writer to do that. They can refuse to publish the writer's work, but that's all. The writer still has a choice.

"Turns out that doing the right thing can be hard and doesn't always reward you directly with candy and blowjobs." (Quote source, because I'm no plagiarist.) See above for proof that I am not just armchair-generalling here.

 

[D72]

Oh, apologies, I absolutely did not mean to argue that from a legal standpoint, I just think when your agent says "Put the fanfic in the acid bath" most authors simply comply to keep the road smooth.

I've lost favorite fanfics that way. Sometimes the authors even apologize!

 

[CriticalFailure]

I really just want to know if linking to outside sources of lost/deleted stuff is fine.

Since it seems reposting here is not, but mod clarification yet on other websites.

 

[D72]

I can't speak for QQ, but generally what I've found is if you have a favorite fic and ask for the chapters, people will generally shoot that off to you in an email.

If you try to republish it yourself, well, you're not going to make friends. It's treated like the basest form of plagiarism, even if you put "I DO NOT OWN THIS" in the description.

This is just based off of being a fairly quiet member of various fanfiction communities. I think I've posted more here than even on caer azkaban.

 

[flyingfrogs]

You may notice that Bad Hair Day is still up, despite a lawyer in my country (a.k.a. Ford Prefect of SV fame) telling me it's CP and my identity being in danger of, and then actually, being publicised. (I mean, technically I took it down on Yandere^2 Forum, but that was in my capacity as a moderator there in hopes of forestalling the forum getting nuked from orbit - a very real concern, given it eventually was anyway - rather than anything personal, and in any case I left a link to the AO3 copy for anyone to follow.)

So I have actually put my freedom where my mouth is when I say:

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I'm not accusing you of failing to live up to your own standard; I just think your standard (a) would be found unreasonable by prospective writers and therefore abort more art than it saved, and (b) would lead to actual harm to actual people, which I care about more than being able to look at smut (despite caring a reasonable amount about looking at smut and being frustrated when something I like goes missing, which has happened more than once). That you, yourself, live by it is admirable and shows it to be achievable but doesn't mean it's worth it.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Oh, apologies, I absolutely did not mean to argue that from a legal standpoint, I just think when your agent says "Put the fanfic in the acid bath" most authors simply comply to keep the road smooth.

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It appears we agree on the factual question of why they do it.

I'm not accusing you of failing to live up to your own standard;

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Yeah, I get that, but I also get that somebody (not necessarily you) would assuredly have accused me, had I omitted it, of holding a convenient position that only causes problems for other people, and it seemed prudent to head that drama off at the pass.

And I'd like to clarify that I'm not mad at everyone who disagrees with me on burning work being a bad thing to do; my despite (which is real, and which I deliberately showed in the OP because I was trying to be honest about what I was asking and why) is reserved for those who actually do it, which thankfully is very few people (though those people tend, unfortunately, to be some of the best authors in the amateur-fiction community).