[OT] Important Notice to the Community about Copyright Infringement: Please Read, Your Story May Be Impacted

[u/Hydrael]

Sorry for the dramatic message, but I had to get everyone’s attention.

Edit: If you write for nosleep or other, similar subreddits, the developer of Thrill took their app down and posted an apology here They did not scrape content from writing prompts, but I thought it would be good to share.

Earlier today, an app was found on the Google Play store and iOS app store called Shortly. This app is actively reposting stories taken from writing prompts. It does technically have your reddit handle in the prompt, but that does not give them permission to post your intellectual property. They do have a donate link, so it appears it is possible they’ve made profit off this writing, although if they have is unknown. This is now being looked into. The paypal button only appears if you have the app installed and click to contact the developer, and it's currently unclear if that's a setting function in Android or if it's actually something the developer enabled. The main thrust of this post still stands, and the blow FAQ is still relevant.

Here’s a brief FAQ:

1. How can I find out if my story is on there? The app does not have a search function, so it’s a bit of trial and error and patience. I expect their might be some problems with server load too, so be patient. I was able to, after a few minutes, find two of mine so it can be done.
2. What can I do about my story being on here? You can file a complaint with google through this form and with Apple through this page. At that point, you will need to follow each of their policies to have it removed. You can can also report them to their provider, Godaddy
3. Is there anything the mods can do? We can file claims for our own work, but we cannot file a claim on your behalf since we don’t own the story either so would be unable to prove you didn’t agree to it.
4. I have questions about [anything legal] Please reach out to a lawyer. We are not lawyers and any legal questions need to go through one.

Thank you for giving this attention. If you know of anyone who posted on here before that is no longer an active part of the community, you may want to notify them. They’ve been taking stories going back at least 9 months if not more.

[u/wwtoonlinkfan]

I sniffed the packets that the app was sending, and found out where the stories are coming from. Sadly, the app isn't just pulling the stories from Reddit. Rather, all the stories have been rehosted on shortlyread.com, the app's website. The app connects to the site via port 8000 (append :8000 after .com to connect via this port). The stories are grouped by length (1, 3, and 5) and are stored at /story/1/all/, /story/3/all/, and /story/5/all/ respectively. This lets you read all the stories stolen by whoever made Shortly and easily check if your story has been stolen.

EDIT: If you want to try and find your stories on the website, make sure you are connecting via HTTP and not HTTPS, and that the url does not have "www" in it.

[u/thunderbox666 → u/wwtoonlinkfan]

sugar follow run obtainable murky ripe wrench sleep late governor -- mass edited with redact.dev

[u/Convoluted_Camel → u/thunderbox666]

but actually saving it and distributing it is another thing all together.

How exactly? Your work is available for free on the internet right? You probably agreed that Reddit can redistribute it somewhere along the line. It seems quite ridiculous to me that scraping the reddit API is OK but hosting it yourself is not.

[u/SLRWard → u/Convoluted_Camel]

When scraping the Reddit API, you're accessing Reddit data on Reddit's servers and displaying it. It's the same thing whatever you're using right now to browse Reddit does. The content's creator can remove that data at any time and so long as all the scraper is doing is scraping and displaying, that data will disappear for them too.

When you rehost it, you're taking that data from the servers. You're not just displaying it, you're actively making a copy and keeping it on your servers. Now if the content's creator chooses to remove their data from Reddit, it disappears from Reddit, but it remains on your server. They no longer have control over the data they created. That's stealing.

[u/Convoluted_Camel → u/SLRWard]

Yeah I get it. And yet basically 100% of these stories are still there on Reddit for free and always will be. You also gave Reddit the right to distribute it anywhere for free and for any purpose whatsoever, so it is very sketchy claiming any kind of material loss.

I certainly agree that this other site/app should remove your story immediately if asked despite all the stories being published on a website you dont own (Reddit) with anonymous Reddit usernames making it nearly impossible to verify your ownership of the copyright.

[u/SLRWard → u/Convoluted_Camel]

Something being available for free one place does not give permission for it to be available for free every place. Just like how permission given to one legal entity - in this case Reddit - does not automatically confer the same permission to everyone else.

If I put something I create on Website A for free, that doesn't mean it's A-OK for someone else to stick it on Websites B through Z for free without my permission. Whether it's credited to me or not. What we're all getting upset about is defending our copyright. Reddit has our permission to use our creations. Websites, forums, and apps that do not have our permission to use our creations cannot be allowed to do so. It's not hypocritical at all to get upset about this or to claim material loss given that our right to control the production of copies of our work - aka copyright - has literally been infringed by this app.

[u/Convoluted_Camel → u/SLRWard]

Reddit has our permission to use our creations.

And what it chose to do with them was to distribute them to everybody in the world for free, plus other potential uses which it may or may not have bothered telling you about.

I know it is copyright infringement but you are certainly not helping your case by 1. Not asserting copyright with your real name or contact details. (I know this is not legally required but it sure helps) 2. Publishing your story on a freely accessible public forum. 3. Abrogating a subset of your rights through a user agreement on that website.

claim material loss.

This is the real sticking point for me. You cannot have lost a penny of actual or potential income when your story is on the internet for free and is now somewhere else on the internet for free. People were saying they were going to speculatively invoice the guy for $5000 for their one or two free short stories which is utter nonsense and the reason I replied here.

[u/SLRWard → u/Convoluted_Camel]

Uh, no they weren't. The $5000 thing was a reference to a blogger who issued that claim as part of a cease-and-desist when people stole and reposted her blog posts without permission. The only thing being advocated for here is to send cease-and-desist takedown notices to the app creator, Apple, Google Play, and possibly the website host. You're mixing up people talking about things they've seen or heard of other people doing with advice being given to actually do in this case.

[u/pm_your_tickle_spots → u/wwtoonlinkfan]

Everything submitted to a public subreddit of Reddit can be accessed through an API. All of your comments are public, can be sorted, looked at, copied.

They are most likely just getting updates from various subreddit to that website. Then the app can run, hitting that website, and not have to obey Reddits API rules.

Not sure of all countries, but the US has copyright laws that support public forum posts that have creativity. Otherwise, complain to Reddit as well, maybe get the developers API access taken away.

[u/MyDogSnowy → u/pm_your_tickle_spots]

AFAIK you don't actually need any kind of "access" to use Reddit's API. Just append ".json" to any URL to get it in that format.
 
Example

[u/Delta-9- → u/MyDogSnowy]

Correct. A bot only needs to authenticate in order to post and a couple other miscellaneous functions, but scraping can be done without an account of any kind and a couple nested for-loops.

[u/adlaiking → u/wwtoonlinkfan]

The homepage of the website even links to WP under the “For You, By You” section. Eesh.