*cracks knuckles*

Hello lovelies!

Oh boy, I really hate when I have to make posts like this. It's super annoying. But it's obviously needed. And there is a reason why I'm writing this, so let me give you a little story. Today is a slightly wonderful Saturday morning. I had plans to answer all the messages on my line app from my rps before working on adding people in, fixing the story pages, and then possibly playing a game or two on my computer. A simple day really. So while I was replying, I was also multi-tasking and getting AFF pulled up. When it opened I saw I had messages, so I went to my inbox and thought...maybe I don't want to read these yet, it could be people sending me their line id, but I decided to open the first one anyway.

I was greeted by a lengthy message from a friend who was asking for help on how to make a claim for plagiarism on wattpad. What they needed to do, what information to give out and things like that. I was so upset, to know that someone else was plagiarized as well. And not on some other site, but the same FREAKING website that my story Full Moon had been plagiarized on. That's right.....Wattpad. Wattpad is honestly they absolute worst fanfiction site I've ever had the displeasure of being on. The plagiarism is over 9000 guys, I kid you not!

So I got the info from this person of who was plagiarizing. I also learned that the issue has been resolved and the story taken down. I'm very thankful for that. So I decided to do some recon and when I went to see the profile for the user(YES THAT'S RIGHT! THE PERSON HAS AN AFF ACCOUNT HERE!) , it was pretty blah. No dp pick. Recently joined at the end of last year, has only 9kpts. And to top it all off, there are no stories. Now  normally this isn't a bad thing. Some stories are marked so only members of aff can read, which is okay. Many people simply make an account to read. I got that. But to me, I believe this person only made an account to plagiarize stories and post them on different sites. My reasons are this, 1.) the moment I went to their profile, the first wall post was someone complaining that this person has tried to translate their story without person. 2.) on Wattpad, this person has a list of stories they wrote, and one being a story that was plagiarized here. 

Now could this all be a coincidence? Possibly. But when it comes to plagiarism, I don't believe in coincidences. To me, it's not hard to put in a decription text 'This story belongs to __________ of AFF and  __________ of Wattpad'. Or 'This is a story I found on AFF and it was so amazing I wanted to share it here with you.' Or 'This isn't my story. I'm just sharing it'. Three different and very simple statements to put anywhere in the story description and even the story chapters. Not only does it show that you are saying this work isn't yours, but you're giving credit to the rightful owner. And that's all the matters. The credit. Because in the end, someone worked really hard on that fanfic you're simply copying and posting somewhere. They slaved for hours a day for who knows how many days to make that fic what it is and make it an enjoyable read. It's not fair to the author or the reader, that you're trying to take credit for something you didn't do.

When a person can't be bothered to put in credit for a story, to me they are making the conscious decision to steal someone's work. Now many people can say that you can't steal fanfiction since it's not protected by the copyright law and blah blah blah. Well you know what, you can. Because if you couldn't, there wouldn't be all these wonderful fanfiction sites. There wouldn't be the option to report people for stealing your work if you couldn't protect it. These are still work of fiction, our own ides. What's not protected are the names we use, because yes these are real people. But the ideas, the plots, everything that makes a story amazing, is what is protected and that will always make plagiarism wrong and fanfiction stories protected. We will always have the right to report and get stories deleted.

So before I give you the best tip I can to protect your stories, I just want to first say: Thank you. Thank you to everyone who is a dedicated reader of fanfiction. Thank you to all the people who read both on Aff and Wattpad. Thank you all for taking the time to message us authors and let us know our stories have been plagiarized. Without you, we would never know, would never be able to save our work and take the credit away from these thieves. So thank you for all your hard work. It means a lot to all of us authros.

Now, the number one way to protect you stories is one little button when you're creating a new story. So after you click on the button to make a new story, there are a series of boxes that are listed where you can checkmark if you want this story on draft, if it's rated M, and if it's a oneshot. Well right under those boxes is a link that says "Show More Privacy Options".

Click it.

It'll drop down and show more options, like making it a friends-only story or a subscriber-only story. The second to last box will read "Disallow Text Selection". What this means is this: If that box is checked marked, no one will be able to highlight the text on that page. You know how you can go to a website, highlight the text, copy and past it somewhere? Well this option makes it so that no one can do that. Not even you as the author. This is the best way to make sure you're fanfic is protect. Because honestly, I don't think someone who wants to steal your fic, will take the time to copy word by word your story into the other place. It'll be too time consuming.

This also means that people who are subscribed to you or are your friends can't select the text either, which is a good thing! Because even if you make your stories for only your friends to see, that won't stop someone who wants to plagiarize work. They will ask to you be your friend and sometimes we just accept them and that could give them access to our best and favorite work. So also having this 'disallow text selection' on all of your stories will keep you protected!

So I suggest highly, even if you have 500 stories, to do this for each and everyone, because I don't like when people take my stories. I work really hard on my stories. Sometimes it takes me months to get my stories just right and I don't want someone taking credit for my work.

I hope I could be of help to everyone and anyone that may be facing this same issue. The same issue that I went through and now a friend of mine. To read about her experience, go to yeoniebb42's profile and read her two blogs about it. The last blog actually mentions both the aff and wattpad username of the person who plagiarized, so you can help keep an eye out for anymore stolen work. 

Thanks guys!