Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Help! Help! I'm Being Infringed!

You probably aren't as unique as you think you are, and your ideas have been thought of before. And what if someone saw your work? What if they loved it, and now they are trying to emulate it. Find one author on this site who hasn't tried to emulate their favorite author at some point in their career. Imitation is the first step in learning. So, why grow angry if someone likes your work enough to emulate it? Shouldn't you be flattered?

I could also say there is some grey area if they give you credit. If you're not making money off of something, and so I take that something you did, give you full credit, and continue to not make money off it... well, it's not a great feeling to have your work lifted, but is it really something where you want to call it infringement? If anything, they're getting your work out there and helping spread your name.

That said, there are times where infringement is clearly infringement. Someone lifted your art from deviantart to make their cover without asking permission, or they lifted your exact article and are now toting it as their own. So, what do you do in that situation?

Contact them first

You really need to contact them. Send them a pm and/or post on their wall. You need to make some attempt to reach out to the person. State clearly that you're the creator of that art work, and you'd like them to take it down. Make sure to keep a record of this conversation just in case. 

Now, there are two points I need to make here. First, if you don't care that they took your artwork and you just wanted them to ask first, don't bother. There is little point in being a butthead. You aren't the internet's lesson provider, and it's silly to antagonize someone who acted rudely just to fulfill your own sense of pride. Unless they do something you genuinely want them to take down for whatever reason, avoid acting vindictively. Yes, they were rude to not ask. However, you are not the Batman, and you won't be unleashing justice on the wrong-doers of the internet.

The second part along the same vein is that you shouldn't go into this seeking to punish them. Yes, they did a thing. In school, you're taught copyright infringement is a bad bad thing. You read disclaimers with scary capital letters, you hear teachers telling you you'll get disciplined, receive an automatic F, and maybe even kicked out of school should you violate the infringement rules. That makes it seem like these infringement bastards are barely better than Nazi Kitten Punchers.

However, you're not going to be the one to unleash justice on them. You're not the Punisher either. Let's all just agree you're not a superhero. You're not fighting crime. You're just wanting a piece you put online to be in your control. It should go without saying, but you shouldn't chase after people when the work isn't yours either. You can let the intellectual property owner know, but you shouldn't be trying to pull down copyright infringers when the work they're infringing isn't your own.

So, just ask them to bring it down. Be polite. Be nice. I know it might not be easy for you, but if you come at them tongue blazing or with the desire to humiliate, threaten, or demean them... you're probably not going to get the response you want. You can even exacerbate the issue, resulting in them deliberately putting their foot down, stealing more of your work, or acting vindictive themselves. Because there is a fundamental and harsh truth with all this... while you can eventually put a troll down if you work hard enough, you'll have to put more time and money putting that troll down then they ever spent taking your work or responding to you. That's the very nature of a troll. You've already lost. 

Contact Wattpad

However, even if the guy who stole your work is a genuine wanker, they aren't actually the person hosting your work online. They aren't the one actually violating your copyright. Unless they own the domain, they aren't directly responsible for the content. So who is?

Well, in the case of stuff uploaded on Wattpad, Wattpad is. Wattpad owns the domain name. They control the servers. They pay the bills. The information on their website is ultimately their responsibility. When you claim copyright on something you put up on Wattpad, you're claiming that you have the intellectual rights to it. So, if that turns out not to be true, you're throwing Wattpad under the bus and violating their account policy.

So, if you see something on Wattpad that shouldn't be, you can contact Wattpad. Wattpad will likely take accusations of copyright infringement seriously. They may ask you for some proof first, and if you can prove the work is yours (hopefully through a timestamp of upload), then you can show you have rights to the property in question.

Wattpad will respond by taking the work down, and possibly, limiting the account. At this point, you are no longer involved. Wattpad was asked to take down the copyright violation it was hosting. It responded by doing so. Congratulations. You are no longer being copyright violated.

Once again, don't meet this with the idea of wanting to "punish" the other person. You're not the Batman. You're not Judge Dredd. Any "punishment" will take place between Wattpad and the owner of the account. The owner violated Wattpad's policy, and Wattpad is liable to do anything up to and including the deletion of the account... but that's not on you.

As far as how long you should wait between contacting Wattpad and contacting the person? I'd say 24-48 hours. State clearly in your PM that you will contact Wattpad if the person themselves doesn't remove it (try to be polite) and then give it 24-48 hours. If they haven't responded or complied, contact Wattpad.

Also note that while I speak of this as Wattpad, this same matter consists for any hosting site. If they post your work on the likes of Wordpress, you could try your luck trying to contact Wordpress. Booksie, Scribophile, DeviantArt whatever, they all should have policies around copyrighted content. And if the person is hosting this on their own website, you can always track down who the domain host is and contact one&one or hostgator or whoever keeps the website afloat.

Seek Legal Aid

However, I'd give Wattpad no more than a week to get their crap together. They should respond, and if they haven't, you can send a second email reminder, but in the event that Wattpad doesn't have their crap together and for some reason refuse to remove the copyright violation... that's when things can get taken to the next level.

If you can't afford legal aid, you can work harder to get the hosting sites attention. For example, reaching out to their social media platforms can be harder for them to ignore without eliciting bad press. A comment on their facebook wall or twitter page might get a response. If they are part of the BBB, you can file a BBB complaint, thus forcing their higher ups at corporate to at least look at the case.

However, if all other communication fails, that leaves getting a lawyer. It's going to cost you money. If you're Disney with lawyers literally on your payroll, it's very easy to order cease and desists and make everyone succumb to your copyright strikes. If you're some guy who writes free content on Wattpad, this avenue is almost certainly not worth it.

Even getting the personal information of the person involved will be a difficult process behind the anonymity of the internet. You're also assuming they even live in the same country as you. Trust me, you're not going to convince their government to extradite them to your government so you can do the equivalent of slapping them on the wrist.

I cannot stress enough to you how frivolous this lawsuit would be. Unless you're making a LOT of money off this IP, and they, in turn, are stealing money you could be earning from this IP, it is NOT worth pursuing. A mega-corporation protecting the image of Mickey Mouse can afford to sue a company for making a mouse-like mascot. You... you cannot.

So, unless your book IS making you thousands on the side, or you just happen to be rich and like wasting money, drop all notion of legal recourse. If you get your book published, your million-dollar publisher has the resources to make sure no one infringes on your book. However, as a self-publisher through Wattpad, all you have is the power of asking politely, and when that fails, making a request to Wattpad or whoever else is hosting and hope their desire to be seen as reputable publicly outweighs their capacity to not give a crap.

You have all my sympathies if you are the victim of intellectual property theft, but regrettably, those are the apples. Good Luck and Happy Writing!