So there's a huge problem currently facing the fan-fiction community. These past few weeks a lot of fanfic writers of popular Dramoine story's have had their stories bookbinded and illegally sold on Etsy. And because of this many of them are pulling their stories from Ao3, where all of this is currently taking place, and their stories futures are undetermined.
I have no clue whether or not they'll come back or are forever gone. Many of their fans have gone on to download them for safekeeping as the situation is on going and no one's sure how it's going to end.
Personally speaking as a fanfic writer whose been doing this since high school, some of you may remember my old primary account before I deleted it and switched over to this one, I am personally appalled and can't believe what's going on. Years of these writers lives have gone down the drain because of greedy individuals who only saw a new way to make easy money, putting these stories that aren't their own on their shops and putting them for absurd prices.
Now, I'm just a cog in the machine. Yes, my stories so far have been doing well but I'm no one popular or important enough to really have an impact. I've never even gotten to 100k reads, been apart of any of the programs Wattpad has, or anything beyond what I'm currently doing. I put for all my stories that although these stories are my own I DO NOT give permission for anyone to copy them, edit them, sell them, or anything without my permission.
This is my proof and I've never once changed this setting. If there was a timestamp of this I would show it as well. I think I'm going to start putting disclaimers at the beginning of chapters, for those in the past I'll add them on as well, and I can only hope that other fanfic writers start doing this as well to minimize the risk of any of our stories getting stolen.
Currently, Wattpad doesn't seem to be a target but that just might be because Wattpad isn't viewed as highly as Ao3 or because it's more of a monopoly, I don't know. But no matter the reason it doesn't mean that Wattpad is safe or is going to stay safe.
Now am I going to stop updating my stories?
Overall, no. I'm currently debating on what's the best option moving forward. Right now a lot of the Etsy sellers and shops that are doing this have been taken down but there's apparently already a new website that is illegally hosting/selling fanfics as well. From what it looks like they're also targeting Dramoine fanfics to sell and not much more than that.
There is hope as these writers and their fans are hard at work at trying to get these Etsy sellers, shops, and this new website taken down but this is still a very new situation so we'll have to see. For now I'll just leave things as a psa to this situation for everyone on Wattpad to be careful and I hope I, and all the other fanfic writers out, can continue writing in peace for however long we can.