Question of Plagarism

[Lord Wraith]

I was recently working on rebooting one of my roleplays, P.R.C.U. when I punched some of the key phrases designed by me into Google. Well upon doing this I stumbled upon a identical copy of the RP on another website (which I will opt not to name/link until receiving advice). The problem is that the RP is GM'd by someone else who never approached me for permission nor even gave me credit and claimed all the work as their own.

I've contacted this person and asked them to stop using my work and that if they really wanted a superhuman school RP it wouldn't be hard to change their RP to an X-Men based one or even just modify the details to make their own universe. They've since argued that because they've been playing in my universe so long and attached their own plot to it that they therefore now have the right to continue and should be left alone. Furthermore I should note that the GM also took one of my player's characters and one of my own as theirs.

I obviously disagree with all of this and while I have contacted the site's Admins, I have heard no reply and I'm assuming my account was reported as it is currently suspended.

So I'm not quite sure where to go from here, obviously I'm still waiting to here from the admins (who should be replying to my email not an account based PM by the way). But what I'm really wondering is, am I in the right to be asking these people to stop or should I be flattered someone took the world I built and continued to RP with it?

 

[Ashi]

You have every right to ask them to stop. It was your creation, your hard work, and they don't have the right to use it without permission no matter how long they've been doing it. Just because they've added their own spin to it doesn't make it theirs. Kind of like when you write a paper, even if you paraphrase someone else's words or don't quote them exactly, you still need to credit them.

 

[SamIO]

Aki's got it. :3

For the record, it appears that the offending roleplay has been taken down (or at least privatized).

 

[Lord Wraith]

Aki's got it. :3

For the record, it appears that the offending roleplay has been taken down (or at least privatized).

Yeah, they seem to have primarily removed it. I was blocked from being able to sign into the site but I have one friend who has still been able to respond and it looks like we've convinced them to rebrand and work out their own details. It just sucked feeling like someone had taken something I worked so hard on and passed it off as their own like it was no big deal.

 

[Malkuthe Highwind]

@Lord Wraith, as someone who has recently had to deal with the problem of something along these lines, for future reference, if informal and civil ways of trying to get the offending party to take your content down, you are within your legal rights as the copyright holder to issue a DMCA claim against them. If they don't comply, then you can issue the claim to the site administration, and, if they continue to refuse, find out the details of the website host and issue a DMCA claim there.

In addition, I'd like to note that as the original author of the source material, you retain exclusive rights to the reproduction of your work, or the creation of derivative works thereof. While you are likely not within your rights to demand that they take their original plotline down, as it is likely to be considered as a "transformative" work under fair use doctrine, if they copied your roleplay verbatim, then that part you are within your rights to ask to be taken down.

 

[Lord Wraith]

@Lord Wraith, as someone who has recently had to deal with the problem of something along these lines, for future reference, if informal and civil ways of trying to get the offending party to take your content down, you are within your legal rights as the copyright holder to issue a DMCA claim against them. If they don't comply, then you can issue the claim to the site administration, and, if they continue to refuse, find out the details of the website host and issue a DMCA claim there.

Ah okay, there was a lot of arguing back and forth about that from a friend of mine and one of the guy's one the site but I didn't really know the details of it to accurately argue it myself. I will definitely have to note this down for future reference though. Thanks!

 

[Malkuthe Highwind]

Yeah, just a heads up, I tacked on a little bit more to my post up there, since some of what the perpetrators here did might be protected under "fair use."

 

[Lord Wraith]

Alright thanks! That definitely makes sense.

 

[fatalrendezvous]

Although it looks like the worst of it has passed, you could always consider a strongly-worded cease-and-desist letter. Preferably one prepared by an actual attorney or law firm, as while it is within an individual's rights to send their own cease-and-desist if they feel their rights are being violated, civilian-written CAD letters are typically not taken very seriously.

I personally hate this method of utilizing attorneys and law firms to strong-arm people into doing things, but hey, if your rights are being violated, you need to defend yourself.

 

[Beta]

Could always use a template, like the one found HERE.

 

[Lord Wraith]

At this point it looks like everything has been resolved without further need for escalation. Furthermore the site admins have been contacted and are removing any of the remaining material that was taken from my RP. All's well that ends well and all that jazz.

 

[Beta]

Furthermore the site admins have been contacted and are removing any of the remaining material that was taken from my RP.