This is not a fiction story. This happened on a writing site. A real site. A site which holds competitions for fiction writing.
There was a contest and I didn’t participate. I was a member, I had a vote, but the plot of the article I was to write was out of my ambit. I didn’t write crime stories at the time, so read other people’s work and voted.
A woman, I’ll call her Mary, had written a clever piece, I liked it a lot, but it didn’t win.
Some time later, Mary posted the following;
“I was watching one of my favourite crime programs on the telly when suddenly I realised that it was MY work that was being portrayed. That was my story! I had some quirks which were still there, and there was no way anyone could have just made it up.”
“I contacted the writing site to ‘alert’ them.”
“I received a response from the administrator telling me that it was my story and that they had sold it to the television production team. They indicated that when I joined the site I ticked “I agree” to the Terms of Service which gave the site the absolute copyright to my work. They owned my article. They owned it and could do what they wanted with it.”
“I couldn’t believe it. They never paid me, they never gave me anything for it, but they owned it. And when I read the Terms of Service it clearly stated that all items published on that site belonged to the site. That the site could do anything it wanted with the submissions.”
“I gave away my copyright.”
We all commiserated with her, and looked over the Terms of Service we agreed to, without reading. A lot of people took down their stuff. The site posted a long explanation and a lot of legal terms, showing they had a lawyer. They made it look that simply being able to see our work on screen was enough payment for us.
Yes, I read the Terms of Service before I join.
Recently, I stopped by a site called Seekyt I had belonged to years ago. It was still up. It didn’t pay. It didn’t pay one cent for anything, yet, demanded everyone give away their copyright.
Every single item on that site belongs to the site.
If you join Seekyt, they will take your work and pay you nothing.
Read the Terms of Service.
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View Comments
That was really saddening! Some sites have so long Terms of Service,and in very small fonts, too much legalese words or sentences that one ma find it so tiring to read or will consume a lot of time. Your post will serve as a warning for us, writers, to be very cautious about it. (reminds me I have to read the TOU's of Literacybase!)
I found that site but did not join. It's good I didn't sign up!
I almost always read and reread the TOS. If I didn't before that day, I did after. Could you imagine writing a story so good it's on TV and you don't even get a mention?