Figment, the recently closed writing website, has just launched (after a long delay) their long-awaited successor to figment known as Underlined, where users can post their work and receive feedback, supposedly.
DO NOT USE UNDERLINED. DO NOT POST YOUR WORK ON UNDERLINED.
Underlined’s terms and conditions contains a clause stating that the rights to all your work that you post on their website belongs to them!!!!
Underlined belongs to Penguin Random House. This is an extremely dirty trick for them to play on writers, especially young writers and children, who come to the internet to get feedback and will lose the rights to their work. Please boost!!!
For my writing friends looking for an online writing community, DO NOT USE Underlined.
I went to confirm @greater-than-the-sword‘s post, because seriously publishers are still pulling this garbage? And yes, they are. If you want to check out the full terms and conditions, have at it. They are full of writers’ nightmares, a few of which I’ll highlight under the cut.
So idk if others have noticed this before – but it’s the first time I’m seeing this, hence the post.
There’s a website, https://www.photosugar.com, which apparently mirrors all pictures, gifsets etc. people post on their tumblrs (and also other social media sites like twitter and instagram, if I understand it correctly).
Now it won‘t turn up anything but a 404 error in my case, because I sent an e-mail to the contact address, which is darius@photosugar.com with the title “My content on your website”:
Hello,
it’s come to my attention that you are mirroring all of the posts containing
pictures/gifs that I post on my tumblr. I am asking you to stop pulling the content from my tumblr and to
delete me from your website.
tumblr username is „lordhellebore“
Thank you.
I got a reply consisting of the single word “removed” after just one day, and as you can see, it worked perfectly fine with the informal mail I sent. So if you want them to stop mirroring your tumblr, it seems all you really need to do is this.
I can’t test the site for all of my mutuals, but I’m tagging a few whom I found on there by random trial & error, and I suggest you look yourself up if you see this post and dislike tumblr mirrors (even if this one is only for pictures, not text).
….basically, whomever I’m trying at random, it seems that you’re on there.
Please reblog so others can know and ask for removal if they want to.
Reblogging this because for whatever perverted, voyeuristic reason, the person or persons who run this “photosugar” have copied my random as hell blog. Just sent an email to the address stated in the original post, and I highly suggest you all look on this site for your content as well.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING!
I sent an email for all my URLs with content and tagging the mutuals I can find on there who probably want themselves removed
(this applies to any sideblogs you have too)
and to spread the word. Check your other social media too.
You are ALL on this site, plus many I haven’t checked. Spread this in the community please, you’ve got more visibility than I do.
This is stupid! I’m not sure if they are mirroring your stuff as well, but I would check and email them if you dont want them to do it anymore. I just sent an email. I dont understand why people think this is okay to do.
This really unsettles me, so please check if your on here! Here are some of the ones that I know are on there.
I’m sorry I can’t get you all, but I checked and you all on there!
Woah holy shit really? Why the fuck would someone copy my small ass blog? Thanks for bringing this to my attention!! I don’t have time to check but hopefully all my followers will check for themselves and tag people either in comments or reblog this!!!!!! This is super important!!!!!!!!!!
Holy piss they are not kidding!
go check for your account! don’t put an @, that doesn’t work! just put your blog name like I did here !!!
THIS IS NEXT LEVEL STALKING YOU GUYS SOMEONE COULD FIND YOU THIS WAY ITS SUPER WEIRD CREEPY INVASIVE AND WRONG!! THIS PERSON OR PERSONS IS UNKNOWINGLY STALKING AND COPYING MY BLOG THAT IS SOME UNCOOL NON-EPIC SHIT RIGHT THERE!! CHECK FOR YOURSELF, I WAS JUST GONNA IGNORE IT BUT I GOT CURIOUS!! IT’S EXACTLY THE SAME AS MINE!
this is scary and i cant check bc im at work but once i get home, i will.
to my mutuals and followers, check if you’re stuff are mirrored
Oh my gosh I’m up there…
This is messed up and really scary to me. Why the hell would someone deem this an okay thing to do. To create a whole website dedicated to something like THIS. I am not okay with this, not in the slightest.
Guys, please check if your account is here and remove it if you don’t want it up there. I’m just about to do it myself.
Check your content, guys. This art theft is NOT okay.
oh jesus… mine was on there, even though my blog is relatively small in following. I’ve sent an email just now.
even if you think your blog is too small to be up there, check anyway. you never know!
Dude! I keep looking and I have removed myself to make sure nothing comes up, but I looked for the others and guys get them to remove you please to be safe! @thedarkenedkeeper@hwasabimoon14 and the others that follow me!
I honestly thought I wouldn’t show up on there, but nope, to my horror, they mirrored my shit. Sent them an email and immediately got a “removal” reply back. Tagging everyone I’m worried about.
YALL SHOULD CHECK THIS BECAUSE WE WERE BOTH IN THE FUCK
I’M FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M THERE!!! THIS SHIT IS NOT ONLY FOR BLOGS WITH A LOT OF FOLLOWERS!! I’M SCARED WTF!? I JUST HAVE LIKE 70 FOLLOWERS AND ALL MY POSTS ARE REBLOGS AND TRASH???
[[Check for your blog name there if you see this. Also, it’s really simple getting your info off this website. Just use this link and type in your username: https://www.photosugar.com/remove]]
Guys, found all of us here….what bleeping right do they have to use our info without OUR consent on a random site !?? Couldn’t tag everyone on here…
Thanks for the heads up on this. I got my accounts off (and anyone with same usernames on different social media oh well, you are safe now, you’re welcome, Italian olive oil company!) but honestly, does not Tumblr @staff give a single entire shit about this?
This stupid site is blocked in Turkey 😑
If you’re unable to access this site and want to check if your blog is there and/or have it removed, message me and I will do it for you. (Please message me from the blog you want removed; I don’t just want to randomly remove people.)
Okay, I know that a good majority of us read fanfic. And AO3 is quite popular, I love that site.
I recently just came across a site on my laptop while I was looking some klance fics to read. I found one and clicked on the link which said it was an AO3 fanfic. Norton Security prevented me from accessing the site because it ‘may be impersonating AO3 to steal your personal or financial information’
If you find a link to a fanfic and it has ‘www.archiveofourown.com’ run for the hills. The true AO3 is .org not .com. It may seem obvious but it’s pretty easy to miss. Just letting all my fellow fanfic addicts out there know that there is a scammer.
I’m trying to tag all the fandoms I’m in so that those people are aware.
What kind of person impersonates a well known fanfic site to steal information. Such a heinous crime. I will admit, this person was pretty smart. All kinds of people read fanfics, especially teenagers. Just think of that and how easy it would be.
Please reblog to every fandom and if you find any other fanfic sites being impersonated please add them to this post. Some of us fanfic readers are close to being adults or are already adults, but there are still twelve year olds and younger who don’t pay attention to things they find on the internet.
Yes it’s a real service. I do volunteer work for a rape crisis support service in my city and texting is one of the features we provide as well. But just to boost its credibility, I tried it myself:
reblog to save lives!
You can also text “Steve” to 741741 if you’re a young person of color. The website for more info is stevefund.org
My understanding is that it’s more multicultural and some folks feel more comfy with that in mind!
^^^^^THIS
get help guys, please. if you’re hurting, don’t let that hurt consume you. seek help.
YO PSA!!!
If you get a link like this from one of your tumblr buddies, DON’T OPEN IT!!! IT’S NOT THEM THAT SENT IT!!!! IT’LL FUCK UP YOUR TUMBLR AND SEND THE LINK TO OTHERS ON YOUR ACCOUNT.
EDIT: Shit! I might have to make a new account. This is screwing up my tumblr and one of my side blogs has been deleted.
Too bad I didnt see this sooner. If you get some random message from me guys, heres a thing.
Ughhhhhh this fucked up a blog I had been running for 5 years and I lost so many followers and i got locked out of my messenger, my ability to tag things, my whole theme/page setup, access to archives, everything. If you ever get a link like this from me or crying-for-the-moon (personal blog) DON’T CLICK IT. It sends a message to every mutual you have if you let the virus in. This link sent messages to hundreds and hundreds of people from my other blog and fucked up their blogs too. This shit is bad news.
So that people who use screen readers or for whom the images won’t load will still get the info, the virus message in question is “somebody wrote something on this blog about you LOL. visit [url]”. The url is from http://tinyurl.com, and the second part of the url is /h4zssf5. The link is shown leading to a tumblr error page saying “There’s nothing here”, like the one you get when you try to visit a blog that’s been deactivated. It also has buttons for “Log in” and “Sign up”. Please y’all be careful
Okay, so it looks like a whole bunch of stories from AO3 have been scraped by a bot and posted to the site @commaful without the original authors’ permission. An account calling itself Anon // Anonymously Published Stories is posting AO3 stories without contacting the original authors first, then putting the content behind a membership wall. It looks like a LOT of AO3 users have been linked and posted in this way. For myself
I am 1) contacting @commaful by ask to request my work be taken down, using tumblr.
I am 2) emailing @commaful at Info@commaful.com to ask them to take down the link and also
I am 3) reporting this to Archive of Our Own via the abuse report form to let them know about this scrape.
If you are an AO3 author, would you consider checking commaful to see if your work got taken and doing the same (I hate to send traffic there, but in the interest of stopping this I’ll post that link)? By myself, I’m just one author, but taken together, we can probably get this to stop.
Also! if you see a friend’s work on this list, could you tell them so they can request a removal? And if you’re a fanfic person, could you please reblog for a signal boost? Thank you.
Okay, update: a really nice person from @commaful contacted me regarding this and they’re going to investigate the IP that posted. So if you find your work on commaful without your permission, I suggest contacting them. It looks like works will have to be taken down on a person by person basis.
Thanks for the heads-up. Now how the hell do I find my own story on a website that forces me to sign up if I want to read more than a few words?!?
I will say that within less than a minute of me reblogging this I was contacted by @commaful with immediate assistance and support. (As in, it’s taken me longer to come up with this message than it took for them to respond to me in private.)
If you find your works – or a friend’s – on this site, contact @commaful immediately. You WILL receive assistance. They don’t want stolen works up on their site any more than you want your work to be stolen in the first place.
You’re sitting at a cafe with your friend when suddenly a woman walks in with a toy poodle in her purse. The manager at the counter informs her “I’m sorry, but we do not allow dogs”. She replies with a heavy sigh and a “She’s a service dog. She can come with me”. Not knowing much about service dog law, and worrying about getting sued for asking further questions, he sits this woman down at a booth. There, she promptly unzips her purse and places the dog on the booth seat next to her. When the woman’s food comes out, the little dog begs and she feeds her bits off her plate. This dog is not public access trained, and proceeds to bark at those who walk by. This dog is a nuisance and causes many in the restaurant to complain. The manager cannot do anything but inform the unhappy customers that this is a service dog, so he can’t ask her to leave. In the end, it’s the customers who end up leaving.
Now I walk in with my highly trained service dog pressed against my leg in a perfect heel position, and I’m quickly bombarded by the manager telling me “No dogs! No dogs! We ALL know what happened last time”. Confused, I tell him “This is my medical alert and medical response service dog. Her right to accompany me is protected under federal law.” With a sigh, he seats me at a table far away from others where my dog promptly tucks under my feet, out of sight. When my food arrives my dog is still tucked tightly under the table because she knows she’s not supposed to eat when she’s on duty. She stays there ignoring those who walk past for the remainder of my meal. When we leave, a woman by the door exclaims “Woah, I didn’t know there was a dog here!”
See the difference?
Scenario number two occurs at a local grocery store when a man decides to bring his certified emotional support animal into the store with him. Upon entering he flashes a fancy ID card and certification papers. This dog is not as unruly as the first, but he still forges ahead of his handler, sniffs the food on display, and may seek attention from those who walk past. You find this dog adorable, and when he and his owner walk past you ask to pet him. The owner says yes and explains how all he had to do was go online, register his dog, and a few weeks later they sent him a vest, ID card, and certification papers.
Now I pull into the same grocery store. I’m in a rush to get an ingredient for a dish I’m making so I hurry into the store with my service dog next to me. I’m quickly stopped by a manager who demands to see my service dog’s certification card. Remember, this is NOT required by law, and most real service dog teams don’t have them. After 15 minutes of trying to educate, pulling up the ADA website on my phone, back and forth bickering, and drawing more of a crowd than I want to describe… I’m finally allowed in. I grab my ingredient, stand in line (where my service dog obediently moves between my legs to make space for those around me), and I get bombarded by people asking to pet my dog. I explain that she’s working, she has a very important job to do, and she’s not allowed to be pet while on duty. People walk away grumbling and complaining about how rude I was when other handlers like the man they met earlier allow their dog to be pet.
Moral of the story? Fake service dogs create real problems. The ones who are impacted the most are the true service dog handlers who rely on their dogs every day to help mitigate their disability. How would you feel if everywhere you went, you couldn’t make it 10 feet in the door because people were asking you questions? Imagine how much time that would take out of your already hectic day. Businesses lose customers because word gets out that there are unruly dogs in their store, customers become misinformed and start thinking some of these behaviors are okay, some people even start to believe the lies that anyone can just register their dog online and make him a service dog. The result? MORE fake service dogs. MORE real problems.
I will reblob this until I die because it’s one of the few things that constantly genuinely infuriates me
A couple other things I want to add for the general public, as a service dog handler in training.
Think of service dogs as medical equipment, life saving in some very important instances (medical alert dogs, for example.) If you wouldn’t ask someone if you could use their oxygen mask/crutch/wheelchair, etc. then you don’t ask if you could pet a service dog.
Respect the team’s space. This also goes in line with petting the dog. Don’t intrude, don’t make a fuss, don’t distract. Yeah, the dog is pretty much a highly trained, furry piece of medical equipment, but that doesn’t mean they’re not distractable. They are and that can cause the dog to miss cues that they should be looking for.
Please, please, please, if the dog is wearing patches on their vest READ THEM. Most of the time, it will give you the information you need, most notably DON’T PET. (Another important one is DO NOT SEPARATE DOG FROM HANDLER especially for medical alert/PTSD dogs.)
I got a really official looking letter today announcing that my password had been changed on my Origin account. It looked like it was from EA except for a few things.
One, it addressed me as my email address. I’m not sure if they have my legal name on file, but I suspect they do. This may or may not be a clincher but the second part was.
They were writing to an email address which wasn’t connected to my Origin account.
I signed on my account directly from my PC and didn’t click on any links. As suspected the password hadn’t been changed and it put me through as normal.
So a heads up friends. If you get an email and think it may be legit, go sign on to Origins through your PC – don’t use any links. If it is legit you’ll be able to do whatever you need to through the Origin software.
You remember that post about the homestuck t-shirt design contest collaborating with hot topic? And how Hot Topic are the biggest art thieves? This is recent. As you can see above, I stumbled upon Hot Topic’s website and they are selling a very popular fan art put on a t-shirt, and did not ask permission from the original artist (rismo).
This shows Hot Topic still continues their art thievery. Hot Topic are still taking art from artists without their permission. This is disrespectful and appalling.
EXCEPT YOU DID GIVE THEM YOUR PERMISSION.
BY AGREEING TO TERMS AND CONDITIONS ON DEVIANT ART.
6. Payment Unless otherwise agreed between Artist and deviantART in a writing from deviantART, the license granted to deviantART under this Agreement is royalty-free.
DeviantArt you literal piece of shit
Uh what
That’s not okay
yo okay this is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT and imma be deleting my DA very soon because of it.
are you fucking for real
Just a heads up for people hosting their designs on DA
Okay. I just read through the “agreement” that DA has implemented, and it is truly heinous. I will not be posting on DA anymore.
———
3. License To Use Artist Materials. As and when Artist Materials are uploaded to the DeviantArt Site(s), Artist grants to DeviantArt a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to do the following things during the Term:
a) to prepare and encode Artist Materials or any part of them for digital or analog transmission, manipulation and exhibition in any format and by any means now known or not yet known or invented; (DA can post them on their website and edit them in any way they see fit)
b) to display, copy, reproduce, exhibit, publicly perform, broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute through any electronic means (including analog and digital) or other means, and electronically or otherwise publish any or all of the Artist Materials, including any part of them, and to include them in compilations for publication, by any and all means and media now known or not yet known or invented ; (They can publish your art in any media, use it to showcase their website or even promote certain groups without your knowledge. For all you know, your art could be promoting the KKK.)
c) to modify, adapt, change or otherwise alter the Artist Materials (e.g., change the size) and use the Artist Materials as described in Section 3(b); and
d) the right to sublicense to any other person or company any of the licensed rights in the Artist Materials, or any part of them, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement. (They can edit, change, or otherwise modify your artwork in any way they want, as well as sublicensing it to third parties, such as Hot Topic.)
e) Artist acknowledges that Artist will not have any right, title, or interest in any other materials with which Artist Materials may be combined or into which all or any portion of Artist Materials may be incorporated. (By posting on FA, you forfeit your right to dispute any third party profits or copyright infringements upon your art.)
f) During the Term, DeviantArt’s licenses under this Agreement include the right to use any part of the Artist Materials in the promotion, advertising or marketing of the DeviantART Sites. (DeviantArt can use your art to advertise anything they want.)
g) As used in this Agreement, the term “Artist Materials” means any content uploaded to the DeviantArt Site(s) which may include without limitation Artist’s name(s) (including professional names), trademarks, trade names, likenesses, photographs, biographical materials, audio-visual materials, artwork, liner notes, and other graphical, textual, video, film or audio materials and any and all “skins,” computer-generated images or other artwork or images that Artist submits to DeviantArt in any medium or format whatsoever. (ANYTHING you submit to DeviantArt belongs to DeviantArt now. Including your drawings, your photos, videos, your stock materials, your music/audio, your written stories, and your artist name.)
Yes. THEY CAN EVEN USE YOUR ACTUAL ARTIST NAME. THEY OWN IT NOW, IF YOU ARE PART OF DA.
Fuck DA.
Burn them to the ground
Pass it around
That’s why I deleted months ago.It’s a terrible website and I hate it
Passing on the PSA. I stopped using that site years ago. If you still use it, it’s not too late! Trash that shit.
You should water mark the shit out of your stuff dear! I’ve had my designs on shirts without permission quite a few times !
Yep. Deleted over 400 drawings and photos from DA over an year ago. I used the site for over 8 years not knowing these terms of service since they don’t actually show them to you when you make an account. Sure you can find them if you do some digging but they don’t shove it to your face. Also it doesn’t matter if your art has a watermark or whatever. Like it says above they have the right to edit and modify your pics so they can just remove your useless watermarks and signatures and then use your art freely and you can’t complain because you have agreed to all of this. There is no reason whatsoever to use Deviantart (maybe if you are a stockartist that gives their shit for free lol). Leave this piece of shit site before they use you like the arrogant asshats they are.
This is the sickest thing I’ve ever seen in regards to the art community. So much for respecting the artist!
DeviantART, you can fucking rot in the deepest pits of Hell.
Welp…Fuck this. Thanks for sharing this! I will be deleting my DA posts immediately. Anyone know a safe place to post my fanart? Like, other than Tumblr? I don’t want to make ANOTHER blog for all my non-Rick and Morty stuff.
Well this is horrible.
I’d heard rumours of this as far back as 2007 or 2008 and ignored them, then a few years ago I more friends dropped out of DA for the same reason, but I thought nothing of it. But this is getting ridiculous.
Just a heads-up for my watchers: I will be moving my art and deleting my DA. Patreon is already the best place to find me, followed by Tumblr, and god only knows what terms of service is hidden here. One can only hope nothing quite so heinous.
It’s shit, and it’s unfortunate, as I met so many friends and fans through DA and received so much support through my darkest times. It was a huge part of my artistic development for the last decade and I doubt I would be where I am now if I didn’t have the resources and the community it presented.
But this is not how you treat a dedicated fanbase, this is not how you reward your community. And if this is what they think of artists, then they do not deserve our support.
TL;DR: Deleting my DA soon because they are a sack of shit.
Ive never used DA but in case I have any followers that do! Pass it on!
I never got around to actually using DA but heads up for anyone who does
Crumpet's Bookshelf 