Plush Books Theft and Plagiarism Incident
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| Event | |
|---|---|
| Event: | Plush Books theft and plagiarism incident |
| Participants: | J.D Geraghty and Plush Books |
| Date(s): | 2022 |
| Type: | theft, plagiarism, monetisation of fandom |
| Fandom: | multi-fandom |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
In December 2022, a number of fanfiction authors were contacted and made aware by fans that a seller, 'J.D Geraghty and Plush Books', on Amazon had pirated their fanworks and uploaded them for sale as Kindle works[1][2].
It was quickly discovered that amongst the 500+ books Plush Books had on their store, hundreds were fanworks which had been stolen from places like Archive of Our Own, Fanfiction.net, and other locations online[3]. It was suspected that many of the other books being sold, which were non-fiction books, were also plagiarised.
Many of the works were those in supernatural genres; fandoms where the canon featured these supernatural elements were amongst those where works had most frequently been stolen from, but AUs from other fandoms were also been stolen along with fanart[4]. It also transpired that Plush Books had accounts on other platforms, including Barnes and Noble and the Book Depository[5].
Fans came together to help locate as many fan authors as they could and help them complete copyright complaints to Amazon to get the works taken down[6]. KokomRoily organised people on Twitter and a Google sheet was set up that people could request access to co-ordinating the effort to locate original authors and spread the word[7]. Within days, more than 200 books had been removed from the Amazon storefront [8] and the entire account was closed shortly afterwards. A Wayback Machine grab of the storefront can be seen here.
Some authors pointed out that Amazon's role in allowing the works to be added to their site, let alone in the vast numbers they were, was also an issue that was likely to crop up when someone else tried to do the same thing in the future. Some authors publishing original work on Amazon had faced issues with their works being pinged for copyright issues, yet Plush Books had been able to upload hundreds of stolen fanworks which contained copyrighted content without the same issue[9].
References
- ^ galvanizedfriend Tumblr post in December 2022, Archived version
- ^ avaantares Tumblr post in December 2022, Archived version
- ^ stiles-o-dylan24 Tumblr post in December 2022, Archived version
- ^ KokomRoily's original thread about Plush Books, Archived version
- ^ Plush Books, here's what we know. Post from toxicangel13, Archived version
- ^ avaantares guide to submitting a copyright complaint, Archived version
- ^ erenaeoth post about efforts to get fanworks removed from Plush Books store, Archived version
- ^ avaantares post about the number of stolen works already taken down, Archived version
- ^ Plush Books, plagiarism, but also fuck Amazon too, thisdiscontentedwinter, Archived version