January 28, 2009
I'd like to explain my policy on copying my stories in more detail than I can on the info page, specifically why I've chosen the license I have.
In the consumer society in which we live, we have the idea of ownership so ingrained in our minds that we tend to want to cling to and tightly control the things we create. This encourages a certain entitlement mentality. If I write something, I should get to say who reads it. I wouldn't want someone to read my stories without me knowing about it. Right?
Wrong. I believe it's time we got over that mentality and thought it through a little more logically, because I think there's a much better way of looking at it.
I write primarily for my own enjoyment. Most of my stories come from my own fantasies, and putting them online for others to read is basically just a thank-you to the erotic literature community who have provided me many hours of enjoyment.
While the idea of receiving monetary compensation for my writing is appealing, I have to face the fact that it's not likely to happen. Also, I value my anonymity, because I come from a conservative and even religious background and I wouldn't want anyone I know personally to discover my hobby. Therefore, even if someone wanted to pay me for this, I wouldn't want to set up a money trail that could lead to the real me.
By definition, copyright is designed to encourage authors and artists to create, by seeing that the financial rewards go to them. However, without hope of financial rewards anyway, what purpose really does copyright serve?
To look at it slightly differently, the generally accepted unit of currency in this community is the "comment." The more comments I get from my readers, the better. Therefore, anything I can do to gather more comments is a benefit to me. That means distributing my work as widely as possible.
Now, this is where I have a disagreement with some other writers. I've heard from other writers who were angry to discover that someone had copied their stories and put them up on a different site without their permission. I can understand that it's a natural reaction to feel betrayed, but really what harm does it do? As long as they preserve the text and give me credit, I consider it a compliment if others copy my stories. It also means that more people are likely to trace it back to my own site and read my other stories, which results in more comments. Why then, should I feel angry? I've surrendered a little bit of control over my stories, but I've gained a great potential for new fans.
I would recommend that other writers consider the above points. You don't have to agree with me, but I would like you to at least think about it. In fact, I would love to hear the opinions of other writers, whether they agree with me or not.
That doesn't mean I'm encouraging readers to copy other writers' stories without permission. The authors have the right to limit distribution of their stories; I just think it's often short-sighted and counterproductive to do so. But it's their choice, and the readers should respect that.
Okay, enough with my rant. Let me talk about the particular license that I place at the bottom of every web page and every story. I chose it based upon the philosophy that people want to get things for free. In most cases they don't care about taking credit for the work, or making money off of it. They just want to have it and not pay for it. Since this happens to align nicely with my goal of distributing my stories as widely as possible, I chose a license to accomodate that.
If you're a writer and you've never heard of Creative Commons, I suggest you take a look. It provides a way to formulate the above points into a legal framework. Creative Commons allows artists and authors to "mix-and-match" various restrictions to choose a license that works for them. I specifically chose the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Let me explain the various pieces of the license, especially the places where I'm a little more lenient than the license stipulates.
This is pretty basic. It means that if you distribute my stories, you must let the readers know that Daddycums is the author. The easiest way to do this is to preserve the byline after the title of every story. This is the only part of the license that I'm not willing to compromise on, because it shouldn't put a burden on anyone unless you're trying to plagiarise my work, and in that case I'm not going to do you any favors.
Simply put, you cannot make money off of my work without my permission. Of course, there are some legal gray areas. Putting my stories on an ad-supported website, for instance. While the license itself technically doesn't allow it, I'll be generous and say that that's fine as long as there are other stories on the site as well. I don't want someone gaining revenue from only my stories, because that's revenue that rightfully should go to me. Since there's no way to quantify the percentages if there are other stories on the site, it's not worth the hassle that I would have to go through to try to get some money from the site operator.
I'm mainly worried about people restricting access to my works except to those who pay. I don't want people doing so without my permission. However, I am willing to negotiate if someone wants to print hard copies and sell them, for instance.
This means that if you're going to copy my stories, you must keep them identical to how you received them. Technically, you're allowed to modify the format all you want, as long as you preserve the actual text. If you want to modify the stylesheet or otherwise reformat the HTML, that's fine. If you want to convert it to PDF, or Rich Text, or Open Document Format, or any of the various ebook formats, go right ahead. Whenever possible, preserve the markup as well (especially italics) but if the file format doesn't provide for markup, that's fine. Also, if the file format allows for hyperlinks, I would like you to keep the link back to my ASSTR page in the byline, but I won't feel too bad if you don't.
If you want to add my stories to an anthology, that works too. Just keep the notice about the license on my stories, even if the other stories are under a different license or no license at all.
I'm also not too concerned about fan fiction. If for some reason you want to use my characters in your own original works or write your own stories in the same universe, it doesn't bother me. I merely ask that you give me credit for anything you borrow from me without implying that I in any way endorse your work. Something like "Based upon characters created by Daddycums" would be appropriate.
It just means it's the third version of the license. Duh.
This doesn't mean you can only distribute my stories in the United States. It just means that the license was tailored to the legal environment of the United States. Other countries may have loopholes that let you get around these restrictions, but there's nothing I can do about that so I'm not going to try.
So that's it. I feel I'm being more than reasonable, so there really shouldn't be any reason to infringe on my copyright. You would have to go out of your way to do so, in fact. In summary, as long as you don't modify, plagiarise, or make money off of my stuff, feel free to share it all you want.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.