TickleMantis

It’s probably happened before.

Twenty-two years is a long time to put your work online with some relative level of popularity (if I do say so myself!) and not have anyone copy it. Chances are it’s happened before, only I was never aware of it until a couple of weeks ago. Or made aware of it, I should say. A big thank you to TMF member vootvoot for that, by the way. Kind soul that vootvoot is, they directed me to the dastardly DeviantArt fiend who’d stolen my work.


TonyIM is the person’s name. You may think it uncouth to name and shame, but the way I figure it this person shamelessly marked my work as their own for almost two years. TonyIM took the compliments, took the ‘likes’. TonyIM can take the consequences too. And we’re not talking a stolen idea here folks, this person straight-up, blatantly, copy and pasted an entire story. Perhaps the worst part, other than the outright thievery, was that TonyIM didn’t even bother editing the piece. It was one of my older works, filled with far more spelling mistakes and grammar errors than readers must endure from me these days. What they did do was change the main character’s name and rework their own little intro in for a couple of paragraphs, but after that? Oh yeah, my work, word for word, mistake for mistake.

So the first thing I do is file a DMCA notice through DeviantArt. Fortunately, a very easy process. Easy to prove my side of the story too, as it were, with a link dating back over eighteen years. Eighteen years.. Then, because I wanted to see what TonyIM had to say for themselves, I commented on their post (MY post). I said, more or less, this is my work, take it down. Tony’s response? They were “inspired” by the story.

If you want to be inspired by my work, more power to you. I’ve certainly been inspired by a wealth of tickle-fiction writers over the years. Copy and pasting someone else’s story and claiming it as your own? That is not inspiration, friends. That is theft. Instead of removing the story, Tony followed this flimsy claim of inspiration up by adding a link to the original story at the bottom of the post. Of course I’d already filed the DMCA notice before any of this, so any action (or inaction) besides taking the story down completely only served to make Tony look like more of a parasite than they already did.

Woah there ‘Mantis, you might say, that’s some pretty harsh language. Those of you who’ve messaged me or conversed with me over the last 2+ decades probably, hopefully, know me as a pretty relaxed, easy going kind of fellow. Well, on the off chance you haven’t worked this out already, people who steal other people’s art really piss me off. It’s lazy, it’s predatory, it’s deceptive. You seek clout you never earned and is meaningless as a result. Fuck people who steal other people’s work. Fuck TonyIM.

On a brighter note, since TonyIM did exactly what someone of their nature was bound to do, the DMCA notice went into action a few days later. The post was removed and Tony received a message from DevitantArt about their infraction. I, of course, have heard nothing else on the matter, nor do I expect to.

On the one hand it’s a kind of compliment, in a twisted way, to have someone feel your work is good enough for them to claim. Their best and possibly only shot at receiving a kind word for “their” creation. Any positivity about plagiarizing begins and ends there, though. With this in mind, to the TonyIMs of the world, if you like my work and are genuinely inspired, by all means write a story of your own. If you’re not keen to write it yourself, there’s no shortage of writers willing to take commission. Your idea is a good one, you don’t need to resort to thievery to get it out in the world.

It’s probably happened before. It’ll probably happen again.

All the best,

‘Mantis