Regarding Rules 3/7, and turncoat authors who burned their work

[magic9mushroom]

Certain porn authors burn their freely-released work as part of an attempt to become a professional writer, sometimes in an attempt to start selling that work and other times due to wanting a public image "untainted" by porn. We have quite a few threads here that have had their story posts removed as part of this practice.

Is it against the rules to link to archived versions* of this work? (Asking because some people might consider this piracy.)

Furthermore, if it is permissible, does posting a link to an archived intact version of a story count as a "significant contribution" to dead threads that have had their story posts burned? Certainly, it would greatly increase the amount of story accessible in said threads from "zero". (Yes, I want to piss on some of these people's "QQ graves" by making the threads they've disembowelled contain access to their work again.**)

*Snapshots of free off-QQ sites, as QQ's NSFW section is not crawlable.

**NB: I get that you don't really like people posting stories that they didn't write without permission; I'd be sticking to links.

 

[ThedudeManBro]

Now that you talk about it I think I still have a handful of Pef's Worm porn before he nuked it... Huh.

 

[tacobowl8]

So, to answer your question:

Posting an archive or simply just purged stories that another author did is indeed against the rules. Partly for Rule 3, because that is the author's works, and regardless of if they purged them, they are still theirs, so that would be a mild plagiarism/linking to pirated material. It could also be smacked under Rule 1, as that is definitely being a dick.

Following that, if you did this to try to reopen a thread, that would also tack on a Rule 7 violation.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Actually, I forgot about this, but QQ actually has an explicit immunity in the case of works that have been published on QQ:

You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service.

Click to shrink...

That's from QQ's TOS; anyone who published a work on QQ can't revoke QQ's licence to display that work.

I also forgot that mods do actually have version control, so you can actually still read all those fics on here and could let us peons read them again too by revoking the wiping edits and post deletions - with legal immunity, as noted.

 

[Dissimilate]

That's from QQ's TOS; anyone who published a work on QQ can't revoke QQ's licence to display that work.

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This is NOT legal advice, but that line from the TOS would cover only the owner of the QQ website. Not Mods, not other story writers and certainly not random story readers. If it went to court under the grounds of theft and plagiarism, the Judge would almost certainly ask if it was the owner themselves who reposted a deleted story and why exactly they thought they needed to repost it. If it was not, the next question would be why the owner allowed the reposted stolen story to stay public.

 

[randomlightning]

I feel like, based on the original post and thread title, that this whole thing is coming from a place of vitriol and a weird parasocial attachment to authors. If an author decides to delete their fanfiction, that is their business, not their reader's. I don't really see a point in trying to rules lawyer, and just actual lawyer, your way into being able to post writings that an author doesn't want posted.

I promise, there is plenty of new smut for you to read.

 

[Vanbers]

I feel like, based on the original post and thread title, that this whole thing is coming from a place of vitriol and a weird parasocial attachment to authors. If an author decides to delete their fanfiction, that is their business, not their reader's. I don't really see a point in trying to rules lawyer, and just actual lawyer, your way into being able to post writings that an author doesn't want posted.

I promise, there is plenty of new smut for you to read.

Click to shrink...

I think it's more from a place of "Hold on, what the hell? Where'd that story I really like go?" rather than some parasocial connection to the author.

Which, I mean, I definitely get. That exact thing has happened to me enough, where I go back to read something I remember liking and every chapter is nothing but a ".", and it annoys me enough to start mentally sorting that username/profile pic into my 'kind of a dickhead' mental category.

 

[CriticalFailure]

I feel like, based on the original post and thread title, that this whole thing is coming from a place of vitriol and a weird parasocial attachment to authors. If an author decides to delete their fanfiction, that is their business, not their reader's. I don't really see a point in trying to rules lawyer, and just actual lawyer, your way into being able to post writings that an author doesn't want posted.

I promise, there is plenty of new smut for you to read.

Click to shrink...

I think it's more from a place of "Hold on, what the hell? Where'd that story I really like go?" rather than some parasocial connection to the author.

Which, I mean, I definitely get. That exact thing has happened to me enough, where I go back to read something I remember liking and every chapter is nothing but a ".", and it annoys me enough to start mentally sorting that username/profile pic into my 'kind of a dickhead' mental category.

Click to shrink...

It is more a case of "hey, I liked reading that thing. Why did it disappear?"

And in a similar vein to how some old games or media can only be reasonably be acquired by piracy sometimes (because it is not sold anymore, etc.), I personally do not see a problem about someone reposting something that was lost for everyone else's convenience, as long as they indicate they are just reposting something gone. Especially since they posted it on the public internet.
Like that "Shield Hero's bitch" (paraphrasing) fanfic I read a few months ago that was explicitly a repost because the original author deleted it for some goddamned reason.

But if THAT is apparently illegal here somehow, but I still think it should be fine for someone to have storage somewhere off-site (whether as pdfs/txts, or posted on AO3, etc.), and be perfectly fine to link to it upon request, etc.
(again, if it was first posted for free on the internet anyway)


Mods, can you give clarification on this? On-site restoration of deleted/lost works is apparently not allowed. But what about offsite linking?

 

[randomlightning]

I think it's more from a place of "Hold on, what the hell? Where'd that story I really like go?" rather than some parasocial connection to the author

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Except the title of this thread calls them "Turncoats," as if they betrayed us somehow, when that's not at all the case.
Not to mention the more blatantly vitriolic reasoning of:

Yes, I want to piss on some of these people's "QQ graves" by making the threads they've disembowelled contain access to their work again

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Which definitely reads as taking it personally, as if they felt entitled to the works of the author, somehow.

But I digress, as the crux of the question is probably answered by looking at this from a Rule 1 perspective: The author removed this work for a reason, and clearly doesn't want it visible anymore. Would it be a dick move to repost it, or link to an archive against their wishes?

The answer, by the way, is yes. It almost certainly would.