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.

Click to shrink...

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.