One Last Word on Stealing

On Sunday morning I received an email from a fellow Sims Storyteller telling me that my story, Out of Touch, Out of Time, seemed to have been posted on Perfect Sims' website along with many other writers' work.

I already made one post on this topic at the Sims Writers Alliance on Sunday before I had a chance to calm down a bit. Yes, I was and am angry. We've all been violated, and we're working to get the site removed. There is nothing more we can really do at this time.

However, I'm mentioning this one last time because in my case, I believe they thought they weren't technically stealing as they changed Cheyenne's name - although they used Jonas'. They also did some very poor rewriting; removing my exposition and writing it more like a script than a story.

My pictures don't show up on the site, at least when I visit it, because Google and Picasa don't like to be hotlinked. I do have enough knowledge to know if I go to the webpage and view the page source my pictures are embedded in the code. When I copy and paste them into a browser page, they show up as, indeed, mine. There is no question that the story they have there under the title The Sea of Moons is Out of Touch, Out of Time.

In my case, they only completed two chapters. Others, however, had much more of their work translated and stolen.

The point I'm making here is that regardless of whether the story is stolen in its entirety, or the plot and essence of the story is taken and used, it is still stealing. Hotlinking the pictures only adds to the crime.

This has, unfortunately, affected many good storytellers, many of whom you've been reading far longer than me. These people have always been open and helpful. I'm sorry to see that the Sims Community for all it's wonderful, helpful and creative people, still has the element of abuse infecting it.

'Nuf said from me, I've been very vocal about this entire thing. Now, I'll work behind the scenes trying to get the site removed, and move on with my stories as I always have. Just a little older and wiser these days.