Quote:
Originally Posted by cromag
An update.
First, the audio has been withdrawn -- at least temporarily.
I got a long email from the webmaster/executive producer at the site. He stated that their website is fairly new and that they are trying to be a legitimate market for short horror fiction.
The beginning of the email was pretty apologetic. According to him, they received my story as a submission at their website by someone using my name and claiming to be me. That person provided links to my Smashwords author page and the story at Amazon. They performed a Google search -- but that only confirmed that someone with my name wrote that story. He didn't go into detail, but he did say that they were apparently "swindled."
By the end of the email he was a bit defensive. He pointed out that two people have represented themselves as me and how does he know who is who. He asked me for some proof that I am who I say I am, and that I own the copyright.
My first response was to log into my account at Smashwords and take a screenprint of my profile, clearly showing that I have the ability to edit my biography, change my account details, etc.
But this poses an interesting problem. If someone using your name sold the rights to one of your stories ... how would you prove that it was your story, and that you are you?
This story is an interesting case. I wrote it 35 years ago, which means I wrote it on a typewriter (an Olivetti Editor II, a wonderful machine). In the years since then I moved four times, but somewhere in my crawlspace I probably still have the onionskin carbon copies (there go the young kids, off to Wikipedia), a copy of the check from the magazine (with a conditional endorsement granting "First North American Serial Rights") and my correspondence with various editors. It would be a pain in the butt, but I might be able to find it.
But today I do all of my writing on a computer. How would I demonstrate that my .doc file was the original?
(There's probably a story in there!)
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Where's your original registration from the US Copyright Office? That's the simplest thing to do. Even today, you can register via ECO and get a registration notice. Whether you wrote it on a typewriter, on onionskin (yes, I know what that is), etc., you would have, particularly back then, registered the copyright. Why not just use that?
Although I'd say, lacking that (I could never find anything of mine from 35-40 years ago), the copy of the check with the conditional endorsement is most likely your best weapon. I know you've subsequently resolved this--by being forced to give them an image of your SW dash--but for
others out there, this is why that $35 is worth spending.
With regard to, how do you prove you are who you say you are, this is an issue that arises all the time in law, particularly in a world where many people share identical names. Somebody here said that Amazon doesn't ask for verification, and if we're talking outright identity theft, that's true. If you give them a name that matches the EIN or SSN that you give them, they're fine with that. That's a horse of a different color. But every single one of our backlist publishers did have to send Amazon copies of their rights-reversal letters, so hopefully there's some comfort in that.
This is also why creating a "contact me" email address, that's EASY to find, whether on Smashwords, Amazon, inside the books, etc., is important. Cromag, did you already have this? Did the YT guy use that email address, or even GLANCE at it, to ensure he was receiving email from the actual author? I try to get our clients to put a specific, only-for-rights/copyrights issues email addy on their copyright page, if naught else, just for this reason.
To my endless horror, there's someone with an identical-to-mine name, who apparently is a FELON on the east coast. She has a nasty record, and this pops up in people's searches on me. That's not fun. And I have on occasion wondered if it affects my company, overall. My happier days--not that long ago--of having ZERO presence whatsoever on the web are gone; nobody (smart) will do business with a web-based company that has no "face" or person behind it. Anyway, I digress. Back directly OT:
The onus isn't actually on the author to prove that s/he is who s/he says s/he is, in this type of case; it's on the unauthorized user. In a court case, each side would have to pony up their due diligence, and while you don't have to do diligence to prove you're you, the guy with the YT site certainly should have done more diligence to prove that the guy from whom he bought the rights (how much DID
you get swindled out of, anyway??? If the bogus you got paid?), was indeed you. I'd also note that if Bogus Guy really exists, the payment can be TRACED, and
he could be prosecuted, because while copyright infringement carries
worthless penalties under criminal law, (and civil, for that matter), identity theft has REAL teeth. (Just an idea. If it were me,
I'd chase him like the Hounds of Hell were on his heels.)
Hitch