Steven E. Wedel

Author – Editor – Teacher

Pirates II: Curse of the Snark


In yesterday’s post about story thieves I said I couldn’t possibly contact all of those places that had “Unholy Womb” illegally posted. I did, however, contact djjeremy@gmail.com at winterrowd.com and told him to remove the story or pay me 3 cents per word for the privilege of having it on his site. He responded in typical pirate fashion:

it’s gone, it isn’t worth .03 for the entire story. sorry for any inconvenience. (sic)

Isn’t that nice? He apologized … after saying the entire story he’d had posted on his site for over two years isn’t worth 3 cents in its entirety. Well, maybe he’s saving his money for some mail order grammar and punctuation lessons. Douchebag.

Meanwhile, Stephen Evans (steve@thecryptmag.com) of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com) still has my story online. Click the e-mail link and tell him what a putz he is if you want.

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5 responses to “Pirates II: Curse of the Snark”

  1. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    I remember this. I had checked the stats on the page and nobody was visiting that story or any of the posted stories for that matter. That’s why I said it wasn’t worth the .03 and ended up removing the entire stories section. You should thank me for what little publicity I tried to give to you. I’m sorry you felt the need to call me names behind my back. You asked me to remove it and I did. Who’s the mature one?

    Reply
  2. Steve Wedel Avatar
    Steve Wedel

    Really? Okay. I sincerely apologize for calling you out in public for illegally publishing a story that was never submitted to you, then showing the world how you responded to my request to remove the story you didn’t have the right to publish, or to compensate me with a semi-pro payment.

    Cutting and pasting somebody’s work and illegally posting it on your site does NOT earn you an “Aww, thanks for the free publicity” statement. It’s stealing, plain and simple. Would you take my car without asking, then, when you’re caught, say I should thank you for warming it up for me?

    Now, if you feel so inclined, you can thank me for handling the matter myself and not asking my agent or attorney to contact you and your Internet service provider.

    Reply
    1. Jeremy Avatar
      Jeremy

      “he’d had posted on his site”. It’s only “he had”. Who needed grammar lessons again? Also, at that time, I was my own ISP. Honestly, if it was good story, I would have gladly paid you to keep it up. I know that I credited your name on the story and wasn’t claiming it as my own. I found it on a scary stories website and thought they were all under Creative Commons. It was only until after I received your email that I realized they all may not be, so I took the entire section down. Also, let me give you a little advice on how the legal system works. Unfortuneately, you and only you, would have been out a lot of money with the exact same outcome that you accomplished by contacting me. Trust me, I know from experience. Have a great day. I only thought this post was silly when I stumbled across it and had to reply. It’s funny how tough people can act when they are sitting behind their computers. If I had known that somebody who was calling me a douchebag was also going to be at Texas Frightmare Weekend, I would’ve found you and said hello.

      Reply
  3. Toni Stauffer Avatar
    Toni Stauffer

    I’m going to stick my two cents in. Jeremy, you have admitted to illegally posting the story and that is evidence enough for Steve to take legal action against you. When you put a story, article or any other piece of writing on a public website, you are in effect, publishing it. It doesn’t matter whether or not anyone read it. You broke the law. Period. You published a story without the author’s knowledge or permission and you didn’t pay him for it. Writing is how Steve makes his living. Don’t get upset at him trying to protect his livelihood. He worked hard on that story and you stole it and gave it away. If I were him, I’d sue your ass.

    Reply
    1. Jeremy Avatar
      Jeremy

      Like I said in my earlier post, I have hired lawyers to go after people that posted my content and nothing ever happens. You, unfortuneately, do not know anything about copyright law. Only the lawyers benefit and I learned that the hard way. As I said, I immediately took the story down like he requested because I had no idea that it was a published work and apologized. At that time, stupid me, I only thought I was sharing a “scary” story because I thought my visitors would enjoy a section like that AND I thought it was under the Creative Commons license. After looking up his story’s stats, I found that no one was viewing any of the stories, so I removed it entirely. I honestly didn’t mean the “.03 for the whole story” comment as an insult but I was referring to the fact that my entire stories section hadn’t even earned .03! Anywhodle, this was YEARS ago and I was only taking offense to this “behind the back” name calling I accidently stumbled upon.

      Reply

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