Back in December, I got an email from the website Superman and Wonder Woman Fan Archive. The email asked if they could link my Justice Lords stories to their site. My ego kicks in (quick, someone is paying attention to me. Show your greatness.). So I answer the email with a “Sure, go ahead. Here are the links at fanfiction. Let me know when you are up and I will link back to you at my site.” A week later I check out the site. All links go back to fanfiction. I am happy.
Fast forward six months. I get an email saying the Superman and Wonder Woman Fan Archive is now supermanwonderwomanfanarchive.com. “Come check it out.” So I do. And I find a nice looking site. Under authors, I find a page listing links to my seven stories. My head nods north and south. This is good until I click on the first story link. Then I get angry. This is no link to fanfiction. It is my story formatted on their site. And the salt in the wound is that I am not listed as the author anywhere on the story.
I immediately email the site people and say, “Time Out. I said you could link to my stories but that is not what you have done. You posted the complete stories and neglected to give me author credit. Please link back to fanfiction or remove my stories.”
I get an email back saying, “We have fixed the author credit on your stories.”
I email back, “I noted that you changed the credits within my stories to reflect my authorship. I appreciate that, but I think you are missing the point. I never agreed that you could host my stories, only that you could provide a link to them. I do not allow my work to be hosted on any site where I do not have direct control of the content and where I cannot delete, reformat or edit the story as the mood suits me.”
Their response? “Okay, no problem. We’ll do that as soon as we can. Sorry for the miscommunication.”
I will assume no malice (for the moment) and I know that once something is posted anywhere, it is posted everywhere. But this was very disappointing – very disappointing. 🙁
ETA on 6/09/08 – I just got an email from the chief archivist who in a wonderfully detailed email literally said, “We’re sorry and we will fix it.” Have changed my mood avatar from “angry” to “satisfied.”