The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for enforcing the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS). To help users better understand the TOS, we're posting a weekly spotlight series about the TOS and our policies. We'll also be reading comments and answering questions on this and our other spotlight posts.
In today's post, we'll discuss two categories of TOS violations that have a lot of overlap: plagiarism and copyright infringement.
Don't go looking for things to report.
Please do not start searching for plagiarized or infringing works to report after reading this post. We know that plagiarism and copyright infringement can happen on AO3, as on any site. However, when people deliberately search for works to report, we end up getting a lot of duplicate tickets about works that have already been reported. Every ticket we receive is reviewed by a PAC volunteer, so we only need one report in order to investigate an issue. We know it seems like sites only respond to mass reports, but on AO3, duplicate and mass reports increase the time it takes our volunteers to investigate.
AO3 is for transformative fanworks
AO3 is an archive for fanfiction and other transformative fanworks. Transforming a work means that you are adding a new expression, different purpose, or alternate perspective to the source work. A transformative fanwork doesn't copy the original source; instead, it uses the characters, setting, or other inspiration from an existing work to make a new, distinct creative work.
Transformative fanworks can be posted without requiring permission from the creator of the original work. When considering whether a work is transformative, we apply the same standards to fanworks as to professional works. This means that a fanwork based on another fanwork is allowed, just as much as a fanwork of a professionally published novel is. You are allowed to write a story or create fanart about someone else's original character, or to use the same general ideas, tropes, or story structures as someone else. Two works can share the same premise, setting, and plot while still being transformative.
However, replacing names, swapping out words for their synonyms, or making other superficial changes to the source work is not considered transformative. A transformative work needs to have a large amount of creative expression that is original to you.
Plagiarism vs copyright infringement
Plagiarism occurs when a person reproduces large portions of someone else's work or very heavily bases their work on another without adequately transforming it, and doesn't credit the source. This lack of credit makes it appear as though the copied work is entirely their own original, unique idea and expression.
To avoid potential issues of plagiarism, you can cite your source by linking back to the original, for example by using AO3's Inspired By feature. However, just because you provided credit doesn't mean you're automatically okay: your work may still be in violation of our other policies, such as copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement occurs when a work reproduces large portions of a different work, whether verbatim or with very little alteration (i.e. not in a transformative manner), without the authorization of the copyright owner. Even if you credit the source, reproducing too much of someone else's content is still a violation of their copyright unless you have the copyright owner's explicit permission.
Permission is not required for short quotations. Use a limited amount that's reasonable for your purpose, such as:
- 2-3 lines of lyrics per song
- 2-3 lines of text per short chapter of a novel
- 10 minutes of screentime per TV episode or movie
If you want to include longer excerpts, you will need the copyright owner's permission. This applies regardless of whether the original work is a fanwork or published professionally.
Permission to reuse fanworks
Some fan creators will give other people permission to reproduce larger portions of their works than would ordinarily be permitted by copyright laws alone. They may do this by granting blanket permissions for particular uses (for example, "Anyone can translate or podfic my work, but I don't allow reposts or nameswaps") or by applying an official license (such as Creative Commons) to the work, which grants various permissions based on terms specific to the exact license.
If permission to reproduce the work is accompanied by specific terms, then you must follow those terms. For example, a creator may say, "You can translate my fic so long as you link back to the original." In that case, if you post your translation without providing a link, you’re violating our policies. In order for your translation to be allowed, you would need to include the link as requested.
Common types of infringement
Unauthorized reposts
If you want to upload someone else's work to AO3, you need to have their permission. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to contact them: even if the original creator posted their work a decade ago and then vanished from the internet, they still have copyright over their own work.
If you can't get permission but you still want to save or share somebody else's fanwork from another site, you can create an external bookmark that links to the work on that site, and add tags and notes to your bookmark so that other AO3 users can also find and enjoy the work.
Minor edits and adaptations
Making minor changes to a work doesn't make the work original to you. If you've only changed the characters' names and/or pronouns, or corrected the original author's grammar or formatting, that isn't transformative. You'll need the creator's permission to adapt their work like this and post it to AO3.
Too many quotes: transcripts and "character reaction" works
Transcripts (whether of TV episodes, movies, plays, video games, etc.) are protected by copyright. You cannot repost canon material on AO3, as this is typically a violation of our copyright infringement and/or non-fanwork policies.
If you're creating a fanwork where the characters are reacting to another piece of media (such as by reading or watching the book, show, or movie that they were originally from), then that is allowed if and only if you don't include too many quotes from the original source. Even if the lines of the original book or script are broken up by the characters' reactions, you still can't reproduce more than a few lines of the original text. If you'd like to post a work in which characters read or watch another work, then we suggest heavily reducing the number and length of your quotes, and/or briefly summarizing the events they're reacting to instead of quoting directly from the original work.
Songfics with lyrics
Song lyrics are protected by copyright, which means you can't reproduce large portions of lyrics without permission. This includes both songfics where the lyrics are interspersed throughout the story text and fics with characters singing songs as part of their dialogue. If the part of the song you want to highlight is more than a few lines, we suggest instead linking to a licensed source, such as the artist's official YouTube channel.
Embedded artwork
Copyright doesn't just apply to written text, but to all types of creative work regardless of the medium. In order to embed or upload someone else's images, audio, or videos onto your AO3 account, you must have the original creator's permission and credit them appropriately.
If you don't have permission, or don't know how to credit the original creator, then we suggest instead using HTML or AO3's Inspired By feature to link directly to the creator's own original post.
Unauthorized podfics & translations
If you want to podfic or translate someone else's work, you need their permission to do so. According to United States law, audio recordings and translations are considered derivative, not transformative. AO3 welcomes fan-podficcers and fan-translators. However, your content must comply with U.S. law for us to be able to host it, which means that you must have the permission of the copyright owner in order to post your podfic or translation on AO3.
Infringing on orphaned works
Orphaning a work does not mean the original creator is giving up their copyright, even if their username is no longer displayed on the work. The only thing the original creator did when orphaning their work was agree to transfer that specific copy of their work to AO3's orphan_account.
Just like with any other work, if you wish to podfic or translate an orphaned work, you will need permission from the original creator. This can come in the form of an author's note on the work or an additional tag such as Podfic Welcome. If the work contains no such statement, and you don't know or can't find the original creator to ask for permission, then you may not podfic or translate the work.
If you plan on orphaning your works and you want to ensure that other users can continue to adapt or translate them, consider adding a permission statement to each of your works before orphaning them.
Posting public domain works
While public domain works are no longer protected by copyright, reposting someone else's work is not transformative. AO3 is an archive for fanworks and for original works created in a fannish context. Therefore, you cannot upload other people's public domain works to AO3.
However, as public domain works are not protected by copyright, some types of derivative works (such as your own translation) may be posted on AO3.
I've seen others post plagiarized or infringing works. Why can't I?
As our TOS FAQ explains, we don't review content until it's reported to us. You may have seen somebody else posting an unauthorized translation or public domain work on AO3, but that doesn't mean that it's allowed. All it means is that nobody has reported that work to us yet, or that we haven't finished processing the report.
What will happen if I get reported for plagiarism or copyright infringement?
First, we'll review the reported work and any provided sources to confirm whether or not your work contains plagiarized or infringing material. If we determine that your work is in violation, we'll send you an email telling you to remove the violating material.
If your work can be edited to fix the issue, you'll be asked to edit the work. Your work may be hidden from other users until you do. If you choose not to edit the work, or if your work cannot be edited into compliance with the TOS, it will be deleted.
PAC will only ever contact you by email, and only after we've determined that your work violates our Terms of Service. We will never comment on your work or contact you through social media. Please make sure to keep your account's email address up to date and check it regularly (including your spam folder), or else you may miss our warning email.
If you repeatedly post works that violate our copyright and/or plagiarism policies, you may be temporarily suspended. Continuing to violate the TOS will result in you being permanently banned from AO3. You can learn more about warnings and suspensions in our TOS FAQ.
What should I do if I encounter a work that contains plagiarized or infringing material?
You can give the creator a heads up by politely commenting on their work and linking to the TOS FAQ or this post. Alternatively, you can report the work to us.
How do I report a work for plagiarism or copyright infringement?
Although we ask that you do not deliberately seek out violating works to report, if you encounter one while browsing, you can report it using the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form, which is linked at the bottom of every page on AO3. The copyright owner or their authorized legal representative can also file a DMCA claim, as explained on our DMCA Policy page.
In order for us to uphold a complaint, we need you to provide us with specific information about exactly what was copied and from where. Without these details, we may not be able to action your report.
If the work in question is no longer available online, but you have a copy of the work (such as a PDF), please say so. We may ask you to provide that copy to help us in our investigation.
Please be specific in your report. If you send us a link to an 80,000-word fic and say only "This work rips off mine!" without providing any details (such as a link to your own work), that's not enough information for us to act on. We will need to email you back asking for more information, and if you don't provide us with that information, we won't be able to investigate. If we can't verify the infringement for ourselves, then we won't take any action.
Please don't report more than one user at a time or submit multiple reports about the same user. When reporting multiple works by the same user, please submit only one report with links to each work you're reporting (correctly matched up with the original source), so that all information about that user is in the same place.
If you give us a link to one work and say "All of their other works look like plagiarism too!" without giving us details about those works or their sources, that isn't enough information for us to act on those other works. If you give us a jumbled or incomplete list of links, or if you report each work by the same user separately, this makes our volunteers' work much harder.
For example, a report might look like this:
Link to the page you are reporting: https://ao3-rd-8.onrender.com/works/00000000
Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Plagiarism
Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by Ernie is plagiarized from Bert's work, "Fifty Shades of Oatmeal": https://ao3-rd-8.onrender.com/works/23456789
The entire thing is copied, Ernie just swapped out Elmo's name for the Count's and changed some of the colors.
If you are reporting additional works, please include all relevant links and other information in your report description:
Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement
Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by Ernie is plagiarized from Bert's work, "Fifty Shades of Oatmeal": https://ao3-rd-8.onrender.com/works/23456789
The entire thing is copied, Ernie just swapped out Elmo's name for the Count's and changed some of the colors.
Another of Ernie's works plagiarizes from Big Bird's "If You Give a Monster a Cookie":
Ernie's work (plagiarism): https://ao3-rd-8.onrender.com/works/34567890
Big Bird took down their fic when they published it as an original story. Here's a link to the published version: https://www.monstercookiebooks.com/books/9876543210/if-you-give-a-monster-a-cookie
I also have a downloaded copy of the original fic I can give you if you need it.
The plagiarized section is in Ernie's chapter 2, where it starts at "Every time that Cookie Monster goes to the store, he can't resist going and picking up more chocolate chip cookies."
This is plagiarizing chapter 3 of Big Bird's work, which starts, "Whenever Cookie Monster went to the store, he couldn't resist buying more chocolate chip cookies."
The entire rest of the fic is like that, with only minor edits to each sentence. It's over ten thousand words long!
Finally, this other work contains the full lyrics of "I Love Trash" as sung by Oscar the Grouch: https://ao3-rd-8.onrender.com/works/45678901
Here's a link to the song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJekxVILnhw
You can add more details if you like, but this example provides the basic information we need:
- Who posted the violating work(s): Tell us their username or if the work is anonymous or orphaned.
- Where we can find the violating work(s): Enter one URL in the "Link to the page you are reporting" field, and (if applicable) include links to any other violating works in the description of your report.
- Where we can find the original source material: Include a link to each original source and tell us what parts of the source were copied, for example by including chapter numbers or quotes from the relevant scenes.
- What violates the TOS: Explain why you think each work you're reporting is infringing and match each reported work to its original source. A set of links and a brief description of each work is fine; you don't need to be very detailed or quote an entire page.
You'll receive an automatic email confirming that we received your report, and our volunteers will investigate when they get a chance. Please be patient and do not submit another report about the same incident. While PAC investigates every report we receive, it can take several months for us to process a report, and not every report will receive a reply.
What if I have more questions about plagiarism and copyright infringement?
PAC follows a strict confidentiality policy. Therefore, while you are welcome to ask general questions in the comments of this post, we will not give information on specific cases, publicly rule on a work, or update you on the status of a report you have already submitted. Comments on this post that discuss specific works or users will be removed.
If you think you've found a plagiarized or infringing work, or if you want to know whether a particular work qualifies as plagiarism and/or copyright infringement, please report the work to us as described above. For more information, you can read our TOS FAQ on Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism.
If you are still uncertain, you can comment below or submit a question through the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form.
ETA: Edited to improve wording
