#ebooks-tree

As we slowly come back online, I learned today that not only were AO3 and the Starsky & Hutch archives impacted by ebooks-Tree phishing scam, but the My Little Pony fic archive also had some of their epub files linked. Along with a fan’s uncle’s Czech plays.

I never received any email or confirmation of removal from the site itself, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being removed.  I expect they are trying to do this as quietly as possible to avoid bad press.

Be sure to check the site itself to see if your fics are being removed.  The emailing IS working.  There are many fewer AO3 pseudonyms when I look through the author tags now than when I first was alerted to this.

So relating to all of this stuff that was going on with ebooks-tree scraping my fanfics, i have good news!

All my stuff’s been removed!  

So looks like it’s shaking out now.  As I emailed to my profic list...

A---, it appears that it's been discovered to not be a copyright issue after all, leaving it as "just" a phishing scam (I haven't heard any evidence of malware being involved, but I wouldn't be surprised) where they're using the names of professional (and other) authors and the titles of their works to draw in the scamees.  Specifically, it seems that Ebooks-tree does not actually possess any works on it but instead is charging people just to follow a link back to where the works are hosted elsewhere.  V---, this may explain why it's your samples that are already up Book View Cafe, as you mentioned to me before.  I first saw this discovery through a fan works blog, and here's their post on it:  http://ao3org.tumblr.com/post/116431401158/ebooks-tree-update However, even better news is that it seems Ebooks-tree has removed many authors' names and book/story titles.  Many of the professional authors who I previously found on the site are no longer listed.  Yay!  

I followed the suggested instructions on AO3 for asking that works be removed from Ebooks-tree.  That was on the evening of April 13th.  It's the afternoon of April 15th, and while I did not receive a message back from Ebooks-tree, I did search again for my works, and they have been removed.  Not sure if there have been any others who have been notified or not, or noticed if their works were taken down or not, but my suggestion would be, for those who have submitted the request to Ebooks-tree, to check the site after a few days.  If my case is any indication, it looks like they are honoring the requests.

Here’s the link to AO3 with instructions on how to ask your fics be removed from the ebook site, if they were added there without your permission.