Femme Fatalities Message Board

I must direct people here to a thread 'elsewhere' entitled "Gladiatrix". You all know where to look, and it is an All Topics thread.

It's a bit disturbing to me to find the hours and hours of personal input and emotion being poured into the most INTENSE sharing I have ever done in 12+ years in our community, being used by someone for their own Profit gain.

Someone wrote a book, and MOST of the book of course comes from their own diligent research, but many things also came from those of us who shared at an old Yahoo Group called...Gladiatrixs.

Run by the same English woman whose husband wrote this book.

Maybe no one else is 'conflicted' about their feelings about such things, and I DID 'know' in my head we were being used, but it's an example of how Some use what we share in pure fun, for their own Profit, with no acknowledgement, nor compensation, for those providing much of the Input.

Very interesting, and may lead 'someday' to new Laws about such things. Though I am pretty certain there is no legal recourse here, and would not follow it myself even if there was, it somehow is a 'violation' of personal rights and things said, to use them later with no acknowledgement as to the Source. I'm sure what they got from us is couched in other terms in their book, but some of it is very troubling that she used us for Input for her own profit.

If interested in these concepts, check it out. I do not feel 'proper' reposting it here because I think that violates somewhat 'privacy'...though if anyone else reproduces it, I'm ok with that, too.

Sorry, but I admit to a bit of emotion and uncertainty as to how I feel. And yet I admire what they did. And again point out that there was obviously much REAL research by this couple wh are enthralled with that era.

I'll be all better tomorrow, but today I'm still uncertain about all the multiple feelings involved.

Sandi

The time scale is not clear, but how many years are there between the group folding and the book being written? I wouldn't be sure it was part of some master plan from the beginning. Maybe more like, the group folds and then someone has the great idea, "Hey we could write a book around this!" Is that an equally viable proposition upon the facts?

It's not looking like being a best seller, is it? Cos if not there may not be much money earned off a minority interest book.


and, good job you're here in the land of the free...... in some places, directing folks to a rival forum brings about post deletion and suspension.....

Smudger, the group must have been shut down by Yahoo in approximately early 2004. I joined that other place in May, 2004 and that was after all the Yahoo Groups had been closed and someone alerted me to 'that other place'. Not the same type of place at all as those Groups, as FF is not, of course.

And I personally am never 'going back' to those intense role-playing and writing days, either.

The book was published in 2009, according to the website, so I'm guessing five year time span after close of group, approximately.

I of course must read the darn thing now to see how much of 'us' are in there, how many specific fights, maybe, or pieces of description, or whatever, may exist that Others provided at the Group.

I will, for curiosity sake, ask a lawyer friend unofficially, because I have no real idea what is legal or illegal in terms of using things said privately and reproducing them in a book. Again, I have no personal plan to sue even if I could, but to me it's another interesting 'by-product' of this new world of the Internet.

Hey, Napster had to pay fines, so new laws had to be crafted, or lawsuits had to be created, to settle those types of issues. Much different of course than our play-time work, but it intrigues me.

After I read it, I'll comment back about what I found that is what the Members of that Group provided, and in what form(s) that was used in the book. I have no idea, obviously, 'how much' of the book was lifted from the rest of us.

But I will find out! Inspector Gadget is on the job!

Not that I'd look nearly as good in uniform as you do, Smudger, of course.

I don't like my privacy violated. And maybe it has not been, I have not settled that in my little mind yet.

Sandi

Thats what I meant Sandi. A five year gap between the group ceasing and the book coming out doesn't exactly support the idea that the group was founded in order to gather material for the book; more, in my opinion, that they looked back and thought "hey those were good times, maybe we could make it into a book".

The other issue in claiming copyright as I see it is that since no-one identified themselves except with made-up screen names then proof would be very difficult especially with the time lapse. That's why I always laugh at the people who threaten legal action on these boards- how do you go about PROVING who is posting anything?

I agree totally, Smudger, it simply raises 'interesting new thoughts' about how such things may be handled in the future.

Though if I look hard enough, I'm pretty sure I can come up with some things from back emails and/or links from 5-7 years ago that are time-stamped and would be 'proof' of certain things, including emails with Sally. But I don't need to do that, because I will recognize every single thing that may have been taken from Others at the Group, in the book.

I'm suing no one....lol. But it fascinates me as more and more of 'our' things become even a bit more 'mainstream'.

There is an entire 'new World' now with this form of communication and sharing, and it's only obvious that new 'Rules of Engagement' must eventually be crafted.

And maybe they waited on purpose for 5 years, or maybe the total project took that long with other research they were doing, but I'm not usually 'wrong' when I get a 'feeling' about the motivations of someone online and have pursued those suspicions 'quietly' while gathering more information and/or evidence.

I think my feelings of 'being used' are at least understandable....though on the other hand I'm THRILLED that what we did was not LOST forever. I'm certain I will find the book interesting, and I WILL know each and every time if phraseology, or direct passages, or whatever, from our posts at that Group, are being used.

I expect now to see mySELF in that book, my own words or concepts even if not quoted directly.

It will shock you, Smudger, that I was rather able to convey emotion in my Arena and Amazon death scenes.....lol. So most of me, sure, will be nothing but thrilled to find any such things in print.

As far as I know, the entire existence of female gladiators in any volume is in large question, but it's a perfect fantasy for expressing the rawest of emotions that are felt at times in 'our' fantasies. And those English women were able to go MUCH farther than I could, with their descriptive depictions of the brutal realities. So there will be 'real' brutality depicted that Sandi herself never engaged in because it just reaches that 'too real' level for me.

But 3 of the women there WERE already published or nearly-published authors, so they were able to, while enjoying the fantasies (except for Sally), detach from any 'reality' and treat the entire thing dispassionately as they explored any and ALL aspects of what went on then. Some of them were very into the absolute realities and their ability to paint those pictures.
That's not me, but they enabled ME to get beyond merely the fantasy emotions, also, so my own writing expanded from merely painting a scenario and playing it out.

A quickie example and then I'm outta here....my most frequent individual 'play time' female partner for gladiatrix/amazon/even spy fantasies was a British woman. But she was able to detach, also. One night she wanted to play out a scene where the two of us were on a bridge, fighting, with hundreds of starving wolves beneath the bridge just waiting for one of us to fall. She wanted to play out the fantasy to the nth degree of what happened WHEN one...or both....fell into the wolf pit. She wanted to be able to write the wolf-rips-apart-women part at the end of our play, NOT because she wanted to be ripped apart and devoured piece by piece by those teeth, but for the literary exercise only in being able TO detach and simply write it as it is in reality.

No, we didn't play the scene....lol. And she understood why I could not.

But all credit to those who can detach. We all do it to major degrees with any level of these fantasies anyway, obviously. There are simply limits for this woman, and since I'm not attempting to become a published writer in such areas, I had and have no wish to test my writing skills with things that disgust me....LOL. Limited, yes, I freely admit....but that's me.

Sandi

Unless the book contains frequent text that is taken directly from your role plays, I don't see how this is any different than someone writing a book based on Dungeons & Dragons campaigns with friends.

I can understand why it would make the unwitting parties feel "used", to have their intense fantasy sessions exploited, without credit to the original "authors", for the profit and notoriety of someone else. However, while such chicanery may be socially uncouth, I see absolutely no legal liability.

The bottom line: If you are afraid your original creative work might be used for the profit and gain of others, you shouldn't be publishing and disseminating it in an unofficial capacity, especially not via the internet.

of course you are right, Miniskirtkiller, about the obvious need to be aware that things could be lifted by Others for their own gain.

And I was aware at the time, or believed there to be those ulterior motives.

My lawyer friend, however, did lay out some rather specific but simple parameters under which a lawsuit, probably class-action in the end because they would not want to settle with people one at a time, probably could be successful. But of course it would be tied to profits, and no one can be sure there will be any large profits. At any rate, I have NO interest in doing that lawsuit thing at all, but for education I asked a lawyer friend, just for informational purposes.

I was interested because of this being yet another aspect of this 'new' online world that will only continue to grow larger...ergo we can only expect, as with 'child porn' things and such, that new Rules will have to be developed, and law angles considered and precedents set by Courts and such. So I'm only trying to learn about these possible changes.

But you make sense totally with what you say otherwise, and I completely agree.

And I have no problem with it being done, as I will be thrilled IF I can pick out passages or scenes that were lifted directly from what we wrote there!

Sandi

I believe that statements made in a public forum, or otherwise "in public" are not copyrightable. On the other hand, if you create a literary work and publish it, for example, on a website, I believe it is intellectual property subject to copyright laws.

IMHO, the entire copyright scenario is now in a huge state of turmoil, as a result of the emergence of the internet as a world wide platform for dissemination of material, both copyrighted and not. It is probably going to literally take years for case law to evolve in this arena.

Should you elect to participate in such roleplay in the future, Sandi, you might want to record the transcript and "publish it" on a website as a story with the roleplay as dialogue. This would then amount to official publication and probably give you some degree of protection.

However, there are regular members of some websites that have plagirized my photosets and videos/vid caps for years, and that is copyrighted material. But, in order to prosecute under the copyright laws, you must first show damages, which is difficult in general and exceedingly difficult in the genre of our community.

Still probably doesn't change the feeling of being "used" (the abuse, I assume, was consentual

Hank,

You make total sense, thanks also for some real information regarding copyrights and such.

I think we're on the same page in terms of 'curiosity' and even more in terms of what changes the Internet will cause in such areas. As you said, we're in the very early stages of gathering evidence and testing limits and such.

Thx also for the advice about 'saving and posting', but personally I have no intention of pursuing anything....lol. Even if I was considering action, I would never go the final step and expose myself publicly just to make a point or even to make money. That's not who I am....lol.

And my creative days in those areas are in my past, I believe, as any of the few attempts I have made to get back into those modes have failed before I've completed a project....lol.

And we did have, as I said, THE most intense personal-sharing years that any of us ever experienced, in terms of playing together and creating verbal movies together ad lib. It was splendid fun, the most creative years of mine in 'our' community, and the hottest sexually.

When we 'died' in the Colisseum, we actually were in our minds emoting our own sexual climaxes to over 100,000 people. That's all due to the Players and how superb they were, and how much they enabled even an emotive one like me to open even further and explore new levels of things, to say nothing of the incredibly different challenge of creating and maintaining a Character who posted nearly daily and often more often than once, for the six month life of the story.

But I'm good with all of it, Hank. Truly my major focus is on being so thrilled that all was not lost from those years. I will buy the book and 'report' back, just for interest's sake, as to how much is obviously taken from our former Group's postings.

Thx again, your perspective is always helpful because of your own years of experience. Appreciate it always from any of you guys who know more about such things because they've interfered with your own businesses, too!

Sandi