Erotic Stories
 

There should be a erotic stories board.

should, but there never will be
copyright issues

if you would like to write your own stories and are willing to sign off that it's your genuine work, then send me a PM and I'll review it for posting on the lit board.

is the irony of tfp respecting copyright on written work but not photographic lost on everyone else?

Since I have posted stories on the Lit board let me point out that there is a big difference between written copyright and visual.
Just like sharing music, sharing pictures with your friends is not illegal.
Artists have been making collages for a long time using images taken from other places.
Taking a story and claiming it is your own is a whole different matter.
Even if you only post it you are still guilty of plagiarism.
I always put a not at the beginning of my stories that I hold all rights of publication to the stories.

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but isn't swapping copyrighted music illegal? Not that I see any problem with it, of course, but still, legally, I'm pretty certain that you aren't supposed to use any original material (stories, music, photos, etc) without giving full credit to the original owner of the material, or, if they want... royalties.

That said, copyright law for photos seems to be pretty lax (if it exists at all, I'm not sure).

Probably, but I still download. Fuck the RIAA. Their bullshit backfired. I'll never buy another CD cause they just plain pissed me off.

What about copyright-free works that are available for public distribution? I think most stories out there (like the asstr.org stuff) are not copyrighted works, they were posted originally in public forums. Actually, I think there are very few stories that would fall under the copyrighted heading... What if we're able to provide copyright and author information on the stories, even if they're not personally written?

It's too much of a hassle and too much of a legal risk to allow people to post some stories but not others. Almost every TGP site out there has the same set of stories for free, some have a few of their own. If you really want a fresh flow of stuff, grab a freeware newsreader (or use the one in your email client) and hit alt.sex.stories. They'll provide much more than we could possibly give you.

As for pictures, none are hosted on our site, therefore we are not violating any copyright laws.

That's true, and that's why I mentioned the asstr (alt.sex.stories text repository), but the same is true of pictures - I can find lots of free porn on Usenet, but the thing about the TFP is that you get to share tidbits you like with like-minded people. I like the community feeling of TFP, and that's why I like looking at pictures that someone shares with everyone - it's more personal :-)

The same would be true of stories, really. But I understand the worries about copyright. What if we had a separate board for erotic literature? I wouldn't mind posting some of the things I've written, but I don't really want to post them to the general Literature board for fear of putting people off - I'd much rather have people come to a place that's designated as 'titty stories' than get my erotica in other people's poetry :-)

Anyway, I understand the reasons it probably won't happen, just giving some suggestions for possible workarounds.

Bingle