So it turns out that a shady website with a shadier website behind it is suddenly hosting ridiculous amounts of stories scraped from Archive of Our Own and Wattpad. Some of these "stories", if you check the original, are 100 word drabbles or fanart posts. Either way, massively unethical and probably illegal, even though the works were posted for free.

As someone who posts original content online, I can't guard myself against that content being reposted elsewhere. I depend entirely on netiquette and obscurity to protect me. Yet the idea sets my teeth on edge. I feel a lot more strongly about copyright violations when they're taking content belonging to an individual rather than a huge media conglomerate. I'm strongly against book piracy. Spider-Man gifs, not so much. So let's not make any mistake here: I am upset on the behalf of the ficcers, not on behalf of whoever holds the copyright for the characters they write about. Their stories are theirs.

I hope most people online would instinctively know not to download anything from a site like ebooks-tree, but if they were after clicks, they've certainly got them. Fans are up in arms and showering the site with take-down requests. 

What a world we live in.