Woodsign Fanfic App On The App Store

Woodsign fanfic app on the App Store

Lots of people have been pinging me in posts about this company and their various apps (pictured above). I don’t own any Apple products, so I haven’t been able to see these apps myself, but my understanding is that they pull data from AO3 and present it in the app, sometimes for a fee. 

If you’re wondering whether your own stories are being hosted on these apps, you’ll need to either check for yourself or find a friend who can check for you.

I emailed AO3 Support about the subject, and here’s what I got in response:

Thanks for asking about this app. We checked with the OTW Legal team and our coders, and have some information to pass on. “The OTW does not own the works posted on the Archive – they are all owned by their respective authors. 

For that reason, although the OTW can (and does) rely on trademark law to make sure that people don’t make confusing apps that would make people think the OTW or AO3 is associated with them, there’s nothing we can do about apps or services that contain works owned by AO3 users.  That is up to the authors themselves, who own the copyrights in their fanworks. 

“Many sites have procedures (known as DMCA takedown procedures) that allow copyright owners such as fan-authors to request that their works be removed. The Fanfic Pocket Archive Library may have such procedures.   Regardless of whether those procedures exist, copyright owners can always demand that their works be removed from places they are not authorized, and as a matter of copyright law, sites should comply with such demands.

“The Apple App store also has procedures for reporting apps that infringe copyright:  https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices/#?lang=en 

“The Google Play store has similar: https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905 

“To be clear, to the best of our knowledge, the app is not wholesale scraping and storing data - they’re displaying content from the Archive in a very heavily modified format. Because the app’s subscription fee can be explained as “to support the app’s code base” and not for the content itself, it is within legal bounds. Our only suggestions are for the creators of the works to issue DCMA takedowns to the app developer, and to the appropriate app store if they find the developer response unsatisfactory.

tldr; There’s nothing that AO3 can do in this situation. It’s up to individual authors to report the copyright infringement to protect their own work. Start with the app itself and then go to the app store if they don’t do as you requested. 

If you could signal boost this post, I’m sure AO3 Support would appreciate it. I can only imagine how many emails they’re getting about this right now.