IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - Novel stolen and sold under another name.

There has been a wave of piracy recently, and unfortunately, my novel was illicitly stolen and has been sold on Kindle (Amazon) with a different title and cover. Furthermore, the perpetrator used Chat GPT to paraphrase the synopsis and replace the characters' names.

This case is way more serious than a simple repost on an aggregator site : this fucker— I mean, this seemingly ill-natured person, has literally committed the highest degree of copyright and IP infringement that is punishable by law.

The person in question probably felt safe behind his screen, but he's a complete moron. Not only did he steal novels that aren't even finished yet (I'm not the only author who had his novel stolen), but he openly sold them on Kindle.

The moment I confirmed the infringement, I immediately called my lawyer to prepare the necessary procedures. He informed me that, if I wished to, I could obtain a court decision in less than three months that would allow us to obtain the perpetuator's banking information from Amazon's database.

No matter what service he used to cash in the money he got from his sales on Amazon (bank account, paypal, skrill, etc.), this court order would force the providers to release the perpetuator's personal information.

To make it short, this guy's identity was compromised the moment he decided to use Amazon for his scam. (You see why he's a moron ?)

Even if he used a VPN and a fake identity to create a fake account on Amazon, the money he gained through his scam is 100% traceable. As long as it's not cryptocurrency (which online payments systems like amazon, paypal, skrill, etc. do not accept), a simple court order is all that's needed to know this retard's identity ; his (or her) real name, age, bank, city of birth as well as the current country and city he(she) is living in, etc.

Of course, going down this road will take some time and I'll have to spend a fair amount of money from my own pocket on legal fees, which is why the first thing I did before starting the legal action with my lawyer was to reach out to Amazon and request the removal of my plagiarized work from their platform. I also sent a DMCA takedown notice to Google.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

During the next few days, I'll see how the situation develops. Just know that I am more than ready to take legal action if need be.

Spending money on legal fees for the copyright of a web novel may seem crazy, I know, but even if I'm just an amateur author driven by passion and for whom writing is but a hobby, this doesn't mean that I'll let an idiot trample on my work, claiming ownership of my novel, and scamming (ignorant) readers on Kindle.

To prevent this from happening a second time and in parallel with the legal action I may have to start, I'll also make it harder for these pieces of sh— to steal and plagiarize my work.

Moving forward, I will be including one (or more) sentences unrelated to the story in each chapter posted on Scribblehub, Royal Road, and Webnovel. These sentences will serve as distinctive markers to signify that "this novel is exclusively published here," albeit with varying wording each time.

I'll also reformulate certain sentences to make them harder to be processed by Chat GPT (or any other AI for that matter). In the end, whoever will try to plagiarize my work again will have to spend an insane amount of time editing each chapter, even while using Chat GPT.

I understand that this may prove slightly inconvenient for you, the reader, and for that, I ask for your understanding.

Lastly, I want to remind you that my novel is accessible for free only on the following platforms : Scribblehub, Royal Road, and Webnovel, with premium chapters available exclusively through my Patreon.

If you ever come across my novel being sold under a different title / cover / synopsis on Kindle or any other book-selling platform, or if it appears on a site other than the three mentioned above, please contact me without delay:

* On Discord : nobletalon

* Via email : [email protected]

* Or through Scribblehub's private chat.

I want to express my gratitude to the kind souls who alerted me to this issue, one of whom was a reader. Without your vigilance, I wouldn't have known a petty thief was selling my book on Kindle, so thank you immensely.

- NobleTalon

nt. : I was editing Chapter 30 when this happened and I originally planned to release it today on Patreon so I could post Chapter 21 before the next week, but... I'm just not in the mood currently, sorry. I'll get back to the usual schedule from the next week hopefully. Thanks for your understanding.

nt. 2 : If you're also an author, please read this forum post to make sure that your book hasn't been stolen : https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/list-of-suspected-piracy.15972/