Creator Conduct Checker

As part of our efforts to defend fanfiction authors' rights, Copy-Knight audits content creators that re-use fanfiction in their content and assigns grades depending on their behaviour, ensuring authors have the necessary information to give informed consent to creators that respect their work.

This database aims to fight back at the uploaders who intentionally mislead authors into giving permission to them in order to profit from their work.

This is an initiative by Project Copy-Knight - Learn more about what we do

What the grades mean

A+	Consistently follows guidelines, with no violations in the last 3 months
A	Follows guidelines
C	Follows copyright law, but violates our guidelines e.g. has undisclosed monetisation, permissions not publicly declared, etc
F	Violates copyright law and steals content, disrespects authors' wishes
?	We have audited them, but we have insufficient information to assign them with a grade. Either they only use original content that they created themselves, or they are using or stealing content from a platform we are not yet able to match against.
-	Not yet audited, unknown grade

We recommend authors only grant permissions to A-rated creators or above.

How we determine the grades

Grades are determined by the guidelines listed below.

1. Copyright
   1. Uploaders must respect the author's copyright
   2. A blank or missing licence or permission statement from the author must be treated as an “All rights reserved” and the uploaders must not use their works
   3. Uploaders must follow the terms of the licence when using an author's work
   4. The licence or permission must be obtained before the content is uploaded
   5. Orphaned works must not be used unless the work is in the public domain
   6. All licences and permission statements must be considered revoked when given a 72-hour advance notice, unless otherwise stated
2. Solicitation
   1. When requesting permission from the author, the solicitation message should identify the uploader, provide a link to their account, and declare if they commercialise their account for financial gain
      1. Direct means of financial gain (paywalls, exclusive early-access, monetisation, sponsorship messages, affiliate links or codes, etc) where the uploader receives money as a direct result of the derivative work have to be declared
      2. Indirect means of financial gain (donation links, merchandise sales, etc) which are obviously identifiable on the main page of the account do not have to be declared, as long as they do not appear in the contents or meta-contents (description, pinned comment, etc) of the derivative work

      Explanatory note: advertisements inserted by the hosting platform that the uploader does not profit from do not have to be declared

   2. Solicitation messages must not be misleading or deceptive
   3. Uploaders should check the profile pages and work notes (if applicable) of the author for solicitation instructions and “Do Not Interact” no-solicitation bans and follow its instructions.
   4. Uploaders must not attempt to evade bans, blocks or mutes set by the author or the website
   5. Uploaders must not ask or encourage their own fanbase to solicit authors for permission on their behalf in a way that could be considered brigading or harassing the author
3. Declaration
   1. Uploaders should attach a link to the permission statement or licence given by the author to their uploads
      1. To fulfil 3.1, the licence or permission has to be verifiably from the author, such as a public comment from the author's account. Photographic proof such as screenshots are not acceptable

      Explanatory note: If an author has given their permission in private, that's fine by us, we would just drop the author a message to confirm it. This exception only applies to A-rated accounts or above.

   2. Uploaders should send a link of their upload to the author when it is published

Following all guidelines will yield an A or A+ grade, violating one or more "should" guidelines will yield a C grade, and violating copyright law and/or disrespecting authors' wishes and/or any "must" requirements will yield an F grade.

We enforce these guidelines equally on all creators. If you think you suffered discrimination or unfair treatment in the rating or enforcement process, please join our Discord server and blow the whistle in the #general channel. Our whistle-blower policy protects reporters from retaliation, no matter the outcome of the investigation.

How these grades are used

We use these grades to determine whether to notify authors or contact the uploader for corrective action, and what phrasing to use when instructing authors how to defend their rights.

For grade A accounts and above, we give a week of grace-period for uploaders to fix problems; if guidelines continue to be violated after a week then the uploader will have their grade downgraded.

For grade C accounts, we inform authors what guidelines the creator is not following (e.g. undisclosed monetisation), and suggest the author revoke their permission. We also inform the uploader and ask them to take corrective action.

For grade F accounts, we ask authors to issue DMCA takedown notices with the intent to terminate the uploader's account.

If you are a content creator and would like for your grade to be changed, please contact us in our Discord server.