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So I spent all of last night lying in bed awake, worrying that CoverFly are going to come for me in a legal capacity and, since I just quit my job to write full-time, eventually put my wife and I on the street, kill my career, and close Script Revolution.

This all coincides with the fact I’m writing my first screenplay for a Hollywood director and could really use a clear mind.

And, to top it all off, Craig Mazin called me a bit of an asshole.

I’ve been watching CoverFly gradually dominate the scene for a while now and I’ve also been a very vocal opponent against how it’s designed.

When I first learned about CoverFly seven months ago, I really freaked out. On top of everything I’ve been seeing over the past few years, it seemed like the perfectly cynical operation. A site which combines a competition entry portal with a ranking list (Red List) and even a personal score (Industry Score tm).

In the name of transparency, there is a wound here for me that I’ve spoken openly about in the past. I used to be a Black List addict, losing what little I had in savings in the process of falling just short of making the cut and almost resorting to suicide when my average score plummeted (worst Christmas ever). I never want another writer to go through what I went through and completely admit that experience leads me emotionally to this day.

A lot of how I felt about the state of the industry at the time of learning about CoverFly, I posted in this Reddit thread; This Is Starting To Terrify Me

As you’ll read in that post, I was already very upset about the number of screenwriting competitions appearing on a weekly basis and the continued growth of paid feedback services that give out scores. It also shows how I often feel in a difficult position here. While I do run a script hosting website these days, I am still predominantly a screenwriter and not a businessman, and thus I’m often very much torn between standing up for my principles as I’ve always done or keeping my big mouth shut. As anybody who knows me knows too well, I have always been a very vocal individual when it comes to screenwriters potentially being preyed upon. Vocal to the point of doing myself, and potentially others, more harm than good.

The first CoverFly thread on Stage 32 popped up and I threw my opinion in there, telling people that it was all over, that CoverFly would come to dominate the break in industry and there was no point fighting it. I had utterly resigned to the fact that it would become an unstoppable and highly cynical force on the basis that, en masse, we screenwriters seem to act like complete suckers for any form of validation.

But then the Stage 32 thread developed into users posting they’d had accounts created on CoverFly, their material added (but not published publicly), and a score given to them which they were being encouraged to improve by entering more competitions. This, although covered in various TOCs, started a hysteria that spread into personal messages, emails, and Facebook groups, and all these rumours started to circulate about how they were stealing IP, how they’d gotten into FilmFreeway to scrape data, how they didn’t have permission to use the logos on their front page, how they were bullying competitions, how some of their data was being collated by hand, and even that they could charge people’s credit cards.

Feeling CoverFly were now possibly even more evil than I’d imagined, I kind of went a bit hysterical myself at this point and started tweeting a lot of warnings out about the rumours and even asking all the organisations shown on their website if they had permission to use their logos. I really should have bitten my lip until their were more facts available.

A lot of others were doing the same too, some of who were prominent industry members, at least one of which is now publicly defending them and trying to help suggest a scapegoat for it all. This movement of public outcry seemingly validated what was just speculation at the time and I didn’t stop to think about what I was becoming part of.

ScreenCraft tweeted about Script Revolution very positively and this led to CoverFly approaching me on Twitter wanting to work together. In a fit of rage and faux edginess, I literally told them to “Go fuck themselves!” and they blocked me, which is fair enough. I do have a very strict rule on Script Revolution about never exposing users to paid services . That’s why there’s no advertising or any real partnerships as such. However, I didn’t need to be so rude and unprofessional. I proudly tweeted about them blocking me and then more people came out the woodwork with more rumours and the concern escalated.

Now cut to Reddit, which has a new moderator and a new script competition running. It turns out CoverFly are now sponsoring this competition and my palm now needs surgically removing from my face, which is a little shamefaced since I sponsored the previous one via Script Revolution. I felt rejected and worse still, it was in favour of the new cool kid in town. Knowing the moderator behind it, I reached out and listed all these rumours I was privy to, warning them they might want to distance themselves or be prepared to answer a lot of difficult questions. They told me they’d wait for the facts because, unlike me, they are a rational human being.

The rumours didn’t surface but users eventually got more and more tired and concerned about CoverFly being advertised on Reddit and all hell suddenly broke out with people wanting CoverFly’s advert taken down and questioning the mod’s motivations for supporting them. I kept out of all that, but again, stuff was circulating privately. This all came to a head in the infamous Reddit CoverFly AMA where a lot of these rumours suddenly became very public.

Now, I was kinda impressed by how patiently Scot argued a lot of the points and it became more and more clear that he seemed to genuinely believe in what he was doing. In fact, this very much reminded me of watching Franklin Leonard defend the Black List on DoneDealPro years back. I’m not saying that’s a good thing because I have issues with these website concepts themselves, but that attitude is very different to being fundamentally corrupt.

While a lot of the rumours were addressed in the AMA, I think a lot of people were floored by Scot openly explaining their relationship with Red Ampersand and how they were linked to WeScreenplay, ScriptLab, and ScreenCraft. This felt like a huge conflict of interest to many and very much solidified one side’s view that all these organisations were now toxic. In addition to this, Scot talking about also implementing CoverFly certification for competitions felt, if anything, really fucking scary to anyone who’d concluded CoverFly were corrupt.

This pretty much divided Reddit and CoverFly became a volatile subject and a bit of a boogyman. I’ll also point out that, at this point, Reddit was looking more and more like a load of adverts for the Black List and WeScreenplay with users constantly posting reviews while some reputable users were disappearing. This is something I publicly winged about and at least one of the reddit admins, had similar feelings over but no answers. It started to feel more and more like these communities were being taken over by businesses. Again, I couldn’t help but recall topics about the Black List absolutely dominating DoneDealPro when the website first launched.

At this point, I got pretty solemn and resigned to the belief that we are doomed and have to accept we are collectively the reason for various paid services becoming popular. I wrote a very pessimistic article about it; Screenwriters; It’s Time To Take Some Responsibility. While CoverFly played a role in my feelings at this point, this was mainly fuelled by my experience adding a seemingly endless number of new competition awards to Script Revolution.

That was in Feb and I just kept my head down writing for a few months, feeling that I should just focus on myself and try to keep Script Revolution as wholesome as possible. I should have stuck with that and continued to live in a world I could control.

Cut to last week and I’m uploading my latest feature on various free hosting platforms including, of course, Stage 32. While logged in, I see the CoverFly thread as picked up again and I check through it.

Low and behold — I find the Coverfly Scam Blog post.

I read it and I feels like everything that had been feared for some time. The hairs on my arms claw into the air. It feels researched. It feels like it comes from someone connected. It feels like all the concerns I and others had were founded in a larger conspiracy.

I don’t so much drink the Kool Aid as chug a keg of it and kick the door to my Twitter account down. I share the blog and, while this sounds a little arrogant since I only have a few thousand followers, I think it might have been me doing so that caused the rumours to explode as they did. I’ve done a Twitter search and I’m pretty sure I was the first to share it on there, even if it was some time after the blogpost was written and, I think, CoverFly were already aware of it being shared around elsewhere.

A lot of people, who must have been feeling the same as me, totally took the bait too. I saw it appearing everywhere with the same feeling of conclusion and confirmation that all the concern was now validated.

My immediate reaction, as some other platforms did, was to start pulling all associated competitions on Script Revolution, partly to protect users but also to start calling various people out for getting into bed with CoverFly when there was seemingly so much smoke. To be honest, nobody really cared because what I do is so insignificant.

What I didn’t really realise was how much everything was blowing up outside my tiny bubble until I saw that CoverFly had released a highly detailed rebuttal that was being shared and applauded everywhere.

I very much threw my toys out the pram at this point and started bleating that CoverFly were skewing the narrative, which was very unfair to say since they were simply defending themselves. What I didn’t like accepting was the fact they have lots of very happy customers more than willing to stand up and defend them. I proclaimed that it was only a matter of time they would be featured on Scriptnotes, just like the Black Last was (that’s what got me into the Black List, you see.) and that’s pretty much why Craig Mazin tweeted me to call me a bit of an asshole.

It doesn’t feel good when Craig Mazin calls you a bit of an asshole, believe me.

It’s now Sunday and I’m having a busy day planning a play I’m involved with about male mental health (ironic) but people are messaging me complaining about a site called Bang2Write and telling me they’ve left their Facebook group. Bang2Write had also put a post on Reddit which was defending CoverFly based on a lot of claimed due-diligence. I was furious to see this and tweeted that no comps run by Bang2Write will be valid on Script Revolution either and that a whole overhaul of how I was handling awards was needed. Lucy V Hay, who runs Bang2Write did not take well to this and tweets me to protest she doesn’t even run any competitions. I, ever the diplomat and nursing a migraine, simply reply “Fuck off, you shill.” and hope that will be the last of it.

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, it wasn’t.

The bottom of Act-3 kicks in. The dark night of despair — Sorry for the Save The Cat reference.

Lucy, in an understandably state of personal offence and emotion, then goes through my Twitter history, see’s that I was possibly the first to share the scam blog posts and concludes I wrote it since, in her eyes, Script Revolution is somehow a direct competitor with CoverFly. She then posts and shares this everywhere she can. In her defence, my original tweet is kinda worded like I did write it. But still, she did zero research before making these conclusions and suddenly I’m learning what it’s like to be on the other side of unfounded allegations and potentially facing the legal consequences of them.

I didn’t like the boot being on the other foot one bit, I can tell you.

Suddenly I’m seeing lots of people saying they now know who wrote the scam blog post and they are even saying that they’ve learned it from her. So I know they think it’s me and I realise I totally fit the profile of a crazy blogger with an axe to grind — because I’m pretty much a crazy blogger with an axe to grind.

My buttocks clench so hard I could deadlift 500lbs.

To add some colour to this. I go to take some paracetamol for my migraine and accidentally take a double dose of Zoloft/Sertraline, and have now become convinced I’m going to die of serotonin shock. I know you don’t need to know that, but I feel it goes some way to showing that everything I’m touching at this moment is turning to shit.

I did start defending myself on Stage 32, but for every post I made, I could also see other discussions saying I was only confirming responsibility for the blog post. I couldn’t win. For reasons still unknown, Lucy’s post on Reddit gets deleted, which was a bit weird, but it did read like advertorial since it had so many links to her site. She now decides I’ve managed to get it removed and I know full well I couldn’t look more guilty.

The very kind of activity I’d been involved with had come full circle to teach me a lesson. Rumours are dangerous. Not doing proper due-diligence is dangerous. When it’s one person’s name at stake it’s one thing, when it’s a community, or a business, or both, a lot is suddenly on the line.

After twenty fours of festering paranoia and by the time I went to bed last night, even I was starting to become convinced I was the villain in all this and I only had my own big mouth to blame really. I joke about this but it’s proper scary. I just lay there feeling like I was losing everything I’d built up, all because I feel the need to act so principled.

Anyway, I read back through the CoverFly rebuttal and they are pretty candid about their investigation which didn’t implicate me in any way I could see. I certainly didn’t have anything to gain by making up stuff about them, but it’s obvious there’s others that stand to loose/gain a great deal.

So, red-faced and feeling pretty stupid, I reached out to Scot and told him pretty much everything you see here. I apologised for spreading the rumour and any stress himself and his associates may have gone through.

He’s been very good about it and was quick to publicly clear my name. He took it as an opportunity to offer his point of view and bond. It was a humbling moment and one that happened way too late on in all this.

All in all, I wanted to show just how far back this goes and how big the rumour mill going back for over half a year potentially is. There’s a mass of confusion and speculation behind the scenes coming from many sources. I mean, there’s stuff I’ve been told about CoverFly that’s just paranoid and silly.

So yeah, long story short, I could have lost everything I have just when it matters by being a loudmouth asshole and becoming far too active in trying to defend writers against paid services with no real context applied for each service in question.

Something I have learned about myself here is that I am too reactive about this stuff and need to cool my heels. I’m starting to learn why writers with any sort of career just keep out of this stuff. It’s just too easy to end up looking like the bad guy, even if your intentions are good. I’m a writer and should just stick to that.

Anyway, I thought I would share some of those early rumours which I shared and are still circulating now.

CoverFly are creating accounts in the name of writers and hosting their scripts without permission — This was a miss-understanding over their TOCs and they have provided a means to remove accounts.

CoverFly got themselves into Film FreeWay submissions, where they could scrape writer details and scripts from and hold submissions to ransom — The former part is purely rumour as far as I know and the system logically means deleting your CoverFly account deletes your competition entries with it.

In some cases, CoverFly have got writer’s credit card details in their system who never signed up to their site and can charge it via Stripe — As far as I know, completely untrue and an assumption made by one person that spread like wildfire. Obviously, CoverFly can charge the cards of those who’ve registered an account with them and subsequently made a purchase.

Someone contacted at AFF and, while their logo is on the front page of CoverFly, say they haven’t heard of them — I know who this person was because it was within a Facebook group that it took place and have since learned they are an even bigger asshole than me. I don’t trust them at all and left the group a long time ago.

CoverFly bullied a competition - demanding they use their submission portal or be copied — I can’t say I have conclusive proof this was the case because I’ve since heard both sides of the story.

CoverFly compile all Film FreeWay results by hand — I believe this came from someone in a state of distress who didn’t understand what they were being told by someone on CoverFly’s team regarding technical issues.

So there you have it. I’m posting this around everywhere I can in the hope of some sort of redemption but accept I’ve tarred and feathered myself with this really.

TL:DR — I’m an asshole.