This is not Fiction Branches official policy, this is just my opinion.
Writing.com has recently started gating their content even more extremely than they used to. Even the original authors are being gated from the content unless they buy memberships to W.C. By my own "Favorites" list, I'd estimate chapter posting is down to around 15% what it was three months ago. So W.C is somewhat a sinking ship. StoryMaster has repeatedly expressed his contempt for the content of Interactives, yet seems intent on keeping the users there to coerce them into buying memberships.
So while yes, every effort should be made to contact the authors, this seems more of a lifeboat than a copyright infringement. The copyright still belongs to the authors, and the author granted non-exclussive rights to W.C to display that content. So W.C has no right to bring a claim against fb. It's the copyright holders obligation to defend their copyright, so unless they bring a C&D, which I consider highly unlikely, there's no real problem. Additionally, should a C&D be brought, the content can easily be removed. While it is poor etiquette to go ahead and post content without permission, I'd imagine many authors would be glad to find that their content survived, and is in a community that appreciates it and wants it to grow.
