A Rant About Copyright Infringement

Currently, I am battling a site that is registered in France, China, and Russia. It is called wiredshelf.com and I understand that not only does it post e-books such as mine to entice booklovers to "subscribe" to a "subscription library" of 100,000 e-books (many of which are being advertised and possibly shared "free" without the consent, permission or compensation to the copyright owners) but it also allegedly abuses any credit card information supplied by would-be subscribers.

Wiredshelf.com looks legitimate. It turns up in searches on Google and Alexa. It is protected by various privacy-protect "fronts".

Wiredshelf is protected by Twitter. Twitter members may boast freely in tweets that they have added or uploaded copyrighted works, and direct all the world to wiredshelf.com. In response, Twitter insists on DMCAs for the copyright owners, takes two or more days about it, will not remove any link except those identified individually by actual copyright owners.

Moreover, Twitter threatens the very authors it is harming with exposure on Chilling Effects, and with lawsuits if they should dare to overstep the bounds.

EBay is awash with DVDs of e-books burned by amateurs and entrepreneurs who seem to believe that they can claim copyright on anything they can snag from a pirate site. EBay raises unbelievable hurdles to authors. Copyright owners must own specific types of accounts, they must be pre-registered, they must have access to faxes and printers... woe betide any copyright owner who happens to be travelling when she hears that her e-books are being illegally auctioned on eBay!

Copyright-infringing vendors keep their good reputations. EBayers who purchase illegal DVDs are not informed that they do not (as they were led to believe in the auctions) own the copyright to bestselling modern novels that they bought on EBay. Therefore, the same copyright infringing collections are sold over and over again in multiple auctions by increasing numbers of eBayers.

The same happens on other internet sites.

My works have been stolen, shared, sold without my permission, scanned, posted in libraries more times than I can count. My copyright has been directly infringed by SONY, AMAZON and indirectly infringed by Plunder, Astatalk, EBay, wiredshelf....

Congress and the Library of Congress must define what is a RED FLAG, and must oblige OSPs that want "Safe Harbor" to pay attention to and investigate warnings and reports from members of the public.



Something must be done to address the all-too-popular misconception that if an e-book is "freely" available on a pirate site or file sharing site, it must necessarily be "in the public domain". If the author is alive, she probably owns that copyright, in which case, no one else may claim copyright over that work.


Just because Google or Adbrite robots place respectable companies' advertisements on a site (for pay) does not confer necessary respectability on that site. It could still be infringing authors' and artists' and musicians; copyright.

Just because a hosting site has wording it its TOS and TOU that deplore and forbid copyright infringement and ostensibly threaten infringers with banning and loss of access does not mean that those sites follow through. It does not mean that sites like FILESONIC aren't paying a cash bounty  for every unwitting illegal downloader who visits their site and steals a "free" movie, game, or e-book, or for every new subscriber who signs up for a paid premium account so that they can download more "freebies" faster, before the greedy publishers and producers find out that their work is being given away free, and send a take down notice.

At the moment, creators cannot afford to sue pirates, and the pirates know it. They post "Guides" to that effect on EBay. Piracy pays, because pirates (and PayPal and Google and the advertisement aggregators) keep making money until the pirates are caught, and when they are caught, they simply have to change an email address and start again.

Sincerely,
Rowena Cherry

Picture This

This is an extended metaphor.

Picture me standing outside Office Minimal. The shop window is broken.

(The shop window is DRM.)

"Free zip drives!" I yell. "Come and get your free zip drive. Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Freely available zip drives for everybody. Step right up and get your free zip drives. It's easy to collect all you want. For free!"

As eager zip drive lovers rush through the gaping hole in the window --which I swear I didn't make, I just found it, and am sharing my findings-- I murmur another message.

"Plastic bags! Buy your easy-to-use plastic bag here. For the easy, on-the-spot price of $2.00 you can have the convenience of being able to carry away far more free zip drives than you could manage in your own two hands!"

A police car cruises by.

"Not to worry, Officer," I reassure the patrolman. "I didn't break the window. The freely available zip drives aren't in my hands. I'm just exerting my First Amendment Right of free speech to tell people where to find free zip drives...

"Roll up! Roll up!" I interject to the world. "Get your freely available zip drives. All you can carry. They're in the public domain!" Then turning back to the officer, I tell him, "Zip drives want to be free. $14.99 is too expensive. $14.99 is a ridiculous price, charged by greedy, money-grub...."

The officer has lost interest. The patrol car is already edging past Better Buy, several paces down the street, where one of my associates is distributing wire shopping carts on a profitable basis to Better Buy lovers who are collecting free CDs. All he asks in exchange for the loan of a wire shopping cart is that they look for five seconds at what he has on display when he opens his raincoat.

"Free zip drives! Get your $2.00 plastic bag here!!" I do a little business. Pointing other people at freely available zip drives (hosted elsewhere) is amazingly profitable, and the Law can't touch me.

I hear some of what my associate is telling the officer.

"... only $14.99," he wheedles. "The fat cat CD producers aren't going to miss $14.99. For goodness sake, it's only the price of a fancy coffee."

The law enforcement officer moves on.

A woman in a pink hat flags him down. She appears to be indignant. She points at me. "But, it's stealing!" I hear her say.

"Madam, are you the actual owner of the zip drives?" The yahoo in the patrol car asks her. "You can't go around making unsubstantiated accusations unless you are the person being allegedly ripped off. In which case, I'll need your full real name, your phone number, your email address, proof that you are who you say you are, proof that you actually own those freely available zip discs, a formal statement that you have a good faith belief that you are being ripped off, and...."

More raised voices. I lose interest in the pink hatted protester. Someone who must be the Better Buy manager appears to remonstrate with my friend.

"Yes, I can. I can and I will," my friend blusters as CD-carrying members of the public gather around to back him up. "You'll never stop me. CD-liberation needs to exist."

"You greedy piggy! How dare you complain!" the shoppers exclaim. "We'll never shop in your store again!"

*****

Folks, if someone tells you that a tune, game, image, e-book is "free" or "freely available", do your due diligence. See if the artist has a web site. If he or she does, they are probably alive, the work has probably been created in the last 70 years, and may be under copyright protection.

If it's for sale on Amazon, that is a very good indication that maybe that work isn't supposed to be free.

How Piracy Hurts.

(guest post by Deborah MacGillivray)

Does piracy of books hurt?  It destroys lives.

I knew a lovely lady.  She became one of my closest friends. Our friendship was formed on the internet.  Likely, we would have never known each other without that magic connection.  But that link, while bringing the world to your home, also offers you a mask.  Dawn hid herself from the world.  Few knew Dawn Thompson was a paraplegic.  She could stand, take a step or two, but otherwise, she was trapped in a wheelchair, day in, day out, for the last years of her life.

It was always Dawn’s dream to be an author.  The power, the gift of storytelling was in her heart, in her soul.  Dawn would have written even if she never was published because the magic was a part of her.  Just as she was about to make it in publishing, she was nearly killed in a car accident.  It left her with legs that no longer served her, and hands that had not been properly cared for during hospitalization, thus were curled back, useless.  She only had use of her index fingers and her thumbs.  But oh did she make use of those remaining digits!  Dawn wrote dozens of books, most were published by Kensington Books and Dorchester Publishing.

While it was her dream to be published, it also was her necessity to sell her novels.  It was one of the few ways left to her where she could raise money to support herself.  She was left with a very small disability check, not enough to allow her to survive.  She needed that money that would come from her books.  In 2007, Dawn was on the verge of being a bestselling author, and her plans were not to buy a second home in Florida or Hawaii, nor buy that yacht we laughingly hear so much about.  Dawn’s plans were to have a roof over her head, an apartment in a reasonably safe neighborhood, food for her and for her cat and medicine, the basics that many of us―most of us―take for granted.  In the final years of her life, she expanded that drive to want to protect her sister.  Her younger sister Candy is also disabled.  Dawn thought she could write, sell lots of books and she, the cat and Candy would get by.  Nothing fancy, just to be safe, have medicines and decent meals.

 

My heart broke when I called Dawn one day and she was crying.  I finally got the story out of her―what the proud Dawn was trying to hide―just how dire her situation was.  She barely had money for food, a condition that had been going on for months.  She knew if she could make it until the end of the year, the royalties from her books would actually be giving her the means to survive.  She was crying because she was rationing her tea.  Tea was a luxury she couldn’t afford, so she allowed herself ONE teabag each Sunday as a treat for herself.  Dawn had a helper supplied by the government that came in for a couple hours five days a week.  And the aid just went into the kitchen, helped herself to the last tea bag.  Dawn wouldn’t have her tea on Sunday.  I sat and cried.  One teabag per week?  How sad was that?

Dawn was so close to making it, but because of the lack of good food she grew weak, and after a long day of work finishing a book, she collapsed as she tried to move from the wheelchair to the bed.  As she battled for her life in hospital, she took steps to protect her sister.  She gave Candy several of her remaining unpublished books outright, and assigned the rights and royalties of the ones already published to Candy.  If the worst came, she wanted Candy taken care of.

The worst did come.  We lost Dawn in February 2008, but she died with the belief Candy wouldn’t face the horrible circumstances of choosing between medicine and food, that her pain and hard work would provide the means to take care of her sister. Only Candy is not secure.  Her fate is very dire, as bad as what faced Dawn.  Maybe worse.

Sad, you say, but how does this relate to piracy?

Simple.  Dawn wrote for two publishers, but the one that has control of most of her books is Dorchester Publishing.  Recently, they informed the public they were restructuring their business, dropping the mass market line, and moving to only e-book and trade size.  

Why?  Because they are not selling mass market paperbacks on a level to stay in the black.  Why should people pay for books, when they can get on the net and enter a name of a book or author and find dozens, hundreds of places where they can download books free.  Illegally.  

People are giving away books, or even more heinous, selling them.  They are making money off the hard work of others. When I put in Dawn’s name in a search engine, I shall find her books listed on so many pirate sites it’s sickening.  One place selling one of her books illegally had over 4800 downloads.  Just ONE book on ONE site. Yes, all those downloading the book might not have ever bought it.  But many probably would have.  People who professed to love her books would have bought her next book, and her next.  Now, why should they pay, when it’s minutes to locate a novel, second to download?  To steal it.

These criminals ―yes, THAT is what they are ―make money off Dawn’s works.  They are stealing. Dawn used to arise at 7am and would work all day and night and finally struggle into bed around 1am.  SEVEN days a week.  The whole time she was in agony from metal rods and pins in her body, along with sitting in a wheel chair eighteen hours a day.  Those thieves are making money off her agony.  The money venues/handlers such as PayPal are making money off Dawn’s pain. 

And now they are stealing from Dawn’s sister.  They say they aren’t hurting anyone, justifying their criminal activities, because each book is only the “price of a cup of coffee.”  But multiply that by two dozen books, multiply that by thousands of downloads, multiply that by dozens, maybe hundreds, even thousands of sites stealing from Dawn’s sister. Suddenly, you are talking about a lot of money.  Candy is on very limited means.  She gets disability, but is too young for Medicare so she has no medical treatments for dangerously high blood pressure and arthritis.  She cannot drive, cannot walk but a few steps with a walker.  Currently, she is rooming in a place, and the situation is dangerous to her health.  Every penny matters to her simply surviving.

So the next time someone says they can get a book offline cheap, and they aren’t hurting an author because, after all, they all live in big, fancy homes and have a yacht, think again.  You are stealing food from people, medical care, a decent place to live.  You are stealing people’s hard work.  The next time you search out your favorite author on a torrent, before you push that button know you are stealing from people’s children, and you hurt people’s ability to support themselves.  Ask yourself, if you would work at your job when people refused to pay you and yet expected you to perform anyway?  Could you survive in a job where you might not get money for months, years?

You are stealing.  Plain and simple. There is no justification for that.  You are hurting people, and none of the blithe rationalizations can whitewash that bald fact.

by Deborah MacGillivray

 *********************************

If Deborah MacGillivray's story of what piracy has done and is doing to one author and her sister moves you, please do something.

Tweet this.

Share it.

Leave a comment (a kind one, please)

Forward it to your Senator or Representative with reference to the COICA discussions.

If you read Dawn's works under the mistaken impression that they were "freely available" and now

wish you knew how to send a donation directly (a sentiment many readers express) please send
a $1.00 donation to writer@deborahmacgillivray.co.uk 

(Deborah is the unpaid agent of the late Dawn Thompson.)

This is not a scam. This is not a trick. If you send a donation, your privacy will be honored.
Please describe the donation as a personal gift, or PayPal will take over $0.40 of it.

Thank you for your concern.

Rowena Cherry

Complimentary Books? But "compliments" of whom?

On the fringes of the law are people who tell lies and lure honest folks into illegal activities. Then, there are the cynical major corporations such as PayPal and Yahoo who profit from this sort of thing, and refuse to take any sort of investigative action.

What would you think, if you saw this in your email?

Another 54 Complimentary Books.

Book Mix 20

Dear Members

We are sure you will find something of interest in this terrific mix of complimentary books!

Another 54 Free Books for Everyone! (Book Mix 20). When you click the link below, follow the simple instructions on the book page to arrive at the download links page. Easy!

Would you realize that you are about to become a pirate?

If you are told --twice-- that the books you are about to receive are "COMPLIMENTARY" and once that they are "FREE", you'd expect that the authors and the publishers had given permission for this.

Wrong.

The books have been stolen, pirated, illegally uploaded to a hosting site or pirate site in violation of the authors' copyrights... "shared".

You don't know this. You've no reason to suspect that you are doing anything wrong, so you click the link.

You see "FREE BOOKS FOR EVERYONE".

Sounds good. In fact, the books are only free to everyone who chooses to steal them. And they are not really free. You are about to get your computer loaded up with tracking cookies. Also, you will probably be asked to send $2.00 to PAYPAL (and PayPal will take at least 44 cents as their commission for being part of this sale of links to stolen goods), or you will be asked to click on a link to watch an advert.

I believe that this is click fraud, and it is illegal. The advertiser wants people who are potentially interested in the product to click the link and actually watch the ad. The advertiser pays per click. Do they really want to pay for several hundred thousand people to get links to stolen ebooks?

Notice the instructions to "Skip Ad" after 5 seconds.

Its easy to collect all the books below for FREE!
Simply click the link below, watch the advert for 5 seconds, then click on the YELLOW BUTTON (Skip Ad) as it appears at the top/right of your screen and you will be directly taken to the main book page!

Scrolling down....

Please note that we are not the 'hosts' of any books, neither did we upload them to any hosting provider. We simply find links to books, that were freely available on the web and share our findings with our members!

Get a clue. This disclaimer is here because these people know that what they are doing is on the shady side of the law. Are they an "Online Service Provider"? If so, the DMCA applies to them, and the safe harbor provisions protect them.

Here's what Chilling Effects http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/ says about safe harbor

In order to qualify for safe harbor protection, a service provider who hosts content must:

• have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network
• have a copyright policy and provide proper notification of that policy to its subscribers
• list an agent to deal with copyright complaints

But, are they hosting content? Is a list of links to illegal books "content"? Is a list of links a copyright infringement? You cannot copyright titles.

Ah! Here's the thing. They may not be hosting the books, but they are hosting the COVERS. Cover art is usually copyrighted. A lot of people think it is in the public domain, but they might not be right about that. Now I have my rights back to Forced Mate, Insufficient Mating Material, and Knight's Fork, I must create my own covers if I want to self-publish those books.

In the middle of the display of illegally uploaded and hosted book covers is an advertisement by Tudor Court Condominiums. I wonder why Simon Ditchbum believes that people who unwittingly steal e-books are likely to be interested in moving to Thailand.

Maybe you'd like to ask him! He published this info in his paid advert, so I guess he welcomes inquiries.

Email: info@tudorvillas.co.uk
Contact us on Skype: simon.ditchbum 

Contact us directly...

International: Tel: +66 (0) 818 630 201, Tel: +66 (0) 861 122 850


Moving down....


Uh-oh. The other major sponsor is MARKETING CHAT which is another weebly site and appears to be run by the same wonderful, honorable, sharing people who run the Freebie club. 
http://www.marketingchat.info/freebies.html


They are ripping off a whole 'nother selection of cover artists and book authors.

Notice this wording, too. This is where YAHOO is involved in this. And if you think YAHOO doesn't know, think again. This author complained to YAHOO and was banned from the group.

Join our FREE BOOKS club TODAY!

Subscribe to freebookclub

Powered by us.groups.yahoo.com

If you want to be kept informed of the LATEST selections of books & audio books, then why not join our FREE Club

Subscribe to marketingchat

Powered by us.groups.yahoo.com

Now, we are almost at the bottom of the page. Let me point out that there is no copyright notice, symbol or statement of copyright policy, no contact info, no listed name of the copyright agent to whom one should complain, no DMCA link.


Anyway, I am making "Fair Use" of their content. I am using it to illustrate a report, a critique, a commentary in the public interest.



Here is the honest reader's first ... maybe third... hint of trouble. Check this out and see what you think.

Useful Download Info

After clicking the links below each book summary, and downloading the file(s), you will find that most files are saved in ZIP format or in .RAR format, if you do not have the program to open these .RAR files on your computer, you can get it FREE here: http://peazip.source forge.net/index.html A simple search on Google will find you many free programs like this. ZIP files are opened with WinZip (most computers have this program on their computers, however, if you do not, simply go to http://www.win zip.com and download the program free!) 

 Word to the wise crackers. Yeah. I know the links don't work. I messed with them. OK?

Zipped files are easy to open. Simply click on the book links, taking you directly to the download page. Click on the 'Free User' button (each host is a little different, but all offer free download, you just have to wait a few seconds!), click the download button and your book will start to download. Once fully downloaded, your computer will ask you if you want to OPEN or SAVE the file. We suggest that you first SAVE the file to a place on your computer, eg; My Documents. Once you have done this, you can easily find the file, and by clicking on it, it will open. You will then see all the smaller files inside. You can either select all of these at once (click on the top one, then hold down your SHIFT key while you click on the bottom one, then click EXTRACT. It will then ask you where to save the files to (we suggest My Documents for now unless you have already created a new folder and place you would like to keep them). The programme will then save the files. If you prefer, You can also OPEN the file straight away. It will then start to gradually load the file. Once it is ready (100% loaded), you can then click OPEN again, and you will see all the smaller files in the box. Select one or ALL of these files, and click the 'EXTRACT TO' link. You will then be given a choice of places you can save the UNZIPPED files. 

1. There are no book summaries.
There were book summaries on the previous 19 "complimentary" collections, but I infer that someone told these terrific people that hosting summaries lifted from the publishers' sites was dodgy.

2. Should you infer that if you click the links, you go directly to a page that hosts the book you want? Maybe. What's the deal with the ZIP?

Who uploaded the books to zip folders?
What is a .RAR file, and do publishers sell e-books as .rar files?

In the binary newsgroups, RAR is used to compress large files. As people post larger and larger files, it has become more important to compress them down as much as possible. That's why RAR and yEnc were invented, and that is why they have caught on so fast. Typically, a poster will compress his file with RAR. 

http://www.techsono.com/faq/rar.html

So... RAR is commonly used by persons intent on infringing copyright to enable them to compress and publish large folders (such as e-books). Of course, not all RAR users are pirates, just as not all dogs are borzois.

3. Notice the English English spelling. The perpetrator of this...um... magnificent generosity with other people's work (authors' works) may be an Englishman.

4. Why are there lots of smaller files? What are you downloading and unzipping apart from the stolen e-book you thought you were getting? Trojans? Maybe. Remember, you are getting stolen content from a pirate site.

5. I wonder what is the deal with these choices of where to save the new files. Could it be... more advertising? Or maybe you have to pay membership and join a storage site? If you know, do tell!

Rowena Cherry

Guest Blog: How Do We Prevent EBook Piracy

Cherish D'Angelo aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif with her back against the wall!

Now, that strikes me as a thoroughly clever image to accompany this spirited author's commentary on piracy.

Over to Cherish:

Thank you for inviting me to be a guest blogger during my Cherish the Romance Virtual Book Tour, which launches my contemporary romantic suspense, Lancelot's Lady. Today I'll be discussing the controversial issue of ebook piracy and offering my thoughts on how we can prevent it.

 How Do We Prevent Ebook Piracy?

I believe the key to solving or resolving the piracy issue is to understand WHY people engage in piracy. The first reason is they have a sense of entitlement. They believe they should get things for free. They also believe they should be able to share an ebook just as they would a print book. What they don't understand is the issue of making copies and breaking copyright laws. Educating readers is crucial to diminishing the amount of piracy that occurs.

Copyright is in place to protect authors. It's the only real protection we have. Copyright means the author (or publisher) has the right to make copies of a work―either in print or as ebooks, audio etc. Authors and publishers are the ones who have the right to authorize who distributes the author's work. Making and selling copies of works is the way authors make an income from their profession. When someone shares a file illegally, they're acting as an unauthorized distributor. Neither the author nor publisher is paid. Some pirates are even going so far as to sell authors' ebooks so that they are making an income. That is theft.

I understand that people like to share a book they've read. Some will even say they do it to help the author. If they really want to help the author, they should encourage their friends to buy the book or ebook. DRM, digital rights management, is set in place with some ebooks to help prevent piracy.

Many people don't like DRM because it prevents them from sharing between their own devices. That needs to be addressed. I have no problem with someone wanting to have my ebooks on their computer, iPhone and ereader. But what stops them from then sharing the file with friends by giving them their own copy of the file?

So how do we prevent ebook piracy? That's a difficult question to answer. I believe educating readers is part of the solution. They need to understand the laws and why they're in place. But will they really care about whether the author can afford to pay their bills? Probably not. They want the immediate gratification of a good read, not an insight into the author's finances.

 If I had the power to stop piracy, I probably would start with closing down all file sharing websites. Most are sharing pirated material. If you want to share something you've written, email it as an attached PDF or whatever. Too easy. But this doesn't stop someone from emailing a PDF ebook they bought or got from another pirate.

Next I'd instigate stricter laws for those participating in illegal file sharing. Higher fines paid directly to the author and/or publisher would be set in place. Do I really want to penalize readers though? No, of course not. But our society revolves around laws. I have to follow them. Why shouldn't everyone else?

Ebook pricing plays a part in piracy. Most people believe ebooks should be priced lower than the print version. I happen to agree. I've said it for years: ebooks just don't have the same overhead as a huge print run of books that have to be stored. Once publishers start to realize that consumers won't pay the steep price of today's ebooks, we'll start seeing lower prices as the majority.

Regardless of publishers who are marketing ebooks at well over $10, readers still have choices. There are thousands of ebooks selling for less than $5, some by well-known bestselling authors and some by lesser known authors. There are ebooks selling for less than $2 and some for less than a dollar.

People don't have to illegally download ebooks when they can get them inexpensively or for free. Many authors, including me, often give books away for free. I regularly have contests with free ebook prizes. Just take a look at this virtual book tour. I'm not only giving away my ebooks throughout my tour, I'm also giving away other authors' ebooks―with their permission.

Please help me prevent ebook piracy. Show an author you support them and help enable them to continue writing and doing what they love. Buy an ebook today, whether it's mine or someone else's, and please…do not illegally download ebooks. On behalf of all authors, I thank you.

By the way, my ebooks are all under $5, with the most expensive at $4.99 for a new release. My least expensive ebook is only $0.99, with the majority at $1.99 and $2.99.

Lancelot's Lady ~ A Bahamas holiday from dying billionaire JT Lance, a man with a dark secret, leads palliative nurse Rhianna McLeod to Jonathan, a man with his own troubled past, and Rhianna finds herself drawn to the handsome recluse, while unbeknownst to her, someone with a horrific plan is hunting her down.

Lancelot's Lady is available in ebook edition at KoboBooks, Amazon's Kindle Store, Smashwords and other ebook retailers. Help me celebrate by picking up a copy today and "Cherish the romance..."

You can learn more about Lancelot's Lady and Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) at http://www.cherishdangelo.com and http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.com. Follow Cherish from September 27 to October 10 on her Cherish the Romance Virtual Book Tour and win prizes.

Where do you read most―on the couch, in bed, in the bath, on a bus, at work?

Leave a comment here, with email address, to be entered into the prize draws. You're guaranteed to receive at least 1 free ebook just for doing so. Plus you'll be entered to win a Kobo ereader. Winners will be announced after October 10th.

The irony of ebook piracy

Here's a really entertaining irony. Authors of e-books have a sort of "no compete" clause in their contracts.

That's right. Even the author and copyright owner is not permitted to "share" more than a certain number (maybe as few as 5!!!) of her own e-books.

Once she has shared her agreed number of ebooks for promo purposes, she is supposed to actually purchase her own ebooks from her publisher or from an authorized vendor if she wants to give an ebook as a prize.

This is certainly the case with my Mating Net which I've licensed to New Concepts Publishing, at least as regards the fact that there is such an agreement in my contract. I've always purchased all my ebooks through either Mystiquebooks or EbookIsle.net, so I notionally still have my "free" allocation.

Pirates wonder why authors (some authors) get upset about piracy. Well, that's one reason. Not only are they infringing on copyright and ripping off the author, the editor, the publisher, the cover artist... they are doing something that the author is contractually unable to do herself with her own books.

Rich, isn't it?

With a fan like this, who needs enemies!

Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe Sandra Brown and Katie Allen and Stephanie Meyers and Sarah Dessen truly do work for PayPal and for Yahoo and for Freebiemaster and are happy with a secret cut of the $2.00 per download that Freebiemaster charges for the "freely available", "free" books they "share".


I don't know. I cannot think that the authors' cut will be much after PayPal deducts its $0.40 minimum out of the $2.00, and Freebie Master takes his share. I wonder who pays the agents and the publishers.


FreebieMaster is within the law. He has a disclaimer:

Please note that we are not the 'hosts' of these books, neither did we upload them to any hosting provider. We simply find links to books, that were freely available on the web and share our findings with our members!

Pointing at ebooks and advising people to take them is a lot safer than pointing at money in a till.


Anyway, all these wonderful books come with a review. It is possible that the reviewer's copyright has also been infringed, and that the pirate site snagged her reviews illegally, along with the covers which were presumably posted without permission, and the ebooks themselves which are almost certainly not intended to be free, and may be assumed to have been posted in violation of the authors' copyright.

Here are a few excerpts from a very long page advertising "free" and "freely available" ebooks. I deem these clips to be covered by Fair Use, because this is only a fraction of what is on the page, and I am using the fractions to educate, and to illustrate critique etc etc

 

The Switch

I have been a Sandra Brown fan from day one. Her romance novels have been some of the best I have ever read. Her early mainstream novels are better than her recent ones. If you read the inside flaps on the dust cover of "The Switch", you will basically know the story and the author does not stray far from the review. "The Switch" was a fair read but could have been so much better.
For starters this book was too long! (469 pages) This story could have been told with 100 less pages. There were few characters and the information relayed between them at times became repetitive. I did not find any surprises. The murderers are revealed at the time of the murders and the reader is aware of the diabolical plot and just tags along for the ride. By the time you are halfway through the book you should be able to figure out Melina's "dark secret". I questioned it at the very beginning. And spicy sex scenes? Ms. Brown just does not write them like she once did.
In short I found this book to be an OK read although predictable and a bit long. If you want to read one of her better novels try Charade or Exclusive. The Switch seemed to have so much potential but did not deliver for me.

Maybe that's why this reviewer is apparently doing what she can to destroy the author's livelihood

Seeing Blind

Seeing Blind was so intense, I could not put it down. Katie Allen is a great author, I cannot wait for upcoming books. Five Stars!
Cassie thought that she had escaped from the psychic abilities that had haunted her all her life. After two years of vision-free bliss living on her small farm outside the tiny town of Napping, Cassie's only worry is her secret desire for the hot local sheriff, Ty.
But her quiet, anonymous life is destroyed when murder rocks the sleepy town and Cassie's visions thrust her into the middle of the grisly mystery. Reluctantly drawn into her own search for the killer, Cassie begins to unearth the town's tangled secrets with the dubious help of Napping's residents...and the sheriff whose mere presence is enough to make her blood boil.

Piracy makes my blood boil!

One-Two Punch

With 'Breaking the Silence' Katie Allen jumped to the top of my "must buy" list, and with 'One-Two Punch', she more than seals the deal. The writing is good, the plot is excellent, the romance is tender, and the sex is hot.
Where Katie Allen truly excels however, is in her ability to infuse her characters and writing with a sense of reality. I've been sitting here struggling with how to describe the extent of her talent. It's not that the plot is so true to life; let's face it, committed relationships between buff gym owners, beautiful former soldiers, and, well, how to describe Beth(?), aren't the everyday norm. The closest I can come is to compare it to a book I once read in which the main character, an author, infused so much detail and life into her primary characters that they came to life. (They ended up moving into her apartment and causing all kinds of trouble, but that's another story for another day.) Beth, Harry, and Ky really do jump off the page at you; and not only are they realistic, but they're people that you would want to know. Like Jenny and Will, (and who can forget Christian), from 'Breaking the Silence', the characters of 'One-Two Punch' would be welcome in my world. Of course, if I could be Beth or Jenny...
Rather than dealing with my bumbling attempt at description, buy 'One-Two Punch' and 'Breaking the Silence' and meet the characters yourself. You can never have too many friends.

"You can never have too many friends"????

The reason I posted two reviews of books by the same author is to illustrate a point. Many savvy authors and publishers may give away the first book in  a series, in the valid expectation that people who read the first book by an author they haven't tried before, will be hooked and will buy subsequent books.

Pirates don't buy the second book. They request it on or before release day. They go to almost any lengths to read it without paying for it. Here's publicly posted proof.

This site has Share This functionality embedded in it. So, it is public. It can be shared with all Twitter, all Facebook and 200+ more. The site invites "members" to share the page with friends and family.

Note for publishers, authors, agents.... if your book isn't being "shared" and falsely described as "free", this is bookmix 13. http://bookmaster.weebly.com/bookmix13.html

The same link with a substitution of number 13 for any previous number ought to take you to some of the other selections that have been distributed or the distribution of which has been facilitated by this commercial, book-sharing-for profit operation.

Open Letters To Software Companies About The Profitability of Piracy

This isn't the best of days to be sending out media requests for quotes about how the use of an auction site works well for major companies. We know that it does not necessarily work out for the authors whose ebooks are sold repeatedly.

3736 ebooks are currently being sold on iOffer.com, usually the vendors offer to email the works to up to 10 different paying customers... probably every day. However, I'd like to add a little spice to my upcoming radio show on Tuesday, so am asking Autocad, Poser, and Chief Architect how selling on iOffer is generating business for them.

Dear Mr Saeed, Mr Bliss, Ms Ha, Ms Brooks,

I am radio talk show host Rowena Cherry, and I talk about copyright infringement on my educational radio show, CRAZY TUESDAY on PIVWR. 

For my show on July 6th, I would love a quote from you about the selling of your products on the global auction site iOffer.com

I am particularly interested in whether you find the publicity profitable when individuals auction 10 copies of your product range for $40 when you sell the product for a MSRP of $3, 995

http://www.ioffer.com/i/autocad-electrical-2011-instant-delivery-149726793

As I look around iOffer.com I am impressed by how successful your authorized vendors are at selling your products at such incredible discounts.
This must be close to an example of how the "piracy model" really is a win-win situation for everyone!

If by chance these vendors on iOffer are not authorized resellers, I should love a quote from you on how you feel about iOffer.com

etc etc

Rowena Cherry

Dear Chief Architect,

I am radio talk show host Rowena Cherry, and I talk about copyright infringement on my educational radio show.
For my show on July 6th, I would love a quote from you about the selling of your products on the global auction site iOffer.com

I am particularly interested in whether you find the publicity profitable when individuals auction 10 copies of your product range for $40

http://www.ioffer.com/i/Chief-Architect-X2-Professional-3D-Home-Design-Software-144355111

As I look around iOffer.com I am impressed by how successful your authorized vendors are at selling your products at such incredible discounts.
This must be close to an example of how the "piracy model" really is a win-win situation for everyone!

If by chance these vendors on iOffer are not authorized resellers, I should love a quote from you on how you feel about iOffer.com

 etc etc
Rowena Cherry

Dear Nisha,


I am radio talk show host Rowena Cherry, and I talk about copyright infringement on my educational radio show.
For my show on July 6th, I would love a quote from you about the selling of your products on the global auction site iOffer.com

I am particularly interested in whether you find the publicity profitable when individuals auction 10 copies of your product range for $35 when you sell the product for a MSRP of $249.99

http://www.ioffer.com/i/poser-pro-v-8-2010-professional-free-shipping-144280627

As I look around iOffer.com I am impressed by how successful your authorized vendors are at selling your products at such incredible discounts.
This must be close to an example of how the "piracy model" really is a win-win situation for everyone!

If by chance these vendors on iOffer are not authorized resellers, I should love a quote from you on how you feel about iOffer.com

 :-)

There are almost a thousand Microsoft auctions going on. Here's an example of one of them (I do not recommend making a purchase, because I have a feeling Microsoft already knows about this, and it is not hard to find out who bought what on iOffer.com )

http://www.ioffer.com/i/microsoft-office-2007-pro-professional-retail-box-new-109874219


Microsoft sends thank-you notes. They are generic, but beautifully informative!

Microsoft Corporation thanks you for your recent correspondence to our Anti-Piracy team. Microsoft devotes substantial time and effort towards fighting software piracy, and we appreciate your shared interest in this cause.

Our staff promptly reviews every submission we receive, but due to the sensitive legal nature of these matters, it is not possible for us to provide feedback or updates about actions taken on your report.

Your report matters. For example, in 2007, customer reports directly contributed to the investigation and eventual prosecution of the biggest software counterfeiting operation in history.

In the Web sites below, you will find more information about Microsoft’s initiatives designed to help protect customers and fight software piracy.

• http://www.microsoft.com/genuine. Learn about some of the ways Microsoft helps protect its products from piracy and validate your Microsoft Windows and Office software.
• http://www.microsoft.com/howtotell. Learn how to identify some of the differences between genuine and counterfeit Microsoft software.
• http://www.microsoft.com/piracy. Learn about software piracy and Microsoft’s educational and enforcement efforts to combat it.
• http://www.bsa.org. The Business Software Alliance is an industry trade group that is dedicated to reducing piracy in the software industry.

Once again, we thank you for your interest and participation in fighting software piracy.

Yours sincerely,

Microsoft Corporation
Anti-Piracy Team

Please address questions or additional correspondence to piracy@microsoft.com. Note: We cannot provide information regarding individual reports or ongoing investigations.

Lawsuit Against Downloaders

Downloaders on "pirate" sites have long assumed that 

they are relatively safe, and that predatory copyright 

owners will only go after Uploaders.

It would seem that downloaders (at least of movies) 

aren't as safe as they thought they were. One wonders what 

"legitimate defences" people who

download copyrighted material without paying might have.

Ignorance?

Firstly, ignorance is no excuse under the law... at least, 

not in Britain.

Secondly, it is highly likely that at least some of these 

downloaders have participated in public conversations on 

public sites discussing the illegality of what they are 

doing and ways to avoid being caught at it.

EFFector Vol. 23, No. 15 June 11, 2010 editor@eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

ISSN 1062-9424

effector: n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a

desired change.

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

In our 537th issue:

* EFF IS DEFENDING THE RIGHTS OF THOUSANDS OF INTERNET

USERS FROM PREDATORY MOVIE-DOWNLOADING LAWSUITS by

asking judges in Washington, D.C., to deny attempts by

the U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) to lump scores of people

as defendants into copyright infringement cases. The USCG

has stacked the deck against the defendants by requiring

all of them to defend these cases in Washington, D.C.,

regardless of where they actually live.

EFF has long been concerned that some attorneys would

attempt to create a business out of mass copyright

lawsuits, shaking settlements out of innocent people who

aren't in a position to raise legitimate defenses. EFF is

asking the court to step in now and force USCG to follow

the rules that apply in all other cases.

For the full press release and link to the amicus brief:

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/06/02

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Administrivia

EFFector is published by:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

454 Shotwell Street

San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA

+1 415 436 9333 (voice)

+1 415 436 9993 (fax)

http://www.eff.org/

Editor:

Richard Esguerra, EFF Activist

richard@eff.org

Membership & donation queries:

membership@eff.org

General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries:

information@eff.org

Reproduction of this publication in electronic media

is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily

represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles

individually, please contact the authors for their

express permission.

Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be

reproduced individually at will.

Wall of Shame (Book Publishers who support pirate sites)

Tate Publishing
Xlibris
WE book
CengageBrain.com
WestBow Press
Kobo

Progressive Insurance
Allstate Insurance

Just a few of the companies that give financial support to ebook piracy by advertising on at least one ebook "sharing" site. They pay per click, too...

You think the pirates are sticking it to the man. You betcha.

There's even a message on this pirate site explaining to member pirates that by clicking the banners once a day, every day, they make money for the site!

"Help the site grow, Click a Banner Ad (at the top or bottom of site) once a day, or click this link to donate."

I cannot get over the mind-blowing stupidity of publishers (!!!) who are --probably unwittingly-- encouraging ebook copyright infringement.

Have they any idea at all what they are doing to themselves and their authors with their advertising dollars? Maybe they just trusted Google. Hmmm.

Maybe the Insurance companies are insuring the pirates!

A site like this makes money from the advertising, and the shameless requests for donations. They claim to pay MEGAUPLOAD an annual fee.

"We only use Megaupload via this filebox uploader to store files.

The reason is that this site pays a yearly fee for an account with megaupload.

If you upload using the below filebox, these links won't expire like they will using other upload sites (rapidshare, mediafire, etc)"

On the other hand, Megaupload pays a bounty (they call it a reward point) for every download from their site, so if 100,000 people illegally downloaded a copy of a book from a copyright infringer's file on MegaUpload, Megaupload would reward the pirate with a year's free membership, and also $100 via PayPal.


I wonder whether this explains why MegaUpload is slow to remove infringing files.

Here are the hoops through which an author must jump in order to get an illegally uploaded copy of her book disabled.

http://www.megaupload.com/?c=abuse

We take abuse of our service very seriously. If you wish to report a copyright infringement, we need you to send us a proper notification. A proper notification MUST have at least the following information, or it may be IGNORED:

1: Identify yourself as either:

  a: The owner of a copyrighted work(s), or

  b: A person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

2: State your contact information, including your TRUE NAME, street address, telephone number, and email address.

3: Identify the copyrighted work that you believe is being infringed, or if a large number of works are appearing at a single website, a representative list of the works.

4: Identify the material that you claim is infringing your copyrighted work, to which you are requesting that Megaupload disable access over the World Wide Web.

5: Identify the material by its URL(s).

6: State that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agents, or the law.

7: State that the information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury.

Authors are in an interesting position with regard to pirate sites and storage sites. The storage sites' terms of service put the onus on pirates to not store copyrighted material on them. The pirate sites claim that they have no liability for the links on their sites, because they don't host any files.

No one but the author, agent, or publisher is permitted to report infringing material.
I don't know of any rule that prevents authors, agents, and publishers to report the same infringing material.

Moreover, keep copies of your correspondence, or screen captures if you have to fill out an online form. Most of the file storage sites TOS state that they will remove repeat infringers. They never do. If you can prove that they don't, maybe further legal action can be taken against them.

Proof that they don't remove pirates does tend to lead a reasonable author to infer that these sites are knowingly and deliberately accessories before and after the fact. It might lead a judge or state attorney general to a similar conclusion.


In addition to sending a DMCA or Copyright notice,  try lodging a copy here:
http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/internetschemes.htm

Or here:
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Or here:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/panel.php?action=loginregister&backUrl=%2Fsendmail%2Fcr0.html


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