I can't say I had given the matter of ebook piracy a whole lot of thought other than knowing passing ebooks on was both wrong and illegal until an author on one of the yahoo groups posted about someone who was selling pirated copies of ebooks. So out of curiosity I did a google search on the subject and was shocked at what I found. The books are passed through torrents almost as frequently as music, game and video files, but I found numerous posts through out the web saying ebook piracy wasn't a big deal. I even found posts saying the authors should look at it as free publicity. Free publicity???? The music industry, gaming industry and the movie industry neither one views piracy as free publicity or as a minor inconvenience and both industries have gotten support to cut down on piracy and the persons caught are penalized (shut down, heavy fines and jail time). So I am wondering why so many view pirating ebooks as no big deal and from what I found there has not been anyone caught pirating ebooks that has really been punished for doing it.
Why do you think most view ebook piracy as a minor inconvenience at most and what is it going to take to make more view it as the crime that it is?
Also if anyone knows where I should send information on sites that have copy righted materials available please let me know as I ran across a few sites while doing this search. Thank You.
13 comments:
Point 1: I ran across a similar situation with my first novel, Shadowphoenix: Requiem. A girl asked if she could read it and I told her where she could go to purchase a copy. "No," she said, "I just want to read it and give it back." Which irritated me, because I don't make money that way. Same thought process applies.
Point 2: If you find any other such sites, alert any authors or publishers who you know to be affected and also contact the FBI's IC3 (cybercrime) division.
Point 3: For the authors who can afford to view piracy as free publicity, that's wonderful. I don't happen to be one of them. I regard piracy of my work as outright theft, not the "victimless" crime that far too many people seem to view it as. To me, it's no different than someone walking up and helping themselves to my wallet. I think the feeling of helplessness to prevent it keeps a lot of authors from getting too worked up about it, but it only takes one voice to start bringing about change.
I work hard to create stories people want to read. And I deserve to be reimbursed for my work. It's no different than any other job, and anyone who thinks otherwise is someone I sincerely hope will not read my work, because that's someone who can't appreciate the horrendous amount of time and energy that goes into creating it.
Excellent post!
Yeah, I've been wondering how to handle the whole piracy thing once I get published. It's just grown so out of hand that I don't know if there's much I can do. It's like Wayne said: you just feel helpless, but I can't deny that I'll probably get upset about all the money I won't be making. It is definitely stealing - there's no doubt about that.
It's interesting that the same people who see no problem with ebook piracy would have a real problem if someone stole their car. Or their purse. Or anything from their home. The "free publicity" thing doesn't hold up in any of those cases. "Hey... I really liked your gaming system, so I took it. Consider it free publicity that you have good taste." Or take the personal theft aspect out of it. I doubt anyone would agree that someone who stole a Corvette from the nearest dealership was doing it to help with Corvette's publicity. I think they'd call it stealing. Why would an ebook be any different? If it's for sale somewhere, it should be paid for. Duh.
I am just a reader but I would NEVER EVER steal a book from one of my authors for anything. I believe the people who do this should have their respective nether regions ran over by a semi twice. I am trying to be nice here. Cause I have a much more painful way of teaching them a lesson. LMAO!
There is good news. I have been contacted by a company that automatically takes illegal files down from torrent etc for the music industry and is now starting for the ebook industry. Information about that will be posted to EPIC in the next couple of days.
The mentality of passing eBooks must have come from print books. A non-writer friend commented she saw nothing wrong with trading eBooks. Afterall, it has been done with print books for centuries. Somebody had to buy it initially, now they're just sharing it. *shakes head*
Its a nightmare for authors. Ive had several of my books pirated --and there's not much I can do about it. On one hand, it makes me want to stop writing. What put all of me into a book only to have others reap the benefits? But on the other hand, I love to write and to give up would be giving the thieves more power. So, we fight. And we hope that one day someone will come up with this brilliant solution that will stop these idiots completely.
Great post and thanks for bringing it up!
hugs, Kari Thomas, www.authorkari.com
Thanks for all the comments. I know some
view it as sharing like a print book, but with a print book when they loan or give it away they don't get to keep a copy also but a lot don't view it that way and I think this is the mindset that needs to change the most from what I found.
@Sandy when Epic puts up the information let everyone know you can post a link here and I will help pass it on.
This is a timely post. I blogged about my experience with this a few days ago. Google Alerts has found three of my indie books on these torrent sites. To me, this is no different than breaking into my home and stealing things. I wish we could put these people out of business, but I suspect they're working out of another country.
They are not all working out of another country. You can find many of them right in the US. There is an anti-piracy loop if anyone is interested. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AuthorsAgainstE-BookTheft/
They post info and sightings of new pirate offerings.
Also, you could join this group which is bringing the copyright protection fight to the US Congress. They have heavy hitters on board.
ldugger@copyrightalliance.org
Most importantly of all, write to your representatives! They need to know that book theft is not a victimless crime. (If nothing else, mention the taxes they are missing out on when authors lose income. Do pirates pay taxes on their ill-gotten gains?)
LOL. Carly love the taxes statement maybe that will get their attention. Thanks for the links.
There's an interesting discussion and thread here that I found: http://www.sfnovelists.com/2011/05/23/google-and-piracy-one-authors-perspective/
The thing I like about this thread, is that it's actually civil for the most part. It's often hard to find debates on piracy that are balanced and don't descend into emotional brawls rather than a mature exchange of thoughts and opinions. It's an interesting read from many perspectives.
@Erika Sorin thanks for the link. I know what you mean about the balanced debate, some of the blogs and websites that I found when I searched go extremely ugly when someone disagreed with the opinions and unfortunately a lot of the ones being abused were Authors saying how & why piracy was wrong.
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