Authors: What to do if Your Book gets Pirated

Thanks to S.K. Nicholls for this great information.
Johnny Depp notwithstanding – piracy is not cool. We put too much effort into our work to allow others to profit from it.

S.K. Nicholls

There is not a lot of recourse against the site itself, especially if the site is out of the country. If the web hosting site is U.S.A., you can send a DMCA take down letter to the web hosting site. They are under pressure to break the links of sites performing copyright infringement. You are also required to share some personal information in the letter which you should do with the hosting company NOT the offending site.

How do you find the site hosting company?

You can search domain registration on whois.com at: http://www.whois.com/whois/

Once you find the web hosting site look for their contact info or legal contact. This is usually an email address link.

Gene Quinn has a sample letter you can personalize (copy and paste into email) and send to the hosting company:

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/07/06/sample-dmca-take-down-letter/id=4501/

You will need the offending site’s URL for your work. Once you get…

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Copyright Infringement: A Warning to all Authors

I would like to share a letter sent to me by a fellow independent author, who wishes to remain anonymous, about a website claiming to be promoting independent authors, when in reality it appears that they are offering free downloads of the work of dozens of us.

If you are an author, independent or otherwise, I urge you to read this letter and investigate the site yourself. Find out if your work is posted there and take appropriate action to have it removed, or, at the very least, make sure you are willing to grant permission to the site owners to list your work.

Making money as an independent author is difficult enough without pirating sites giving our work away under false pretenses AND without our permission.

Please share, tweet or reblog this post in order to spread the word through the independent author community and, hopefully, put some pressure on these people to do the right thing.

The letter is posted here, verbatim:

Dear Authors of Published eBooks,

You may have been made aware recently of a site – http://www.general-ebooks.com/ – that is purporting to promote Authors by allowing readers to download eBooks FREE. All these eBooks are available to purchase through Amazon. So for every free download on this site we are being denied rightful payment for our creative work.

The site did list a button that allowed Authors to “Report Copyright Violation” and stated a reply would be received within 72 hours. I reported both my books as having been infringed upon and received no response whatsoever from the site. Now, six days later, my IP seems to have been blocked as I can no longer access either my own books’ pages or the site home page. Yet friends tell me my books are still listed, although there is no longer a “Free Download” option available.

The thing is that I DO NOT WANT MY NAME NOR MY eBOOKS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SITE AT ALL!! Even if they are directing readers to Amazon to purchase my eBooks. Yet I cannot get these listings removed.

I do not believe this is a legitimate promotional site. To begin with, why would they have listed a “Report Copyright Violation” button in the first place, if they didn’t think there would be infringement issues? And why would they also put the onus on each copyright holder to prove unequivocally that they do actually hold the rights, making us jump through hoops to report these violations – especially when the site has no intention of ever delisting our books. I mean, this is ridiculous! Just look at what they expect from us when we do wish to report a violation: http://www.general-world.com/dmca It’s as though we are the guilty party and must prove our innocence to them!

Why could they not have sought our permission first in order to promote our books – as I do with all the Authors for whom I offer free promotion on my own site? If they had been a legitimate site, they would have done so. (And, please note, I do not profit monetarily from these listings on my site, unlike General eBooks expects to do with our listings on theirs.)

Instead, they are fighting with the Authors – on Twitter https://twitter.com/General_EBooks/with_replies – who have made complaints about them. Methinks they doth protest too much! I don’t know about you, but when I read through these conversations the site has conducted in public on social media with Authors who are simply voicing their own concerns about the theft of what rightfully belongs to them, I am more likely to believe the site is hiding something and that this is indeed a situation of piracy. One friend suggested it could be just a “phishing” scheme gathering email addresses of those of us who complain – but I do think there is more behind this site than just that.

I’m writing this letter now to all Authors in the hope that you will take the threat to your own intellectual property seriously. Please check out your own books on this site and, if like me you do not wish to have your work listed and associated with them, write to the site and make a complaint. Then check out titles by your friends and colleagues and also make these Authors aware of this site and it’s continuing violation of our rights.

And if you have either technical or legal expertise in the areas of online piracy and copyright infringment, I hope that you will help ALL authors protect not only what is rightfully theirs, but also what most have worked long and hard to create in the first place. As one colleague put it, “It’s difficult enough for an author to make money from a book without having to deal with this kind of aggravation.”

So please, do what you can to spread the word about this site and any others like it that are taking away what little we do make from our work. Please share this letter and write letters and blog posts of your own.

STOP COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!!

Big News! I’m Going to be Interviewing That Guy! (you know…that guy)

Imagine you’re on Jeopardy…

The final Jeopardy category is “Entertainers” and you’re feeling pretty confident so you wager the whole enchilada.

And the answer is: The man who played drums for Johnny Rivers, Trini Lopez, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, Bob Dylan and The Band?

You should know this, but…

He has also been in 30 movies including Total Recall, Tin Cup, Vacation and Sling Blade.

You really should know this…

He has appeared in almost 40 television series such as M*A*S*H, Baywatch and Northern Exposure.

He’s had recurring roles in Home Improvement and Justified.

This should be easy…

Not only has he been in dozens of TV commercials…one of his commercials holds the record as the longest running commercial in television history.

The music starts playing and you start sweating as you draw a complete blank.

You’d think with a resume like that he’d be a household name.

Aaaannnnd – time’s up.

The name we were looking for is Mickey Jones.

I see by that look on your face that you think a mistake has been made. Surely with a list of accomplishments so impressive the name would be instantly recognizable.

Mickey Jones?

Wasn’t he one of the Monkees?

Sorry – but there has been no mistake…

Mickey Jones is the quintessential “best kept secret in the entertainment industry.”

Mickey began his musical career in the late 50’s and it ran through 1976, at which time he changed his focus to acting and is still at it.

So now you’re wondering why I’m quizzing you on this guy.

Long story short…I will have the honor of interviewing Mickey on my radio show on Friday, August 1.

And how did I land an interview with a living legend?

I met Mickey a couple of years ago when he was the celebrity guest on a charity motorcycle run/golf tournament. During the golf tournament I got to drive him around in the cart. For four hours I heard stories about Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Ann Margaret, David Bowie, Tim Allen, and Chevy Chase – and he hadn’t even scratched the surface of his experiences. 

For me – a guy from a small town in Rhode Island – it was an amazing weekend, and best of all, Mickey is a genuinely nice guy.

Not once in two days did this guy act above anybody.

To an outside observer he would have looked like just another biker hanging out with his buddies.

So there you have it…tune in to Tim Baker’s B-Sides, Deep Cuts and Cool Covers on Friday August, 1 at 7:00 p.m. EST and check it out.

The interview will be broadcast live on 97.3 FM – The Surf as well as over the internet on www.flaglerbeachradio.com.

In the meantime – if you have any questions for Mickey, leave them in the comments section below and I’ll try to work them into the spot.

By the way…all of the stories I heard in the golf cart, along with dozens more, can be found in Mickey’s book, appropriately titled That Would Be Me.

I’ve read it – and it’s great.

The title of the book, he told me, comes from his standard reply to people who approach him daily and say “Hey, aren’t you that guy…”

Mickey doesn’t mind that people don’t know him by name – he never did anything for the fame or the glory. He did it because he loved doing it. He always felt like the luckiest guy in the world to have the opportunity to do the things he did!

I hope you can tune in, Mickey is always happy to make new friends!

As always – thank you for reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHORS WANTED

Attention authors: Chris The Story Reading Ape wants you to contribute to his blog…