Today I found out that one of my clients books has been pirated and is being offered as a free book on an online site.
First I contacted the publisher and asked if they had given the book to this site to offer. They had not and told me to tell the site to take the book down.
So I went back to the site and looked for the contact information. I found this:
Blankety Blank Free Books is in no way intended to support illegal activity. Use it at your risk. We uses Search API to find books/manuals but doesn´t host any files. All document files are the property of their respective owners. Please respect the publisher and the author for their copyrighted creations. If you find documents that should not be here please report them.
They uses really good English doesn't they? I clicked on that link and it led me to an email.
I wrote an email to the address the link provided stating this:
To Whom it may concern;
Please remove the book When More is Not Enough from your site. You do not have permission to offer this book for free here.
(I included the link to the page offering the book in reference)
The rights are owned by a traditional publisher and I represent this title.
Please cease and desist, or we will take legal measures to have this book removed.
Respectfully,
Diana
The email bounced.
I do not want to sign up to become a member of this pirate sight but I went into the next page to see if I could find more information and found the affiliate host- Supgame.
I googled Supgame and there were quite a few pages asking if this site was a scam sight. When I went to Supgame.net's site, I had to subscribe to proceed with questions. This time it involved downloading software. I passed on the offer.
Back to google- using a different set of search words- 'book piracy'.
BTW: This particular books proceeds go to a charity- so they are robbing this charity of its money. Thinking about this is beginning to make me angry. Help me Lord Jesus!
WIKI INFO listed a page: How to Combat Book Piracy
WOOT! Finally, I will find out what we can do to get this book down off this page.
Here is the outline of suggested steps. See the above linked article to access the full article.
1) Don't Panic Really???
2) Search the site for all copies of your work. If you are a multi-published author you need to do this. It is likely they have stolen more from you.
3) Make a record of the exact link(s) where your file(s) occur. Send it to your email and cut and paste into a word doc.
4) Find the copyright officer. It is supposed to be listed- in the small print. Get a magnifying glass.
5) Collect and save the required information. And have dated written verification you contacted them (This is a good time to remove all sharp objects from the house because you may be tempted to slit your wrists soon.)
6) Visit the profile of the person who updated the file. (See what I mean about removing sharp objects?) You should be able to find the person who might have mistakenly scanned the material from your book to post on the site not realizing they were passing along stolen material. SERIOUSLY WIKI??
REPEAT #1 Do Not Panic! Or think evil thoughts or call down curses on another human being- remember who the Christian is here! And go to the linked page to read the reasonable material there that instructs you how best to proceed.
7) Send a note to the copyright officer. Be reasonable and polite. (Ramblings of the father in A Christmas Story mumbling about the dog stealing his turkey enter my mind.) Wiki offers a nice format you can use. Note to self: No need to start world war three Diana.
8) Follow up. Go back to see if the book has been removed or has shown up again under a different screen name, etc. If it is not removed or shows up again, contact the copyright officer again.
Why is it that the bad guys who don't want to work cause those of us that do, to work harder for what we work for? I think of this every time I have to arrive at a major airport two hours before my scheduled flight because of security measures imposed upon us, the innocent, due to terrorist activities.
David prayed precatory prayers in the Psalms- they went something like this. Father tear out the livers of all book pirates, gouge out their eyes so they may never read again, take away their seed so they might vanish off the face of the earth. Yikes, that is pretty rough.
Or we might go to the polls, then trust the government to write new laws, eliminating this offense once and for all, and while they are at it- add an addendum to establish peace and harmony throughout the earth while eliminating world hunger. Most likely not going to happen in my lifetime.
Many of you are thinking right about now- wow, Diana's cheese seems to have slipped off the cracker. Precatory prayers are not her normal style.
You are right. The point I want to make is, we shouldn't be caught by surprise at activity like this. We live in a fallen world- where some feel they have the right to take what is not theirs to meet their selfish needs. And because of that, we have to spend a few hours combating and reclaiming what is ours.
Lord help us regain what the enemy has stolen. Keep our hearts right in the midst of the battle, and let us not lose compassion for the lost in the process. Amen.
Please pray I succeed in getting this book off the free site, and if you subscribe to these lists, unsubscribe. It is stealing and wrong.