Book piracy and what do you do about it.

[pmmg]

So reading Malik, I was wondering if others had experience with getting pirated, and what you did about it that was both useful, and not useful.

I found this article about it, but I wonder what any personal experiences might have been.

Book Piracy: What Indie Authors Should Do When a Print Book Gets Pirated

 

[Malik]

Do a Google search for "ebook . bike" (no spaces) and check out the lawsuit that was filed against Travis MacRea a couple of years back. TLDR: an author did a GoFundMe to hire an attorney to sack the guy for all he was worth, as I understand it. We should all be doing this, IMHO. Class-action suits: everybody throws in a hundred bucks, and we start taking the fight to the bad guys.

 

[ThinkerX]

In order for anybody to pirate my books they'd have to find them first. A challenge more daunting than the proverbial needle in a haystack.

 

[pmmg]

Seems like napster or pirate cove from the 90's, but those seem to have gotten shutdown permanently. That one keeps coming back to life.

My guess is, because books are electronic, they are easy to post up on websites. If there were print only, that may cut down on it, but there always going to be lowlifes. I think the only thing we can do well, is know when its happening (such as the dude talks about in his article with his prices getting undercut), and having a game plan about what you might do about it. The article says he had trouble getting the companies to take action until he could show they were forgeries, which might mean, skip to the end and go after them as forgeries first. I dont know.

In part, I have to agree that getting pirated also seems like a problem for when one is being successful. Which is a little better than just not getting the notice we want.


yeah, reading some more, that was how Napster tried to avoid getting zapped. They said we are just a service, the members are posting the illegal works. We are not responsible for that. It did not workout for Napster, I hope it gets equally zapped here.

I wonder what it might mean though, if I had ever offered my book for free, like in a promotion, how that might affect the argumentation of Ebook.bike.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

This is a site that I strongly recommend all writers, but speculative fiction writers especially, become very familiar with. The SFWA is what serves as our (limited) sword and shield in this business, and it is often the only way we find out that we've been ripped off, or are about to be.

WRITER BEWARE® - SFWA

 

[Prince of Spires]

In order for anybody to pirate my books they'd have to find them first. A challenge more daunting than the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Pretty much this is. I have trouble enough getting people to find my books, even with ads and all that. I doubt having them in more places will matter.

The other thing as well is that most (indie) ebooks are cheap. Common price range for indie books is something like 99ct to $4.99, or $9.99 per month for a kindle unlimited subscription which lets you read pretty much everything you could ever want. That's less than a drink in a bar. If you walk around town looking at the ground you'll find money enough for a book. These prices mean that people going to pirate book sites are never going to be your customer. They simply don't want to pay for books. So they are not anything to worry about.

One thing worth adding is that if your books are exclusive to Amazon (as in, in KU), then sometimes Amazon can complain that you are violating the exclusivity because the book is available on a pirate book site. It happens... In that case, you should take action, because Amazon doesn't like competition.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yes, I've had pirate sites claiming to have my book 3 for download BEFORE book 3 was published. Huh? Not to mention the books I did have published. I've found Eve of Snows on multiple pirate sites.

So far, I've pretty much let it go, but at the same time, the number of sales piracy could cost me is annoying as hell.

To the best of my knowledge, I have not had a print piracy issue.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I think SFWA will go after book piracy sites from time to time, but I forgot the details. I need to look that up again. I suspect they'd have more clout and lawyers than I do alone, heh heh.

 

[Mad Swede]

I'm so glad I'm traditionally published. Yes, my publisher takes quite a large cut. However. Amongst other things that cut pays for a legal department to deal with piracy and other copyright infringements - and they get quite unpleasant when they go gunning for people like that.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

And, rather successful traditionally published authors have damned near had their careers ruined because of digital piracy. In fact, they probably have. A DMCA notice is fine and dandy, lawyers are fine and dandy, but nobody is exempt from this issue if someone wants to put your book out there and the site is hosted in ohhh, say, Russia, or Brazil, or Chile, or South Korea, or...

I would have to track down the details of this story, but the gist is a bit like this:

There was a first-time author who became a major best-seller, the first book flew off the shelves, and they had like a 3 book deal with a Big Five publisher for big money. Book 2 is released and crashes... Big Five threatened to never publish their Book 3, effectively, their career would've been ended or at least hammered into a bloody pulp. I don't recall how, but folks tracked the pirating of this book and were able to prove to the Big Five that the book was actually a success, but it was just being ripped off online. Big Five didn't cancel their contract, and disaster was averted, but still, both the writer and publisher lost shitloads of money to piracy. The estimated number of sales lost was staggering and changed my mind about shrugging off piracy.

The problem is bigger than most people think and ongoing for trad and indie alike.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Mercedes Lackey also went on a pretty good rant about piracy affecting her at the Nebula Awards last year, in fact, she may have mentioned the story above. She, at one point, also shrugged off piracy, and then came around to realizing just how bad she might be getting screwed, LOL. If she isn't safe, as someone who's been around forever and with over 140 books published, who is?

 

[pmmg]

Just for the record, I legitimately bought any book I read from someone on this site

 

[Mad Swede]

The problem has always existed, as I've said before. The great Gardner Fox (he who created The Flash, Hawkman and Sandman, amongst others) had this happen to him when someone used the pseudonym James Harvey to copy/steal/plagiarise Fox's book Escape Across The Cosmos and publish it as Titans across The Universe and (under yet another name) as Star Chase. It took several years, but Manor Books, who had published the pirated books, ended up paying substantial damages.

Yes, piracy can happen to any author. Yes, it can be hard to nail the perpetrators. But it can be done - and it helps if you've got big guns to back you up.

 

[BearBear]

In order for anybody to pirate my books they'd have to find them first. A challenge more daunting than the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Yeah, good luck finding mine, I've never even sent them online.

My non-fiction works may or may not have been pirated. Technically they need to pay or at least license the material but my lawyers say it's up to me to find the instances. I barely get 4 figures from these things, there's no money in it.

 

[ThinkerX]

I don't believe it counts as piracy - and it may not be a thing at all - but occasional rumors have reached me about Amazon selling off 'zero-sale' books to other parties. Not sure how that would work legally.

I did notice they offered steep (50% off) discounts on some of my print books, which makes me wonder how they can be making like anything.

 

[skip.knox]

There's does it affect me, and there's does it affect my community. I'm not going to say every writer must be a crusader, but I do say it's worth being aware of the choice and making it consciously.

 

[ThinkerX]

On Facebook this past week there were a couple authors complaining about getting tossed off Amazon (KDP) because other people pirated their books.

 

[coeurdevrai]

Pretty much this is. I have trouble enough getting people to find my books, even with ads and all that. I doubt having them in more places will matter.

The other thing as well is that most (indie) ebooks are cheap. Common price range for indie books is something like 99ct to $4.99, or $9.99 per month for a kindle unlimited subscription which lets you read pretty much everything you could ever want. That's less than a drink in a bar. If you walk around town looking at the ground you'll find money enough for a book. These prices mean that people going to pirate book sites are never going to be your customer. They simply don't want to pay for books. So they are not anything to worry about.

One thing worth adding is that if your books are exclusive to Amazon (as in, in KU), then sometimes Amazon can complain that you are violating the exclusivity because the book is available on a pirate book site. It happens... In that case, you should take action, because Amazon doesn't like competition.

Another thing to be aware of, when dealing with Intellectual Property Rights is that there can be consequences for a lack of challenge. If you allow the piracy to go unchallenged, there is, in many states, a legal doctrine that equates your lack of challenge to effectively releasing the work to the public domain. It's the reason that so many corporations will vigorously defend against all strip bandages being called Band-Aid or all tissues being called Kleenex. If you think you're being pirated, I strongly suggest that you consult with a competent Intellectual Property lawyer or your local equivalent to see what the potential outcomes of NOT pursuing legal action may be. Finding a good IP lawyer that doesn't cost the moon is even harder than tracking down the miscreants.

 

[pmmg]

Saw this video, thought I would add it as part of the record.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I agree with her. It's different to have your book show up on some random book pirate site, and to have it listed for sale by someone else on Amazon. I also feel like her experience shows that Amazon doesn't really care about authors all that much. As long as someone is selling something then it's fine for them. If anything, they make more (per copy) off these pirated books, since they simply close the pirate's kdp account and keep all the royalties themselves.