The GOOD news is that eBay actually has a rule against "digital delivery" of eBooks. This means that sellers can't pretend to be Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and offer EBOOKS sent via a Google cloud or an email.
The bad news? The people in charge of "report item" in the "digital delivery" category don't seem to know how to read. Take this very obvious item from a scumbag in Ireland:
Golly, over 70 Stephen King novels for barely the price of a used paperback. FOUR DOLLARS! Wheee! What a great bargain. What a great seller! If it's on eBay it must be legal, right?
PDF files. WHO sells PDF files except BOOTLEGGING BASTARDS like THIS prick?
The ad is pretty obvious: "You will be getting a DIGITAL COPY." The fact that it has to be a download is obvious. One penny shipping? How's he getting this all the way from Ireland to even LONDON for a penny? And he's selling the whole shebang for FOUR BUCKS?
How do fans of libraries, bookstores and COPYRIGHT report a bootleg? Click "REPORT ITEM" and scroll through the confusing dropdown menus, and you get "digital delivery"
That should take care of it, right?
A week passes. Two weeks. Several bidders send in complaints. STILL nothing happens. Finally, calling up eBay, it has to be explained that PDF files are bootlegs, and that "DIGITAL COPY" and one cent delivery should've been big CLUES to the "EXPERT" who was put in charge of reading "digital delivery" complaints.
"Oh, not to worry...we will be looking into this!"
Here's Danny Boy Bastard being even more blatant in his add for J.R.R. Tolkein books:
That's on this item, 272792153911, for those keeping score:
DANNY BOY BASTARD picks on ALL the well known crapathetic authors who are either bloated, dead, or both:
What a surprise, seeing George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling on that list. What dreamworld are they living in, where they think bookstores and libraries should go out of business, and the world should do nothing but buy THEIR shit via Amazon?
OK, eBay, and while you're looking into Danny Boy Bastard, how about THIS slimy character in Canada, doing the same thing, and being just as blatant? One week, two weeks, three weeks...MULTIPLE eBayers filing, and NOTHING has happened.
The seller even uses the word DOWNLOAD in the ad.
Let's take a look at the ad copy. Mr. Prick is very specific about HIS property. You better not try and get a refund, because, NO REFUNDS! He can rape copyright, but YOU better obey HIS RULES.
Yes, it's a bootleg of Game of Thrones, a favorite, because bootleggers know who the lazy-ass fat-ass authors are, and the crapathetic book companies.
Yes, it's our pal again, fat George Porgy, who eats his pudding and pie, and types out his warped fantasies about teenage topless women so he and his nitwit pubescent nerds can have a thrill.
George R.R. Martin is to rich and fat to really care about sending in a takedown. He's busy on Twitter showing people his closet full of toys. (No, not sex toys.)
What about his publisher? They either don't want to spend money on paying a Web Sheriff a few dollars to send in a takedown, or they're too CHEAP to have an intern do it. So they'll take the loss. Which sends the message that book publishers are RICH.
They aren't. Are they? Otherwise they'd pay decent advances to authors NOT named George R.R. Martin, and they'd have a few extra publicists to push promising young authors. And they'd see to it that bootlegging parasites on eBay stop lousing things up for bookstores and libraries, who don't get business if somebody is sitting around with google eyes and reading SEVENTY Stephen King novels that he got for $4.00 or big fat George R. R. Martin books for chump change.
"It's bad for business. Bad all around." WHO doesn't understand this? You, Andrea? (This is a woman at Doubleday Dell who doesn't want to hear about eBay bootleggers and has better things to do. Insert your own cynical x-rated line about what it could be). The ad has a very specific line that indicates this is a digital download item:
Would you be surprised to hear that phone support at eBay wasn't sure this was a violation?
It has to be explained that a PDF is not a legal file like an EPUB or MOBI, and that an ePUB or MOBI, which work on a Nook or a Kindle for example, are sold on LEGIT sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
PS, to say DOWNLOAD in an ad SHOULD be a give-away. So why is it that eBay hires some sleepy illiterate to look at reports sent to "digital delivery?"
