Barnes and Noble is in trouble. The kneejerk response is, "Gosh! Gee! Too bad! Will hate to see it go!"
A few have made lame suggestions: "Diversity and sell toys. I got it: sell coffee, like a Starbucks, and have space where people can lounge around and meet each other!" Except there ARE Starbucks all over the place. This is supposed to be a BOOKSTORE.
Can a BOOKSTORE survive in this digital age? Mussolini Bezos kept flogging KINDLE on the front page of AMAZON until millions of morons began buying them. Piracy of digital media doomed Tower Records and Blockbuster Video, and tossing around copyrighted material and photos (called "fair use" by ignorant bloggers) has turned newsstand magazines anorexic and shut down many newspapers. Everything from Penthouse to Christian Science Monitor is "online only, no REAL PRINT edition."
Yes, the digital age may well signal a "new paradigm" in the "trope" of the "zeitgeist," and the "underpinning" of it is that PEOPLE DON'T WANT BOOKS, DVDS or CDS anymore. What doesn't help is: PIRACY and CRAPATHY.
It shouldn't be SO appallingly simple to get a cheap bootleg book download on EBAY of all places.
What you see above is a blatant list of download-bootleg books from an EBAY seller. There are many of them.
People who wouldn't think of stealing a book out of a store, are led to believe EBAY pirates are legit. Why? Because they are on EBAY and one ASSUMES that they wouldn't be there if they were illegal. No, EBAY proudly says "we're just a venue," and are under NO obligation to ask sellers to prove the have written contracts to copy copyrighted work.
Anyone typing in "GEORGE R.R. MARTIN" or "E.L. JAMES" *to mention two well-fed apathetic authors) will instantly notice "EBOOK" or "E Book" or "KINDLE" or "EPUB" next to one of their book titles. Happy to get a download for as low as 80% off the Amazon or iTunes price, and thinking the authors and publishers get royalties, EBAY PATRONS BUY. Only EBAY and the parasites who offer the bootlegs make money. You see why EBAY isn't so dedicated to honesty?
Sadly, CRAPATHETIC book publishers such as Random House-Doubleday-Dell-Penguin aren't asking some low-paid intern to file DMCA's. It takes less than a minute. I do it all the time for myself and various authors and celebrities I know. I can tell you that when enough complaints come in, the seller IS suspended and DOES NOT COME BACK. But...
...the fat cats at the publishing houses, which are owned by diverse corporations, figure they'll always have a job somewhere in the organization. So what if the book division fails. They can sit behind a desk and count some beans.
Book publisher lawyers and publicists etc. are often arrogant. THEY aren't going to waste their time filing DMCA's when they can take a two hour lunch, or watch Internet porn. Some bitch named Andrea, who has some important title at a big publishing house, emailed me a frosty "thanks but no thanks," when I offered to send in DMCA's or do all the work so that an intern would simply have to forward my DMCA to EBAY. Herattitude was: mind your own business. We are aware of the problem...but don't care. This, from the publishing business, which is supposedly full of intelligent, sensitive book lovers.
Fat George Martin and fatter E.L. James could easily assign a fan to be their VERO (Verified Rights Owner) rep on eBay. It doesn't require a lawyer. You can "phone a friend." All eBAY needs is for the copyright owner to write, on letterhead, a note saying "this person is my VERO rep." Then EBAY stops the auctions. But that's too much for George R.R. Martin, E.L. James, and too many other authors and book companies.
"Oh, short-sighted businessmen...nothing lasts forever," sang Joni Mitchell. But you can download that song off a blog, forum or torrent, FREEEEEEEE. And is she making new music? No, she's too pissed off to bother.
Ignorant fat cats will say, "Oh, it's whack-a-mole, it's not worth the trouble." I know they're wrong. Ebay will suspend sellers who keep on bootlegging, and since eBay does require credit cards and ID to sell, it's easy to suspend a new account should a seller try to sneak back.
An irony is that unlike GOOGLE, where YouTube and Blogspot bootleggers flourish, eBay actually has some moral rules. While it's not against GOOGLE rules to offer downloads, it's actually AGAINST eBay rules. If your ad says you are selling DOWNLOADS, the auctions can end. Heh heh...but they have to be reported. That's either by a VeRO rep or by anyone using the obscure "REPORT ITEM" link on every EBAY ad. So why is it that so many eBay sellers, like SANDRO_CAMARO, have been doing just that for years?
Because eBay "is just a venue, and we have millions of new auctions every hour," phone support will tell you. They'll also admit that some low-paid wretch in Utah, Guam or Pakistan might not have enough time to get through the workload of items reported. So, try again.
I've been told by eBay employees that "PIRACY is a LOW PRIORITY." Meaning, their staffers are more likely to quickly end auctions involving drug sales, lock-picking devices, used underwear, etc. Stealing copyrighted work? Meh. Authors should keep their day job. It's nothing to write a book. It's just typing.
Here's an ad from SANDRO_CAMERO, illegally copying a book called..."STICKY FINGERS."
Anyone looking for a new or used copy of Joe's LEGIT BOOK, sees THIS parasite's auction. "Hmm, E-Book...I didn't know you can get a download E-Book on EBAY...wow, and for 75% off what AMAZON or iTUNES charges!"
You notice, maybe, that there's a REPORT ITEM link in the corner of the ad. OK, what happens if you click that link?
You get a confusing pop-up menu to follow.
Now what? Keep going. Go to the menu, scroll down, and down, and down dozens of categories, looking for where you might report this piracy. And, no, FRAUD is not the one. COPYRIGHT? No, try again.
Now what? KEEP GOING...
There. You've gone through all the hoops, because you either don't like parasitic thieves like CAMARO, or you're a fan of the author, and you're sad that the author's book company is not doing anything, and the author is either unaware of the thievery, or busy trying to write and promote and make a living to take a minute to file a DMCA...to help himself, other authors, and BARNES AND NOBLE.
What happens next? Nothing, usually. There's a 50-50 chance the auction might actually be taken down. It depends on how BUSY the employee who received the complaint is. Ebay claims they suspend repeat offenders, but they do NOT state HOW many OFFENSES are needed. It might depend on how much money they are making off the seller, how many auctions the seller runs, or if there's some quota system and employees can't knock off TOO many creeps per week. Ebay is like Scientology...they do not like to discuss anything and their phone support number will get you a polite stooge who will say "Sorry, I can not divulge that information..." no matter what you ask.
And yes, here's MORE of the seller's items for sale...
Well, well, WHAT A SURPRISE...the seller is siphoning off money from obese George R.R. Martin, and whale-like E.L. James.
Martin and James are way too busy eating. Or being on TWITTER. Did they notice what is TRENDING ON TWITTER TODAY? The problems of Barnes & Noble? Meh. These authors are too well fed to care at this point. They surely don't care about their fellow authors either.
Raymond Chandler, in "The Maltese Falcon," had Sam Spade declare it was "BAD FOR BUSINESS" when "one of your own" gets killed. You do something. It's "BAD FOR BUSINESS" when parasites on eBay steal away sales, because when people get books cheap, they do not support the book publishers, who in turn, give even less of an advance to most authors on their list.
The fact that George R.R. Martin and E.L. James are corpulent crapathetic toad-turd traitors to the book business, to bookstores, and to their fellow-authors, is pretty damn sad. Is Rowling or Stephen King doing much either? A few best-selling authors do seem to tell their book publishers: "DO SOMETHING." But not enough.
EBAY is in the Top 5 among retail sites. It should NOT have bootlegs. It's bad enough that so many people know exactly where to go to the secret forum, the torrent, or the GOOGLE blogspot blogs, to get free ePub and Kindle books from entitled assholes who think everything should be free, and they're being Che Guevara or Robin Hood by giving it all away and screaming "Copyright is COPY WRONG" from their hiding place in mommy's basement.
It's bad enough that Google puts "report abuse" on blogs now, but if you go through the hoops, you're told that you must be a copyright owner to report a violation, that they won't bother asking a free blogger if he has permission, and that, if you actually ARE a copyright owner, you might get ignored anyway or told "we don't believe you, send us a copy of your copyright from the copyright office via a lawyer."
Meanwhile, gosh, gee, too bad, R.I.P. if Barnes and Noble goes under. Liked to go there, like I did Toys R Us. But hey, Jeff Bezos' AMAZON has what I need...and so do freebie parasites on the Internet!"
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