AUTHOR: Is YOUR eBOOK being BOOTLEGGED on EBAY?

There's an epidemic of book thieves on EBAY.

What you see above is BRIGHTDREAMS11, a seller who has made $150 for doing nothing but stealing a John Green title.

Multiply that by ten more authors raped and humiliated, and this seller is pulling down $1500 a week. Or more?

CEO John Donahoe doesn't seem to know about it? Doesn't care?

This is no surprise. Thanks to something called the "Digital Millennium Act," which goes wayyy back to 1988, copyright owners have been shoved under the bus. The excuse back then was "affirmative action." As in: let these poor little Internet companies, like cute-named Google and adorable-named Ebay flourish. They're just little kiddies who don't know right from wrong. They should be able to say "we're just a venue." Maybe some day, when they're big and strong, they'll know better.

Know what?

They became big and strong. Power corrupts. Ebay, Google and Amazon have become Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini. If you really need proof, see how easy it was for Jeff Bezos of Amazon to drop nearly a BILLION DOLLARS today to buy something called "Twitch." That's a "streaming" site for "gamers." As if he couldn't just build one himself. Bezos is the guy who is fighting book publishers over how much they should be able to charge for an eBook...and openly refusing to stock books just to play hardball.

Meanwhile Ebay, now trying to get out of being the Internet garage sale for back date magazines and "Granny's postcard collection," is looking the other way when it comes to literally stealing eBook sales away from Amazon.

How outrageous is the abuse? Just type in a key term: EBOOK. Then add an author. Or a title like "Wimpy Kid" or "Heavenly Fire" or "Vampire."

You'll discover blatant frauds and liars with eBay names such as:

damommastreasure, sarsar412, mojosstuffgalore, brightreams11, houseofaddarav, collegestudentmom — among others — happily bootlegging in violation of both copyright and EBAY rules.

How? EBAY looks the other way if a seller merely writes: "I will send this item by postal mail. Sending this item by email or by any other digital delivery method is not allowed and violates eBay policy."

In fact, a seller doesn't even have to write anything at all. Just don't charge a shipping fee and (nudge nudge wink wink) the bidder knows that an e-mail will arrive with the password to a cloud or the link to a Rapidshare file.

As to THE BIG LIE:

"Attention eBay Staff: I am an Authorized Reseller of this product and also the copyright holder and I have resale rights to this eBook or item. Full Resell Rights are Granted by the copyright owners to sell these eBooks with Resell Rights or Master Resell Rights Granted! This ad complies with all eBay rules and regulations."

And what happens if an author of book company stops that auction on "Shades of Grey Trilogy?" The seller continues to offer the other dozen or two dozen bootlegs, and if EBAY asks (and they never do) say "Gee, I made a mistake on that last one. But honest...I AM the copyright holder on Wimpy Kid..."

Farce? More than a farce. It's a bloody crime.

BRIGHTDREAMS11 is still on EBAY despite many negatives for blatantly selling fake items and bootlegs:

EBAY? No numbers to call. Letters go right into the garbage. Business as usual.

What happens if you ask Kari Rameriz, the publicist for EBAY at press@ebay.com? Find out for yourself. The answer is usually NO REPLY. Or the robot: "If you are a copyright owner, jump through some hoops, fill out some forms, and send them to vero@ebay.com. PS, if you complain that the seller is bootlegging everybody's books on our site, we will ignore you. We won't ask the seller to fax us "under penalty of perjury" any license agreements at all. We are THAT desperate for sales on our site. That's why we don't even let sellers leave negatives on deadbeat bidders, or allow them to block bidders who extort and cheat sellers or return DVDs after copying them, or books after reading them."

AUTHORS...PUBLISHERS...the best thing you can do, aside from perhaps joining to create the Mother of All Class Action Lawsuits...is to join EBAY's "VeRo" (verified rights owner) program and file against the bootleggers. This IS a war. Copyright holders are losing ground every minute while Internet giants like Google and Amazon bellow about how everything should be "Free" and copyright should bow to "Freedom of Speech." Ebay has the nerve to allow sellers to pretend they own the copyright to every best seller! How do they get away with this? "Because they can." They are being enabled...by copyright owners who don't take action.