Being bootlegged on EBAY.
Remember the old days when somebody would simply buy a book, then re-sell it to a used book dealer? Now that there's eBay, it seems that buyers of a download think they not only have the "right" to re-sell, but to, oh, make a few extra copies as well.
This EBAY seller probably bought original downloads of things he/she was interested in: obscure self-help, poetry and non-fiction. Then?
The ad makes no attempt to disguise how the book will be delivered, or that it is COPYRIGHTED.
This seller even offers items for only two dollars.
The above book is NOT one of those "public domain" titles that eBay nickel-and-dimers often sell. It's not one of the zillion "Get Rich on Ebay" "200 Great Sex Tips" "300 Fab Recipes" titles. And neither is this one:
The seller's eclectic list seems to involve personal likes...transformed into extra cash. Just not for the author. The seller puts them up as 30 day buy-it-now, with anywhere from 2 to 10 copies available.
Ebay, the "just a venue" people, say it's up to public-spirited citizens and alert authors and publishers to stop sellers like this.
In this case, the seller is violating eBay's rule on "digital downloads." It's pretty obvious this seller has no idea there IS such a rule, and probably no idea that copying anything in this age of Pirate Bay and YouTube is actually illegal.
Sadly, all this seller probably had to do was add a caveat, "I will send this book via the mail, as eBooks downloaded from a cloud service is illegal," to keep the auctions running. At least for a while. Ebay is about 50-50 in seeing through that conjob line. Sometimes an employee realizes it's a ruse, or checks a seller's personal messages to verify that download links are being offered. But sometimes, a seller keeps going for a very, very long time and is only stopped when enough authors and publishers send a VeRO (verified rights owner) complaint via fax or e-mail.
No comments:
Post a Comment