Yes, THIS is how the books also end up on EBAY where they are SOLD without permission.
Caveat Emptor? Sure, right here:
If your book was released in ebook format, it's probably being given away on the Internet RIGHT NOW. Most likely in a forum, rather than a blog or torrent.
OK. Do I need to define my terms?
Blog: This used to be where music thieves prospered. Google's "Blogspot" was a pioneer in allowing anyone to get a blog for any purpose. Quickly, bloggers learned they could make money by stealing music, or offering thousands of porn images, etc. The blogger would put a Paypal "tip jar" on the blog. "Want more? Tip me." The blogger would also hook up with Rapidshare, Megaupload, and other "cloud lockers" that would pay the blogger for his "hard work" in upping stolen files.
Rapidshare and Megaupload are long gone, and blogs aren't so popular for copyright theft. That's because of forums and torrents.
Forums, which usually require signing up to become a member, are hidden hives for "sharing" anything and everything. "Sharers" are protected. If links disappear (get reported), the moderator can see who looked at that post, and soon determine the spy. The spy is booted, the ISP blocked, and the thievery continues. A great benefit of forums is one can type in a name and instantly get the goodies, as there are dozens if not hundreds of people all "sharing" files.
Torrents? Most, like the forums, are "private." The idea here is that instead of using a "file locker," people all hook together electronically and suck files off each other's designated "sharing file." You put your favorite mp3 music files or pdf mobi kindle book files into a folder that all your fellow torrenters can access. The more popular the file, the quicker the download.
At the moment, forums still beat out the torrents because most people don't know how torrents work and are leery of letting strangers have access, even limited, to their computers. Since individuals in forums upload their own files to their choice of "cloud" server, they alone pocket the money they get.
Back to the funny things that happen in forums. Like seeing your book being given away.
I discovered this myself. My "Horror Stars on Radio" book, from McFarland, turned up in several forums.
Take your choice on how that happened: a) the publisher sends review copy eBooks to anyone with a blog, including those who secretly hustle them around to make money for themselves, or b) somebody bought the book on Amazon and decided it was so great they wanted to "share" it with people who might otherwise not know about it. Thus, they get a hearty "thanks!" and a "wow, great book" for themselves.
As obscure as my "Horror Stars on Radio" book is, forums have others even more esoteric. In one day, September 15, a fellow posted over ONE HUNDRED text books, including these:
In order for people not to spend any bread, and to make sure nobody "spoils the fun," most pirates spread their links to a variety of "cloud" servers. Usually they stick to servers that will kick back some money to them. Speaking of bread:
Just click the link, and off you go, to a "cloud" server that might toss a few ads in your face, or hope you'll "buy a premium account" for a faster download. The deal is often that the uploader gets a penny for every download, or maybe twenty five cents ends up buying a "premium account" thanks to the enticing item.
I know, it seems very petty. Authors usually don't make minimum wage for the time they put into a book. But if you're a Communist (and many uploaders are, in theory if not in Russia) your view is "everything should be shared." And if you make a few kopeks while you do it, why not?
If you're a Capitalist, why, you rationalize that the author is rich, or should be happy to be published, and YOU living in Plano, Texas or in Sri Lanka or wherever, can help pay your low rent with a little help from energetic uploading.
Today's post was inspired by a friend of mine.
She e-mailed that she was waiting and waiting and waiting to get Chrissie Hynde's new book out of the library. She was waiting for some other book, too, and apparently the one copy was stalled. Somebody lost it? Stole it? She remarked, "I suppose I could find it on line." (Hint Hint).
She only knew of the famous torrents, the nasty-named Pirate Bay, Kickass, Demonoid, etc.
But as you see from the above, the old-fashioned "forums" that have a huge range of freebies (books, magazines, tv episodes, music, porn, plus general chat areas) are still doing well.
Yes, I found the two books she wanted and e-mailed her the links. Why? My rationalization was that she wasn't going to buy the books anyway. I was just helping out a friend who was waiting on the New York Public Library that had a long list of people waiting on one title, and had apparently lost the other title entirely.
See how easy it is to rationalize?
Ten years ago, when mp3 files became popular, the rationalization in forums, and on blogs (torrents weren't around yet) was: "This is like sharing. What's wrong with making a copy for a friend?"
The answer was that we're not talking about friends, but a conspiracy of strangers. We're talking about blogs where one egomaniac with a desire to be a "blogfather" and get tons of "nice comments" offers downloads of HUNDREDS of items, each one going to THOUSANDS of downloaders. That's massive piracy.
In an era of self-entitlement, of "Ashley Madison" websites, of hedonism, of "enjoy yourself before you're blown up or the planet starts burning from the heat," we overlook little things like copyright. The chant in the forums is "copyright is COPY WRONG," and guys like Assange are heroes, because, don't you know, copying copyrighted material is actually "freedom of speech."
And so it is, and so it goes. You, AUTHOR, are losing sales. Bookstores are disappearing. Jeff Bezos has helped turn readers into Kindlers, and real books are becoming fire wood. Used bookstores must rely on old-fashioned readers, and on sales of books that have not yet been digitized. But, ha ha, most any "public domain" book HAS been digitized by a library somewhere, and has ended up at archive.org or at the Gutenberg Project. PS, there are dedicated "sharers" out there who feel it's their duty to digitize every magazine or book they can stick on a scanner.
Meanwhile, with very little effort (just joining a few of the "usual suspect" forums, everyone has plenty to read. FREE. And the more people get for FREE the less they need to buy.
The bottom line is probably: "How can this be stopped? Isn't this a bad situation for the economy?"
The answer is that yes, it's bad, and yes it can be stopped IF governments stop being Assange-holes and understand that blocking nasty websites or shutting them down is a good idea. It's pathetically rare the number of times ICE or some other government agency blocks a site such as Megaupload. It's pathetic how many years it takes to get a site taken down and get the perp prosecuted.
Megaupload was owned by an obese German who legally changed his name to "Kim Dotcom," and ended up with the gaudiest estate in New Zealand, a palace of excess. The U.S. government, some four years later, is still wrangling to extradite him and keep his bank account frozen.
Every time the government proposes any type of new law, such as SOPA, the Asssange-holes, abetted by Google, Wikipedia and others who profit off copyright abuse, make sure it's shot down. They scream about "Freedom of Speech," forecast doom, and even "go black" for a day, encouraging the wrath of hackers and other greedheads.
Ebay has been getting away with being a mammoth fence for stolen goods, including book files, because they can claim to be "just a venue." They will say "We have no idea if Ms. Rule or Mr. Patterson or anyone else gave permission for one of our sellers to offer all their books on PDF format, delivered on a CD or thumb drive. It's fine with us, unless they tell us otherwise."
What can change that ignorant, greedy, destructive thinking? Perhaps lobbying by publishers, or by the do-nothing author unions. The fact is, EBAY chooses not to allow certain things on their site, from chloroform to used panties. They do have a rule against selling "digital downloads" that bidders can get via e-mail or a cloud service, but the current loophole is that the auction stays IF the seller states "I am the copyright owner or authorized re-seller" and/or "I will ship the $2.99 pdf file from Croatia via postal mail, because eBay policy forbids e-mailing it." Ebay conveniently ignores that the seller gets positives with lines like "thanks, great item, it was easy to download!" So it's up to the author to send in a complaint saying "I'm the copyright owner, not this seller using five different accounts..."
We've seen the utter destruction of the music world due to piracy. Record stores are gone. Out of print records are thrown all over the forum world, and you can use YouTube as a jukebox to find even very obscure singles or entire albums. Will the publishing world, supposedly full of smart, creative people, allow this to happen to them?
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