Here WAS a seller who was telling the most blatant and outrageous lies. Dozens upon dozens of authors, who are alive and 40 or 50 years old...were actually born before 1923 and wrote their books before 1923.
File that under "that's my story and I'm sticking to it." And eBay? They aid and abet anyone who brings in money.
The seller had a dozen CD-R and DVD-R collections of everybody's copyrighted books. Like so:
Who discovered it? ONE VeRO rep for ONE author. And no, that VeRO rep wasn't anyone from Digimarc or any of the other flashy and boastful agencies that claim they find, through technology or wizardry or a oujia board, any and all copyright violations.
Were it not for that ONE VeRO rep, this seller's junk would still be on eBay, hundreds of authors would be cheated, and a few more libraries would be dealing with letters demanding they cut back hours.
How insane is that? And here's the finish:
It would be nice if eBay wasn't like the Nazi Sgt. Schultz of "Hogan's Heroes" and blubbering "I see nothing, I know nothing" in the face of outrageous injustice. But at least they'll listen to a copyright rep if one spots something that needs to be stopped.
Too bad there are complacent, apathetic authors and publishers out there, who don't find "I own copyright" offensive, or don't see piracy as dangerous and unacceptable.
The other day I was taking a look at a typical thieving-den forum. The ADMIN announced, "Please do NOT upload anything from Disney. We want to be under the radar. We don't need the aggravation."
Wouldn't it be nice if all companies had the reputation Disney has? That a lesson Disney continues to teach is to RESPECT copyright OR ELSE?
The average person doesn't know about torrents and doesn't spend a lot of time in sneaky forums. That person probably has never even downloaded off Pirate Bay, which gleefully still thumbs their noses at copyright owners and takedown requests. People DO spent their time on eBay. They go there to buy a book at a cheaper price than Amazon, and they see somebody offering REAL cheap bootlegs with impunity. And so they buy.
And if a best selling author and a huge publisher aren't hurt too much by it, not enough to take "appropriate action," a Mom and Pop bookstore is hurt. A library is hurt. And there's a little less caring, sensitivity and morality in the world, and another triumph for greed and stupidity.
Book publishing is supposedly run by people a little more intelligent and less drug-addled than the music industry? Sometimes, especially if you check what they allow on eBay, you wonder what brainless pill-heads are on control of the literary world, and what utter bubble-wrapped impotent fools are at the NY Times Review of Books Tweeting memes all day while books burn. I mean it literally. Books are burning in landfills because it's so easy to get your fill of electronic bootlegs.
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