Ebay bootlegger ghouls...stealing Carrie Fisher books while Ebay gets a Percentage

What have we here? Carrie Fisher dies and THIS guy instantly posts her audio book.

The monkeys from Sri Lanka, Putinville, Mexico, or the ones who infest Florida or New York, LOVE to get a few easy dollars off the world of literacy, a world they know so little about:

"AUDIO BOOK, WILL BE DRECT LINK TO YOU THE AUDIO BOOK FILE"

Most of them copy off the various caveats from each other, hoping the phrasing makes any kind of sense. All they know is there's easy money because EBAY doesn't police their site and PUBLISHERS aren't vigilant and AUTHORS are naive.

THIS seller posted over 170 different audio books. You'd think a few authors or publishers would've noticed and sent in DMCA's to get rid of this jerk.

You'd also think EBAY would have an efficient way by which these auctions could be reported by anyone who sees them. After all, this jerk has blatantly indicated: "AUDIO BOOK SEND BY EMAIL." Which happens, miraculously, to be against eBay's own basic rules.

For a watchdog, be it blogger or concerned librarian or a member of the Writer's Guild (oh, forget the latter, that union does nothing except take money), eBay's idea is you click the "REPORT THIS ITEM" link, scroll down several menus:

REPORT CATEGORY (that would be "Listing Practices" in this case), REASON FOR REPORT (that would be "Other Listing Practices") and DETAILED REASON (that would be "Digitally Delivered Goods") followed by the final button: SEND IN REPORT.

Do that 177 times? The other options are to call eBay direct, get somebody on the other side of the world, and explain the problem. Or go on Twitter to ASKEBAY and hope for the best.

If more PUBLISHERS and more AUTHORS simply saw and reported the abuse, sellers like this would be suspended before they get hundreds of dollars that belong to PUBLISHERS and AUTHORS, and help support printers, bookstores and libraries.

Simon & Schuster BLOWS $250,000 on a Racist (while EBAY bootlegs them ALL DAY)

What a message Simon & Schuster has sent:

"We are such a bunch of fat cats, we ignore Ebay bootleggers. We have ALL the money. We just tossed $250,000 away on a greasy racist bastard!"

The first part? Nobody's checking for blatant bootlegging like THIS:

The second part?

Why in the world validate a jerk who was tossed off TWITTER?

You have to be pretty EXTREME to be banned by TWITTER. They allow all kinds of bullying and even pornography. There are WHORES on TWITTER and PORN STARS calling attention to themselves. Here's a surly, racist Breitbart bully who happily made a name for himself by targeting a black female comedian for abuse. Now he's rewarded for it.

Do you want to say that at one time the publishing world was above this kind of pandering and sleaze?

Go read Carly Simon's autobiography, and check the part where she talks about how her father, a founder in Simon & Schuster, was pushed out of his own company in a power play.

The insult added to the injury is that price tag. Consider that the average non-fiction writer, who may "as a labor of love," would be willing to do a year or two of research for a $2500 advance. Many have "day jobs," or lazy day jobs (college professor) and the advance would just cover some transportation costs and or treating an interview subject to a nice dinner, or paying an "honorarium" to somebody willing to allow for duplication of archive material.

That's 100 great non-fiction books...for the price of one piece of shit written by a piece of shit.

How EBAY steals from helpless Stephen Hawking

How many times has an eBAY seller deliberately posted Stephen Hawking bootlegs? And got CAUGHT? And re-listed ANYWAY?

Too often to count. But SOME of the auction numbers previously stopped were:

112228191447
112088100216
122066678463
122073178902
112114958276
112120519691
112226979329
112076323716

and two days ago:

122220996841
112200540435

In the REAL world, this kind of thievery doesn't happen. Walk out with a Hawking book and get caught, and the bookstore will not let you back in. You might even be held for the police. On eBay? You get a form e-mail and nothing else.

Ebay will say that they have a "policy" on sellers who break their own rules (eBay officially does NOT allow digital downloads on their site). A rule-breaker can get a warning, followed by a "restriction" (no selling for a day) another "restriction" (no selling for a week) another "restriction" (no selling for a month) and a temporary suspension (or two or three or four) and maybe a permanent suspension.

Meanwhile Stephen Hawking is losing royalties and a thief is profiting, and eBay gets a percentage, as does Paypal. I remind you: this is going on with authors far less affluent than Hawking, as well. Bootleggers on eBay are victimizing ALL kinds of authors, including ones who write textbooks or specialized books. Every sale lost hurts. It also has a ripple effect of hurting bookstores and hurting libraries.

Stealing from a helpless author confined to a wheelchair? Like taking candy from a baby.

The FACT is that while eBay actually has some rules, and there's an obscure "report this item" link on every auction, not ALL eBay auctions are considered equal.

A seller who is caught offering "wet, smelly used panties" will get a pretty quick suspension. But a seller who merely rips off copyright? In an Internet world where people laugh and say "copyright is COPY WRONG?" Not a big deal.

That's why THIS seller, for the TENTH time that I know about, and more likely it's TWENTY, has yet to even have a restriction.

Instead, the seller acts as if Hawking licensed this abuse. As if this is legitimate. As if buying this ISN'T buying a bootleg.

Ebay has the power to suspend a seller like this after three strikes. They don't because they also have the power to do as they please. It's the same power another Internet giant, Amazon has. You know them. They tell book publishers to go fuck themselves. They tell book publishers what books they will or won't carry. They tell book publishers how much to charge for a digital download.

Somehow, some people, maybe the Pollyanna pussies at the Author's Guild, think the Internet is good for authors. No, it's good for parasitic maggots who offer illegal downloads on eBay. UPDATE DECEMBER 27th: After many complaints to EBAY and to ASKEBAY (at Twitter), this seller is currently NOT offering the Hawking items. The complaints did not come from Hawking's agent or publisher. They came from an advocate for eBay integrity and an end to digital bootlegging on the site.

This recalls Groucho's line to Margaret Dumont: "I'm fighting for your honor, which is more than you ever did."

AMAZON KINDLE ALLOWS BOOTLEGGING ON EBAY

Arrogant Amazon has a tradition of being bastards with authors and publishers. Don't do it their way and they won't even carry your books.

KINDLE is the greatest boon to book piracy ever invented. Since it appeared, the book business has gone into collapse. Author advances have shrunk. Libraries have seen a marked decline in visitors.

Over on EBAY, they look the other way when it comes to book piracy. They will not remove obvious examples of piracy even when they are reported to eBay's "copyright" division. Here's an example.

This British prick posted and boasted in various auctions, that he could offer bidders ANYTHING they wanted (anything he could download from thieving forums).

Did you follow that caveat? That crap about GNU? About "freeware?" Just typical brat-speak. "Sharers" and "bootleggers" come up with all kinds of childish excuses for what they do. It's "for review" and "it's fair use" and "it's being offered collector to collector." Ad nauseam.

The Crypto-Nazi bastards of EBAY play the Sgt. Schultz game. You remember him from "Hogan's Heroes." He stood around saying, "I know nnnnnothing! I know nnnnnnothing!"

The Crypto-Nazi bastards of EBAY insist they have no idea if there's a GNU, or if the item is "freeware" or whatever else their sellers are saying. They won't ask, either. The logical thing to do would be to knock off the auction and demand the seller or the seller's attorney prove they have a licensing agreement to put EVERY BOOK ON THE PLANET on a DVD-R or CD-R.

Instead, the Crypto-Nazi bastards of EBAY shrug and say, "It's up to the authors to check our auctions and point out if something infringes. Because WE KNOW NNNNNOTHING."

OK. You'd think that Amazon would be interested in protecting their stranglehold. They'd want to make sure people only download from THEIR site, and that people don't get pirated copies on a DVD-R or CD-R.

This is Amazon's response to the above auction:

Incredible, isn't it? Amazon doesn't have some low-level intern-schmuck who can file a takedown on EBAY?

Amazon doesn't care if somebody is using the Kindle trademark and bootlegging Kindle books? Amazon would be well within their rights to shut this auction down.

They didn't. It was up to ONE VeRO rep representing ONE author to point out this was an infringing auction. Yes, ONE VeRO rep said to EBAY, "My author's books are being offered illegally here." Even Crypto-Nazis are not always unreasonable. This was a blatant inexcusable auction run by a self-entitled British brat. But Amazon did nothing, and you can go to EBAY and type in KINDLE and find plenty more bootleggers thriving on EBAY.

Sadly, there's too much piracy and not enough of it is being taken seriously. Fat cat Kindle and fat cat Amazon are joined by fat cat Penguin and fat cat Random House and fat cat Doubleday and other publishers who are too busy sucking their Starbucks lattes and taking 2 hour lunches to understand what's going on. These are the same people who sit around reading the Times and moan about climate change and how nobody listens. But are they listening? Hell, they should be shutting this crap down on principle alone. As in: "don't steal our books, how DARE you!"

What's that little word you see before you even start reading the actual book? Oh. Yes. The word COPYRIGHT.

Too bad some big fat cat companies don't take that word seriously.

Ebay, Paypal and the BOOTLEGGING of CHRISTINE FEEHAN

Being an author is, surprise, a full time job.

You need to WRITE. You need to use Twitter, Facebook and everything else to network with fans and the media.

You kind of expect your publisher to look out for such things as BOOTLEGS and PIRACY.

But most publishers don't care that much. They could do the minimum, and have an intern in the legal department check eBay, for example, and take the ONE MINUTE needed to report and remove violations.

Some obnoxiously snotty employees could direct their so-called piracy experts to stop auctions reported to them, and if the company charges a few dollars too much per stoppage, find somebody cheaper.

Meanwhile...how about this?

Three suspiciously identical bootleggers from SRI LANKA have all been preying on one particular author, Christine Feehan. ALL have the nerve to state in their ads that they "own copyright." ALL have the nerve to admit that they are offering "downloads" (in violation of eBay's "digital delivery" policy) and ALL pretend that they are located in New Mexico (because Sri Lanka bootleggers have a very smelly reputation on eBay at this point).

Hello, ANGEGMAS, KUSA.JANIT and PRIYA_SANJA:

Priya_Sanja, with several negatives, isn't bootlegging anyone at the moment, but is NOT SUSPENDED.

Last week, this was the typical "buy it now" (as the other two do) with the fake New Mexico location:

Aside from lying about their location, and offering e-mail or download items (eBay insists the items be sent by postal mail), the sellers also lie about a basic fact: OWNING COPYRIGHT.

Why is there so much bootlegging on eBAY?

First, few people know the items are illegal. A seller claims to "own copyright" or be the "authorized reseller," and some stooge in the legal department, or even a naive author, thinks, "oh, some kind of deal was made."

Second, EBAY does not consider it a high priority to remove "digital delivery" violation auctions. First off, they are "just a venue" and don't patrol the site. If a fan or an author reports the item, it's 50-50 whether an eBay employee will take action. An actual excuse is "we have millions of auctions, we sometimes have such high traffic with complaints and we don't have the staff." Aw. And you make a profit on every bootleg.

Sometimes fans will buy a bogus item, then file a complaint with eBay and Paypal for a refund, while leaving a negative on the seller. Enough negatives and complaints and the seller may cease, or get suspended.

The better way of handling the problem is the VERO (Verified Rights Owner) program. Authors should join (contact vero@ebay.com for more information), demand a publisher have a VeRO rep IN the office, or ask around and see if another author has a VeRO rep who might be willing to take on another client. Often VeRO reps do this, even at no charge, just to have more power in getting a seller suspended.

When an author might make only a dollar in royalties, why should somebody on EBAY make $15?

Ebay bootleggers help themselves but nobody else. Authors and publishers get nothing. Worse than that, the bidder gets so much cheap reading, there's no need to buy more. These sellers are offering the entire output of Christine Feehan. It could mean a reader has enough to last a year or more. If somebody takes out a free book from the library, at least the library bought that copy, and supports thousands upon thousands of authors. Bootleggers are just craven, selfish parasites.

"I AM HAPPY!" EBAY BIDDERS LOVE THEIR BOOTLEGGER AUTHOR-RAPISTS

How about a bootlegger who calls himself TREMBLE IN FEAR?

His bidders don't tremble. They giggle. They smirk. They dance around their Kindles squealing like kiddies.

"I AM HAPPY!"

DOZENS AND DOZENS OF TOP NAME AUTHORS ARE BEING BOOTLEGGED BY THIS GUY. YOU'D THINK ONE OF THEM WOULD'VE BLOWN THE WHISTLE BY NOW?

I'm talking about Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Anthony Doerr, James Patterson, Paula Hawkins, Jane Mayer, Kristin Hannah, Veronica Roth, A.J. Rowling, Maya Banks...as well as well-known dead people such as J.D. Salinger, Dale Carnegie and Harper Lee. NOBODY checks eBay on their behalf? NOBODY?

"I AM HAPPY..." ...that they don't check, the gleeful BOOK FANS say:

Here's a small chunk of the 60 or so titles TREMBLE IN FEAR is happily duping and throwing around eBay for his cheap-shit $2 profit.

Two bucks each. Mr. Wonderful sends an e-mail with either a link to his Google cloud, or an attachment of a file, and he's made his money. The two bucks, by the way, could well be the royalty an author would've gotten on a legit sale. So let's not pretend two dollars means nothing. It can be ALL the royalty on a legit Kindle book and even a hardcover or trade paperback.

Mr. FEAR doesn't just indulge in necrophilia on Harper Lee, or stick his shovel into the zombie butt of a rich man like Stephen King. He'll steal from a less famous name, too.

Listen, the guy is ENTITLED. While eBay technically doesn't allow e-mail or "digital delivery" items, he boldly says that's exactly what he does. He even tells off any bidder who doesn't understand.

Isn't it time that Rowling and King and Patterson's people pay attention? If not for their own sake, than for their industry, their fellow authors, and for libraries that are supposed to be the lending alternative for poor people?

Isn't it also about time that eBay doesn't hide behind their "we're just a venue" line?

They also hide behind, "Oh dear, we have millions of new auctions every day, so if you report a seller, we just may not have the time or manpower to do anything. Report again. And again. And again. And if you call up, don't be surprised if a surly employee asks, "So, did YOU buy from this seller? Why are you reporting this seller?"

Supposedly book publishers have experts to handle piracy. It seems like they only pay these experts to look after the newest books for the shortest amount of time.

Ebay is such an easy place to police, and it's so simply to file a takedown (just submit the auction number via e-mail) publishers could have an intern do it for ONE HOUR a week. Instead, most publishers don't allow anyone to report piracy to their website, and pay no attention to complaints they read on Facebook or Twitter.

"I ain't namin' names," as Mr. Zevon once sang, but really, you Random Penguins, you ARE among the least competent of the lot.

March 27th Deadline: Get Yer Name in a MICHAEL CONNELLY BOOK

Here's a creative way of using EBAY.

A charity will get thousands of dollars on the winning bid for THIS:

The deal is that you'll get your name in Michael's new book. It'll probably be a minor character. But who knows, if your name is catchy enough, it might be used for a brand of gun, or a saloon or a brothel.

Good publicity for Michael, money going to a good cause.

Just go to eBAY.COM and type in "NAMING RIGHTS" Michael Connelly's New Novel"

AUCTION ENDS MARCH 27th!