The Fire and Fury of EBAY BOOTLEGGERS

So, the surviving bookstores (Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica just went under) have had a tough time getting "Fire and Fury" in stock?

Well, that's just typical BOOK PUBLISHER stupidity and sloth.

A worse example is how many BOOTLEG DOWNLOADS have been sold on EBAY. HUNDREDS UPON THOUSANDS. Just type in the title, and add EPUB or EBOOK or E BOOK and you get a BARGAIN. Today's BARGAINS:

What does eBay do? They count up their share of the profit. Along with PAYPAL.

If Henry Holt or the AUTHOR of the book actually know enough to contact the VERO program with an email, they also know that this can take all day. Maybe two days. Meanwhile a seller can dispose of DOZENS of copies and KEEP THE MONEY.

The way EBAY operates, the seller isn't even suspended half the time. The seller can easily get another TEN accounts as well, and eBay may not catch on. It would be up to a savvy VERO (Verified Rights Owner) rep to say: "Hey, my client's book has been offered by the same pig in SRI LANKA under 10 names. Here's all the names. Now work with PAYPAL to make sure he never comes back..."

Bootlegging and Piracy are costing LIVES now. It isn't just the author who suffers...the one who got that MILLION DOLLAR advance (don't they all) and who only writes part-time and has a cushy job as a college professor. We're talking about the office workers that the book companies terminate to save money. We're talking about the clerks, the delivery people, the cashiers...the book store people who can't work at a job they LIKE, and must take ANY job in ANY store.

The book publishing world, which is supposed to be run by people smarter than fools who think there's no such thing as climate change, and don't see why there should be birth control, STILL doesn't understand the damage that PIRACY does?

PIRACY needs to be addressed. Torrents must GO. Rogue websites from Russia must be BLOCKED. Google should stop putting hoops in front of rights owners. It should NOT be so damn easy to get a bootleg on a place like EBAY.

SAPRISTI - "WeTransfer" Book Bootlegs - French Weasel is Elon Musk-rat

SAPRISTI!

It's fairly easy to translate the words of the French weasel selling mp3 files of audio books. This prick is saying, in translation, "I am a cheap French baguette, and I use a cheap free "file-sharing" service called WETRANSFER. Yes, I'm too CHEAP to even PAY for a Google Cloud. I float the files I stole off some torrent or hidden forum, and give out the link URL when people win...

"...I make MORE than the authors do in royalties. Authors get MAYBE $2 per book? Zut! Look at ME! And I didn't even WRITE IT. I just stole a copy because it's so easy to copy AUDIOBOOKS and KINDLE and NOOK files now. Magnifique! I make extra money for baguettes, and the authors? Let them eat cake!"

Ebay does not consider copyright theft to be a major issue, so anyone reporting an item like this might not see it stopped for several days, if at all.

The fastest way to handle this is for the authors and publishers to check the site once a week (minimum), type in the title, and such terms as EBOOK, MOBI, KINDLE, etc. and find this junk.

Enough CRAPATHY. The world of writers is supposed to be a smart and moral one. Learn from what happened to the record business and record shops. SAVE BOOKSTORES and LIBRARIES.

It's a LETHAL MISTAKE to think that Musk, Rowling, King, or other best selling authors can absorb piracy and "the business" will still thrive. Parasites like this Paris-site need to be SQUASHED.

Are you an author or a BLIP? On eBAY you're a BLIP and a DRIP and a FOOL'S TOOL

Here's a Brit Twit who has gathered hundreds of books into download files. That's illegal on eBay, but eBay doesn't care very much. Even a "REPORT ITEM" complaint only has a 50-50 chance of getting the auction removed.

Publishers and authors need to get into the game a little more and knock this junk off. To this worthy, an author's output is nothing but a few hundred blips for moneygrubbing some nickels and dimes.

LOVELY. LOVELY.

A lot of eBay sellers know to go to the torrents (which most normal people don't bother with), grab hundreds and hundreds of book files FREE, and then charge for them on eBay, either in compilation form like THIS, or individually.

Aside from Amazon, eBay is THE BIGGEST WEBSITE IN THE WORLD for sales. People coming to eBay to buy books...should BUY BOOKS, actual, real books, not dupes via a download, or burned onto a 25 cent DVD and mailed away.

Due to lax DMCA laws, EBAY isn't obligated to ask a seller like this, "Show us your licensing." They may pay attention to a "REPORT ITEM" complaint from a bidder, but are more likely to remove an item like this if a copyright owner complains. There's PLENTY to complain about with this scavenging swine. He tosses hundreds of books into a cloud, and in this case, lists them:

How many of those titles are still in copyright? With most sellers, at least half are. But the sellers don't give a damn.

An irony is that even if they were public domain, eBay does not permit "digital delivery" because it's so fraught with the potential for abuse.

Sellers often list what's on a disc, figuring there's little risk of authors or publishers seeing and reporting the auction. Some sellers simply declare, "there are SO many books we can't list them all," and that's fine with eBAY. It's not so fine for bookstores, which already face dwindling sales because of Kindle and Nook. It's not so fine for libraries, who are often more of an Internet cafe than a library now, with tables full of computers replacing shelves full of books.

Books are being devalued by being turned into blips that appear on a Nook or a Kindle. AUTHORS should not also be considered BLIPS, to be ignored and ripped off by petty nickel and dime greedheads. Authors are accustomed to working cheap, and to get a few dollars per book as a "royalty." Now, with eBay, those few dollars are going into the pockets of blatant thieves who do nothing but harvest pdf, ePub and mobi files, toss them into a file, and offer them for a low-priced lowdown download.

DANNY BOY - Still a Member on eBay but no longer a Bootlegging Dick

More on account of violations of PAYPAL rules, DANNY BOY is NOT selling his bootlegs.

What was particularly galling about this character, was eBay's apathetic attitude toward his blatant flaunting of their rules. Ebay phone support admitted again and again, "Yes, this is against our Terms of Service" and "Yes, we do not allow digital delivery," and "Yes, the ads all say the items will be sent via email or download, which is not allowed." And did they end the auctions? No.

The excuse? Either it was buck passing ("I will forward this to our team...") or it was a shrug: "We have MILLIONS of auctions on our site, we can't get to all of them." To eBay, piracy against authors, and the parasitic destruction of book stores and libraries doesn't mean much. Even logic doesn't seem to apply, as in: "If Danny Boy sells the ENTIRE Dan Brown collection for a few dollars, hundreds of eBay sellers CAN'T make a sale. People are going to happily get a digital download that's not even the price of ONE used book with shipping."

Another galling aspect was that this seller had a template that looked VERY professional and convincing. Did bidders understand that this guy was bootlegging? That the authors were not being paid? The ads all seemed like he MUST be some big company with licensing agreements. Or something. Fortunately, on October 26th, it finally came to an end. NO MORE of this character.

Happily for DANNY BOY, he doesn't have to return the hundreds of dollars he made. Paypal took their cut. Ebay took their cut. Google hosted the "cloud" service that let bidders download the illegal files.

DANNY BOY would've been knocked off months ago if publishers took their heads out of their asses and did the MINIMUM in protecting themselves and their authors on eBay. This would be to have an intern check eBay once a week.

EBAY is second to AMAZON as the biggest sales site on the Net. People come to eBay looking for new or used books...and should NOT see offers for bootleg downloads. The publishing world is supposedly smarter than the music world, where drugged up cokeheaded idiots allowed mp3 bootlegging to put record stores out of business and make it impossible for many artists, even established ones, to stay on a major label.

Ebay doesn't have people selling mp3 files of the new Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran albums. It's much easier to get the new Ruth Ware or Dan Brown book. Ebay doesn't have people offering every Beatles album via a download link. But Stephen King? DANNY BOY had 72 Stephen King novels available for a mere THREE DOLLARS. It's time to take Ebay bootlegging a lot more seriously. It's offensive, it's insulting and it's dangerous to the future of publishing.

DANNY BOY - A week later, and STILL BOOTLEGGING

Howwww slowwwww is eeeeeeBayyyyyyyy?

Let's not make any comparisons to turtle shit. Let's just note that Danny Boy, who has been reported over and over, and was written up again on October 10th is STILL on eBay. Ireland's favorite son continues to STEAL from authors and act like he has EVERY RIGHT TO DO IT.

It's sort of like the potato famine. Isn't it? Oh, it isn't? Well, explain to Danny Boy that authors would like to $3 or $4 he steals from them, per book, so he can have a beer and a packet of crisp while getting turned down by every woman at the bar. Or is it every man?

Of course part of the secret with my lad Danny, is he picks on morons like George R.R. Moron, who could care less about piracy, or what it does to other authors, to publishers, to Mom and Pop bookstores or to libraries.

Let's take a look at who he steals from:

Danny boy will tell the world he has a right to offer DOWNLOADS and EBOOKS sent directly to Paypal mailing addresses.

And is PAYPAL telling him not to? No, they are not. Is eBAY telling him not to? Oh, not really. According to Phone Support, they've warned him several times. But he hasn't been taking those warnings too seriously. And he's only had ONE stoppage from a VeRO rep for an author or publisher. So he keeps right on going.

Begorrah! What a fine, fine lad our DANNY BOY is, and what a FINE, FINE bunch he's hooked up with, the lads PAYPAL and EBAY, sharing in what Danny steals.

SLAP DANNY BOY'S WRIST, LIMPLY. EBAY LOVES THEIR BOOTLEGGERS

You remember DANNY BOY?

He's the potato head who keeps right on copying books and BLATANTLY saying he's offering DIGITAL DOWNLOADS and books sent via EMAIL. Illegal? Gee, it actually IS. How many reports has eBay had on him? 20? 30?

"You see," says customer support, "we may warn the seller. We may issue a restriction for a day. We may issue a restriction for a week. We may limit the amount of items the seller can offer. And..." maybe, MAYBE a suspension? NOPE.

Here's DANNY BOY's bootleg of Brandon Sanderson NO LONGER AVAILABLE:

Did greedy Danny Boy take the hint? Of course not. He wants his beer money, our Danny Boy. He doesn't give a shit how hard a writer works on a book. HE figures he's entitled to copy it. He knows that eBay is going to just keep slapping his wrist. He sure as hell knows that PAYPAL won't tell him to give back the money. He's one happy bastard.

Here he is, pushing the Brandon Sanderson stuff a few days later:

What's the lesson here? That arrogant big websites run by CEO's with golden parachutes, don't think they have to play by ANY rules. Certainly not the GOLDEN RULE. Not any of the 10 Commandments.

That's greed. That's entitlement. That's a Communistic disdain for COPYRIGHT and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.

EBAY: FREEDOM OF LEECH, NOT FREEDOM OF SPEACH

EBAY is under no legal obligation to question how some slimeball in Poland, Ukraine or Sri Lanka can own the rights to 100 of the top selling books of 2017. "How come you're offering PDF and PUB and MOBI editions of all these books, when they can ONLY be purchased LEGALLY in that form on Amazon which owns Kindle format or Barnes & Noble who owns Nook format?"

That's a question...NEVER asked of an EBAY seller.

HOWEVER, if anyone points out an EBAY crook and questions why that crook is still selling, if anyone points out how stupid their "phone support" personnel can be, if anyone even expresses any displeasure with how EBAY runs their kingdom, they might find themselves unable to post to "the community" anymore:

You see, while "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" applies to most everyone, it doesn't apply to an EBAY user, who has basically signed away all rights in order to use the site. The "fine print" on the USER AGREEMENT basically says that EBAY can do just about anything outside of sticking a fist down your throat and pulling your heart out to transplant to one of their heartless CEO's.

The interesting thing is that while EBAY and their twisted step-sister PAYPAL can technically remove any auction or block any seller or buyer from using their site, they tend to reserve this power. They use it on those who point out when they are wearing no clothes and engaging in naked greed and perversion. This is often one and the same, as when they happily take money from sellers who offer up fake nudes on celebrities. Ripping off authors seems to give them the same sexual thrill as seeing fake gang-rape images of Emma Watson sold in their so-called "adult" section.

The rule on EBAY and PAYPAL is the same as in Nazi Germany. Be polite. Be respectful. If you say or write a word they don't like, then you will jump through hoops, or be ignored, or be shut out, barring intervention from the Better Business Bureau or a lawsuit.

John Lennon once sang that "Woman is the Nigger of the World." One might say that on EBAY, "Authors are the Jews of Ebay Nazis." It doesn't scan, but it's pretty accurate. Authors can come crawling on their knees, DMCA in hand, and say, "Please, please allow me to make a living and not have somebody in Ukraine steal from me." OH, OK. Now file another DMCA when the seller does it a day later. And another.

The seller will, of course, be allowed to rip off any other Jews who either don't know that eBay allows such abuse, or are afraid of being hacked for standing up for their rights, or figure it's a stacked deck and it's 'whack-a-mole.' Or rather, whack-a-Jew.

The Jews in Nazi Germany were effectively banned from writing about their plight. Concentration camps, the Germans officially declared, were actually resorts where Jews enjoyed swimming and tennis. Or something like that. The EBAY community, where complaints are censored, has no idea that EBAY cares so little about copyright, and so often allows parasites and career criminals to flourish at the literal expense of honest people.