|
Post by bjomanson on Oct 22, 2020 15:15:00 GMT
Just discovered that some of my Lulu titles are being pirated at mydownloadbook.com See: www.mydownloadbook.com/download/stark-county-poems/They are offering downloadable pdfs of my books for free. The only way they could have obtained such pdfs, as far as I can see, is if they hacked Lulu. I don't offer ebooks, only paper books. You might all want to check there to see if any of your books are being pirated as well. Any thoughts? BJ Omanson
|
|
|
Post by bjomanson on Oct 22, 2020 16:00:19 GMT
|
|
sirram
Senior Printer
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
Posts: 269
|
Post by sirram on Oct 22, 2020 17:49:12 GMT
I just checked the mydownloadbook.com website and one of my local history books appears and is apparently available for download. I've not tried to download it as one first has to register (no thanks!). Whether or not they've stolen the interior, they certainly do have the front cover (which I designed using the late-lamented Lulu cover design wizard).
Not good.
|
|
|
Post by JesusNinja on Oct 22, 2020 18:00:44 GMT
There are a lot of sites out there that claim to have your books. Most offer PDF's which means they would have had to scan every page of your book and uploaded it. Others offer epub or even kindles. Usually the books are not really there, it's just to get you to register and getting your email address. Then they will send you an email with a trojan inside. The ones that did have my books, I've written and threatened to take them to court for copyright infringement. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
|
|
|
Post by ronmiller on Oct 22, 2020 18:11:12 GMT
I found more than a dozen of my books. Most were commercially published so I not only filed a DMCA complaint I have also alerted the original publishers.
|
|
|
Post by ronmiller on Oct 22, 2020 18:12:27 GMT
There are a lot of sites out there that claim to have your books. Most offer PDF's which means they would have had to scan every page of your book and uploaded it. Others offer epub or even kindles. Usually the books are not really there, it's just to get you to register and getting your email address. Then they will send you an email with a trojan inside. The ones that did have my books, I've written and threatened to take them to court for copyright infringement. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The best thing to do is to not write and threaten but to file a DMCA complaint with their server. You can also file a complaint with Google, who will delete the site from searches.
|
|
|
Post by ronmiller on Oct 22, 2020 18:19:18 GMT
There are a lot of sites out there that claim to have your books. Most offer PDF's which means they would have had to scan every page of your book and uploaded it. Others offer epub or even kindles. Usually the books are not really there, it's just to get you to register and getting your email address. Then they will send you an email with a trojan inside. The ones that did have my books, I've written and threatened to take them to court for copyright infringement. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Well, they may not necessarily have to scan the books if they have some way of getting access to an original PDF file.
|
|
|
Post by BlueAndGold on Oct 23, 2020 1:00:15 GMT
Hacking into Lulu, B&N, or Amazon servers would yield a ton of files, wouldn't it? Would any of them ever admit it happened? Yes, two of my titles are on that site too. A pox upon them. Pirate scum.
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 23, 2020 1:29:29 GMT
Not only Lulu - I have a whole array of books on that pirate site - some of them have been published back when with Booksurge, and Amazon - and have been out of print for at least a decade. Some are now in copyright with a publisher in Europe, the others are definitely old versions from Lulu. Any PDF ever uploaded to any site on the internet is effectively there for the taking - always has been. This is certainly not the only pirate site. But I agree, now we the authors have to expend time and effort to hunt down these dogs and get our work back. It stinks to high heaven - yes may they all cark it on the famous virus.
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 23, 2020 2:07:04 GMT
Also consider this: - say Book X has 500 downloads on that pirate site - where are those 500 PDF copies? Closing this website won't do any good long-term unless all of those 500 PDF copies have been 'retrieved'. These websites are in countries that are not signatories to the Geneva Convention - start counting ... these days CDs and DVDs are copy protected in various ways - e-book files and PDFs are obviously not.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2020 4:13:29 GMT
Just discovered that some of my Lulu titles are being pirated at mydownloadbook.com See: www.mydownloadbook.com/download/stark-county-poems/They are offering downloadable pdfs of my books for free. The only way they could have obtained such pdfs, as far as I can see, is if they hacked Lulu. I don't offer ebooks, only paper books. You might all want to check there to see if any of your books are being pirated as well. Any thoughts? BJ Omanson Samantha Williams, Publicity Director at Aurora Publicity (2014-present) gave some good advice about these kinds of sites. "First off, make sure you aren’t downloading free, pirated books. Free downloads often result in a virus being added to your computer, but more, it’s illegal and unethical to steal an author’s hard work and more and more books are being stolen and pirated every day. There are many book promoters out there who feature ebooks because an author has paid for their services in helping to promote a free or sale price. Look for these types of companies when seeking ebooks as they have been given permission to share the book (and really, the links will always lead you to a retailer—Amazon, BN, iBooks, etc." PS My books are on there too!
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 23, 2020 4:31:03 GMT
Potentially, any idiot who downloads something like this (an obvious pirate copy, and obviously from a country that allows it) deserves a virus on their computer. I did a couple other searches on that pirate site - they have just about everything covered - so it's not just PDFs that were/are stored on Lulu, but on any online PDF storage server they can get their claws on - going back decades.
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 23, 2020 9:20:25 GMT
I asked Mybestseller.co.uk, and Peter Paul replied: "[...]You will see they only show the preview copy, about the first 20 pages or so!" Which begs the question - 'what preview' from which distributor/online retailer?
|
|
|
Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 23, 2020 9:53:53 GMT
... and more from Mybestseller, elaborating ... "Again: they [PDFs] are ont [not] copied. The preview copy (only max 20 pages) is something Centraal Boekhuis (and distributors in other countries) makes. If they have a connection with CB, they are free to use the preview copy 'as a bookseller'. The way they [the pirate website] operate however, deserves legal prosecution."
On a personal note, I have always weighed up whether or not what I create is worth taking the risk of putting it on the internet. Anything and everything that is put on the internet is in one way or another, and in some way 'taken out of your hand'.
So always think twice before putting anything on the internet, regardless of what it is, if you feel strongly about it, especially with regard to having it fall 'into the wrong hands' (in this case a book), use a traditional method of publishing it.
|
|
|
Post by BlueAndGold on Oct 23, 2020 12:10:50 GMT
It's like shaking a feather pillow's contents loose into the wind. Poof!
|
|