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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2020 12:34:38 GMT
I actually don't mind some of my books scattered in the wind to the world.(not by these illegal sites though.) The books I want "loose into the wind" are the ones where I try to send a message about things like, "How rape of women is treated in India," "Lack of women's rights in Saudi," "Child marriage in several countries," "Pigs are such intelligent creatures and so misunderstood," "The Holocaust," etc. The more people that broadcast these issues the better. However these sites that steal books are bad. Many of our colleagues are trying to either boost their earnings or make a living selling their books, then these rogues come along and take away their profits. Disgraceful! PS A long while ago I downloaded a book from one of those sites. I hadn't realised they were rogues, but Kevin (justkevin -Where is he?) told me about them, well actually he told me off! I I had no idea these sites were unlawful. I never did it again!  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2020 13:59:41 GMT
Before you run screaming for the hills please bear in mind that most of these sites are totally fake, don't have copies of any books whatsoever and are lying through their teeth. Take mydownloadbook.com for example....
This site has only been running since December 2019 yet apparently has thousands of Downloads and page hits for even the most obscure of publications. Really, have 1100 people signed up to read the life story of Daniel Mathias Sr. (ca. 1734/1750-1829)?
Want to register to read for free? We just need your Credit Card details, yet that takes you to a computer gaming site with a frame trying to block out the fact that you've done so. Hmmmm.
So where do they get the raw info like book covers and descriptions? Usually from the authors themselves, who post on Lulu or their own websites or Amazon which then gets picked up by a legit site like Goodreads all of which can be scraped by software such as site rippers and web crawlers to extract what's needed.
You may find the reason that many of these dodgy sites look so familiar and report remarkably similar content yet have different names is that they are duplicated by the same people, because you catch more fish the more hooks you have in the water. I gather that some unscrupulous people will even copy the websites of competitors and use those rather than do all the hard work themselves. No honour among thieves it seems.
There are indeed some pirate sites that host actual digital copies of works and charge money for them rather than just saying they do but sorting out the diseased wheat from the rotten chaff is the problem. As to where they get the raw material from to start with I don't want to go into detail for obvious reasons but say for example I wanted to download a completely free epub collection of all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books in the next five minutes then they are available and not from a website.
Actually it's not just the dodgy websites you need to watch out for, even legitimate ones can find themselves being abused and hosting material they shouldn't but at least they should listen and act on a take-down request from the copyright holder. But they often take their time in doing so and leave everything up and available in the meantime.
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Post by JesusNinja on Oct 23, 2020 15:21:53 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. How do you know what their server is? I tried Wordpress but that wasn't it. I did write the website and tell them to remove my books. They had all of mine under my pen name. |
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Post by JesusNinja on Oct 23, 2020 15:24:18 GMT
Well, they may not necessarily have to scan the books if they have some way of getting access to an original PDF file. How do you know what their server is? I tried Wordpress but that wasn't it. I did write the website and tell them to remove my books. They had all of mine under my pen name. Also search for your books on Youtube.com. I've found my top selling books listed their in a video with a link to download it. But when I went there I could tell it wasn't there. I got Youtube to remove the video though. |
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Post by thunderguy on Oct 23, 2020 15:53:42 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. Good call. I agree that usually the books aren't even there, they've harvested data from book sites like Lulu and reproduced the information. Years ago I even paid to see if some of my materials were there; once logged in I couldn't find anything. I was able to get a refund due to false advertising. The DMCA complaint may or may not work, but you can also file with Google to keep your work from showing up on that search result. |
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Post by JesusNinja on Oct 23, 2020 20:07:13 GMT
I just went back to that site. I clicked download to see if I could get my book from there. A page popped up showing a blurred supposedly version of my book underneath a sign that said sign up today and read this book! Looking through the blurr, I could tell it wasn't my book. And it listed at the top, page 1 of 430. LOL the book is only 34 pages long. So I'm thinking they may have the cover and blurbs. But they don't have the books. It's just a scam to get your email address. Sometimes they try to hack into your account and use the address to sent out spam. I checked on my account which shows log on attempts. I usually have a few hundred each month from all over the world. It's amazing what countries are trying to hack into my email account.
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Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 24, 2020 2:39:27 GMT
Glad it's been investigated from various sides - bottom line: the internet is a place full of ferals - beware! I started to have my own thoughts when I saw obscure (and not very good) books with supposedly hundreds of downloads, when not even the legit distribution places had half a dozen 'visits'. What I've done for years, when uploading anything to the internet, just take it as it is - the internet is a place with an unlimited scope of opportunities and pitfalls. Just my five cents worth of trow-away comments.
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Post by ronmiller on Oct 24, 2020 11:47:19 GMT
I just went back to that site. I clicked download to see if I could get my book from there. A page popped up showing a blurred supposedly version of my book underneath a sign that said sign up today and read this book! Looking through the blurr, I could tell it wasn't my book. And it listed at the top, page 1 of 430. LOL the book is only 34 pages long. So I'm thinking they may have the cover and blurbs. But they don't have the books. It's just a scam to get your email address. Sometimes they try to hack into your account and use the address to sent out spam. I checked on my account which shows log on attempts. I usually have a few hundred each month from all over the world. It's amazing what countries are trying to hack into my email account. I tried the same experiment and I think you are absolutely correct. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Oct 24, 2020 12:00:19 GMT
About six years ago I found my work on one of those sites, the people behind it were based in the PRC [China]. Covers and blurbs were there, the page count was way off, and after a few days of me chatting with whoever it was they removed mention of my books.
These days I look at it from the perspective I can spend a lot of time hunting down sites doing that or get things done I need to do.
Less frustration getting things done.
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Post by tasmanianartist on Oct 24, 2020 23:38:12 GMT
About six years ago I found my work on one of those sites, the people behind it were based in the PRC [China]. Covers and blurbs were there, the page count was way off, and after a few days of me chatting with whoever it was they removed mention of my books. These days I look at it from the perspective I can spend a lot of time hunting down sites doing that or get things done I need to do. Less frustration getting things done.
Same here ...
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