Sunday, February 06, 2011

A Word From So-Called Pirates

"Please note: We are a 'Non-Profit' organisation, our mission is solely to help those people who struggle to make ends meet, by providing them with a few little treats they could normally not afford! We are not the 'hosts' of any books etc, neither did we upload them to any hosting provider. We simply search for links to books etc, that are freely available on the web and share our findings with our members, however, IF YOU HAVE A DMCA or ABUSE COMPLAINT about a particular item listed on our pages (eg; if you are the author/publisher!) and would like it removed, please send an email to: dmcainvestigations@gmail.com letting us know which item you are refering to, from what page it is listed on, and your association to the item, we will then investigate the issue and permanently remove the item in accordance with DMCA rules"

These good-hearted providers of little treats use only FILESONIC.

Does anyone seriously believe that these people are not affiliates? Check out what affiliates are paid.
Up to $60 for 1,000 downloads!
That is 6 cents per download.

If these not-quite-pirates did not upload the books to FILESONIC (their sole source), I wonder who did?

If they search the web for freely available books, why does every search take them to Filesonic?

It would be really interesting to know who on the site (currently a yolasite) hosts the Amazon review descriptions. Possibly these people don't realize that they may not be infringing copyright by posting links to Filesonic, but they are infringing copyright by hosting allegedly plagiarized reviews from Amazon.

These "little treats" occasionally consist of a systematic "sharing" of ten or more books written by one author in one "collection". In this author's opinion, if you share an entire series, you are not offering "a little treat", you are maliciously and deliberately attacking an author's life's work and undermining his or her future ability to earn a living.

5 comments:

  1. This is a super informative post. I've heard other authors say they've followed the steps to get their books removed and nothing happens. Some have even written scathing letters and talked about this all over the web. Still, it seems authors are the ones to take the fall and lose sales because of pirate sites. I truly beleive some sort of encryption on ebooks should be inforced by epubs and other legit sits who sell books. At most epups it seems so easy to just buy one copy and then share it all over the place!

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  2. Strong message, and of course I agree in the main. But not about encryption. Every author or publisher comment I've seen agrees that DRM does little or nothing to discourage serious infringers and places burdens on legitimate buyers. The only DRM protected books I've bought are the short works from Harlequin (e.g., Nocturne Bites), which don't give you a choice. Not only are they tied to Adobe Digital Editions (different from the regular Adobe Acrobat reader), but each book is tied to a PARTICULAR copy of Digital Editions. I accidentally downloaded two of the program, under two different log-ins on this computer, and I can't transfer books from one to the other!

    Also, as an author, I would find it very inconvenient to have a protection program that prevented me from sending out review copies or giveaways -- or transferring my own books between my own devices.

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  3. Interestingly, the Filesonic FAQ states "Do not upload any copyrighted files that you don't own the rights to or don't have permission from the owner to distribute even if you have no intent of actually distributing them" Perhaps one should point out to Filesonic that these people are abusing the platform?

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  4. Mike, I did.

    The Super Ueber Filesonic team emailed me to say that they'd removed the files that I mentioned.

    I did not ask them to remove files. I had no standing to do that. I asked them to look at their customer (whose real name and bank account info they almost certainly have, if they are paying him/her), and to check how many DMCAs they'd received.

    :-)

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  5. Sometimes, these virtuous statements are on the level with "Oh, Sir Jasper, do not touch me!"

    Purely for appearances.

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