The first
pirate hurts most
July 8, 2018By Addison Brae
Digital piracy is rarely
discussed in the publishing world, so seeing an unauthorized PDF of my book for
the first time for free download was a shocker. Then add the extra punch that
the site owner invites people to pay to join, and the first month is free. How
did this jerk get the PDF? And what nerve to sell something that isn’t theirs.
The even bigger bombshell is how many
authors have given up on chasing down pirated copies of their books. Last time best-selling crime writer Sue Coletta (http://suecoletta.com/) checked the pirate sites, her books neared 1,000. “If I wasted
time trying to get every book off these sites, I’d be sending copyright notices
full-time, with no time to write another book, never mind market my existing
ones,” Sue said. “Sometimes we need to pick our battles.”
Piracy is cybercrime. It
drastically changed the music, movie, and book publishing industries, and it’s
spawned other industries to help stop it. But why does piracy continue?
My theory? No one’s
looking. People do it thinking no one will notice or care.
A June 6, 2018 Digital
Music News (https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/06/06/muso-global-piracy-study/) article says 53% of UK
adults surveyed felt accessing media content illegally is wrong, but did it
anyway.
It takes two. One steals the file
and makes it available. You have a say in
whether pirates are successful. Don’t download from shady sites.
Besides, if they steal what they’re selling, they’ll steal and sell the personal
information you provide.
Someone I know recently captured an
unauthorized version of my
book trailer (https://youtu.be/Mf-GlfxPzdY)
from the web to play for a group. The intention was good, but the video quality
suffered since it was pirated.
I found the first
copyright violation instance with a simple Google alert on the book title and
author name. I spent about an hour contacting the company that owns the site, and
they disabled the link three days later, but hundreds of other titles remain. It
was time I should have spent writing or doing something else productive.
Authors overwhelmingly
use Blasty (https://www.blasty.co/) to monitor for
copyright infringement. Monitoring is free, but the company charges $156 per
year to blast the violator with automated notices about DMCA—the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act. It took me about a minute to set up a free monitoring
account. Another author recently shared with an author email group, “They
have taken down over 4k pirates offering my work in the last year.”
Wow. I’m not endorsing
the service, but speechless at the number of people who will steal content for
their own profit.
Please consider
carefully before you swipe a book, piece of art, video, song, or anything
without paying.
Think twice before you download!
A version
of this post first appeared on Addison Brae’s blog (http://addisonbrae.com/piracy). Addison’s first novel is
Becker Circle (Tirgearr Publishing, March 2018). Read more on her website (http://addisonbrae.com/).
Thank you, Addison!
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