A Non-Fungible Future?

There was once a man who bought an original sketch in an inventory-draw-down sale. The sketch was done during the course of employment by a moderately well known designer. So far, so good.  The buyer was an EBay seller, and he created dozens of prints of the original sketch, which he auctioned on EBay week after week for years. That was questionable.

Lawfully, one cannot purchase a drawing, painting, photograph, cartoon, musical record, novella or novel  (even in e-book form) and proceed to create copies and sell them. Not unless the original creator formally assigned the copyright.

Now, there is Blockchain, and Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. It seems that a single work of art that is sold as a NFT can be sold on, but not duplicated, and a modest royalty can be paid to the original creator with every down-market sale and resale.

Can creatives and celebrities rejoice? 

https://www.hickmanbecker.com/celebrities-and-creative-geniuses-rejoice-nfts-part-i/

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=06e3b2e5-5295-489b-baec-43a621575a0d

 

Seemingly, so say legal bloggers Jeffrey Madrak and  Agatha H. Liu PhD for the IP law firm Hickman Becker Bingham Ledesma:

 

"Non-fungible tokens, or “NFTs” are taking the digital world by storm. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, recently sold an autographed tweet associated with an NFT for $2.9 million. Super Bowl champion Tom Brady just announced the launch of the NFT platform he has cofounded that will offer digital collectibles. Such popular use with highly appraised items begs the question – What actually is an NFT? And for those of us in the high-tech world, the further question – How do NFTs relate to intellectual property?"

 They go on to explain:

"An NFT is a digital version of a certificate of authenticity (a token), secured and embedded in a blockchain. When an NFT is created, digital information including the creator’s name and other programmatic details such as the creator’s blockchain wallet address are linked to an underlying asset and stored in a blockchain (while the underlying asset might not be stored in the blockchain). Because NFTs are secured by a blockchain, no one can modify the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence."

For authors in particular, author Maggie Lynch has put up a comprehensive blog post on the topic, in which she lays out the pros and cons for adopting the technology.

https://povauthorservices.com/the-blockchain-nfts-cryptocurrency-and-author-opportunities/ 

Herewith, a quote of a small portion, with permission and attribution to Maggie Lynch and her blog.

"Here are some ideas of how an average author might consider creating NFTs. I’m sure there are many more I haven’t even considered yet.

• Digital 1st edition released in limited numbers prior to a book being released en masse to retailers
• A collectible version of a backlist book or a recent release that has different art or added art pertaining to the story
• A special edition boxset that is not offered in retail markets and won’t be offered in retail markets
• A bundled special edition that includes ebook, audiobook, and a shipped hardback book as a package
• A 1st edition Live Reading before the book is released widely, whether narrated by the author or a paid narrator
• Additional works of art based on your characters that are sold as separate digital art, playing cards, and/or provides information not in the books but germane to the story
• Tiers of special editions – Platinum tier: Only 25 copies are made of original offering which includes additional art, audiobook, and a special edition hardback delivered signed and numbered. Gold tier: 500 copies of special edition which includes everything but hardback. Silver tier: 1,000 copies of digital special edition which includes additional art.  After this, the book is released as a regular ebook, print, audio all separate without any special edition things to the wider marketplace.
• A digital object that helps your reader solve a puzzle inside the book.
• A digital object that allows your reader to select two or more alternative endings
• A way for the buyer to have a video call with you for a specified period of time or to book you for a limited part of friends (book group, family, etc.)
• You could use one or more of your NFTs as part of a contest or giveaway to create buzz and get people interested in the platform

All of these are additional opportunities for PR, promo, buzz, and have the potential to also influence regular retail sales of your book products. Doing NFTs is one more market for you. I would not leave the usual mass markets just to do NFTs. Instead I would add NFTs as another way to gain income, at least until it proves it is the only way that makes sense for you to market your books."

Legal blogger Sophie Goossens, representing Reed Smith LLP, (a British law blog) takes a dimmer view of NFTs when it comes to ownership of works of art in a blog titled "You Think You Own An NFT? Think Again." She is, of course, speaking to art connoisseurs.

https://viewpoints.reedsmith.com/post/102gu68/you-think-you-own-an-nft-think-again

"Can one own a physical a piece of art? Yes. What do you own: the 'tangible property' i.e. the canvas, the statue, the physical sheet of paper embodying the work. Do you own the intellectual property in a piece of art just because you hold the original or a limited edition of it? No, if you want to own the intellectual property in the artwork, it needs to be assigned to you from the creator, by contract."

Sophie Goossens asks and answers several more interesting questions about possession and ownership of art and digital art.

 

Last (but not least), Pramod Chintalapoodi of the Chip Law Group takes a look at the legal implications of NFTs, and warns:

"The NFT's usefulness when it comes to IP rights is currently limited, and even problematic. The dilemma here is that ownership of NFT does not translate into ownership of an original work. In other words, buying an NFT does not mean that one is buying the underlying IP rights in a given content. Section 106 of the US Copyright Act states that a copyright owner has exclusive rights in reproducing and preparing derivative works. They also have exclusive rights in distributing the copyrighted work. Buying a piece of art does not mean that the copyright to that artwork transfers to the buyer."

https://www.chiplawgroup.com/legal-implications-of-nfts/

The bottom line seems to be that NFTs may be good for thwarting pirates and exploiters, and are therefore good for creators of art and literature.... but, one has to be prepared to adopt Ethereum.

Coindesk has put up a How-To guide to entering the NFT market:
https://www.coindesk.com/how-to-create-buy-sell-nfts

All the best,

Rowena Cherry  

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

The Secret Hold

The Authors Guild and others believe that The CASE Act (S.1273) may at long last come up for a vote in the Senate.

The Copyright Alliance has a convenient page set up to help creators and their friends to fill out and send to their own senators to encourage them to co-sponsor and vote for the CASE Act.

If so inclined, please go here https://p2a.co/21l3imn and join the effort.

TheTrichordist.com has good background information on what (or who) has held up the copyright-friendly CASE Act legislation for so long.
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/07/09/oregonmanbad-senator-ronwyden-is-still-justone-senator-sneaking-around-trying-to-screw-creators-in-the-shadows-artistrightswatch/

#OregonManBad

Meanwhile, for authors with a big stake in stopping piracy, and also able to rejoice in the support of major publishers who can afford a Federal case, some are suing Kiss Library, which actually sells pirated e-books and does not pay royalties to the copyright owners and their publishers.
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/ag-members-join-amazon-publishing-and-prh-in-suit-against-kiss-library/

Do not buy e-books online from aliens... especially not from Kissly.net, Libly.net, CheapLibrary.com etc. Instead, either buy from the links on your favorite authors' websites or from their publishers' websites.

Talking of the rich and famous, allegedly, Instagram has put a blocking hold on author and Senator Marsha Blackburn's account on the day of her book launch. Surely that is wrong? It may not have made the News.

Other famously wealthy and influential Twitter communicators and writers such as Bezos, Gates, Musk, and Obama were the victims of a Twitter hack and an implausible Bitcoin scam run from their (taken-over) Twitter accounts.

Allegedly, the scammers netted $118,000 in Bitcoin from gullible Twitter followers, and the real Bezos, Gates, Musk, Obama will remain locked out, unable to reset their passwords, and unable to Tweet until the issue is resolved. That hold is probably not secret.

Blogging legally for the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP,  bloggers Andrew Martin, Maggie Pollitt, Abby Sunberg, and Ashley Wetzel quite topically discuss deep fakery.

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=628fa9f7-9bdf-4fab-86f5-5fdf999f25a0

Original link:
https://www.tafttechlaw.com/2020/07/deepfakes-can-mean-deep-water-and-deep-pockets-for-your-business/#page=1

Like an old favorite spaghetti western, there's some good, some bad, and some downright ugly.

Finally, Broadcast Law Blogger David Oxenford has some surprising random advice for persons who have taken to Zoom or Facebook live (as have some churches) as a substitute for in-house gatherings with music and other copyrighted materials.

The advice may be useful to authors, too.

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f8ce0a09-edde-4d38-877b-5d3a1f921733

Original link:
https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2020/07/articles/random-issues-to-consider-as-media-businesses-adapt-to-the-new-world-of-the-virus-music-uses-on-zoom-and-other-platforms-unlicensed-fm-transmitters/#page=1

As he says, these Covid-19 times are crazy times!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

What You Don't See (May Bind You)

First there was the "fine print"; then there was the probably intentionally mind-numbing scroll of all caps print, page after page of it; then, there were sites such as EBay that forced you to join their club and agree to all their Terms (which of course meant that you held them harmless) before you could defend your copyrights; now --perhaps-- you have to agree to THE TERMS before you can read them.

Perhaps I misread this from Peloton to musicians:
"Click HERE to log into your MusicReports.com account and review the proposed license agreement. If it is acceptable to you, simply check the box to confirm you have read the agreement, then click the “I Agree” button to accept the terms. You can then download a full copy of the agreement from the “My Licenses” page in your account."

Credits to
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/04/16/is-musicreports-license-pitch-for-onepeloton-the-equivalent-of-a-poor-persons-class-action-settlement-without-court-supervision/

The tentacles of Mark Zuckerberg reach into your portfolio, and lift your copyrights, and there is nothing you can do about the filching of your photographic rights if you post a picture on Instagram.

"A New York federal district court has dismissed a photographer’s copyright infringement claims after finding that the photographer gave Instagram the right to sublicense her photograph to the accused infringer, Mashable, Inc. Mashable used the photograph at issue on its site by embedding a link to an Instagram post published on the photographer’s public Instagram profile. In Sinclair v. Ziff Davis, the court decided that, by including the photograph in a post on her public Instagram profile, the photographer had..." 

... unintentionally given Instagram a legal license to "share" her intellectual property.

Legal bloggers David W. Holt and Ryan J. Letson, writing for the law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, discuss the unsuccessful copyright infringement complaint by the photographer, Stephanie Sinclair, against Mashable Inc.
https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2020/04/looking-for-likes-social-media-post-results-in-unintended-license-to-share-photograph

They offer great constructive advice, but the bottom line is "User Beware".

Legal bloggers Radhika K. Raman and  Jeff Van Hoosear examines the perils of snagging someone else's photograph, even if the photo is of oneself.
https://www.knobbe.com/blog/its-photo-me-celebrities-face-legal-action-unauthorized-use-images-social-media

"Social media managers, celebrities, and individuals alike should exercise caution before posting photos online for which they do not own the copyright rights. Often, a simple source attribution, or a small licensing fee, can save months of legal trouble later. While many disagree with the public policy or reasoning prohibiting celebrities from re-sharing photos of themselves..."

OR, find the photo on Instagram, and embed the link.

Mark Sableman says as much about the same Sinclair/Mashable disagreement, in his legal blog for Thomson Coburn LLP, "It's not infringing if it's an authorized embedding."

https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/insights/blogs/in-focus/post/2020-04-17/it-s-not-infringing-if-it-s-an-authorized-embedding#page=1

Or
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=139cc166-c3d8-49c8-add3-1a39725d7d2d

Facebook also, somehow, can snag Zoom users' information, even if the Zoom users don't have a Facebook account, or so it is alleged, and reported by legal bloggers for Troutman Sanders LLP Anne-Marie Dao, Wynter L. Deagle, and  Yarazel Mejorado.

Allegations include:

"Zoom sending data from users of its iOS app to Facebook for advertising persons [sic], even if the user does not have a Facebook account; The Windows version of Zoom being vulnerable to attackers who could send malicious links to users’ chat interfaces and gain access to their network credentials; Zoom not requiring a user’s consent before allowing the host of the meeting to record the session; The presence of a security flaw that would enable hackers to take over a user’s Mac..."

There are some precautions that Zoom users can take.  Read more on Linked In:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=013b92f2-4b1e-4dc9-89f4-8d78c3785a27&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2020-04-27&utm_term=

Or on the Troutman blog:
https://www.troutman.com/insights/to-zoom-or-not-to-zoomprivacy-and-cybersecurity-challenges.html


Legal bloggers Warwick Andersen, Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham, Allison Wallace and Max Evans collectively point out not only that some have alleged that Zoom's Privacy Policy does not disclose its leaks of users' data to Facebook but also that Windows users' passwords may be snagged.

Original link:
https://www.cyberwatchaustralia.com/2020/04/zooming-in-zooms-significant-privacy-and-data-security-risks-brought-to-light-again-and-again/

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3b6d57ff-bfb4-402d-9e66-9dd03f2d8513&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2020-04-17&utm_term=

So, even if you do everything right, and read all the "agreements" and "terms" and "policies" before joining someone else's Zoom meeting as an invited guest, your privacy and more is still likely to be violated.


It's more a case of seller beware (rather than caveat emptor) when it comes to Amazon. The Authors Guild provides a  perspective on Bezos behaving badly towards publishers and authors.
https://www.authorsguild.org/where-we-stand/amazons-anticompetitive-history/

And CopyrightAlliance continues to fulminate against immense copyright infringers and the senator who shields them.
https://copyrightalliance.org/news-events/copyright-news-newsletters/internet-archive-emergency-library-harms-authors/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=5fF52


All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Look Who Is Behaving Badly Now

Conspiracy theories about the Wuhan Coronavirus abound. I haven't seen any that suggest it was intended to destroy copyright, but the collateral damage to copyright may be irreversible.

Academics behaving badly.
Authors and their friends will have heard of the IA, which appears to be freely and incontinently giving away to all and sundry that to which they have no rights at all. Their rationale seems to be that all the world has an emergency need for free reading, because of the pandemic.

Apparently, the Boston Library President supports this book piracy, and David C. Lowery has twelve stinging public questions for David Leonard.
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/03/29/12-questions-for-boston-public-library-president-on-emergency-national-library-endorsement/

The questions are well worth our readers' time. It does not appear that David Leonard has replied at all.

Pastors behaving badly?
Times are tough, and with luck, there's plenty of generosity and grace to go around... but, "thou shalt not steal."

Legal bloggers Caleb Green  and Andrea L. Arndt  for Dickinson Wright warn religious institutions to think twice before making their new live streaming performances irresponsibly modern and larded with copyrighted bells and whistles.  The religious exception does not extend to performances, distribution/publication outside of the house of worship. Facebook is not a house of worship. Nor is a private home.

Original link:
https://www.dickinson-wright.com/news-alerts/religious-institutions-v-covid19

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1ee63c5f-cf73-408a-9c4d-386ed3e03186

The Prager U has an interesting analysis of what constitutes "stealing", and it includes all forms of property including intellectual property.

Warning, the U is heavily supported by advertising.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/explore-the-bible/4-things-you-never-knew-thou-shalt-not-steal-applied-to.html

Local politicians behaving badly.
While political campaigns generally pay for the appropriate licenses to play popular music to entertain crowds at rallies and other gatherings, local councilmen who choose to perform copyrighted rock and pop songs on Facebook, YouTube, and on local television to "cheer up" and endear themselves to their bored constituents may well not know or bother to buy licenses.

The usual suspects behaving badly (SNAFU)
As MTP points out from time to time, whether times are hard or good, Facebook always does well, and always at the expense of creators.
https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/03/27/arw-poll-results-facebook-should-pay-independent-artists-and-songwriters-in-cash/

One cannot pay the rent with "advertising credit," and if the old piracy argument that piracy is free advertising hold true, why should artists pay pirates to advertise on the pirates' platforms?

PS. An anonymous librarian has replied with an open letter to the multi-millionaire pirate running the so-called Internet Archive.  Please share!
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/04/05/open-letter-to-brewster-kahle-from-anonymous-librarian/

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

False Flags

This week, the Authors Guild exposed a gob-smacking abuse of the public trust and of the concept of law order and copyright. Kudos to Authors Guild for that!

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/internet-archives-uncontrolled-digital-lending/

There are many Covid-19 scammers pretending to be helpful, while actually ripping off the public or writers, artists, musicians and film makers, or pursuing a political agenda, and  IA appears to be one of them. Authors and bookstores cannot survive if society tolerates digital looting.

Andy Chatterly, co-founder of the for-profit anti-piracy business MUSO (which will send out take down notices on behalf of its paying subscribers) has published a white paper on the rise and rise of digital piracy... which is discouraging reading for creative individuals and small businesses.

https://www.muso.com/covid-19-protect-landing-page?utm_campaign=COVID-19%20Protect%20&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=85294752&_hsenc=p2ANqtz---AbBRnta68KyCYlaKrM5_YKblGvUx6eYDT2G47U_bcAf9KhL_7hYzXL6oPcDBa_qaMEY2cOK1jNogFEsi-FuSI2PWwg&_hsmi=85294752

Recently testifying to the United States Senate subcommittee on Intellectual Property under an apparent false flag were members of The Pirate Party, as discussed by the Chris Castle, guest of the editors of thetrichordist.

It's kind of like bank robbers testifying on how bank vaults could be made more transparent and accessible to the public.

Particularly dispiriting are Chris Castle's revelations (or not) about the part played by academics and lawyers (and sometimes by members of the legislature under the influence of lobbyists) in weakening copyright and exploiting and enlarging loopholes in already Gruyere-like IP laws.

Thanks to MusicTechPolicy for a lively report on what Jonathan Yunger had to say to Chairman Thom Tillis's and Ranking Member Christopher Coons's committee about the functioning and effectiveness (or not) of the DMCA.

https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/03/12/you-cant-call-911-jyunger-of-millenniumfilms-tells-senate-why-piracy-is-still-a-problem-and-how-u-s-has-failed-to-lead/

That's four lengthy links. Enjoy!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Who Sells Your Phone Number ... And Inaccurate And Defamatory Info About You?

When was the last time you "DuckDucked" your own phone number? (Apologies to Duck Duck Go, but I cannot bring myself to type "goed".)

I was prompted to conduct internet searches of my phone number mid-week, after receiving a number of very early morning phone calls from expectant people in Canada who seemed to think that I'd called them.
Who benefits from that sort of mischief?

Deja vu?

This happened --and I blogged about it-- only a few weeks ago. This time, I got more curious than usual. My phone number is listed on one "Who Called?" type website as "Suspicious" (alas), but so far, there are no complaints from humans.

In no particular order, here's what I discovered:
usaprofilepages.com had my phone number and altogether too much information about me, but in the footer there is a link called "Delete My Identity" and it works.

WhoEasy.com did not make it easy to opt out, and I spent some time poking around on that site but an email to support@whoeasy.com resulted in prompt manual removal.

peoplebyname.com had an online process.  I think. I remember calling one site that tells the world that I cohabit with three impossibly ancient gentlemen with uncommon Biblical names.

findoutwhocalledme.com is a "beenverified" site is highly inaccurate and has probably destroyed a lot of romances judging by all the ladies who write glowing reviews claiming to have discovered that their (probably innocent) lover is married or living a double life.

They claim that they will remove a listing if you email removephonenumber@yeah.net

But they don't. Beenverified claims that it will remove your info. You can call 888-579-5910 and a robot will provide instructions for opting out via beenverified.com/optout. However, this only works if you have one name, and one home.

They will not permit you to delete your info if you have a second home or timeshare.

areacode-Lookup lets you opt out online.

www.callersmart.com is a tricky site and not worth your time. They appear to require you to open an account in order to opt out, and also require you to give them far more information than they already have, which you --by virtue of using their site-- authorize them to use. Moreover, if you are foolish enough to link up using a phone, they will scrape your address book and annoy all your friends.

The solution is to email feedback@callersmart.com and a seemingly live and polite person will manually remove your info.

Spokeo.com has an opt out form on their site.
Then there is zabasearch, intellius, and radaris.

I left radaris alone because they had scraped so much information about my writing career and writing awards (I think scraped from a long-abandoned social media site) that I was overwhelmed with pleasant nostalgia.

As for the phone calls, I cottoned on by the second call, but the Privacy and Cyber Security Update legal blog by the impressive international team at Skadden gave me insights into what's probably behind the international annoyance.  Equifax!

Lexology link
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8a6961ea-b72d-45d4-8263-c34d93a44be2

Original link
https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2019/11/privacy-cybersecurity-update?sid=a066f17e-7fff-4e11-bb99-0a78b1492771

Impressive cast of experts

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP - James R. Carroll, Brian W. Duwe, David C. Eisman, Patrick Fitzgerald, Todd E. Freed, Marc S. Gerber, Richard J. Grossman, Michael E. Leiter, Stuart D. Levi, Amy S. Park, William Ridgway, Jason D. Russell, David E. Schwartz, Jennifer L. Spaziano, Ingrid Vandenborre, Helena J. Derbyshire, Jessica N. Cohen, James S. Talbot and Eve-Christie Vermynck

Thanks to the sloppy people at Equifax, everyone should search their own names, dates of birth (always provide a memorable fib on social media sites), addresses, phone numbers, passwords (oh dear!!!), email addresses, driver's licenses, and credit card numbers.

Even if you freeze your credit and subscribe to various bank, credit card, and commercial "locking" services, you are not safe from telephone annoyance.

As for piracy, and nothing to do with abuse of telephone numbers, Bookza is back as "Zlibrary" with fake blurb about how they respect creators and intellectual property. If you send them a DMCA notice to support@bookmail.org a robot will reply promptly to assure you that your books have been removed. Here's the kicker, if you revisit the page, it may tell you that the legal owner has removed the link, but they provide would-be book thieves with a link to where the work can be found on a TOR site.

It's almost as bad as the internet search engine that most transparently removed piratical links, only to display them --still negotiable-- on a virtue signalling page of their own.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

Big, Big Theft

Happy long Labor Day weekend!

As some of us celebrate the honor and dignity of an honest day's hard work, and a workman's desire for fewer days of hard work, spare a thought for hard working individual authors, artists, musicians, photographers, songwriters and film makers who give so much to our culture... perforce.

The first six large-font, double-spaced (therefore easy reading) pages of a well-written complaint against Spotify do the heavy lifting in showing how Big Money, Big Government, and Big Tech conspire to rip off song writers and musicians.
https://musictechpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/eight-mile-style-complaint.pdf

The rights owners at Wixen Music Publishing have a similar problem with Pandora, which is allegedly publishing and distributing lyrics apparently without any knowledge as to whether or not their alleged source has the rights to provide those lyrics.
https://musictechpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/eight-mile-style-complaint.pdf

(Aside for authors: it is not a good idea to quote lyrics.)

Lyrics to a song are similar to captions for an audio book.  Having the rights to play a sound track does not necessarily confer the rights to generate accompanying text.  Allegedly, Amazon also is into that kind of thievery.
https://apnews.com/e2078e81c5ca42a9bcde6aeea678b129

There is also, of course, petty, petty theft in which Everyman, his/her/their family members and his/her/their dog is engaged when it comes to photographers', actors', and film makers' rights....
https://www.sociallyawareblog.com/2019/08/20/the-meme-generation-social-media-platforms-address-content-curation/#page=1

Lastly, little things add up to something major when it comes to the loose and lawless Internet Of Things.  As legal bloggers Cameron Abbott and Karla Hodgeson, writing for K&L Gates warn, many of those smart devices in your homes are back doors for interlopers who want your data.
https://www.cyberwatchaustralia.com/2019/08/interlopers-in-things-iot-devices-may-be-used-as-backdoors-to-your-network/

Apparently, The Fancy Bear is a big, big cyber thieving problem!

Happy days!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

"Stifling Creativity" AKA The Profitable Ingenuity Of The Lawless

Applying bricks-and-mortar laws to the internet would "stifle creativity" and prevent "the sharing" of "information" and generally "end the internet as we know and love it". Such is the gist of the so-far-successful opponents of the controversial copyright law that was just rejected by the EU Parliament.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44712475

"Critics said the laws would stifle creativity..."

Allow this author to translate. The "creativity" that would be stifled" by a reform of European copyright laws is not the genius of authorship, musicianship, cinematic film making, or the artistry of a photographer or painter. No, it is the profitable ingenuity of thieves.

"Sharing"..."information", is usually a matter of monetizing stolen creations of others. Pirate sites don't publish and distribute helpful advice or uncommon knowledge. Their "information" is more likely to be illegal copies of movies, games, works of fiction, music. And, they don't "share" like one neighbor does to another over the garden fence. They broadcast (like tossing seeds in a wide arc over a ploughed --or plowed-- field), usually for the purpose of payment from advertisers.

Legal blogger Gill Grassie for the law firm Brodies LLP  examines what is legally or logistically unacceptable about the draconian Article 13 of the EU proposal.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=06f30201-e4c4-4756-8035-a7c35b486bf2

To wit, bigger platforms might have been obliged to prevent copyright infringing work from being uploaded by users.  Additionally, websites might have had to pay a license fee for displaying  snippets of text snagged
(my term) from published  articles.

By contrast, and from the sharp end, here's a fine video analysis of piracy by film maker Ellen Seidler of who profits from piracy, and how, and why. (It's from 2012, but still relevant.).
https://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/03/who-profits-from-piracy/

If lawmakers were to intellectually follow the money, they might do a better job of protecting creators. Perhaps the wrong Congressional and legislative bodies are looking at the problem... and of course, too many lawmakers are campaign-funded and lobbied by entities that find piracy profitable.

Aatif Sulleyman for the Trusted Reviews site examines the reasons produced in a 2018 survey on why Britons steal online.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/piracy-reasons-copyright-infringement-3501618

It seems to boil down to the love of a freebie. It's free, and it's convenient. Or at least, that is the popular perception.

(But, all this "free" stuff is ruining musicians' livelihoods. A musician debunks the idea of touring and T-shirts as an adequate substitute for record sales, and points out that concert performances provide zero income for songwriters:  https://thetrichordist.com/2018/07/11/a-timely-repost-the-economics-of-mid-tier-touring-from-someone-who-has-done-it-for-34-years/ )

Aatif Sulleyman wrote this, about watermarking.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/piracy-future-covert-watermarking-free-stream-3483149

This author never expected a search for "remove watermarks on copyrighted content" to produce any search results at all. Wrong!
https://www.google.com/search?q=remove+watermarks+on+copyrighted+content&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab

Colour me shocked.
On the other hand, the same socially responsible purveyors of useful information will also assist bricks-and-mortar perps.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-ab&ei=LmpLW8KjIOrCjwT41IDwAg&q=How+to+crack+a+safe&oq=How+to+crack+a+safe&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l10.213654.229082.0.238308.58.33.0.0.0.0.112.2566.31j1.32.0..2..0...1.1.64.psy-ab..38.20.1528...33i22i29i30k1j0i273k1j0i131k1j0i67k1.0.sypCEQvBLpE

I should probably now clear my cookies... and so, dear reader, should you.

The host of this blog (Blogspot) puts cookies on visitors' devices, and conveniently infers that visitors agree to deer-tick-like cookies piling on and burrowing in. Most sites to which this article has linked make the same inference.

Although "Cookie Consent" is the new panic according to legal blogger Eduardo Usteran, blogging for Hogan Lovells, blogs and websites have been obliged to let visitors know about their no-opt-out cookies
since an EU directive in 2009.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9192c959-3e9f-4288-aef1-5e4c8740b0cd&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2018-07-05&utm_term=

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Erotica Dungeons, Infringing Flagpoles, Child Sexbots, Rampant Piracy, and Bubbles....Allegations

Authors have long been aware that their romance titles can be summarily sentenced and dispatched to Amazon's erotica dungeon without notice, trial, or due process. And, their ranks can be stripped. Or so it is alleged. The crime? Perhaps a bare manly chest on a cover.

Perhaps an alarming keyword, that might even have been added without the author or publisher's knowledge. As we see with "bedding", damning words do get added mysteriously.

Please see Samantha Cole's blog:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpjn4/amazon-erotica-best-seller-rankings-removed

Some take the problem so seriously, there is an app for that, or at least, a free service:
Adult Flag.

Yet, allegedly, Amazon is one of several venues that allow third party sellers to purvey lifelike child sexbots.
John F. Banzhaf explains on valuewalk.com.

https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/child-sex-dolls-amazon-youtube-instagram/

One wonders why those things are not in the infamous Amazon dungeon!

Also of possible concern to authors are the allegations that Amazon's CreateSpace provides a "safe haven" for textbook scams, money laundering, and rampant piracy. Nate Hoffelder writes:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/04/13/amazons-createspace-provides-a-safe-haven-for-textbook-scams-money-laundering-and-rampant-piracy/

And then, there are the paid,  misleadingly glowing reviews that Amazon's paid-review-purges miss, (versus the unsolicited, genuine glowing book reviews that are censored... not that this particular Washington Post article is about books), as discussed by Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-merchants-secretly-use-facebook-to-flood-amazon-with-fake-reviews/2018/04/23/5dad1e30-4392-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.764fb77d9b98

On the perils of selling on Amazon, legal bloggers Charlotte Duly and Angharad Rolfe Johnson of  the UK intellectual property rights specialist law firm Boult Wade Tennant analyze the legal consequences of Amazon product codes, and perhaps of Amazon "Buy Boxes"..

Apparently, a listing on Amazon that is created by one seller, may be used by subsequent sellers, and sometimes (in this writer's experience) new sellers are forced or confused by Amazon into using the same listing.

This happened to a seller of genuine Chinese flagpoles, and another seller of replica Chinese flagpoles. The problem was compounded by Amazon's "Buy Box" policies, which often give the "Buy Box" advantage to whoever sells a similar product for the lowest price. The replica flagpole seller was found liable for trademark infringement and "passing off".

Legal blogger Nina Goodyear for the international law firm Taylor Wessing  commented on an infringing act of selling beds on Amazon. Trademark infringement, that is. The unsuccessful defendants' defense was that someone else had added the claimant's trademarked brand name "Birlea" to the listing without their (the defendants') knowledge.

It is better to be a buyer on the Zon, than it is to be a seller!

Amazon is not liable for copyright infringing products sold on its website, as Cheryl Beise J.D. explains.
http://www.dailyreportingsuite.com/ip/news/amazon_is_not_liable_for_infringing_products_sold_by_third_party_vendors

Mark Schonfeld's  legal blog from 2016 for Burns & Levinson LLP asks, "What are we going to do about Amazon?" in the light of what happened to Milo & Gabby in a Seattle court.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e6cb18cf-8348-456f-9918-7bd9326011e6

Apparently, this applies even when Amazon advertises a product as "shipped from and sold by Amazon.com".... or perhaps not. Wade Shepard for Forbes discusses how the Milo & Gabby ruling might have given Amazon too much rope. Now Daimler may turn the tables with what Wade Shepard eloquently describes as "the most unglamorous smoking gun in legal history. Wheel caps."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/05/amazon-got-busted-selling-counterfeit-mercedes-benz-parts-now-everything-may-change/#86118b222005 link

If Daimler prevails, the dam may burst, and also an alleged bubble may burst. Michael Harris (a financial blogger) calls it The Mother Of All Bubbles, owing to its profits allegedly coming largely from its web services to enterprises such as the CIA and Netflix.

According the Philip Davis, the rest of Amazon lost a lot of money.  But, that's another story.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4166834-amazons-great-earnings-save-markets-doom

What fun!

Rowena Cherry

Mashing The Mot Juste

Do you believe that words are "fungible"?  Are all synonyms equal, or are some synonyms more equal than others? In other words, does the "mot juste" exist?

Mot Juste = the exact, appropriate word.  (Plural: mots justes )

As some rely more on AI, and on automated plagiarism, "mot juste" will probably be expunged from Dictionaries. It is not a helpful concept. If there is no word for "the exact, appropriate word", people will cease to think that one word might be more exact and more appropriate than another.  Thoughts cannot exist without words. Vocabulary matters.

There's a rumor that pirate plagiarists are taking popular authors' published works, running these copyrighted works through an app to change the characters' names, place names, verbs and adjectives, and self-publishing the result as "original works" on certain online self-publishing platforms.

The name for such mashing up of words is "synonymize".

Check out this blurb for its logical flaw:

"Our machine is using paraphrasing software to replace words with synonyms to prevent plagiarism, but provides the same meaning of the content..."

No. That is not "prevent(ing) plagiarism". That is enabling and encouraging plagiarism.  It's purpose is not to "prevent plagiarism" but to prevent your plagiarism from being detected.

The plagiarism profiteers give fair warning, "...please note that it's only automatic tool and we cannot guarantee its quality..."

They know the difference between "it's purpose" and "it's only". Kudos for that. They seem to understand that their tool cannot deliver mots justes. However, from their use of English ("it's only automatic tool"), they may not be native English speakers. They hide who they are behind a Denver based privacy protection service.

They appear to offer to help one plagiarize ones own resume. Or ones own university admission letter. Or a document. Or a scientific paper. Why?

Here's an apparently British based rival with no illusions about what they are doing, if one can make such an inference from their "plagiarisma" name.  They are a free "article rewriter".

Some mash up enthusiasts gave the public fair warning on their Kickstarter campaign that mashing up Dr. Seuss Stories with Star Trek characters and imagery might land them in court.

While we firmly believe that our parody, created with love and affection, fully falls within the boundary of fair use, there may be some people who believe that this might be in violation of their intellectual property rights. And we may have to spend time and money proving it to people in black robes.

As David Stewart  legal blogger for Williams + Hughes (an Australian law firm) points out in "'Litigation, Jim, but not as we know it': Dr. Seuss, Star Trek, and Copyright Infringement in the US."     that disclaimer was clear evidence of wilful infringement.

David Stewart cites this helpful reminder to would be for-profit mashers.

The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted that “the claim of parody is no defense where the purpose of the similarity is to capitalize on a famous mark’s popularity for the defendant’s own commercial use.” Hard Rock Cafe Licensing Corp. v. Pacific Graphics, Inc., 776 F.Supp. 1454, 1462 (W.D.Wash.1991).”

David Stewart's article is excellent reading, but for the few who want just the bottom line, "wilful infringement", if claimed and proven against the loser defendant, can treble the damages assessed.

Jesse M Brody, legal blogger for Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP  (a very interesting law firm) also discusses same case and the same question of when is a claimed parody not a parody in "Oh The Places Copyright And Trademark Law Go!"

Jesse M. Brody examines the fourth factor of fair use (or not), which is whether the defendant's obvious use of  Dr. Seuss trademarks, font, titles, style, and stories combined with Star Trek characters and images could negatively affect future income for Dr. Seuss, for instance to the market for the licensing of Dr. Seuss's derivative works.

For more,
visit https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ebefd2db-1e70-410a-826b-84b12742574f&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2018-01-05&utm_term=

And visit https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=824c1cdd-7efb-4565-bf88-a8dd2159ce9f

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

PS.  My apologies for the lateness of this article.

PPS. Here's an example of a not-mot juste.  "That salacious book" that everyone is talking about.
The mot juste would be "scurrilous", as in "That scurrilous book".

A book cannot be "salacious", especially given the cover art of that particular book.  Salacious means lustful, lecherous, appealing to sexual desire.

Copyright-Related Reading and Dirt

This week, a publisher wrote to authors about the dismal prospects for newbies and traditionally published "mid-list" authors.  "Mid-list" is probably a euphemism for everyone who is not a bestseller.

If commerce is about "supply and demand", the supply for digital versions of books is mind-boggling (just Google any title and author) but also, the internet and auction sites have made it possible for anyone to find a used paperback (and sometimes a "used" digital version) for less than a publisher or author can afford to sell a royalty-earning version. So, where is the demand for bricks and mortar store copies?

That publisher blames the economy, and Amazon. The publisher does not mention piracy, but piracy is ubiquitous and unstoppable.

For more, read the red-haired legal hero George Sevier of Gowling WLG on online infringement. It is a very good piece. You should look at it.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6d08db05-d778-4e49-9767-6b2950aaa351&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-10-19&utm_term=

This author mentioned his hair hue because there is a vigorous debate online (in some quarters) about whether or not novelists should buck perception and make their heroes ginger.

But... Talking of Amazon....
Douglas Preston writes about an alarming "grey market" for books, and how and why authors "get zilch".

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/douglas-preston-gray-market-new-books/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/book-publishing-amazon-sales.html

FWIW This author is a seller on Amazon, and the Amazon fees for selling an author's stash copy of a paperback are typically $4.24 (for Amazon) for a new, unread, untouched stash paperback copy advertised for $5.70 with free postage paid for by the author.  Or $4.14 for a new, never opened paperback being sold for $5.00 with free shipping.

Just for comparison/reference, I am also trying to sell a very rare, factory sealed Pocher Rolls Royce model kit for $1,085 and Amazon's fees would be $165 if I sold it, but even though no one else on Amazon has one to sell, Amazon shows the world that there are none available, and may never be available. You see, I don't pay Amazon $30 a month, so I will never get the "buy button".

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VANZSG

I'll be taking it back to EBay within the week. (I do not consider this self-promo because no one reading an alien romance blog is likely to be a rare and outrageously expensive car kit enthusiast.)

I cannot imagine why this author identified this (below) as being one of the most interest copyright-related reading of the week. With hindsight, it seems pretty dry reading.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/09/29/2017-21065/compendium-of-us-copyright-office-practices

However, for authors who may not be absolutely convinced that their publisher submitted a best copy of their published work to the Library of Congress, it might be instructive bedtime reading. Or not!

Finally, some odd goings on behind the scenes at Facebook.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/12/facebook-takes-down-data-and-thousands-of-posts-obscuring-reach-of-russian-disinformation/?utm_term=.3defa353fd6d

And the legal view of the matter from Peter S. Vogel of Gardere.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=36659707-7a81-4152-8280-fbd4fcc85307&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-10-16&utm_term=

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Other People's Work

I'd like to share some important writings by other  people. The common theme is big balls, for good or evil, at least, that's my take.

The first is a Tumblr post with links, written by E A Schecter, on the topic of plagiarism.

http://easchechter.tumblr.com/post/133551099035/plagiarist-a-notice-to-all-fanfic-communities

The second is a legal article from Lexology.com which latter I follow for information about copyright, trademarks, patents and other rip offs of intellectual property.  

This article is an entertaining explanation of fair use and judicial chutzpah by the law offices of Marc D. Ostrow that includes a couple of quizzes and a criticism of some legal rulings.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=34cc5be2-4b3a-437d-b5c7-771f833c8a73&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-11-18&utm_term=

The third is also from Lexology, by DeBrauw, Blackstone, Westbroek--yes, from the Netherlands-- with an example of how one admirable little European country is supporting copyright owners and slapping down internet hosts who would protect anonymous sellers of illegal e-books.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d149fee-8bd6-40d5-8043-72e096cf3138&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-11-16&utm_term=

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rowena Cherry


PS And then, there is the DOJ taking (a legal term) songwriters' works  and limiting the rights of songwriters to negotiate contracts, all for the benefit of Google, Spotify, Apple, Pandora and other Big Tech companies. See David Lowery's latest:
http://thetrichordist.com/2015/11/19/david-lowery-whiteboard-comments-on-doj-100-pro-licensing-proposal/

'Hello, Granny" And Other Dodgy Doings

"Hello, Granny," said the mystery man. From my caller ID, I could see he was telephoning from somewhere exotic and faraway.

"....?" I questioned, using a popular male name which I shall not share here.

Much encouraged, my caller became implausibly loquacious. "My voice sounds different," he explained before I could ask, "because I'm in hospital. I've got a broken nose and stitches in my mouth."

I briefly considered the short list of my hot headed young male relatives who might be so dazed by an unfortunate collision with anything that they could recall my phone number, but forget their family trees.

"If you're in hospital with a broken nose and stitches in your mouth, why are you calling ME?"

I don't tolerate fools.... and I'm nobody's grandmother, but I did not get a chance to say so. He hung up.

Later in the day, when my morning coffee guests had left, I googled "Hello Granny Scam" and found rich pickings. Apparently, all too many tender hearted seniors totter off to their local supermarkets where there is a Western Union counter, and they send cash to persuasive imposters.

Be warned.

Villains on the telephone, at least three times a day, every day. Villains in my PO Box. Villains on the internet. It's enough to give one a jaundiced view of the innate goodness of humanity.

I received an email from some foreigners (if they are not foreign, they ought to be ashamed of their command of American English), offering to sell self-published authors --which I am not-- a mailing list of 20,000 Reader's Digest subscribers.

I seriously doubt that Reader's Digest subscribers will be pleasantly surprised to receive author spam, but I could be mistaken.

Do you own a trademark?  I do. It's SPACE SNARK™  Over the years, I have been disquieted to receive official-seeming renewal demands. Be aware, one applies for a trademark through one's attorney, and it is to one's attorney of record that the true official renewal demand will be sent.

More on trademark scams here:

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dcf17e62-89ea-44b1-a9da-f3f69c1c6740&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-10-16&utm_term=

One of many problems with pirate sites, and pirated versions of legitimate books, is, allegedly, that the Amazon bots cannot tell the difference, and allegedly some authors have seen mysterious "price matching" which cuts into their royalties.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/05/05/how-to-get-google-to-remove-pirated-ebooks-public-shaming-nothing-else-works/

Finally, authors who are inclined to protect their copyrights may do well to set up Google searches for some unique phraseology in their works. They might receive an alert that leads them to some fan-fic for profit (which is a no-no) or to plagiarism.

The comments on this blog http://jennytrout.com/?p=9693 make some good points about what fan fiction is and is not.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

It Was True In 2013 and Is Just As True Today (Digital Piracy)

This article by Chris Whitten was published by The Trichordist in 2013.
http://thetrichordist.com/2013/12/03/the-politics-of-piracy-guest-post-by-chris-whitten/ 

It's about the politics of piracy.

The author makes an assertion about Australians, and I must confess, I have noticed Australian addresses when I have used GoDaddy's "WhoIs" search to discover the registration of sites that are allegedly pirating my books, such as minkebooks.org

By now, "contact@privacyprotect.org" should have prevailed upon their secretive clients to take down my works such as:

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.minkebooks.org/files/h9h2m_knight-s-fork-love-spell-futuristic-romance-.pdf&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoSMTE4MTg2Mjg3NTgwNjQwMDM0MhozYzVhOTNmZjZjYjVmMzU0OmNvbTplbjpVUw&usg=AFQjCNH2Sqi8ju3c2Z9qHrSOrBGPe925IA

One wonders (at least, I wonder) why people can make a living --lawfully-- out of thwarting the ability of intellectual property owners to directly contact persons who are allegedly violating copyrights.

IMHO, EBay does the same thing. For how many years, I wonder, have EBay sellers been burning thousands of copyrighted ebooks onto CDs and DVDs (sometimes more than 69 times... why 69? Is it a magic number for erotica???) in collections such as this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2500-Romance-and-Crime-Thriller-Ebooks-Mobi-Pdf-Epub-with-lots-of-Great-Titles-/141010616211?hash=item20d4e33f93

Does anyone really think that Nora Roberts, Patti O'Shea, Patricia Cornwell, Rachel Caine and others granted EBay sellers their copyrights and resale rights?  If I were to purchase this collection, I should not be at all surprised to discover some of my illegally created works in the batch... but if I were to complain, as I have done many times over the years for similar DVDs where I have bought them and found my works on them, EBay would not tell the purchasers, and the purchasers would in their turn sell the same ebooks. As for me, I would not even be allowed to post feedback informing the world that the seller had infringed my copyrights.

My best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Congress, Close Those Pirate-Friendly Loopholes, Please!

For the benefit of authors and interested readers of this blog who are not members of Authors' Guild, I am sharing recent news from the Guild.

Dear Member, 

This week, we sent a letter to Congress asking for help in fighting piracy, which affects us all. Authors care about e-book piracy. We hear this increasingly from our members. From 2009 to 2013, the number of Internet piracy alerts we received increased over 300%. In the next year alone, from 2013 to 2014, it doubled. 

There is a direct connection between e-book piracy and authors’ pocketbooks. The publishing industry as a whole loses $80 to $100 million to piracy annually, according to the Association of American Publishers. Many publishers have the resources to adjust their business models to absorb piracy-related losses, but individual authors don’t. Each time a standard frontlist e-book is pirated rather than purchased through a normal retail channel, its author forgoes what would have been nearly $2 in royalties. This adds up and make a real dent in the typical author’s earnings. (According to our recent survey, median writing-related income for full-time authors in 2014 was only $17,500.) 

Despite many publishers’ implementation of anti-piracy software and technological protection measures, the problem continues to grow. According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, the effectiveness of protection measures is limited by “business models built entirely around manufacturing and distributing technologies, software, devices, components, or tools, or around providing services, to gain unlawful access to the content or to copy it without authorization.” 

So we’re asking Congress to do something about it. This letter, addressed to the House Judiciary Committee (which is spearheading a review of U.S. copyright law), reminds members of Congress that Internet piracy directly harms authors’ ability to make a living. It asks them to consider key changes to the U.S. Copyright Act to give authors a productive remedy for online infringement—not the ineffective, Sisyphean system currently in place, known as “Notice and Takedown.” 

Court decisions have construed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Notice and Takedown provisions to mean that a copyright owner is required to send a notice for each separate instance (i.e., copy) of infringement, specifying the URL. But as soon as a pirated copy is taken down, it is usually put right back up. Needless to say, copyright owners cannot keep up with this senseless game, and individual authors do not begin to have the resources to send a new notice every time a pirated copy is posted or reposted. 

We are asking for a “Notice and Stay-Down” regime: once a webhost knows a work is being infringed, it should not continue to receive “safe harbor” immunity from claims of infringement unless it takes reasonable measures to remove all infringing copies of the same work. 

You can help supplement our efforts to create more awareness among members of Congress by contacting your Representative to express your support for this change. Feel free to pass along our letter or write your own. And, as always, if you’ve been a victim of Internet piracy, let us know at staff@authorsguild.org.

Full link to the letter: 

http://hosting-source.bm23.com/896/public/Letter_to_Judiciary_Comm._7.9.15.pdf

Do read the letter. It calls out Google Play and the pirated works posted there. I've seen illegal ebook versions of my works posted on other sites with false release dates and false publisher information. 

Like this: (But, I wouldn't visit lacumbre if I were you!)

http://www.lacumbre.com/review-714-498-forced_mate_god_princes_of_tigron_1_/

Publisher

Transworld

Publication date

28th August 2014

ISBN

0505526018

Length

326 pages

Categories

Thrillers

I've never had a contract with Transworld and the book is not a "Thriller". It was released as a paperback, and only as a paperback by Dorchester Publishing's "LoveSpell" imprint.

More anon.

Rowena Cherry