Kindle

courtesy of Mandy M Roth

Are you an author who keeps having people steal from you with ioffer?  FYI, there’s no denying pirates piss me off.

Ioffer and the pirates there?  More than.

**Please note, this all pertains to ebooks. Not print. Reselling used books is perfectly legal and I’ve got no problem with it. Now then.

About the mess…

Authors have a few options with this mess.

1. Ignore it (not an option for me-not only do they violate copyright, they make money from my hardwork and they are stealing.  Nope.  Not ignoring)
2. Have the publishers handle it.  Yes, this works.  But it takes them a week or more.  Publishers have their entire house to watch for and small legal staffs.  Which means?  Your stuff waits it’s turn in line.
3. You can pay somebody-I actually know somebody who handles these.  You can authorize somebody to do the takedowns.  Don’t have an assistant and want to do it that way?  Email me.  I’ll give you her name.
4. You do it.

Options three and four are the fastest.  Option one-basically sticking your head in the sand isn’t going to help the problem and until more authors stand up and fight it, the problem isn’t going to improve.  Option two works, no denying it. But look at it logically.  The publishers only have so many people in the legal department.  And they’ve also got other things to do besides piracy and ioffer messes.

Options three and four are the ones that have the most effect and if you’re diligent, eventually word gets around.  Especially if you stay on ioffer with the takedowns and remind them that they are only protected by the safe harbor laws of the DMCA if they take action against those who repeat offend.  What does this mean?  If there is a seller who is repeatedly listing your stuff even after you’ve sent in the takedowns and ioffer isn’t doing anything?

Well, I’m no lawyer.  But I would think if they aren’t taking action…think about it.  So remind them that you’ve complained on such and such seller before…and see if you don’t see that seller’s store disappear within a day or so.  All of the listings. I’ve watched it happen dozens of times.

Now, I suspect they show back up under another name.  But if they relist your stuff?  Complain again.  Remind Ioffer again.  Sooner or later, the sellers get tired of having their auctions yanked and you don’t see your stuff as often.

And if you really want to be a pain…

When you send the takedown?  Also CC…CC, not BCC to <netpiracy@siia.net>, the SIIA deals with piracy issues.  Give them more ammo.

I also make notes on the sellers’ pages.  Once, Ioffer closed my account.  I emailed them and told them that if they allowed people to illegally sell my books, then I had a right to point out to potential buyers they were buying stolen property and if they didn’t want me getting rather public with it, they might want to reopen the account.  They did.  These little notes on the seller’s pages?  Don’t get ugly…remember, a lot of readers still don’t get how the ebook thing, piracy and all that jazz works.  They may not realize they are buying stolen goods and the ugliness won’t benefit you.

I say something like… Be advised, this is copyright infringement and illegal.  See the FBI’s warning.  Then I leave a link to this page. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/anti-piracy

Lessons in being an advanced thorn in the side

Well, you can always report them to the IC3, Internet Crime Complaint Center.  From their site:

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

As of 2/11/2012, I started taking screenshots of all people who list auctions in violation of my copyright on ioffer.  After I send the takedown to Ioffer, I send a complaint to the IC3.  Ioffer is also aware I’m doing this-I told them.  Pointblank, I told them in an email- “You can find a way to keep illegal goods from your site.”

Ebay keeps illegal crap off their site.  (Not ebooks, or rather, not as good as they should, but it’s possible.)  It requires effort on their part, and sure, it will cost them money.  But that’s their problem.  Until they take a more active role in policing their site to keep the illegal goods off of it, I’m reporting them to the IC3.

Maybe if enough fed up authors (as well other intellectual property owners) started regularly filing complaints with the IC3, and making ioffer aware… they’d get their act together.

For Beginners…

Not sure how to get your illegally sold ebooks off ioffer?  (FYI, the ebooks sold on ioffer, unless they are in public domain, are most likely illegal, and if you just wrote it?  Not in public domain).

Here’s what you do…send a takedown notice to copyright@ioffer.com.  This has to come from either the publisher, the author, or someone the author has designated to act on their behalf (agents, assistants, etc).

What needs to be in the takedown?  From IP Watchdog**, post dated 1/6/09 :

A physical or electronic signature (i.e., /s/NAME) of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed.

Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.

Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.

A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner.

A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

So, what needs to be there… who you are, what the works are, a link to the works are found, a way to contact you-I provide my PO Box and the phone number of my publishers-not giving those guys my number. And then the last statement is VERY important. I include my name with the words ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE next to it, then my name and contact details.

I send it to ioffer, CC it to netpiracy, then notify the IC3, and I make a screenshot of the auction and save it in a file labeled ioffer. Generally, ioffer has them down within a few hours, a bit longer on the weekends.

Do the numbers on ioffer seem insurmountable? Well, at first, probably. But if you can stay on top of it, word will get around. Especially if you let the sellers know you are reporting them to the IC3… I make sure to mention the connection to the FBI.

If you stay on top of it for a while, those numbers no longer seem so insurmountable. Sellers try to find ways around it, misspelling your name, mis-LISTING the names, etc-they continue to find ways, I continue to look…and when I find them, I report them, not just to ioffer.

In case anybody reading this is a seller? It’s not an idle threat on my side. I report. Happily. And with great pleasure. I even forward the confirmation of each successfully submitted complaint to ioffer to let them know about each auction that I’ve submitted. Sellers might want to consider…if the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that deal with copyright decide to investigate ioffer? Why wouldn’t they look to the sellers as well?

heads up… I’m not a lawyer, not a copyright specialist or anything. Just a writer who’s tired of dealing with this crap. IMO, ioffer is one of the worst and I’ve got two years worth of emails/takedowns. It’s gotten better over the past few months, finally, but I suspect that’s not on because of anything ioffer has done. This is all just my opinion, make of it what you will, but if you are tired of it and want to see a difference, as an author, you’re the one with the most power of bringing it about. Ioffer is required by law to remove the infringing works. If you send the proper DMCA, they have to remove the works-if the seller relists, remind ioffer about the safe harbor laws of the DMCA and see what happens. And keep on it…you just may see the difference.

**Re IP Watchdog…he’s a very informative and helpful guy. If you use any of his info outside of a DMCA…like a blog…please credit him…thank you!

Kindle

Yes…you’ve seen this before. I plan on posting once a month, perhaps. Or at least until asinine sites like ebay & ioffer stop letting people abuse copyright owners’ rights. BTW, this stuff also applies to writers who aren’t me. For modern works, after 1978 and somebody is claiming to have ‘master resale rights’ or ”I’m the copyright owner” or any crap like that over a work…it’s very likely FALSE. Copyright remains in place for the author’s lifetime, plus 70 years. Info on that can be found at copyright.gov – a nice government-y website so don’t be fooled by the BS.

Okay, I’m hoping some people out there researching ‘master resell rights’ stumble onto this page. Or I hope some of the people mistakenly claiming to be ‘authorized ebook resellers’ find this page.

Because I’ve got news for you.

You can’t buy the resale rights to my work…unless you go through me, and I can’t sell them to you, because it would be conflict with my contract to my publisher. Which could get me sued. Which is why I’m pretty certain other authors out there aren’t likely to be doing this either.

You can resell a paperback, because after all, there is just the one copy.

But you can’t resell ebook after ebook after ebook because that’s not selling one copy-that’s making new copies and you know what that does? That violates my copyright. I own the rights to my work. Me. Just me.

I contract with my publisher and they publish the books. Through my publisher, I may sell the foreign rights (and please, dear God, I’d really love to), I can sell the audio rights (please God, I would love to) and other assorted rights. I own the rights. They are mine. You can’t buy a ‘master resale right’ to anything I’ve written, because I won’t give it up.

If somebody claims they can give you master resale rights, you were lied to. Possibly by mistake, possibly with the intention of deceiving you, I don’t know. Email the publisher if you don’t believe me-ask the person claiming the ‘resale rights’ bit who their contact at the publisher was. But don’t shell out money to somebody who claim to give you master resale rights to ebooks.

Now this isn’t to say there aren’t books out there with ‘master resale rights’. I see all this ’set up your own ebook biz’ and all the ebooks are self-help and do-it-yourself, and maybe, just maybe, those do come with legit resale rights.

But if you think Nora Roberts sold her resale rights to somebody who in turn now sells them out to others so they can sell a slew of them on ebay for a few bucks when the author doesn’t see a red cent for all her hard work, you’re wrong-somehow, I suspect Nora Roberts is a little too smart for that. She doesn’t do it. Neither does Shiloh Walker, neither does Larissa Ione, neither does Lauren Dane, neither does any fricking writer I’ve talked to about this…and yeah, writers do talk about it. A lot.

Publishing doesn’t work that way.

Ebook publishing doesn’t work that way.

This is about rights. Plain and simple rights. When people ‘create’ digital copies of our work, they are making new copies-that is copyright infringement-and that violates our rights. Plain and simple. It violates our rights and if somebody came in and rode roughshod all over your legal rights, you’d be bit upset. You do not have the legal rights to resell our works, no matter what you were told.

And if anybody who was told this is reading this…seriously, completely seriously, I want to know who is telling you. You were misinformed. A lot of people have been misinformed and that circle won’t stop until we get to the root of it all.

Feel free to email me. Shilohwalker(at)gmail.com. Of course, if you’re emailing me just to tell me how I mean I am for wanting people to respect my fricking rights…don’t waste your time. I’m really handy with that delete button and I don’t waste my time arguing with people who can’t understand that I’m entitled to have my rights respected, the same way others want their rights respected.

BTW, if other authors reading this wanna do the same & spread the word…well, the more readers who are aware, maybe the fewer sales those bastards will get.  Some people are thinking-you’re telling them where these are! But plenty of people already know.  And it won’t get better until more people speak up and take action.

Plus, readers can also help if they want.  On ioffer, if you see a modern author, be it romance authors you already read or people like Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, whoever, there’s a report item button down at the buttom-click it-report that you believe the item is still protected by copyright and you’ll be notifying the author.  Hell, leave notes on the buying page by ‘asking a question’ if you want telling the would be buyers they are buying stolen property and you can refer them to this page at the FBI- http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/anti-piracy.  iOffer got nasty with me a few times and tried to close my account when I did such things.  I pointed out that they can’t allow people to buy and sell stolen goods and then try to shut down my account when I inform them people are buying & selling stolen goods, which is what copyrighted material is.  They opened my account back up very, very fast.

With ebay, you can also report items suspected of abuse.  It’s more work, requires an ebay account and it works best if you can get the seller to send you the list of books. But if you’re not an author, this is actually awesome. Then you can get the list of items, report them and if I’m one of the authors… SEND IT TO ME! *G* Be my spy! (Yes, I’m bad.) If you click on report item, it will give you a bunch of drop down menus…you want:

Counterfeits and copyright violations (after that, if the listing showed it as being on a CD-probably did, ebay policy now makes it a violation to email stuff) click on:

Bootlegs and counterfeit media… then from there:

Media on Recordable formats (CD-R, DVD-R, VHS Tape, etc.)

Once you get there, mention something like…
Message: Claiming modern works in public domain-the list of books I saw were all copyrighted.

Please note, this DOESN’T apply to classical works. Only to works put into print after 1978.  Tom Sawyer is public domain. Bronte is public domain. But those aren’t the books the majority of these people are selling.

And I will warn you, although most of the time the sellers just slink off once the auctions are shut down, some of them do get testy.  I’m mean for not wanting them to make money…*even though they do it by stealing from me, making it harder for me to earn my rightful living*, I’m taking food from their kids, even though they are doing it in a dishonest, dishonorable fashion, not to mention the example they are setting…so if readers decide to do this, be aware, somebody might get nasty in response.  Ebay also has gotten irritated with me.  Imagine, expecting them to take action when people are selling illegal goods on their site.