Anyone having trouble with pirates?

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Tue October 12th, 2010, 5:19 pm

A couple of interesting articles at the same website about pirates and how they work:

The 7 Types of Pirate: Which Are You?

A Bootleg E-Book Bazaar Operates in Plain Site

I have a Google alert on my name and the title of my book and occasionally it returns a weird listing on some obscure site. I'm not talking about the odd Ebay listing or the online booksellers who list the book for some outrageous price hoping to dupe someone into buying it. Given my obscurity as a writer, I doubt "professional" pirates (those that use illegal downloads to sneak phishing and harmful software onto computers) are using my book for their nefarious purposes. Anyone here discovered someone ripping off their books? Did you have any recourse?

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Tue October 12th, 2010, 11:03 pm

I'm not well-enough known to be targeted for this. At the moment I'd be willing to take such an occurrence as a compliment.

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 1:00 am

Ok, when I saw your heading asking if anyone was having trouble with pirates, I immediately thought of the gang last week who made me swab the deck and walk the plank...... Shiver me timbers.....

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 4:23 am

Sure am! There's this guy at every ren faire who swaggers around in early 18th-century pirate outfit, tricorne hat, cutlass, the works!

He's been told again and again that this is the 16th century, but he persists in stealing our time frame. Off with his head!

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 4:54 am

How funny! Either Francis Drake or John Hawkins would fit the bill, but I guess to the modern mind they wouldn't look "pirate-y" enough! Incidentally, they did a ren fair here this past spring that was called "Queen Bess and the Pyrates."

laktor · Post by **laktor** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 5:14 am

I've never downloaded a book, or even a single song in my life!

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 8:05 am

My books are increasingly available as illegal torrent downloads. After contacting my publishers, the first one was taken down, but it was back up within 24 hours. I asked Michelle Moran about it, and she said (if I remember correctly) that her publisher said that there was little they could do at present, and the best thing to do was ignore it. I hope I'm wrong, but I think much the same applies to the UK publishers' attitude. 'Cut one head off the Hydra and another one just grows.' When the price of ebooks comes down, maybe it won't happen as much - but then we heard the other day about Hachette fixing the price of their ebooks.

It's all very annoying, and I was gratified to hear on the radio the other day about music companies here in the UK taking illegal downloaders to court, successfully. There was a woman interviewed who said she'd paid up her £300 ($470) as soon as she'd received a threatening letter, but it had been difficult for her. 'I had to pay at once. Not everyone has that amount in their bank account. It's difficult,' she moaned. Should have thought about that before she downloaded so much music then, shouldn't she?! Unbelievable.

Hopefully, publishers will take the same robust attitude soon.

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 4:56 pm

[quote=""parthianbow""]My books are increasingly available as illegal torrent downloads...It's all very annoying, and I was gratified to hear on the radio the other day about music companies here in the UK taking illegal downloaders to court, successfully...Hopefully, publishers will take the same robust attitude soon.[/quote]

The whole file sharing thing has completely changed the business model of music (been to any record stores lately?) and might soon impact the publishing arena. I heard a "futurist" on National Public Radio, a couple of months ago, say the time is coming when authors won't make money on their books, but on their "performances" at readings (a la bands that make money on their concerts not their CD's).

If so, it's "Back to the Future." Isn't that how Charles Dickens and Mark Twain earned their livings?

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 5:02 pm

[quote=""fljustice""]I heard a "futurist" on National Public Radio, a couple of months ago, say the time is coming when authors won't make money on their books, but on their "performances" at readings (a la bands that make money on their concerts not their CD's).

[/quote]

If that's the case, then I'm afraid we'll see a lot of starving authors (even more than now!

). It's been my experience that authors rarely make good readers. Our local public radio station produces a program each week where local writers read their stuff -- I can't listen to it, it's unbearable. I guess I've been spoiled by listening to audio books narrated by professional actors.

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Wed October 13th, 2010, 7:47 pm

[quote=""fljustice""]I heard a "futurist" on National Public Radio, a couple of months ago, say the time is coming when authors won't make money on their books, but on their "performances" at readings (a la bands that make money on their concerts not their CD's).

[/quote]

A wildly optimistic view, IMHO. Since when do 80,000 people in 30+ cities across the US and/or Europe pay $75-150 for a ticket to hear an author speak? (As they would for U2.) Nothing authors do, except for the very very few like Bernard Cornwell or Philippa Gregory etc., comes even close to this type of opportunity, and even for the few at the very top, the revenues from such appearances are, I suspect, nothing like enough to live on.

That's why it's great that the good old-fashioned book is still a great thing. Some publishers in the UK are starting to get very browned off with how much time they spend working on e-books, when they account for 0.25% of sales. And, despite what the whiz kid IT types tell us, they're not making ordinary book sales plummet.