Internet Book Piracy
Copyright © 2016 by Gini Graham Scott
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Print ISBN: 978-1-62153-485-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62153-495-2
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About the Author
GINI GRAHAM SCOTT HAS PUBLISHED over fifty books with mainstream publishers, focusing on social trends, work and business relationships, and personal and professional development. Some of these books include The New Middle Ages, Lies and Liars: How and Why Sociopaths Lie and How You Can Detect and Deal with Them, The Very Next New Thing, The Talk Show Revolution, and The Privacy Revolution.
She has gained extensive media interest for previous books, including appearances on Good Morning America, Oprah, Montel Williams, CNN, and hundreds of radio interviews. She has frequently been quoted by the media and has set up websites to promote her most recent books, featured at www.ginigrahamscott.com and www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com. As of this writing, she has about sixty thousand listings in Google Search Results.
She has become a regular Huffington Post blogger since December 2012 (www.huffingtonpost.com/gini-graham-scott) and has a Facebook page featuring her books and films at www.facebook.com/changemakerspublishing.
She has written, produced, and sometimes directed over sixty short videos, which are featured on her Changemakers Productions website at www.changemakersproductions.com and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/changemakersprod.
Her screenplays, mostly in the drama, crime, legal thriller, and sci-fi genres, include several that consider the social implications of science and technological breakthroughs and changes in society, including The New Child, New Identity, Dead No More, Tax Revolt, and The Suicide Party. Her first feature film, Suicide Party Save Dave, was released in 2015. A film by the same director, Driver, will be released in 2016.
She has a PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley and MAs in anthropology, pop culture and lifestyles, and organizational/consumer/audience behavior, and recreation and tourism from Cal State, East Bay. She is getting an MA in communications there in June 2017.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Discovering the Problem of Internet Book Piracy
Becoming Aware of the Piracy Problem
PART I
The Interviews
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to the Interviews
CHAPTER 2
An Interview with an Intellectual Property Lawyer
CHAPTER 3
Interviews with Writers and Self-Publishers
An Interview with a Writer and Self-Publisher of Books on Magic
An Interview with the Authors of a Book on Music
CHAPTER 4
Interviews with Three Publishers
An Interview with a Publisher of Scholarly Books
An Interview with a Small Publisher of a Variety of Books
An Interview with a Representative for a Major Publisher
CHAPTER 5
Interviews with Some Pirates (a.k.a. Researchers and Students)
An Interview with a “Researcher”
An Interview with a Student Sharing Books with Other Students
CHAPTER 6
The Free Speech, Technology, and Piracy Controversy
CHAPTER 7
Alternate Ways to Monetize Your Writing
PART II
The Problem of Internet Piracy
CHAPTER 8
A Rebuttal to Book Piracy Advocates and Apologists
CHAPTER 9
The Damage of Internet Piracy by the Numbers
CHAPTER 10
The Worldwide Epidemic of Book Piracy
Worldwide Piracy by the Numbers
The Worldwide Efforts to Stop Piracy
The Many Different Worldwide Approaches to Combat Piracy
CHAPTER 11
The Battles of the Music and Film Industries Against Piracy
The Potential for Damage from Pirates and the Sony Hack
Other Battles by the Film and Music Industries Against the Pirates
Latest Developments in the Battle Against the Pirates by the Film and Music Industries
The Development of Legitimate Alternatives
CHAPTER 12
How Publishers Are Beginning to Battle the Pirates
The Problem of Book Piracy
The Efforts of Publishers to Take Legal Action
Other Strategies to Fight the Pirates
The Growing Difficulty of Battling the Pirates
Some Technological Responses to Piracy
The Growing Call for Alternatives to Piracy
PART III
The Copyright Law and Infringement
CHAPTER 13
The Remedies for Infringement under US Copyright Law
The Remedies for Copyright Infringement
The US Copyright Code with Remedies for Infringement
CHAPTER 14
The Limitations on Liability for Service Providers
CHAPTER 15
Notifying the Infringers and Website Hosts
CHAPTER 16
Copyright Laws Affecting References Sources and Educational Institutions
CHAPTER 17
Making Accurate Takedown Requests and Dealing with Counterclaims
CHAPTER 18
Finding Out the Infringer’s Identity
CHAPTER 19
Stopping the Infringement with an Injunction
PART IV
The Criminal Crackdown on Internet Piracy
CHAPTER 20
The Beginning Criminal Attack On Internet Piracy
CHAPTER 21
The FBI’s Role in Combatting Internet Piracy
CHAPTER 22
How Two Crime Centers Are Taking On the Pirates
CHAPTER 23
How the Bureau of Justice Assistance Is Combatting Piracy
CHAPTER 24
How Still Other Agencies Are Going After the Pirates
CHAPTER 25
Major Accomplishments in the Battle Against Piracy Crimes
CHAPTER 26
Arrests and Convictions for IP Crimes: the Imagine and Ninja Video Cases
CHAPTER 27
Arrests and Convictions of Independent Pirates
PART V
How to Fight the Pirates
CHAPTER 28
Some Strategies to Combat the Internet Book Pirates
CHAPTER 29
What You Can Do if a Victim of Piracy
> CONCLUSION
What’s Next?
APPENDIX
Sending a Takedown Notice
Sites with Pirated Books
Resources And References
Notes
Index
Introduction
INTERNET BOOK PIRACY PROVIDES AN overview of the problem of piracy, which is threatening not only the livelihood of professional writers and the survival of many publishers, but also our culture, since many writers and publishers will stop writing and publishing because they can no longer afford to do so. Piracy has always been with us since the beginnings of writing, as one writer copied the writings of another. Just think of the monks copying manuscripts in the Middle Ages. Later, the development of the printing press made sharing the written word even easier. And in the last decade, the creation of ebooks has perpetrated copying and sharing material, as they can easily be duplicated and shared even when there are digital management locks since these can be broken, and printed books can be readily scanned. Thus piracy has become more rampant than ever, so that many millions of books have been stolen and made available as ebooks or PDFs for free or with payment to the pirates. The cost to individual writers and the book industry has been in the billions of dollars.
This book features twenty-three chapters, which describe:
• The extent and cost of the problem both in the US and globally
• The battles of the music and film industry against piracy
• The slow response of writers and publishers to the problem
• How some publishers have taken the pirates to court and won
• How to find out who the pirates are
• The new tools and weapons in the arsenal to fight pirates
• How the copyright law protects against infringement
• The procedures and penalties provided by copyright law
• What law enforcement is doing to stop the pirates
• How to get pirates to remove your book from their websites
• Ways to protect your material from infringement
• Strategies to use the pirates to monetize your material
• And more
A final section lists resources and major pirate sites, so writers can check if their own books have been illegally posted and report violations to writers, publishers, law enforcement, and the pirate monitoring and takedown services. It also includes various writer organizers, government agencies, and Internet sources to turn to for help.
It begins with a brief introduction to why I was inspired to write this book, followed by a section of interviews, also contained in the documentary series The Battle Against Internet Piracy, which is planned for release to the educational, library, and cable markets in 2016. These include the following:
• representative voices sharing the opinions of writers, self-publishers, and publishers who have been victimized by pirates;
• researchers and students involved in obtaining pirated materials although they don’t call themselves pirates;
• a free-speech advocate discussing the competing claims of free speech and copyright protection;
• an intellectual property lawyer discussing the problems of protecting Internet piracy and finding alternate ways to use piracy to your own advantage;
• and a technology developer offering a platform to help writers and publishers offer their writing and make a profit.
These interviews represent a sampling of the range of experiences and opinions in today’s struggle against the problem of piracy.
Discovering the Problem of Internet Book Piracy
I never thought much about the problem of Internet book piracy until it happened to me about two years ago in the winter of 2013. At the time, I was struggling with the many other problems confronting professional writers, making it harder than ever to make a living, turning more and more writers into a dying breed. One problem is that professional writers are being buried by millions of writers writing books and articles for free, so the value of their own writing goes down. Another problem is that the traditional publishers look to celebrities and well-known authorities with platforms, giving them the six-figure and million-dollar book deals, while the offers to other writers have dried up or provided much smaller advances or nothing upfront, since the publishers themselves are under seige with reduced sales and income. Some publishers have even turned to requiring authors to commit to buying a few thousand books. This high cost far outweighs any advance, if in fact there is one offered. And automated software is now writing simple books and articles, where readers can’t tell the difference. In some research, readers even thought the machine-written content was created by the real writers, and the writing by real writers was created by the machines.
Now book pirates who upload pirated materials or run the piracy sites are earning millions from their work. Though a number of these sites have been shut down over the years by takedown notices and occasional lawsuits, some of the pirates are quick to put up another site under another name, while other pirates simply pick up the slack with new sites. Making the problem even more difficult is that many of these sites are in other countries, so an individual has little hope of enforcing any action. The efforts of law enforcement and lawyers can only go so far because of the high costs, delays, and the number of personnel required to enforce any criminal or civil action. So getting rid of the pirates has become something of a whack-a-mole operation, whereby one pirate goes down only for another to pop up.
Compounding the problem is that piracy has become so rampant. Around 50–70 percent of all ebooks are pirated, and around 40–70 percent of the population in various age groups and countries have engaged in obtaining pirated material—often knowingly, since piracy has become so widespread that it has gained a kind of popular acceptance. Sometimes individuals obtaining pirated material don’t even realize it’s pirated—they just think they have gotten a good deal because they got the book at a much lower price or are delighted to find it available for free.
Many pirates find ways to justify their actions by claiming that piracy really benefits writers, because they are becoming more well-known since they are reaching so many more readers, rather than languishing in obscurity. Or apologists argue that their actions are really affecting sales, because people pirating the books would normally not buy the book anyway, because they can’t afford it or think it costs too much. Then, too, many students justify their actions on the grounds that they are forced to buy hugely overpriced books, sometimes because their professors have written them and they have to buy as a captive audience, so it is only fair for a group of students to join together by splitting the cost of one book that they share with one another.
Still other individuals claim that they are simply sharing books as part of a community, much like one might pass around a hard copy of a book or borrow a book from a library. These people fail to recognize how the Internet has created large “communities” of people who don’t know each other, resulting in many thousands of people gaining access to a book for free. Plus, some argue that writers and publishers should simply adapt to the new technological modalities that have made ebooks the new model for publishing, and figure out new ways to make money from intellectual content—though these new ways are still uncertain—while piracy continues to grow.
Meanwhile, these all represent lost sales and income for the writers and publishers, who are struggling to survive and have taken the time and effort to write or publish the book in the first place. Plus, publishers have staff and office expenses to pay in order to produce the book. But as the income is lost to pirates, writers and publishers may find it unsustainable to keep writing or publishing books, resulting in the loss of these ideas and information, with many writers and publishers turning to other endeavors.
Becoming Aware of the Piracy Problem
I became aware of the piracy problem in early 2013, when I was doing a routine search to see where my name was showing up, since I was up to abo
ut 104,000 results on Google. Lo and behold, on the fourth page was the link announcing after my name: “download free. Electronic library. Finding books. 15+ items.” When I went to the link, I discovered eighteen of my books. With one exception that indicated “link deleted by legal owner,” all of them could be downloaded as PDFs. The website owner didn’t even remove them after I wrote to their support email, stating in the strongest terms:
You do not have my permission or my publisher’s permission to upload any of my books and offer them for free. Please be advised that I am making a copy of your pages, and this is to request that you immediately remove any of my books from your site. You are interfering with my ability to make a living as a writer, as well as with the other writers whose books you have copied on your site and are offering for free. I am also bringing this to the attention of members of ASJA (the American Society of Journalists and Authors) and other writers groups, as well as my attorney who will be in touch with you regarding the penalties for copyright infringement and other applicable offenses.
Even though I got an email back a few hours later saying “removed,” in fact the titles weren’t, since a friend sent me a PDF he downloaded from the site several hours after I got that message.
After that experience, I soon discovered the pervasiveness of this piracy problem, which is seriously undermining the sales of books and the ability of many writers to make a living. For example, a few major sites brag about the millions of books they have for download, often scanned and uploaded at no charge by a community of so-called bibliophiles who think information on the Internet should be free. And there are hundreds of these sites and millions of people downloading free books.
But at the time—and this is still the case—writers and publishers had done little to combat the problem, apart from sending out the occasional takedown notice and a 2012 lawsuit filed by John Wiley against about twenty thousand individuals who pirated some of its Dummies series books. However, as I learned back then, there are numerous ways to actively combat piracy, including filing lawsuits to go after the site owners, uploaders, and downloaders, and reporting the violations to government agencies that can go after the biggest pirates with criminal penalties. And now there are even more strategies, including using an anti-piracy service to send out notices of infringement and collect a small amount of funds for each infringement, like getting a parking ticket, in return for not taking the pirate to court. These services can also contact the web hosting service to take down their website, or notify advertisers to not advertise on known piracy sites.