e-Book piracy refers to the unauthorized copying and distribution of digital books, often resulting in lost sales and revenue for the authors and publishers. This is a significant issue in the digital age, where books can be easily copied and distributed online through various channels such as torrent sites, file-sharing platforms, and social media.
Piracy can have a severe impact on authors and publishers, who rely on sales to support their livelihoods and fund future projects. Piracy can also lead to reduced investment in new and innovative content, as publishers may be less willing to take risks on new authors or ideas if they fear that their works will be illegally distributed.
Also, it isn’t just the financial aspect but there is also the moral aspect to it as well. After all, it is your emotions, your feeling, and your thoughts that you had expressed in words. With all of these being so intricately related to you, it is all but natural to expect exclusive rights to your own creation. So, it’s understandable to have feelings of anger, helplessness, fear, and whatnot at the first sight of your book being offered somewhere for free without you being in the loop.
However, instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching things happen on their own won’t help either. For there are a lot of things that you can and must do if you come across the dreadful yet common scenario of your e-book being pirated. Read on to find out more.
Get in touch with the site owner
As Dave Chesson pointed out on Kindlepreneur, one of the easiest as well as the most underestimated method of dealing with e-book piracy is to get in touch with them directly and bring the issue to their notice. Sometimes, they are just petty thieves out for a quick buck or is just a novice in the business. Just the thought that they have been caught is unnerving enough for them to comply with your request of removing your title from their catalog.
Unfortunately, those who might have been into this for a long and have become hardened players usually operate in stealth mode. That is they don’t have their contact info mentioned on their websites, or even if there is, that likely is going to be flimsy at best. However, fret not as there sure are ways to deal with those in such a scenario. Read on.
Get in touch with the hosting company
The hosting companies are the ones who own the servers where such websites are hosted. They are more likely to pay heed to your pleas as it is imperative for them to host only those websites that operate on the right side of the law. They risk being shut down or driven out of business if found to host sites engaged in dubious activities, such as hosting illegal copies of books.
One way to trace the hosting companies is via the website ‘Whois’. Then, on the website of the host, look for ways to get in touch with them. It can be a ‘Contact US’ or a ‘Report Abuse’ page that you should be looking for. When you have hit upon a communication channel, make the most of it. Make your stand clear by including all the relevant facts. Mention the specific book that is being sold illegally as well as the URL of the site selling the pirated copy.
Tell them that getting in touch with the site operators did not yield any results and that your next step will be to file a DMCA takedown notice if your current pleas go unheeded.
Get in touch with the registrar
The above mentioned steps aren’t likely to lead to any solution if the site has its own hosting service. In that case, the best thing to do will be to get in touch with the registrar since they can’t have it of their own. Also, you can locate the registrar by looking up on the ‘Whois’ website where you can come across the registrar abuse contact number or email address. Put forth your case to them and make it clear that you will be forced to file a DMCA takedown notice if necessary steps aren’t taken.
File a DMCA takedown notice
If all of your actions so far have failed to yield the desired result, it perhaps is time to put to action what you have been threatening all along, that of filing a DCMA notice. For starters, DCMA which stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act happens to be a US copyright law that ‘criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works.’
The point to note here is that almost all hosting services or registrars have a page that can be used for submitting a DCMA. The easiest way to locate the DCMA page you are looking for is to do an online search for the same. Just type the name of the company along with the term ‘DCMA’ and that should do the trick. In the unlikely scenario of the particular company lacking a DCMA, create your own and send it to them, or their legal cell, if they have one.
Ask Google for content removal
Sending a DCMA notice is very much the maximum that you can do to redress your situation. It also is one that is most likely to lead to the desired solution, that is removal of the pirated copy of your e-book from their site. Even then there is something more that you can and should do, that of asking Google to remove such content from their search results. For this, you have to submit a Google URL request. This is important since even if the particular content has been taken down, it could be a while before the change is actually reflected as the information could still be lying in their cache. Filing the Google URL request will remove such outdated content from Google search results.
Lastly
One thing to keep in mind is that e-book piracy has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. With the rise of digital books and the ease with which they can be copied and distributed online, many authors and publishers have struggled to combat piracy and protect their intellectual property. While it’s true that piracy can be a frustrating issue for authors, it’s important to remember that you are not alone to be bogged down with the piracy bug, nor are you the first or the last to be dealing with it.
As such it is important to keep your calm and deal with it in a more pragmatic manner. It is also important to keep in mind that piracy is not always a sign of malicious intent or disrespect for an author’s work. In some cases, readers may share e-books with friends or family members in the same way that they would lend a physical book. While this may technically constitute piracy, it is not necessarily harmful to the author’s sales or reputation.
Maybe the best way for authors to combat piracy is to focus on creating high-quality, engaging content that readers are willing to pay for. By building a strong brand and establishing a loyal readership, authors can minimize the impact of piracy and continue to thrive in a competitive publishing industry. At the same time, it is also important to ensure the law takes its own course. It is never a good idea to let thieves to get away with their act unopposed.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
