Pirate Queen Retires
Posted on June 12, 2010
A few times a week, I go pirate-hunting.
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it!
I spend a few hours Googling my name, checking out links to free file-sharing sites, and sending out cease and desist notices.
Usually, the links are removed within 24 hours. Yay me!
Yeah, right.
The truth is, I probably only catch about 1/4 to 1/3 of the links that are actually out there available to download in the first place. (Probably less!)
And of course, they’re back up 48-72 hours after that. The pirates all say ARGH! (I mean, they say: “Would you please re-up?”) and the link goes back on RapidShare or MegaUpload or Plunder…
And the whole thing starts all over.
It’s like putting a band-aid on an artery.
Granted, I’ll admit, piracy kind of pisses me off. I have taken it pretty personally. I mean, WTH? You’re taking my book and you didn’t even ask me? Dude! Hence all the Googling and letter writing and craziness I obsessively undertake every week.
But frankly, I’m exhausted.
And J.A Konrath gave me a good reason recently to give myself a much-needed break.
Konrath decided to give a book away for free, as a piracy experiment, to see if it would impact his book sales. He’s not the first to think of this. Lots of people have done it before him. Baen did it ten years ago. It’s basically a marketing gimmick. A good one, but still, a gimmick. It’s the classic “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” philosophy.
Me, I don’t have to give books away free. I’m one of the most-pirated (living) erotic authors on the Internet. My books are being pirated all over the place. Go ahead, Google “Selena Kitt” and “Torrent”. I’ll wait. See?
I stem the tide a few times a week, but it doesn’t stop the deluge for long. It’s like trying to kill cockroaches with a Barbie shoe.
So while everyone is giving books away free to “prove” or “disprove” that piracy is “good” or “bad” – and trying to up their sales by doing so (come on, guys, I’m pretty generous in that department – I already give away a bunch of good free reads)…
Me, I’m just giving up.
That’s right – the pirates “win.” I’m putting away my sword. No more pirate hunts for me!
So that’s MY piracy experiment. Let’s see if doing NOTHING AT ALL will impact my sales numbers.
Babysitting the Baumgartners is the #2 bestseller in Amazon Erotica this week. All you’ll need to do is watch the ranking. Up or down? Hm, I wonder…
I heard Jason Mraz encourages his audience to bootleg his live performances. I love him. Especially his live performances. And I own several of them. Bootlegged. It’s true, I’m a pirate.
Maybe this video’s got it right after all?
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I’d say it will not increase. I mean, they are already pirated, it’s not about having the permission at all. But, it will probably not decrease either.
Some people say that if you don’t actively defend your copyright constantly that you could lose the right to defend it. I’ve looked all over the place and can’t find this anywhere legit, so I’m wondering if it’s an old wive’s tale or a specific situation taken completely out of context. They mentioned something about JK Rowling.
The way I see it, that’s blaming the victim. What GOOD does it do to send cease and desist letters and waste my time, which further hurts my income because it’s time I could have dedicated to writing more or marketing more… when 24 hours later it’s BACK UP there? If we don’t have firmer laws in place that actually PROTECT us… then why would we LOSE our copyright rights just because we refuse to continue to participate in this asinine fight we aren’t given the tools to win?
I guess you could start personally suing everyone you catch pirating you… you would be within your rights. But then somehow you’re seen as the ‘asshole author’ for trying to defend your rights. The way I see it, assholey or not, if enough pirates get hauled into court and lose a lot of money, people will look to BUY it first, rather than risk being one of the people made an example of.
Also… I’ve seen your name a lot around the Internet and have heard good things about you. I’m going to have to check you out. You had an ebook, I think, that was either about Persephone or Poseidon (it was a P word) I think it was something like “Persephone’s Surrender”.
I heard it was really good. But I can’t find it on Amazon Kindle.
Another thought… I think one reason it’s so hard to crack down on piracy is because punishments are so large when they actually do get put into effect. To most people they seem way out of scope with what was done and so it isn’t taken seriously enough to strongly fight.
What if piracy was like speeding? If you got caught pirating you had to pay maybe a $200 fine. (with the fine being much higher if what you were pirating was expensive software that already costs more than that) It would be REALLY annoying and cut into the pirate’s income, but it would make it easier to take care of. Maybe the fine could be split between the government and the author. That way there is a motivation for a group of law enforcement to chase down these “cybercriminals”.
If there was a REALLY good chance that if you pirate something you’d be forced to pay a $200 fine, then it seems fairly logical to me, most people would just buy the book if they wanted it since it’s much much cheaper.
Then authors would cease being financially harmed by piracy, both because it would go down, and because pirates who did it anyway and got fined would benefit the author.
See? There are sane solutions to this that don’t include $250,000 fines and prison sentences. No one wants to implement them, either because they haven’t thought it all the way through yet, or they’re too lazy. It took me 5 minutes to come up with that, and I think it would definitely be a workable solution.
Zoe,
The solutions, you’re correct, are quite simple. So why haven’t they been implemented?
Could be because e-piracy (esp in respect to ebooks) has been so small that it isn’t on the radar of larger corporations. Once the Big Boys start getting (more) involved, a solution like yours may be implemented.
Or it could be something else entirely…
As for The Surrender of Persephone – yep, it was previously published through Phaze. It will be published with Excessica July 30, 2010.
Zoe, it’s trademarks, images and phrases, that you have to defend. I’ve never known laches* to attach to copyright. Coca Cola and Disney ferociously protect their trademarked images, slogan, etc. Coca Cola used to collect all of the trademark cases they won in a book which was donated free to law school libraries.
*laches is an old term that refers to an equitable defense. Equity is a moral assertion as opposed to a legal assertion. The two courts used to be different. The Courts of Equity were first administered by the church where issues involving the clergy or church property were tried. The Court of Law were administered by the Crown. This is probably more than you want to know, but you can probably get a better understanding if you Google the term.
Selena, YAY! I can’t wait. Will it be on the Kindle do you think? I heard about the book when it first came out, but I didn’t have an e-reader then. Now I do and I remember reading an excerpt. It was amazing!
Arachne,thanks! That puts my mind at ease. I’d hate to think I’d lose the right to defend my copyright if I didn’t waste every single day of my life chasing after pirates online with cease and desist letters.
Make sure you register your document with the US Copyright Office if you want to take full advantages of the protections of the law. It is the only way you can recover damages if you sue for infringement, besides it creates a public record. Harlequin used to not register they works and I know of two authors who had their work plagiarized and could not recoup attorney fees and damages because the work was not registered by the publisher.
Hey Arachne,
I always formally register my copyright with the copyright office. I just didn’t know the tradmark/copyright distinction for weakening. Thank you!
Honestly I hate pirates. I think whether is songs, movies or books, the people involved creating it should be paid. Btw, just bought Under Nolan’s Bed and will be reading it soon
Selma,
I sympathize with the plight of authors, esp. those selling their works on the net. Intellectual piracy is a HUGH Problem. It is even worse for movies and music. I know someone who was offered a copy of Avatar during its opening week in the theater.
I am curious though. I received your email about goodreads. Most of the stories you are trying to sell are already on Literotica for free. Are the versions sold different than the ones posted there? Seems you are competing with yourself. Please enlighten me.
DOC226
Yep, I leave up several “teaser” chapters of my erotic work at Lit, where I began writing them. But all that’s available for free are just a few chapters of longer works.