Wednesday, March 7, 2018

IWSG & Piracy Update

The cohosts this month are Mary Aalgaard, Bish Denham, Jennifer Hawes, Diane Burton, and Gwen Gardner!
How am I feeling at the moment?
Not as stressed as I was a week ago!

Monday night, after a week of torment, iBooks finally pulled my pirated book from their site. As far as I know, all the authors whose books were pirated have been pulled.

Lessons learned from this experience:
  1. If you aren't following yourself on BookBub, do so. That's how I found out my book was on iBooks.
  2. Document the writing of your story as you go along--post little snippets on social media. This helps to document that you're the author because you have a "paper" trail, of sorts.
  3. Introduce your characters over time to your followers, whether on social media or in your newsletter. Once again, it leaves a trail documenting your creation of the book.
I contacted iBooks and asked them what I could provide to help prove my case. I offered screen captures of the numbers 2 and 3 above. I also offered to provide them with a copy of the invoice for my cover, from my two editors, copies of the critiques from my critique partners, emails from my advance review team for the contest I held where they searched for typos, and the contract I have with a narrator to create the audiobook.

I also submitted the copyright paperwork for the book. I will be sure to do that from now on before release.

Have you ever had your material pirated on a legitimate website or *gasp* plagiarized? 
If so, how did you handle it?


26 comments:

  1. Glad they pulled it, and thanks for the tips.

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  2. Glad they pulled yours and other books. Never thought about leaving a paper trail but I will now.

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    1. I hadn't either, but I'm glad I've been doing that.

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  3. Glad you got that resolved. That's terrible that someone pirated your work.

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  4. What an experience! Thanks for the tips on how to plead ones case when/if it happens.

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  5. Wow, Donna. Just wow. I haven't even thought of any of this. I'm glad it's cleared up for you, but sorry you had to go through it. Thank you for sharing what you learned from the experience. I don't believe I'm following myself on Bookbub. Guess I should.

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  6. Thanks for the practical advice on piracy! I'll be more conscientious about "publishing" snippets on my blog and social media, just in case. Sorry this happened to you, but glad you got the pirated version taken down.

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    1. I know, right? I was doing it for my readers. It never occurred to me at the time that it documented my work.

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  7. I'm glad you got that resolved, however, how can you be sure that the pirated book isn't being translated into different languages and sold elsewhere? Or maybe it's just not a worry, since most of your market is on Amazon?

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    1. There's always the piracy risk. My books show up on lots of pirate sites (though they're usually phishing sites that provide viruses and spyware for people who download the fake material). It's when it shows up on a reputable site like iBooks that things get dicey with Amazon since books in KU are supposed to be exclusive to them.

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  8. Why are you trying to convince them and prove anything, why can't you just sue the feckers? I'd take good money from them in the court!

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    1. Because that takes a lawyer and they're expensive. The important thing was to get my book down.

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  9. I never thought to do any of this. How sad. It's not like iBooks is a fly by night site. You'd think they'd be more professional in what they offered.

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    1. Exactly. But then think about all the pirated stuff that ends up on Amazon. And what do you do when someone claims they own the work?

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  10. A paper trail sure is the way to be, at least in this case. If one is doing anything nefarious, maybe not lol Glad they took yours and the others down.

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  11. Thanks for the tips, Donna. I never thought of creating a paper trail on social media.

    Damyanti

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    1. I didn't think of doing it for this reason, that's for sure. :D

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  12. I haven't had that issue, but I've only been published with short stories. Can't imagine having my book pirated though. And I thought iBooks was a good place to get your books out there. Who knew??

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  13. Yikes, I never heard of this before. Glad you brought it up, thanks.

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  14. I was so upset for you. I can hardly believe there are people out there who steal our hard work. Meanieheads. =) Glad to know it's getting cleaned up--and you've done a number of other authors a great service.

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  15. I'm glad they fixed it - that's just awful that it happened in the first place. I don't think it's happened to me, but I will go check.

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Comments brighten my day.

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