Author alert! Illegal downloading problem!

OMG, I just found a site that is providing illegal downloads of my books! It is generals books.com
http://www.general-ebooks.com/book/15...

Fellow authors, you might want to check this site out and see if you too are being violated. I certainly feel violated! They better take my books down!
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Published on May 08, 2014 18:48 Tags: author-problems, copyright-violation, indie-authors, margaret-foxe, self-published
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message 1: by Kaje (last edited May 08, 2014 08:00PM) (new)

Kaje Harper Have you sent them a DMCA notice? That's your only real tool against ebook piracy; many host services respect it, some don't. If you publish ebooks, this will be an ongoing problem. I have a service to send DMCA notices for me, and I've sent out over 300 in the last year. (Put your pen name or title and "torrent" into a search to find many of them. I did a quick check for your book and saw a couple on the first search page.) I don't want to minimize this instance, but I also want to suggest you make a decision about how much energy you plan to put into this. It truly, really sucks, but there is no quick answer.


message 2: by Margaret (new)

Margaret Foxe Thanks for the advice. What service do you use to send these out?


message 3: by Kaje (last edited May 08, 2014 08:05PM) (new)

Kaje Harper I use MUSO; but they aren't free - you have to decide how many takedowns you're going to need monthly. Check it out for a while. Your titles cross-react with a couple better-known works, so some of the torrent downloads I picked up fro your book may be for the movie or other authors. If there are only a couple at a time, sending your own DMCA notices is free, although a bit of a hassle to figure out who to send them to. If you find a dozen at a time, then it may be worth paying for a service. Even the service doesn't find all of them, and many go right back up, so it's a question of how much energy and resources you want to give to the exercise.

I believe MUSO may still have a free one month trial going on. But depending how many books you are selling, paying for take-downs may not make economic sense.


message 4: by Margaret (new)

Margaret Foxe thanks. i will look into that. I did a search and i think i don't have a huge problem. yet. but that could of course change. thanks for your info. it really helped out. I made a DMCA letter and sent it to that website. hopefully they will take my books down!


message 5: by Kaje (last edited May 08, 2014 08:23PM) (new)

Kaje Harper ETA - I did a little more looking, and only a couple of those are likely to be your books, so you may not have the volume to bother with a service. Look up DMCA directions

I also looked up General-ebooks, which has come up in other discussions, and it appears it may be a virus site, not a real book site. A virus site will bring up anything in a search result as a ruse to get you to click on their links, and then infect your computer when you attempt a download. It may not even have your full book there.


message 6: by Margaret (new)

Margaret Foxe Oh, great. Well. I hope I didn't infect my computer sending them takedown notices.


message 7: by Kaje (last edited May 08, 2014 08:28PM) (new)

Kaje Harper Margaret wrote: "Oh, great. Well. I hope I didn't infect my computer sending them takedown notices."

If you didn't try to download your book, you should hopefully be fine. A certain number of pirate sites will also download malware with the book files. Ain't the internet fun?


message 8: by Margaret (new)

Margaret Foxe Well, I guess that means I've "arrived" if people are pirating my books! Thanks for your advice, and btw I love your books! : )


message 9: by Kaje (new)

Kaje Harper Yep, backhanded compliment. And than you :)


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