Support for Indie Authors discussion
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PIRACY - What's In It For You
message 1:
by
[deleted user]
(new)
Apr 16, 2015 07:18AM
I found all of mine there. I'm not sure they can be downloaded; I checked one "free" site a while back and found that any attempt to locate the actual book returned only public domain books with similar titles. Nevertheless, while I was there I flagged them all.
reply
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flag
I'm going to admit that the reason I don't flag my books is that I'm terrified of what could happen to my machine if I visited those sites. Maybe I should see about connecting my old Tungsten back up to the internet.
I found mine on the second link. The first one only allows a search if you give a credit card. So, I guess it's stuck on that one unless anyone can tell me how to bypass that.Thanks for posting this!
Mod
Christina wrote: "I'm going to admit that the reason I don't flag my books is that I'm terrified of what could happen to my machine if I visited those sites. Maybe I should see about connecting my old Tungsten back ..."
I use a program called Sandboxie just for that reason. It isolates your hard drive from the Internet sites you visit. If you pick up a virus, you simply empty the sandbox and it's gone, quickly and easily. It's free and it's safe. I use it all the time except when I want to download something from a known safe site. http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?Do...
I use a program called Sandboxie just for that reason. It isolates your hard drive from the Internet sites you visit. If you pick up a virus, you simply empty the sandbox and it's gone, quickly and easily. It's free and it's safe. I use it all the time except when I want to download something from a known safe site. http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?Do...
Know anything that works for tablets or phones? The only websites my laptop connects to are KDP and Gmail.
Found mine on one of the sites but didn't click the link. I like the way these sites lift reviews off Goodreads to make the whole thing seem respectable.
You can use Comodo firewall with Virtual Kiosk to get a less complicated browser sandbox.
As for the pirates, no suggestions come to mind as I'd guess their complaints 'team' is a hamster. Whatyougonnado?
You can use Comodo firewall with Virtual Kiosk to get a less complicated browser sandbox.
As for the pirates, no suggestions come to mind as I'd guess their complaints 'team' is a hamster. Whatyougonnado?
Mod
Thanks, V,M. I'm still unpublished, but will notify my friends about this.
I'm not sure if the whole thing is a scam trying to take people's credit card info, but i flagged mine too.
I have found two of my titles on these sites...but, yes, although I have good security on my computer and all important files backed up, I still fear entering a possible "virus zone". There will always be those unscrupulous people out there who try to take advantage of others or get something for nothing. I have strong opinions of these sites (which I will keep to myself for reasons of decorum), but wonder how I inadvertently put these files into their hands in the first place since they only have two out of five.
I have a feeling that it is a scam. My book is only available through KDP Select, and I have sold very few copies. I can pretty much trace every single copy I've sold back to someone, but it is up there anyway. Unless they're buying every book on Amazon, there's no way they have mine up there. I noticed something like this weeks ago, as soon as I had published, and had only sold 4 or 5 copies to friends.
Just Groove LLC that's the name of the 'company' that runs urbookdownloads.com or whatever the site is called. They are located in Houston, TX. Can't see what books are on their site, though, without adding credit card info.
Christina wrote: "Know anything that works for tablets or phones? The only websites my laptop connects to are KDP and Gmail."
Sorry, that's above my pay-grade.
Sorry, that's above my pay-grade.
Yeah, a new computer is above mine, hence the work machine only connects to work related sites. But the more I look into this, the more it looks like referring site spam. What that means is that these sites grab your info so that you get a google alert, or you aearch your name, see something like this and click, then who knows what happens to your device. Not gonna go there. :/
I'm pretty sure the whole thing is a scam to get CC information.The 3rd book in my series is listed as available to download. A book that hasn't been published yet and is only on GR with the cover and blurb.
I'd suggest staying away from the site altogether as it's unlikely they have your books.
Maybe I'm kind of a jerk, but if you're paying a shady source $30 to read 'free' books in a world where Kindle Unlimited and Scribd exist... I'll allow you all to finish that sentence in your own words.
Mod
I'll allow you all to finish that sentence in your own..."
Here's your sign?
Reminds me of the scene from Casablanca, "Parasites, parasites everywhere," he says as he lifts the gentleman's wallet and departs.
"I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to find out there is gambling here!"
"Your winnings, sir."
"Your winnings, sir."
It's like the wild west man.....It is the same for music and movies...you can get anything for free but it usually comes with a virus....Cheap results :/ Very sad!
V.M. wrote: "Lol... there seems to be an entire industry of parasites that prey on indie authors. You can't sneeze these days without finding a business that wants to "take your writing to the next level..."
I once moved my office upstairs. Does that count? ;-)
V.M. wrote: "That depends Owen, did you have to pay yourself to do it? Were you guaranteed a bestseller when you were done? If do, you may have taken advantage... Of yourself."
No and no. And then the air conditioner up there gave out, so I had to take my writing back downstairs. I actually considered going all the way to the basement at one point, but I decided not to stoop that low. ;-)
V.M. wrote: "I beg to differ sir, basement writing is usually quite entertaining. Plus easier access to the Devil for selling one's soul when you really, really need to make the bestseller list;)"You may have a point there. Perhaps I should rethink that.
I wish I had a basement to write in. :( That would be the perfect atmosphere for me. Scratch that, I need a secret lair somewhere in the bowels of a cave deep beneath the earth.
In the spirit of keeping on topic, Piracy is inevitable once you reach a certain level of success. As long as I wasn't eating cottage cheese for dinner every night, I would consider it a compliment.
Looks like that booksonline.website link is having some trouble this morning. And running on a CentOS server? Sheesh! Here is the result of a bit of detective work. Looks like these guys are hosting with a company named Digital Ocean. Or at least they were - maybe they're moving.[root@infra2009-fw ~]# host booksonline.website
booksonline.website has address 104.236.205.108
[root@infra2009-fw ~]# whois 104.236.205.108
[Querying whois.arin.net]
[whois.arin.net]
#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at: https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html
#
# If you see inaccuracies in the results, please report at
# http://www.arin.net/public/whoisinacc...
#
#
# Query terms are ambiguous. The query is assumed to be:
# "n 104.236.205.108"
#
# Use "?" to get help.
#
#
# The following results may also be obtained via:
# http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=104...
#
NetRange: 104.236.0.0 - 104.236.255.255
CIDR: 104.236.0.0/16
NetName: DIGITALOCEAN-10
NetHandle: NET-104-236-0-0-1
Parent: NET104 (NET-104-0-0-0-0)
NetType: Direct Allocation
OriginAS: AS393406, AS14061, AS62567, AS46652
Organization: Digital Ocean, Inc. (DO-13)
RegDate: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Comment: http://www.digitalocean.com
Comment: Simple Cloud Hosting
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-10...
OrgName: Digital Ocean, Inc.
OrgId: DO-13
Address: 101 Ave of the Americas
Address: 10th Floor
City: New York
StateProv: NY
PostalCode: 10013
Country: US
RegDate: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2014-10-23
Comment: http://www.digitalocean.com
Comment: Simple Cloud Hosting
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/DO-13
OrgTechHandle: NOC32014-ARIN
OrgTechName: Network Operations Center
OrgTechPhone: +1-347-875-6044
OrgTechEmail: noc@digitalocean.com
OrgTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NOC320...
OrgAbuseHandle: URETS-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Uretsky, Ben
OrgAbusePhone: +1-646-397-8051
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@digitalocean.com
OrgAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/URETS-...
OrgNOCHandle: NOC32014-ARIN
OrgNOCName: Network Operations Center
OrgNOCPhone: +1-347-875-6044
OrgNOCEmail: noc@digitalocean.com
OrgNOCRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NOC320...
OrgTechHandle: URETS-ARIN
OrgTechName: Uretsky, Ben
OrgTechPhone: +1-646-397-8051
OrgTechEmail: abuse@digitalocean.com
OrgTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/URETS-...
OrgTechHandle: SOCHA-ARIN
And here is the scoop on tzarmedia.com:[root@infra2009-fw ~]# whois tzarmedia.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.enom.com]
[Querying whois.enom.com]
[whois.enom.com]
Domain Name: TZARMEDIA.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1749703531_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.enom.com
Registrar URL: www.enom.com
Updated Date: 2015-04-09T08:43:09.00Z
Creation Date: 2012-10-03T20:25:05.00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015-10-03T20:25:00.00Z
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Registrar IANA ID: 48
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@enom.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4252982646
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: TZAR MEDIA
Registrant Organization: -
Registrant Street: 538 WEST 21ST STREET
Registrant Street: #77490
Registrant City: HOUSTON
Registrant State/Province: TX
Registrant Postal Code: 77008-3642
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.3023195112
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: INFO@TZARMEDIA.COM
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: TZAR MEDIA
Admin Organization: -
Admin Street: 538 WEST 21ST STREET
Admin Street: #77490
Admin City: HOUSTON
Admin State/Province: TX
Admin Postal Code: 77008-3642
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone: +1.3023195112
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: INFO@TZARMEDIA.COM
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: TZR MEDIA
Tech Organization: -
Tech Street: 538 WEST 21ST STREET
Tech Street: #77490
Tech City: HOUSTON
Tech State/Province: TX
Tech Postal Code: 77008-3642
Tech Country: US
Tech Phone: +1.3023195112
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: INFO@TZARMEDIA.COM
Name Server: A1.VERISIGNDNS.COM
Name Server: A2.VERISIGNDNS.COM
Name Server: A3.VERISIGNDNS.COM
Name Server: U1.VERISIGNDNS.COM
Name Server: U2.VERISIGNDNS.COM
DNSSEC: unSigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
Last update of WHOIS database: 2015-04-09T08:43:09.00Z
I've seen that my first book was pirated and, even though my second book was only published 3 days ago, it's listed as well. Of course I will not enter their site to be sure, but it's easy enough to steal our work.Reputable people won't support pirates and those who do buy from them probably wouldn't actually think of paying anyway, so I'm not sure if we actually lose sales. This seems to be the opinion of Hachette Books as well—at least according to an associate with whom I worked this past year.
Greg wrote: "Looks like that booksonline.website link is having some trouble this morning. And running on a CentOS server? Sheesh! Here is the result of a bit of detective work. Looks like these guys are hos..."You are so close to the truth you only need to google query the words (Digitalocean amazon marketplace) and look inside the bottom link of page one ["Internal error" on mws calls-? amazon seller forums] digitalocean is a server while booksonline is an amazon affiliate, it is part of the two million affiliates world wide driving people to amazon for business.
Greg wrote: "And here is the scoop on tzarmedia.com:[root@infra2009-fw ~]# whois tzarmedia.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.enom.com]
[Querying whois.enom.com]
[whois.enom.com]
Dom..."
Huh ... They're like, 15 minutes away from me.
V.M. wrote: "Hey SIA members, I have to bring to your attention the glory that is PIRACY.What is PIRACY you ask?
Well it's when you steal and list Indie Author books FOR FREE on your various websites and allo..."
urbookdownload is a book search engine it obviously buys from amazon as well as other places. just google query the words (urbookdownload. com amazon marketplace) see the top link for page five its description reads: urbookdownloads. com/mechanical-and-electrical-equipment-for-buildin...
Apr 6, 2015 - Yes, I want FREE Two-Day Shipping with Amazon Prime. Posted on April 6, ... EquipmentMine - New and Used Mining Equipment Marketplace.
> Tzarmedia is legitimate...OK, and thanks for engaging with this group of hard working, sleep deprived authors. What does Tzarmedia do and why should indie authors have a positive opinion about you?
TzarMedia wrote: "Dear SIA members,We appreciate you taking time to share your concerns.
Tzarmedia is legitimate and holds licenses for all content sourced from its many media providers.
If you have discovered t..."
Could you perhaps tell us where you are geting your content from? I've not come across any distribution channel that has your site listed as a client. If the authors who are finding their works on your site have not entered into a contract with you either directly or through a third party, then what you are doing is in fact, engaging in piracy.
...and if I Play, Watch, Read and Listen to content on your site, how is the author who produced the content compensated?And what ability do authors have to decide if their work can be played, watched, read, or listened to on your site?
Mod
Oh wow - Just do a Google search for "tzarmedia legit." I stumbled across two Youtube videos with glowing, gushing testimonials. I wanted to leave a comment and ask the producer of the glowing reviews if the TzarMedia site mentions anywhere how it acquires its content. But it seems comments are disabled in these gushing testimonial videos. Makes me want to say, hmmmmmm.TzarMedia - hopefully you're listening. You may have poked a grizzly bear a few minutes ago. It would be in your best interest to provide credible answers the questions posed above and engage in a meaningful dialog here.
This is interesting. Looking at a few more sites from my little Google search - it seems TzarMedia copies and pastes the same content in response to complaints. Makes me wonder if the whole thing is automated.https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/tz...
Here's another one with a couple of user comments. AVG is an antivirus company and reviews websites for malware. No malware found, just bad feedback from TzarMedia customers.
http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/ww-en/we...
- Greg
Hey V.M - I'd vote to not remove TzarMedia yet. At least give them a couple hours to respond with something meaningful. They probably won't, but at least give them the chance. Another thought - by now the SIA group has several hundred authors, right? This group could be a force to be reckoned with. If these guys really are ripping off our content, maybe it makes sense to take a stand. By definition, this group knows how to communicate - maybe we should do some public communicating. Or some legal communicating. Could be good for business too.
- Greg
I marked this with a delivery receipt and read receipt. The delivery receipt just came in. Feel free to use/modify what I put together below as you see fit.From: Greg Scott
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 11:12 AM
To: 'info@tzarmedia.com'
Subject: I do not grant you permission to offer access to my book, "Bullseye Breach" on your web site
Dear TzarMedia and related companies –
It has recently come to my attention that you may be offering public access to material that belongs to me. If so, I will ask you to immediately remove any reference to my book titled, “Bullseye Breach – Anatomy of an Electronic Breakin” Please delete and erase all electronic copies you have, as well as any copies on backup media or other form, in any TzarMedia location anywhere. Also please delete and erase any electronic copies from any other entity related to TzarMedia.
I never granted you permission to distribute my content. I will further ask you to compensate me, the author, $6.94 for every “Bullseye Breach” eBook previously downloaded from your site, along with a full and professionally audited accounting of downloads of my book.
I note in your website, https://www.tzarmedia.com/terms, several paragraphs of hoops you want authors you have infringed to jump through to gain your attention. I have no intention of jumping through your hoops. I’m the author of “Bullseye Breach,” I own the content, and I decide who has the right to distribute it. Not you.
I fully expect this email will quickly find its way into an administrative black hole and never see the light of day inside TzarMedia. If I am correct, I will then evaluate the next legal steps available to me.
Greg Scott
Infrasupport Corporation
GregScott@Infrasupport.com
Direct 1-651-260-1051
Watch for “Bullseye Breach,” a story ripped from the headlines about yet another major data breach.
Except this time, the good guys fight back.
Available from booksellers everywhere.
Check out http://www.bullseyebreach.com
Just so this is documented somewhere in public:From: Microsoft Outlook
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 11:13 AM
To: Greg Scott
Subject: Relayed: I do not grant you permission to offer access to my book, "Bullseye Breach" on your web site
Your message
To: 'info@tzarmedia.com'
Subject: I do not grant you permission to offer access to my book, "Bullseye Breach" on your web site
Sent: 7/9/2015 11:12 AM
was delivered to the following recipient(s):
'info@tzarmedia.com' on 7/9/2015 11:13 AM
This might get good. Here's some dialog.From: Greg Scott
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 11:34 AM
To: 'mediarelations@tzarmedia.com'
Subject: RE: Response to your email.
It appears that I need to sign up as a member of your website first before I can search for content. I'm not going to do that. And it's not my job to police your site. That's your job. Until you gain my permission, it's your job to make sure my content stays off your site. If you want to gain my permission, then please provide meaningful answers to these questions posed by a group of independent authors. Also, be aware that I will post your answers in a public forum and that more questions may be forthcoming:
Please produce your signed contract from Amazon which identifies you as an affiliate or allows you to redirect clients to the Amazon purchase pages.
Please identify how I am to be compensated for purchases of my material through your website.
Provide written contractual information confirming my willing participation in providing my content for your members.
Please identify how these downloads are tracked.
Please provide meaningful explanations for every scam-related post we've seen for your business.
Please provide a contact name, title & phone number for your "Media Relation(s?)" department.
Please tell us why you're legitimate. Better yet, prove it.
- Greg
Greg Scott
Infrasupport Corporation
GregScott@Infrasupport.com
Direct 1-651-260-1051
Watch for “Bullseye Breach,” a story ripped from the headlines about yet another major data breach.
Except this time, the good guys fight back.
Available from booksellers everywhere.
Check out http://www.bullseyebreach.com
-----Original Message-----
From: mediarelations@tzarmedia.com [mailto:mediarelations@tzarmedia.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 11:25 AM
To: Greg Scott
Subject: Response to your email.
Hey greg,
We got your email you sent over to info@tzarmedia.com.
I had a few questions if you can help us our.
Where did you see the content Bullseye Breach? What url specifically?
Let us know we will handle this case asap.
Thanks,
Tzarmedia
How do I click "like"? I really did laugh out loud.ya know - if 2400+ authors send similar emails, it might make a good statement.
How did you even know they had your book? Don't you have to join to search their catalogue?
Mod
No clue if these guys have my book or not. But it seems to me, if a class action lawsuit ever comes up, it might be good to have public documentation that we told them they don't have our permission to distribute our work until they provide satisfactory answers to our questions.- Greg
Let's give credit where credit is due. TzarMedia is interacting. Here's the latest.From: Greg Scott
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 2:33 PM
To: 'mediarelations@tzarmedia.com'
Subject: RE: Response to your email.
Thank you for your responses. And I'll confirm, I was not able to find any reference to my book, "Bullseye Breach" on any site that looks like it belongs to TzarMedia with a Google search. I found this one that looks like a repository for malware:
http://kickass-torrent.ytsre.eu/bulls...
This site looks phishy:
https://sanet.me/blogs/best4you12/bul...
So does this one:
https://onlybooks.org/bullseye-breach...
Perhaps, as a further gesture of goodwill, you can lead the fight to shut down these scam sites and help independent authors continue to produce valuable content.
Some of your answers below are not satisfying. And since I'm apparently not personally on the hook, and this will all go in a public forum, I'll modify a couple of the questions and post your answers back in the relevant Goodreads thread where this all started.
Please describe how content producers are compensated for purchases of their material through your website.
Please describe how you acquire content and how content producers grant permission for you to provide their content for your members.
And one of my own - why the questionable, glowing Youtube testimonial videos with comments disabled? See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPy0u...
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWrfb...
- Greg
Greg Scott
Infrasupport Corporation
GregScott@Infrasupport.com
Direct 1-651-260-1051
Watch for “Bullseye Breach,” a story ripped from the headlines about yet another major data breach.
Except this time, the good guys fight back.
Available from booksellers everywhere.
Check out http://www.bullseyebreach.com
-----Original Message-----
From: mediarelations@tzarmedia.com [mailto:mediarelations@tzarmedia.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 1:01 PM
To: Greg Scott
Subject: RE: Response to your email.
Hello Mr. Scott,
I would first like to apologize for this situation, and offer my thanks to you for reaching out to us. I've done my best to answer your questions below.
- "Please produce your signed contract from Amazon which identifies you as an affiliate or allows you to redirect clients to the Amazon purchase pages."
We cannot publicly provide details of any signed contracts due to confidentiality agreements we have signed with our publishers. I can promise that all of our content is fully licensed and legal to distribute.
- "Please identify how I am to be compensated for purchases of my material through your website."
We checked for “Bullseye Breach” and there is no such book on our service. Attached you'll find the results of our search for “Bullseye Breach” within our service, which turned up no results.
- "Provide written contractual information confirming my willing participation in providing my content for your members."
As stated above, we do not provide your content (“Bullseye Breach”) to our members, and so there is no contractual information to show.
- "Please identify how these downloads are tracked."
We do not offer downloads, but we do keep track of how many times particular pieces of content are accessed from within our site.
- "Please provide meaningful explanations for every scam-related post we've seen for your business."
We have not had a media relations team or a social media presence in our
3 years of operations. This oversight has resulted in a large backlog of negative press that we are currently working to address. Moving forward, all complaints will be handled quickly and appropriately.
Incidentally, this is why we have been using boilerplate responses. It is the fastest way to respond to complaints, although admittedly, not the most appropriate. We apologize for this, and promise to do better in future.
- "Please provide a contact name, title & phone number for your "Media Relation(s?)" department."
There are several people on TzarMedia’s media relations team. You may email us at mediarelations@tzarmedia.com.
- "Please tell us why you're legitimate. Better yet, prove it."
Here is a response we drafted to post on Goodreads shortly before admins banned us from the page. This will hopefully clear some things up for you and for others:
---
Hello everyone,
We apologize for any confusion or distress this situation has caused any of you, and would like to extend our thanks to Goodreads for giving us the opportunity to respond to your concerns. We can respond to each individual case separately, but it seems most constructive to first address your general concerns about the credibility of our site.
All of the content on TzarMedia.com is fully licensed and legal. This we can guarantee. Unfortunately, as you probably realize, we cannot post contractual details online for confidentiality reasons. What we can do is answer individual questions about whether your book does indeed appear on our site. Here’s an explanation of the most likely cause of your concerns:
TzarMedia advertises through many different traffic sources. Our advertisers are provided with a strict set of guidelines on how our service should — and should NOT — be advertised. From time to time, unscrupulous advertisers will ignore our guidelines and modify the ads we provide to display content we do not have license to distribute, in order to trick people into signing up for our service. Falsely advertising unlicensed books is an underhanded method that a small minority of advertisers use to increase their conversion rates and the payouts they receive from TzarMedia. This is bad for our business and our reputation, it’s bad for our customers who believe they’re signing up for one thing but in fact getting something else, and it’s bad for content producers in general, who are left with concerns that their intellectual property rights have been infringed upon. We apologize sincerely for this, and promise to put a stop to it as soon as we can.
If you have seen your work advertised illegally in connection with our service, it is likely that the title of your book has been used by an advertiser to increase their traffic and conversions. We need to identify the people who are doing this. To do this expeditiously, it would be tremendously helpful if you could provide us with a list of the sites where you have seen your books advertised, so we can identify the offending affiliates and remove them from our list of advertisers. We will of course be investigating this ourselves, too.
Please address your concerns to mediarelations@tzarmedia.com. We will examine all claims individually. Each claim will take about 2-3 days to process. As an online content provider, intellectual property rights are extremely important to us. Without the work of content creators like you, we wouldn’t have a business. We apologize sincerely for any distress caused by this situation, and promise to continue improving our service and methods of monitoring how our site is advertised. We can, and will, do better.
Sincerely,
Media Relations Department
TzarMedia
mediarelations@tzarmedia.com
---
If you could provide us with a link to the site or sites falsely advertising “Bullseye Breach” as part of our service, we can remove them from our list of advertisers. Since we work with hundreds of traffic sources, we want to make sure none are using your copyrighted material, even in name. This request could take 2-3 days to process. Again, we extend our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this situation has caused, and encourage other writers to reach out to us if they have any concerns whatsoever in connection with our site.
Sincerely,
Media Relations Department
TzarMedia
mediarelations@tzarmedia.com
On 2015-07-09 12:33, Greg Scott wrote:
> It appears that I need to sign up as a member of your website first
> before I can search for content. I'm not going to do that. And it's
> not my job to police your site. That's your job. Until you gain my
> permission, it's your job to make sure my content stays off your site.
> If you want to gain my permission, then please provide meaningful
> answers to these questions posed by a group of independent authors.
> Also, be aware that I will post your answers in a public forum and
> that more questions may be forthcoming:
>
> Please produce your signed contract from Amazon which identifies you
> as an affiliate or allows you to redirect clients to the Amazon
> purchase pages.
>
> Please identify how I am to be compensated for purchases of my
> material through your website.
>
> Provide written contractual information confirming my willing
> participation in providing my content for your members.
>
> Please identify how these downloads are tracked.
>
> Please provide meaningful explanations for every scam-related post
> we've seen for your business.
>
> Please provide a contact name, title & phone number for your "Media
> Relation(s?)" department.
>
> Please tell us why you're legitimate. Better yet, prove it.
>
>
> - Greg
>
> Greg Scott
> Infrasupport Corporation
> GregScott@Infrasupport.com
>
> Direct 1-651-260-1051
>
> Watch for “Bullseye Breach,” a story ripped from the headlines about
> yet another major data breach.
> Except this time, the good guys fight back.
> Available from booksellers everywhere.
> Check out http://www.bullseyebreach.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mediarelations@tzarmedia.com
> [mailto:mediarelations@tzarmedia.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 11:25 AM
> To: Greg Scott
> Subject: Response to your email.
>
> Hey greg,
>
> We got your email you sent over to info@tzarmedia.com.
>
> I had a few questions if you can help us our.
>
> Where did you see the content Bullseye Breach? What url specifically?
>
> Let us know we will handle this case asap.
>
> Thanks,
> Tzarmedia
Yes. Engaging with the community is a good thing. Perhaps an enterprising reporter might want to do a great story about independent authors and the power of social media.On responsibility - let's say I want to advertise my website. I pick an ad agency and we get started. But then, let's say my ad agency starts spamming and scamming people in my name. The only way I'll find out about it is if somebody tells me what's going on.
But once I get a whiff of evidence, it's on me to get to the bottom of it, bang some heads and make things right with the community I serve.
So if TzarMedia earns its credibility and asks this community to be its partner for the common good, that's one thing. But if it gets arrogant and demands this group do all its legwork, that's different.
For the TzarMedia folks watching this thread - here's your chance to mend fences.
Ya know - as I think about this, one great way to mend fences is to contribute a huge pot of money to a nonprofit. Maybe there's a charity that helps to groom young writers. Or a nonprofit that promotes indie authors.
- Greg
Way cool on the SIA website! Meantime, here's the latest in the ongoing dialog.From: Greg Scott
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 3:26 PM
To: 'mediarelations@tzarmedia.com'
Subject: RE: [SPAM] RE: Response to your email.
OK, thanks. As I promised, I'll post what you said below. On removing "Bullseye Breach" from the offending websites I mentioned, I doubt they even have a copy. My guess is, they're social engineering sites to entice unsuspecting buyers into downloading malware. But then, I get paid to be paranoid.
- Greg
Greg Scott
Infrasupport Corporation
GregScott@Infrasupport.com
Direct 1-651-260-1051
Watch for “Bullseye Breach,” a story ripped from the headlines about yet another major data breach.
Except this time, the good guys fight back.
Available April 19, 2015.
Check out http://www.bullseyebreach.com
-----Original Message-----
From: mediarelations@tzarmedia.com [mailto:mediarelations@tzarmedia.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 3:11 PM
To: Greg Scott
Subject: Re: [SPAM] RE: Response to your email.
Importance: Low
Hello Mr. Scott,
Thank you for your email. We will begin reaching out to the offending websites at once to see what we can do about having your book removed from them. This could take a few days, so please be patient.
Thank you for relaying our message to the GoodReads forum. We would prefer to be able to respond directly, if possible, so we are going to wait a couple of days to see if they relent and allow us to speak for ourselves before answering any more questions.
In the meantime, we will keep you posted on the status of “Bullseye Breach.”
Sincerely,
Media Relations Department
TzarMedia
(** Greg Scott: I removed the rest of the email string since it's been duplicated several times... - Greg **)
Previous two posts deleted as incomprehensible spam.
