Why is it that people think that when something is on the internet, it should be free? Don’t people realise that they are stealing when they download a book for free that other people legitimately pay for?
And why is it that an author can do very little to prevent this from happening?
Sorry, but I had to start this blogpost with a bit of a rant. Recently I have discovered that one of my books is available to download from an illegal site. This means that I don’t receive any royalties when someone downloads my book, which is obviously not what I want.
Writing books is my work and by selling them I earn money to pay my rent and buy food. I am selling my books, not making them available for free. People who download my book for free, are stealing. Simple as that.
Of course I have tried to get my book removed from this illegal site. Their answer is that because they haven’t actually put my book on their site but let the general public upload things, it’s not their responsibility to remove it.
They conveniently forget however, that before people can download they have to subscribe to the site and pay a monthly fee – so money does come in. A lot of money comes in. I am currently preparing a reply stating that I am actually entitled to some of that money every time someone downloads my book for free. Maybe that will spur them on to take it off.
I know that a lot of people like all the free books that are available on the internet these days. Please keep in mind that most of these free books were written at least 50 years ago and are therefore often in the public domain. No problem to download a free book that is in the public domain. But these days it unfortunately happens more and more often that books are made available for a free download, while the author never gave his ascent. When you download a book like that it is stealing.
Now I will stop preaching and continue writing books. :-)
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2 Responses to “People Are Stealing My Book”
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WT?!?#*@##! if someone uploaded it to that site, it means that they had to buy it to do so. Can’t ya trace who did it? with all those geeks around, there must be someone to hack this information for ya? I wish ya luck sis.
Thanks, Eliza!
I do indeed think that someone must have bought it before they uploaded it. Unfortunately neither Amazon, nor Smashwords let us know who the buyers are.
Someone on a writers forum actually found the server that the illegal site is run from, but that doesn’t say much either. My site is hosted by an American host.
In any case, I am still brooding on my reply to them. :)