Tag Archives: copyright infringement

June 13, 2020 · 12:21 pm

New “Latest”: Internet Archive to End “Emergency Library”

If you haven’t been following this issue of interest to writers, you can catch up with posts on the Internet Archive and its practice of scanning and giving away copyrighted books for free, here and here. Claiming the cover of the pandemic, the IA actually expanded its practices by eliminating limits on the amount of time “borrowers” could keep books they download and other provisions. Last week, major publishers sued the Archive, and this headline on the Internet Archive’s response to the lawsuit popped up in my New York Times feed today.

Pirate ship coming for your books
Book pirates?

Note that the decision to end the “Emergency Library” supposedly designed to increase access during lockdowns does not affect the IA’s usual practices of buying a book, then scanning it and distributing it for free.

You will need to decide on your own to what extent you want to defend your own copyrights. I was able to get my republished ebooks taken off the IA, but I found that fighting the myriad other book pirates who either have or claim to have my books available for free was a losing effort. Is Neil Gaiman right that we might as well embrace the unauthorized distribution of free books?

One wrinkle I discovered is the existence of an international protocol that does authorize the distribution of free resources to print-disabled readers by appropriately designated sites. Whether IA is one of these appropriate sites is debatable.

The Victoria Strauss posts I link to provide takedown-notice templates and other ongoing discussions of this problem. I’ve linked as well to Chuck Wendig’s statement on the IA’s practices.

Use these resources in any way that works for you. Let me know what you decide.

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June 2, 2020 · 11:44 am

Latest on Internet Archive/Copyright Infringement

With so much going on, don’t lose sight of what’s happening to your books. Not everyone agrees that having free books going out *freely* is bad for writers, but you at least need to be able to choose. Victoria Strauss again reports on the Internet Archive and its copyright infringement via its “Emergency Library”—now being challenged in court by major publishers. Her post on Writer Beware lists a number of past posts and resources. Check it out.

A digital eye on your text

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April 12, 2020 · 6:26 pm

More on Internet Archive’s “Emergency Library”: Are They Giving Away Your Books for Free?

This long piece from Publishing Perspectives provides detailed information about the debate over whether Internet Archive is within the law to copy or upload copyrighted material and give it away for free. Apparently the site’s latest ploy, an “Emergency Library” triggered by the COVID-19 situation, has attracted the attention of a Congressional committee, so changes may be coming.

A library shelf with many colorful books.

Within the Publishing Perspectives article is a link to an Authors Guild piece that contains directions for finding out if your books show up for free on Internet Archive as well as a form takedown notice you can use.

I’ve written before about my travails trying to find and challenge every rogue site that claimed to be selling my books; I came to agree with Neil Gaiman that just maybe, free books equal free publicity. I’d successfully claimed my rights to King of the Roses from IA, but had not searched their site for Blood Lies. This time around, though, I did feel motivated by this rather audacious behavior on IA’s part to search for both books. Couldn’t find either. So for now, I’m safe on that front.

However, each author must make their own decision about whether to leave their books in IA’s hands for the duration. The Publishing Perspectives piece gives you the information you need for your own choice.

Stack of many books

Check this post, too, to learn about the Marrakesh Treaty, which governs the provision of materials to people who are print-disabled. I was glad to learn about this. You might find it interesting.

Update me on what you decide, and how your actions work out.

 

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August 18, 2019 · 1:24 pm

How I’ve Come to Love Book Pirates

Well, maybe that title is just click-bait. Hope it gets some clicks! Big green smiley

More accurately, my title should read, Why I’ve Quit Worrying about Book Pirates.

Books flying into pirates' hands

Here are a few links you can check out if you’ve heard horror stories (I sort of have some), and/or if you’re interested in this debate:

My quick take—and my reasons for copping out on the anti-book-piracy crusade: Like some of the responders on Kaye’s post, I tried the beta Blasty service. I found myself on sites where I didn’t have the technical knowledge to identify the site owners (Kaye offers some tools to help with this). No address to which to send my own DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice. Some offered their own DMCA form—but every one I completed returned an error notice.

And after I’d spent a whole morning uselessly following Blasty’s leads, I got yet another massive list of all the places where my books could be downloaded for free.

Blasty offered paid services that would send the notices for me. There are other such services; comments on the various articles I’ve linked to above provide some sources, if you want to pursue this route.

But if you read the Guest piece, you may, like me, come away with a sense of “what for?”

“The legal and tech aspects of book piracy prevention are complex and fast-evolving, but those in the know describe it very simply: it’s whack-a-mole. One of the most persistent ebook pirate sites has been taken down multiple times, only to pop back up again under a .com, a .net and a .org domain name. At least 120,000 take-down notices have been issued against it already, involving web crawlers, lawyers, its domain host and the Metropolitan police. But that website is back regardless, complete with some intimidating legal language of its own, addressed to anyone who plans to complain.”

I have read, in more than one place, that many of the “free” sites don’t even have copies of the books they’re selling; they just want people’s credit card info. A lot easier way of taking people’s money than actually scanning books and repackaging them, I suspect.

Who knows? If the big publishers are really losing a lot of money to piracy, maybe they will finally figure out a way to protect their property. And maybe some enterprising soul will pirate their methods and share them with us (in a user-friendly form). Maybe even Amazon will catch on and act. In the meantime, I have other wasteful uses of my time that are a lot more fun than hunting down all those links and filling out a new version of that form ten times a day.

I’m thinking, in fact, about making more of my work (I really do have WsIP!) available for free. The truism Kroese and others offer makes sense to me:

The biggest challenge facing a new author isn’t piracy; it’s obscurity.

So from one so-far obscure writer to others, I’ve quit worrying about people stealing my books. When you read one you like, just be sure to tell your friends.

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June 20, 2018 · 10:14 am

Copyright: What’s the Big Deal?— By Julie Barlow

Though it’s about Canada, Barlow touches on an issue that affects us all. She writes, “When I Google my own work, I discover so many sites offering free (i.e., illegal) PDFs of my books that I can’t keep track of them anymore. And neither can my publisher.” I basically gave up trying to address this problem. Maybe it’s up to readers not to buy from these sites? As Barlow writes, we all fall prey to the idea that if it’s available online, it ought to be free. American copyright law doesn’t address this problem, either, and, as is often the case, the Canadian example can be instructive.

So how to spread the word among readers? What do you think?

QWF Writes

The Federal government is in the process of revising the Copyright Act. If you don’t think that matters to writers, think again.

I’m always surprised to see blank stares on writers’ faces when I launch into a speech about copyright. Some of them aren’t clear why copyright really matters. Others aren’t sure what copyright even is. Fair enough—it’s not the sexiest topic in the writing world. But even if you don’t notice it, it’s fundamental to our business.

Here’s why. I am a non-fiction author of six books and a magazine writer. To earn my living I sell the right to use my work, either to publishers who pay me advances and royalties or to magazines who pay me fees to publish my articles. For most of my twenty-five-year career, this revenue has constituted most of my income.

Simply put, copyright law is what makes it possible for me to…

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February 22, 2018 · 3:41 pm

Copyright Infringement Issues: Internet Archive Still at It

500px-Copyright.svgVictoria Strauss at Writer Beware follows up with her account of how she got Internet Archive to take down her copyrighted books. In her case, as in mine, it took a stern comment on their web site to get action, since the standard notices received no response. Her post includes a discussion of how the Archive’s actions in scanning books without permission and in some cases reformatting them differs from the actions of a regular library, which buys its books. She raises the issue of why copyright is worth protecting—and is not just a matter of greed on the part of authors.

I received a series of comments on this issue that introduced me to the Marrakesh Treaty, which allows authorized sites to provide books for print-disabled readers without author permission. You may find this news enlightening, as I did.

Check out the latest in this ongoing situation. Victoria Strauss’s original post provides information on how to see if your books are affected and how to take action.

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January 28, 2018 · 10:46 am

Follow-Up: Copyright Issues at Internet Archive—The Marrakesh Treaty

Stack of many booksIf you have read my posts about my experience eliciting a response from the Internet Archive, which scans and posts books on their free website without notifying authors or asking permission, you may have also read the comments on the latest post.

There, you’ll learn what I learned from Kevin, a reader from newauthoronline.com.

He  introduced me to the Marrakesh Treaty, implemented in 2016. This treaty, which the U.S. has joined, allows authorized non-profit sites to post—without permission—works for “blind and print-disabled” persons.

Here is an overview article Kevin linked to, which contains a link to the Marrakesh Treaty itself as well as a useful discussion of access issues for the print-disabled. From the article:

Marrakesh Treaty: A roadmap for equality

On July 18, 2016, American musician Stevie Wonder welcomed the entry into force of the Marrakesh Treaty with powerful words. “A treaty that promises to end the global book famine… A pact,” he said, “that means that the millions of people in the world who are blind or visually impaired will be able to read books in accessible formats in various regions where they did not previously have access, regardless of their financial means.”

To address this challenge, the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled, was adopted in 2013 under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and entered into force in 2016. The treaty was conceived to foster and ease the production and transfer of accessible books, including across national boundaries. To achieve these goals, it established a set of limitations and exceptions to copyright, mandatory for ratifying countries, for the benefit of the blind, visually impaired and otherwise print disabled. So far, 91 countries have signed the treaty and 33 of them have ratified it.

Here is relevant text from the treaty;

[Article 4.]2. A Contracting Party may fulfill Article 4(1) for all rights identified therein by providing a limitation or exception in its national copyright law such that:

(a) Authorized entities shall be permitted, without the authorization of the copyright rightholder, to make an accessible format copy of a work, obtain from another authorized entity an accessible format copy, and supply those copies to beneficiary persons by any means, including by non-commercial lending or by electronic communication by wire or wireless means, and undertake any intermediate steps to achieve those objectives, when all of the following conditions are met:

(i)  the authorized entity wishing to undertake said activity has lawful access to that work or a copy of that work;

(ii) the work is converted to an accessible format copy, which may include any means needed to navigate information in the accessible format, but does not introduce changes other than those needed to make the work accessible to the beneficiary person;

(iii) such accessible format copies are supplied exclusively to be used by beneficiary persons;  and

(iv) the activity is undertaken on a non-profit basis;

An operative term here is “lawful access.” I have written WIPO to ask for a definition.

Remaining questions:

  • Is the Internet Archive an Authorized Entity?
  • How does it ensure that people using free services under this treaty are eligible beneficiaries?

Kevin’s comments also include some enlightening information about accessibility software and process for blind and print-disabled people.

I have not found this information about the Marrakesh Treaty widely shared in the writing-blog community, probably because the treaty was just implemented in 2016. I hope this will prove a useful post for my writing colleagues. The information certainly was news to me.

 

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January 27, 2018 · 10:54 am

A Response about Copyright Violation from Internet Archive!

Hello, readers,

I need your help.

On January 11, 2018, I shared a post from Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware about possible copyright infringement by the Internet Archive, which scans books and posts them for free in a “lending library” without notifying authors or receiving permission.

On the Internet Archive site, I found a pdf of the 1989 mass-market paperback of my novel, King of the Roses (originally published by St. Martin’s in 1983). I sent two email notices requesting that the book be taken down, using the free form included in Victoria’s original post.

I have received a response. The response raises several questions for me and I would appreciate feedback from readers. In particular,

1) Have I understood the response correctly?

2) What is the correct and ethical response to the fact that the Internet Archive plans to retain a copy of my book for “blind and print-disabled” readers?

Here’s what I did in order to get a response:

After sending the two notices and receiving no response, I followed a link in Victoria Strauss’s post to the Internet Archive site. There, on the blog page for the site, I discovered a comment box.

Into that box I posted; “I have sent two takedown notices about my book, which is still under my copyright and is available as a self-published Kindle edition, but you have not responded. Please post a link to the “Notice and Takedown” process you reference above on your home page. My next step will be to seek legal advice and, if necessary, take you to court.”

Within 36 hours, I received the following email, which I paste here in full:

Dear Ms. Anderson,

Thank you for your emails.

To help clarify things regarding the item you have identified (https://archive.org/details/kingofroses00virg) – blind and print-disabled patrons (verified by formal institutions including the Library of Congress) may access special electronic versions of the book that can be used with accessible software. They agree not to make copies or distribute materials. Our program to enable blind and print-disabled access has been in operation since 2010 (our original press release w/links to stories in the media can be seen here).

There is no other access available to this item (lending access for general users has been disabled). Please feel free to check the links under “Download Options”. They are all inoperable or include only to metadata (i.e., catalog information about the text, not the text itself).

And of course, the Internet Archive offers these texts on a wholly non-commercial basis. Our project, organization, and mission are entirely charitable and oriented towards broad social benefit.

Again, thank you for getting in touch with us. Hoping this information is helpful.

—

The Internet Archive Team

 

Here’s what I think it says:

1) My book is no longer available for free in their lending library.

2) They do post the metadata for my book.

3) A free version of my book is still available to disabled readers who have some kind of “accessible software” and who are somehow bound not to share the book with others.

Remaining concerns/questions:

1) How readers qualify for free access to this book is not well explained.

2) The copy of the book on their site is a pdf of the original 1989 paperback, and is of very poor quality. Is there “accessible software” that can actually read this text?

3) Doesn’t the decision of the Internet Archive to retain this version of my book still constitute copyright infringement, since access is being supplied to these readers without my permission?

Obviously, the appeal is to my sense of pathos. How could I possibly deny disabled readers access to my incredibly wonderful book?

On the one hand, of course I’m vulnerable to such an appeal. On the other, while I do not have an audio version of my book, is there no software that readers with disabilities can use to access a paperback or Kindle version purchased through regular channels? How can authors be sure that the readers who still have access to their books for free through the Internet Archive really need the charitable services of the Internet Archive?

I suspect that my book will not be high on the list of frequently downloaded books, whether by readers with disabilities or others. Some authors, though, may find that their books are likely to be frequently accessed.

The bottom line, in my view, is that the decision to post a book for free, whether for abled readers or readers with disabilities, should be made in conjunction with, and with the permission of, the author/copyright holder. Anything else is still a copyright violation.

What do you think?

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January 11, 2018 · 3:09 pm

ALERT: Copyright Infringement by “Internet Archive.”

Do you have hard-copy books out, in or out of print? See this notice from Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has issued an alert on copyright infringement by the Internet Archive. Other professional writers’ groups taking notice include the UK’s Society of Authors, which has posted an alert on its website, and the USA’s Authors Guild and National Writers Union, which have alerted their members.

Strauss posts the full notice from SFWA. What’s more, SFWA will generate a “takedown notice” for you that you can immediately email if your book is included on the offending site.

You can search the site easily to see if any of your titles are involved. I found that searching for a character’s name within the book text generated the best response.

Illegal copy of King of the Roses on Internet Archive

Possibly you may not be concerned at having a pirated version of your book offered for free, but you may want to be informed that it exists.

I found the Bantam paperback edition of King of the Roses on the site. I’ve decided to send the takedown notice. Strauss says that two notices she sent have thus far not received responses.

Please pass this information on to anyone you think will benefit from it.

 

 

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