Internet Pirates Need A Good 'Booty Raid'

It's all over on the internet right now. Pirates are about! And no, they don't want your booty, so to speak, but they do want your books available for free because that's the 'patriot' thing to do. 


What a crock of crap. 


Stephen L. Wilson's blog gives a pretty good breakdown of what's going on, but in a nutshell this is what's up. An infamous website by the name 'The UIltimate Ebook Library', which I will not link for traffic reasons, is pirating just about every book your pretty little heart can dream of. 


Yes, this means big authors and small authors alike are being fenangled, and for the most part, sending a regular 'Please take down my book' notice doesn't cut it for them. As their sites states: 

... We would like to say that TUEBL is a Canadian website, which operates under Canadian law... Canada does not have a DMCA type take-down template our websites are required to use...

Okay. So you're thinking, "Big deal, just send them what they want saying you're the owner of said book and they'll take it down. They have to." 


Nope. 


Visible attempts to do just this have appeared on their Facebook pages. Some authors who have sent emails saying, "Yo, take my stuff down!" have been posted publicly, along with the authors personal information, photo, anything to use and wield against them in both internet and face-to-face harassment. How in the heck is that fair? 


A second quote from their 'legal' page: 

Also please note that any email that we receive is public information and will be published in full on our blogs, twitter, facebook, and any other social network that we desire.

Great. So if you're someone like JK Rowling (yes, her books are on there, for shame!) and you send a take-down notice, they'll post about it all over the page in a lovely mocking fashion. 


Taken from Stephen L. Wilson's blog: 

What they fail to point out is that the unauthorized use of copyrighted material is a crime. In Canada, as well as in the United States, intellectual work is copyrighted upon creation, and no filing of rights is necessary. 

And that, ladies and gents, is the icing on the cake. These people running this so-called 'Library' are nothing but crooks. 


And you know what boils my blood more than badly written stories, more than editing, more than running out of coffee or listening to telemarketers or having no AC in my room? 


Nasty, under-handed, grubby internet pirates. 


So do me a favor? Click on this link to Facebook page for The Ultimate Ebook Library, and report them. Tell them just how wrong it is to continue hosting books by authors who have told them to remove the content repeatedly!