Ebook Piratey: What Do You Protect Your Ebook? -

Oct 7, 2022

HTML1Last updated 5 October 2022

Perhaps you've worked for months or several years, creating your novel. The book has been published, to immense excitement, across the globe. Some profits have come in ... however, perhaps not quite so many as you'd prefer.

A few days later, you type in the title of the book, hoping you might discover a review or tweets about the book. To your dismay there are sites that will give you the book for free.

Your eBook is stolen. All your hard labor is given away without cost via a shady site.

It's a traumatic moment for every author. Naturally, the first reaction would be to find out what you can do to prevent pirates from taking over your work. It's possible that this listing may only represent the tip of the of the iceberg.

So what exactly do you need to take care of? (And are you really required to take action?) This is everything you should learn about protecting your book.

What exactly is Ebook Piracy?

Your ebook can be pirated if accessible without your permission.

It can come in a variety of shape:

  • A person buys your book and then gives it to their acquaintances or with their friends. This may be unintentionally (they don't realize they shouldn't use it for sharing) or it could be done in a deliberate way.
  • Your ebook has been uploaded to websites for people to download. This is what many authors are thinking of when they think about pirated ebooks. There's a lot of websites available, even though (as we'll see in the future!) many of them claim to have an ebook available, however they really don't.
  • Your ebook is being published by an private individual ... without your consent. They're taking all profit from it. This isn't as prevalent like other types of piracy, but this has been proven to happen.

Other types of Ebook Theft

Another thing that could be a problem is stealing the work of others and applying it to their own work. This isn't exactly what people consider to be "piracy" however it could be very damaging. This is also a illegal act since it violates copyright rights you have.

Another possibility is the possibility that someone copies a part from your written work and then incorporates the work into their own without permission and not recognizing that you are the author. It is plagiarism.

If you're one of those situations, then there are legal safeguards available. You may find but you don't need to take it that much. Just a simple warning to people not to do it or threating legal action might be enough.

Combat Ebook Piratey with Digital Rights Management (Digital Rights Management)

What can you do to stop the piracy of ebooks?

An option that is popular is to employ DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools that protect your data. There are many options to do this, such as by restricting users from sharing or forwarding your ebook.

This can certainly stop pirates. This can be particularly helpful as it stops people from purchasing your book, and then passing the book to friends.

The drawbacks of DRM

Unfortunately, DRM isn't bulletproof. Certain pirates will be able to get around it in one manner or the other. However well-protected your ebook is, there's nothing that could stop someone from opening it up in one device , then copying and pasting the same information onto another. Of course, that could take a lot of time, so most pirates don't bother.

Another major problem with DRM is the fact that it could impact your customersas as other groups who are against DRM due to this reason, like Defective By Design. The legitimate customers who've purchased your ebook may find it difficult to download and to read as they would like to. This is not something you want to do since this could deter them from purchasing your product at some point in the future.

Hugh Howey, a bestselling self-published author of science-fiction, describes his approach to DRM in this way:

It would be nice to be easy to permit others to access my work. This meant that I did not put DRM on my e-books. DRM is the digital rights management security that makes it hard to convert my work, copy it across, and all the rest. I was trying to honour the buyer rather than worry about the possibility of pirates.

DRM in Social DRM

Social DRM is the process in which the ebook of the buyer is identified or watermarked with data such as the email address of the purchaser and date of purchase. This is possible for PDF files. The document's content doesn't affect the customer negatively as it could deter pirates (as it is clear who shared the file).

What else can I do to safeguard My Job?

One way to limit piracy but without negatively impacting customers - is to limit the ways you allow the book for download by users.

It also prevents users from sharing their download URL with others.

It's a good idea to allow people to download your book at least three times. If you let them download your book once, it may cause problems should they erase the file they downloaded or they wish to download the file onto several different devices (instead of simply copying the ebook across).

The best option to meet the user's needs and preventing the spread of piracy is by setting the limit to 5 downloads. This is the default setting for using .

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The best way to handle a situation when you are the victim of a theft Ebook

What should you do when somebody is offering the book without charge, and thereby denying you any revenue?

If you are the victim of a copycat If someone copies your work You are responsible:

  • Contact them (if the website has contact details). In some situations you can ask the pirate to remove your book may be enough. They might not be interested in the hassle of dealing with you over a lengthy period of time.
  • Create to send a DMCA notification to the web hosting firm (you will find this information on whois.net). DMCA refers to an acronym for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There is no standard formula that you can employ for the preparation of a DMCA takedown notice. However, it must contain certain elements.

There are a few emails templates you can use within the following Google Doc, to contact pirates as well as to send out the DMCA notification.

How Do You Know If Your eBook is being pirated

Sometimes, authors learn about an ebook that has been pirated when an individual who is concerned contacts them informing them about the situation.

But, the majority of pirates will not be reported to the author. If you want to know how much of your eBook is copied, there are a few alternatives:

1. Discover your book by using Google

The name of the text and"download "download" into Google and see what comes to the surface. You may find sites which have (or assert to be having)! - your book available.

Take care when you click, however be sure to utilize a reliable antivirus program and in use to safeguard you. The majority of pirate sites are filled with fake ads or worse.

2. Set up Google Alerts

It is possible to set up Google alerts to be aware of the time when your work or your name is mentioned on web pages. This is a excellent way to stay up-to-date on the latest reviews and discussions about your work. You can also determine if your book was pirated.

3. Utilize tools such as Mention.com

Mention.com works like Google Alerts. It offers the latest features, including being able to receive daily updates as well as receiving emails whenever there's an abrupt increase in references to your book or name. title.

Most frequently requested questions

Below are some of the questions clients frequently ask regarding book piratey:

No. In most nations, your work is copyrighted automatically as soon as you've written the book. You don't need modify the book to copyright it. A majority of authors place a copyright notice somewhere near the beginning or at the end of the book. However, there isn't any requirement for this.

My ebook is accessible for downloading ... however, does it actually exist?

The majority of the time, there won't be any! There are numerous sites that offer gratis eBooks, but they don't really provide these. Actually, as Dave Chesson declares that they're trying to make people subscribe to their website ... and seeking to spread viruses and malware.

Does it make sense for me to put my money into fighting Piracy?

In the event that you're not a new author ... chances are that you're not. You could spend many hours trying to stop the issue of piracy but it's not affecting your books sales even the slightest.

In this post, the Alliance of Independent Authors provides the following information:

"Chasing the web for pirates , which is unlikely to be infringing the copyright of your business or affecting the book's sales is a waste. That's energy and time better spent on improving the quality of your writing, editing or your marketing, enhancing the descriptions of your books and a myriad of additional activities that contribute significantly in the development of your enterprise."

A good time to act against pirates is when they control the result pages of Google. If websites of pirates are ranking very prominently on Google, in cases like this in the one Tim Grahl explains, it's time to do some thing about it.

"My writer friend was with a problem in which the 3rd result from Google to search for the title of the book was an international site which offered to download an electronic copy of the book free of cost."

Do I have to be worried about Ebook Piracy?

If you're a aspiring writer it's likely that you aren't. Being obscure is a major risk for authors of all kinds. If your books exist, they can't buy them.

Some people even think that pirates can benefit authors as it lets you expose the work to be seen by a larger number of readers ... Many of whom could be paid users.

If you're a well-established author, however, you might find the piracy issue is affecting the sales of your books. YA author Maggie Stiefvater posted her experiences of this on her Facebook page and explained how printing sales of her third book in the trilogy performed better than the ebooks, as well as how pirates hurt her third novel of the trilogy.

After that, the publisher informed me they had cut the run of printing for The Raven King to less than half the print quantity of Blue Lily, Lily Blue. No hard feelings there Remember what I was told by them, they just thought that the volume of Blue Lily didn't justify printing several more copies.

Maggie Stiefvater proved the effect of pirated copies on sales by publishing a false pirated version of the fourth edition , which reprinted the initial four chapters. The printed edition sold out, with the ebook sales skyrocketing too (until authentic copies of the book began being pirated).

Writer Elizabeth Lennox related a similar experience with piracy resulting in a significant drop in sales:

In one instance I realized that my sales had decreased by 50. I was shocked. It was hard to figure out the cause until my husband informed me that he'd found my book on pirated websites. We then engaged legal counsel to serve takedown notices, and the subsequent day, the sales increased.

In the end, book theft won't go away. It's your responsibility to decide whether you should fight it or not. If you're an author for the first time It's better to concentrate of advertising the book ... and making your next.

If you're experiencing a significant decrease in sales, even however, it's difficult to determine which piracy websites rank highly in Google when searching for your book's title or the name of your author, then is the time to take action. The sending of DMCA notices is the best way to deal with the problem Be aware of the most user-friendly templates in this Google document.

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