It's sad when people can't use their own writing and have to steal. Say a lot about a person's character doesn't. I am so sorry that happened to you and good luck on getting them taken down.
I see quite a few websites are offering to 'copyright protect' fiction, and take legal action on your behalf, for a fee. I can't remember how I found them, this is just a guess but I might have typed in 'how to copyright a novel' in Google.
first of all, you don't copyright a novel... it's automatically copyrighted as soon as it exists in a tangible form... there's no other way to 'copyright protect' fiction or any other written work than saving all of your first notes and a couple of hand-edited hard copy drafts plus registering your automatically copyrighted completed draft with the library of congress... those sites simply charge you an additional fee on top of the standard loc fee to register it for you... which you can do in just minutes online by yourself... and they certainly do not provide free attorneys to sue anyone who challenges your copyright... they take advantage of clueless new writers who haven't done their homework and studied the copyright laws and faqs here: www.copyright.gov www.uspto.gov
Personally, I won't send out another manuscript without first getting it officially copyrighted. It might be a deterrent for thieves. It also comes in handy if someone ever does steal your story. It's another way of proving that you actually wrote the original.
As [MENTION=373]mammamaia[/MENTION] says, it is protected by copyright as soon as you create it in a tangible form. There is no such thing as "officially copyrighted" because copyright vests on creation by operation of law, and whether you do anything further or not you have the entire bundle of rights as copyright owner. When you submit the work and required fee to the Copyright Office, you are registering the copyright that you already have in the work, and by doing so you gain certain advantages that you don't have without registration.
re-read what i posted and steerpike's corroboration, ww... what action do you take that you're erroneously calling 'getting it officially copyrighted'? also, even registering the existing copyright doesn't prove you wrote it... it's just proof that you registered the copyright under your name on a certain date... if you stole someone's ms and registered it as your own work, that person could still prove in court that they wrote it, by doing what i said and presenting their earliest notes and early drafts of the ms as evidence of their having written it...
Yes - registering the copyright only gives you more legal options if someone plagiarizes you - it does not prevent someone from proving you plagiarized them, or protect you in that case. (Fraudulently filing for copyright registration can result in a fine of up to $2500 as well.)
Agentkirb, I tried to send you a message, but it wouldn't go through. Can you send me a "Hey" so I can respond? Thanks! WW
Six of the stolen books remain on the site. Here's the most recent discussion about one of the author's lack of response from Amazon: Any suggestions I might pass on to Bethany?
Gingercoffee, you were so instrumental in getting agentkirb's stolen story taken down on Amazon. Can you help Bethany? Amazon would definitely recognize your name and know you mean business. I don't want this thief to profit from any story.
I can't believe Amazon themselves haven't been more helpful in this =\ surely they can see that if someone uploaded that many stories in such a short time frame, and MOST have been taken down as stolen, then that member should be banned and ALL their books taken down? Ridiculous. Amazon makes money out of each cut, but they won't if they don't start taking claims a bit more seriously...! :[ this is why I only ever post teasers or singular chapters online - there's always someone out to make a buck.
The six remaining stolen books are still for sale. The one author fighting to have one of the books removed reported sending Amazon yet another email.
Is she just emailing customer service or did she send a take down request in the manner set forth by Amazon's policies. If all she's doing is emailing customer service, she'll be lucky if anything ever gets done. Even if she's emailing another department, if she hasn't submitted a take down request, they may not act on it. The take down request process is easy, and if she hasn't already done it she is foolish not to do so.
I, too, would want to know if she's sent a formal takedown request. I have every sympathy for her, but I think that she needs to follow the process. _After_ she's followed it, I'd be happy to condemn Amazon if they take too long to act. Why? Because I want to keep my blog, and I want this site to stay up, and I like using the Internet, and I like being able to buy newspapers and magazines and books at my local bookstore. And the survival of those things depends, IMO, on the same laws that motivate Amazon to follow specific procedures here. To babble about that theme: As I understand it, a bookseller is not responsible for prechecking the copyright status and other legal issues (libel, slander, obscenity, etc.) for the works they sell. Those issues are the publisher's responsibility. If a bookseller had to precheck all those things for every book and magazine and newspaper they sold, it would essentially be impsossible for them to be a bookseller. Imagine your local bookseller's clerks all sitting down with all of the daily papers, frantically reading through them to check for illegal material before the store opens. It's impossible, even if the clerks had a legal education and even if they had some way to check for copyright violations. If a bookseller were liable for all material, then the only booksellers left _would_ be huge companies like Amazon, who could afford to hire people to inspect everything, and the selection of books would be limited to the books that Amazon had time to vet. If every set of hands that a piece of media passes through is liable for that media, we're not going to have much media. And nobody would be crazy enough to let me have my own blog, or let me post here. Since a bookseller is not responsible for prechecking all of those things, I assume that it would be a very bad precedent for them to partially, casually, occasionally check those things, to decide that this well-written complaint email should be acted on, while this crazy-sounding complaint email should be ignored, with no specific policy set for what to respond to and what to ignore. If they took on partial responsibility, then they might be unintentionally taking on full responsibility, and thereby lose their protection from liability. For this reason, it makes sense to me that a bookseller would demand a very specific notification policy for illegal works, including copyright violations. I was feeling indignant toward Amazon because I mistakenly thought that they didn't make this policy easily available, but, no, if I just Google "Amazon copyright infringement claim", it's right there, in detail, with complete instructions and contact information. Now, I would like to know the cause of any delay in action on complaints. If it's because Amazon is understaffing the department that handles those complaints, that is indeed an issue. If it's because there are established standards for notifications to all parties, then that may be an unavoidable part of the process. I'm also not absolutely positive that I wouldn't consider Amazon to be _the publisher_ of some of these works, and thus a party with more responsibility, rather than just the bookseller. Even if they're not legally the publisher - and I'm sure they're not; they can afford very fine lawyers - I do think that they have a greater ethical obligation with regard to complaints about these works than they do for traditional books. Not an obligation to be slack in the process, but an obligation to ensure that they have sufficient staff for a timely response. So I'll happily growl about Amazon if they're slow to respond _after_ receiving a formal and correct complaint.
Her book was taken down day before yesterday, leaving the remaining 5 stolen books. I don't know if the authors of those books got the messages that were sent to them by someone on the WordPress site. Amazon was slow to respond, in my opinion. I believe Steerpike disagrees. As for a specific notification policy, there's some buck passing at Amazon that let's everyone blame someone else. Sure, the legal department is going to act according to a policy. Fine, if there were other departments involved. But the rep on the phone also said the initial catch should have happened at the point of Kindle publishing and he believed they had some kind of policy in place. Clearly they didn't and I sincerely doubt the legal department cared about something that was not their job. So, you have the gatekeeper initial contact person I first conversed with via chat saying they would notify someone. Really? Who? And why didn't they know the answer to my initial inquiry was no one will do anything? When I reached the legal department they admitted no Amazon resources are invested in policing the site for stolen goods for sale. They believed the initial publishing dept had a policy in place. Other than some admonition of not being responsible in the Kindle self publishing agreement I don't believe they have any policy. Now compare that to the action they are more than willing to invest when someone shares a Kindle file, cutting Amazon out of the $$ loop. Amazon's Kindle Swindle OK, so I understand the need for such rules, with the tradeoff being a lower cost to the consumer. But it demonstrates the willingness of Amazon to invest in protecting its own assets from theft, just not anyone elses. That's business, I get that part too. Which means that unless authors do more to make it costly for Amazon not to deal with the problem of stolen material, they will continue not dealing with the problem. For example, 'click to expand' and note the update: Kindle user claims Amazon deleted whole library without explanation
How long did it take after the formal complaint, again? Yes, I'm being lazy in not checking myself; if you don't care to answer, I understand. It sounds like the rep on the phone probably wasn't trained on this issue, because I can't see how any policy could possibly prevent this up front. And I think that it's unlikely that anyone will do anything whatsoever without a formal takedown notice. Improved training does seem to be called for - it doesn't seem so hard to learn to say, "Copyright violation? Here's our takedown notice link." I'm not sure what you consider to be "dealing with" the problem. If it's that they should train customer support to point people to the takedown policy, and they should have adequate staff to handle takedown complaints, I'll agree. If you're calling for pre-policing or responding to informal complaints, I can't agree. Edited to add: I'm not sure what I'd say about permanently barring repeat offenders. It seems perfectly logical and ethical, but would it result in an obligation to track people's identities to make sure that Person A isn't also going as Person B and Corporations C, D, and E? If so, then I can see that it's implausible.
Chickenfreak, I have to agree with you as to the bookseller's responsibilities. If Amazon is expected to check every book it sells, then every other bookseller should be expected to as well - and that is just not possible. It isn't the bookseller's responsibility to check, as you stated. That's up to the publisher.
That's what Amazon and a lot of other sites need to do. Many online sellers won't take any action unless a formal complaint is made through the process that has been established for that purpose. Many customer service reps don't seem to be aware of the process or how to point people at it. If you Google search and know you're looking for a take down request or something similar, you can usually find it in a hurry, but the formal request is easy to make once you know about it, so customer service reps need to be able to direct people to them. I've dealt with a large number of online companies on this issue, and so far there haven't been any take down requests that haven't been successful. Some are quicker than others, depending on how much internal scrutiny they give the request before acting. Amazon has always been relatively fast, as far as the large entities are concerned, but like most of them, I don't think you'll get far if you don't follow the process they have. It's simply to do, and actually takes a lot less time than going back and forth with their customer service department, or than approaching it in any other manner, really.
It's not so much that Amazon is a bookseller, shadowwalker. They are essentially the only check on self publishers. If Penguin Books published a plagiarized work, one, they would have a legal liability for doing so, and two, Amazon would have no reason to double check Penguin, a well known publisher. There is no doubt the Internet changed the world and when it comes to self publishing, there are more positives than negatives, IMO. But there's no benefit in resigning ourselves to all the negatives as if nothing can be done. I don't believe that, and I don't accept that Amazon can do nothing, or they are doing enough. However, they are not going to act without pressure, and that means a financial incentive, be it bad publicity or legal ramifications. And that's my point in not accepting Steerpike's position that the company is doing enough because they have a token response to plagiarism. Individual authors do not have the resources Amazon has. Amazon could do more. They need to be prodded.
What resources does an individual author need other than to be able to fill out the take down request? And why the distinction between self- and trade-published books when it comes to the bookseller being responsible for checking this? The problem remains the same - there are too many books for any bookseller to check them all before putting them "on the shelf". If, somehow, Amazon were forced to start checking self-published books - well, say bye-bye to that avenue for self-publishers, that I can guarantee. Like it or not, unless the book comes through one of Amazon's publishing arms, Amazon is only a seller. They should have no more responsibility in this matter than Barnes and Noble or the independent bookseller on the corner.
