Saturday, January 28, 2012

Violations...

Remember last week's post about plagiarism and pirating in the modern "wild west" internet/digital publishing world?

Well...this happened. I'll let Robert Swartwood explain it all. I'm too tired. Too frustrated. I've been sorting this mess out since the mid-afternoon.

The thing which boggles me the most? The pirate can't be making (much) on his/her/its knock off of Echoes of the Dead. It's not exactly flying off the virtual shelves for me, either. Robert might not have noticed it if said pirate hadn't listed the book as a free promo.

It's not like it was erotica or something. I hear that stuff sells. 

Sheesh.

I have some history with plagiarists and pirates.

One of my classmates at K-State plagiarized a term paper in Psych 350: Experimental Methods. Not a pretty sight. A few of my stories were nabbed and rebooted a few years ago (remember this?). This Christmas, some brave soul "published" an anthology of Christmas horror without rights from the authors. (Um... the antho included Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, and many more big names.)

eBookr has quite a selection of my stuff for "free".  (All you can read, folks!)

But this Amazon trick? This sh*t is just out of hand.

Welcome to the digital future.

We're just getting started...

14 comments:

James Everington said...

Man that's dreadful - is there any way people can help? Report to Amazon or anything?

Aaron Polson said...

I've already done what I can on the Amazon end. I'll have to contact eBooker (not sure it's worth it, actually, considering what you'll have to "prove").

I don't really care about stealing my book (welcome to the modern library), but reselling it is pretty dirty. I'm sure I'd be more pissed if I wasn't so sleep-deprived.

Cathy Olliffe-Webster said...

He's got your book on Goodreads, too. Funnily enough, he hasn't got an author profile. I wrote something nasty as a review, though.
So sorry about this, Aaron. What an areshole this guy is.

Sage Ravenwood said...

Ugh! I'm sorry Aaron this makes me sick. I know first hand all the hard work and perseverance that goes into each and every story we write. To think some ignorant lazy ass is making money off your hard work is depressing as all get out. (Hugs)Indigo

Laurita said...

This makes me sick. One of the things that I admire about you is your prolificacy. To have that hard work snatched up by some low-life who doesn't even have the sense to change the cover is beyond insulting. A pox on all plagiarists.

Jodi Lee (Morrighan) said...

Sorry to hear about this one, too, Aaron. It's been a damn plague lately....

Aaron Polson said...

Cathy - arsehole indeed.

Indigo - It is depressing--it's also, I'm afraid, the cost of doing business.

Laurita - A plague for the plagiarists!

Jodi - I'm sure it's been going on for a while, but it's been nuts of late.

Anthony Rapino said...

What the hell!? Goddamn freakin' people, I swear. I'm really sorry to hear this, Aaron. I know there's no such thing as justified murder, but I'm a psychopath with no morals anyway. Just say the word. ;-)

Deborah Walker said...

Jeez. I'm sorry to hear that, Aaron.

Anonymous said...

That truly sucketh. Holy crap. =[

Barry Napier said...

At some point there needs to be some sort of tool put in place by Amazon to prevent this. It can't be SO hard. I read an article recently about how the company that made the new Batman game (Arkham Asylum) put a bug/glitch in the game that was only activated on pirated copies. It essentially made it impossible for the player to get beyond Level 1. Something like that.

Of course, the Amazon glitch could be that the e-reader or computer it is illegally transferred to catches fire.

This sucks tremendously. Let us know when this gets fixed and if the guilty parties get theirs!

Katey said...

Totally freaking unreal. I wish I could say I'm surprised... but people are horrible. :/

Lyn said...

Double dang. Totally sucks and sorry to hear it. The horse is out of the barn for that one, but will consider and recommend DRM for future books?

Aaron Polson said...

Lyn - No. I'm still a no DRM guy. As a user, I hate it. I don't want people to hate my books. Period.