Perhaps this will be the first thread of mine that will be removed.  Others have been ignored. 

My wife is an aspiring author and has been remarkably successful in getting published over the past year.  Almost thirty pieces of work out in publication for sale.  The residual checks have been increasing in amount, but based on the last one, if you take into account the amount of time that is spent, my guess is that it equates to less than 10 cents an hour once you take into account the marketing time - which is enormous.

This morning while doing a search to see what comes up we discovered sites that have had some of her literary works illegally downloaded to them and then downloaded by readers for free.

If she had received the residuals for those works downloaded for free, her check would have been 600% greater than it was.

I am not asking you to buy a book authored by my wife because that would be wrong.  I am asking everyone to please not condone this type of behavior nor participate in it.  It is kind of like being a hobbyist woodworker trying to make it to the edge of being professional and then on the eve of the first show finding out that someone has stolen your works to be sold and your materials.

Thanks for any consideration you can give this.

Peter

Tom,

The sites that offer the "sharing" for free are the ones that I refer to.  My wife writes under several names - each with a specific audience.  As a member, and also as a moderator I don't want to reveal that whereas it could be viewed as an advertisement for her books and this is not the venue for that.  Generally if you are going to a site and everything is free the producers of the work will not be getting money to buy wood.

I appreciate your response!

Peter

Peter,

You bring up an important issue. A comment or blog, etc published to the web is still owned by the writer and or the site.  Her publisher work is copyrighted (I would hope) and should have added the statement to the back side of the title page along with the copyright, the now obligatory can't be reproduced...

If that is in place you do have legal recourse against the site that set it up for download.  Her publisher should be the one to take up this action against the site.

But it is good for us to remember that we must pay for original content.

Are you going to sue the site?

Downloaders are rarely equivalent to buyers. Unfortunately, just because 100 people download something - it doesn't mean you've missed 100 legitimate sales.

There's also the flip side that may have someone enjoying something they acquired free and sought out more - happy to pay.

Illegal download sites and 'semi legitimate' file storage/sharing sites make their revenue from subscriptions and banner/click through advertising ... Any file is fodder for this. The vast majority is downloaded and discarded.

You can go down the path of trying to stop it and you may get some benefit - but you're only likely to scratch the tip of the iceberg (I've been in the technology industry for 30 years - believe me on this) ... A scarier thought than someone downloading your work for free is the harder to trace republishing (even in different languages) and selling for profit as original work by someone else!

Another perspective to consider is that the traditional publishing channels are even bigger robbers - online publishing options exist and could be an interesting option.

The other amazing thing is that there is a massive amount of legitimately free stuff  on the internet that people can enjoy - it's usually pretty obvious when thing are not legit.

Your wife can take a small measure of satisfaction in that many pirate downloading sites have been flooded by commercial uploaders. In other words, people upload pirated material, but to access it after downloading it, one must fill out some opinion poll, produce a phone number or submit a valid email address ~ all things that result in unwanted commercial harassment of some sort. And that's not to mention other more dire results.

Only downside to that is there's always some zealot who will go out of his way to scan everything and post it on-line. And, it only takes one to validate your fears. My inclination would be to post it on-line anyway, benefit from the added attention and profit from those honest people who will pay for it on-line.