Piracy

After getting a Google alert linking to a file sharing site Mobilism, in which a user was asking other users for a pirated copy of his book The English Monster, author Lloyd Shepherd decided to respond to the reader seeking the illicit material.

He explained that he was the author and asked the user to explain his behavior. Shepherd wrote: “Can it be that you’re offering to pay someone to create an ebook of the book I wrote? I’d be interested to hear your justification for this. For your interest, this book took me two years to write, and represents (on a rough estimate) perhaps 500 hours of work on my part, not to mention the time and effort put in by others to design, print, copy-edit and produce the final version. And you’re proposing to pay someone else – someone who had no part in the making of the book – to produce a copy for you. Is there a good reason why you can’t pay through normal channels for my book?” Read more

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Publishers are going after eBook piracy in Europe. An international alliance of 17 publishers, which includes HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, The McGraw-Hill Companies and Oxford University Press, is taking legal against the operators of the websites library.nu and ifile.it.

Yesterday, the Irish-based operators of www.library.nu and www.ifile.it were served with court orders. In the complaint, the publishers claim that www.library.nu illegally acquired more than 400,000 copyrighted eBooks and made them available for free. In addition, the site owners allegedly earned more than $10 million in advertising from the site.

This may not be the first kind of attact on pirate sites. Tom Allen, president/CEO of Association of American Publishers stated: “For every rogue site that is taken down, there are hundreds more demanding similar effort.  I can’t think of a more timely example of the need for additional tools to expedite such action.”

Neither site is currently active. Library.nu currently redirects to Google Books.  Ifile.it has an error message that says “No upload servers currently available, try uploading at a later time.”

The NYTimes, USAToday, and other newspapers each have a bestseller’s list of the currently popular titles. The USAToday list even includes eBook sales as well as print sales. But one thing that all those lists cannot do is measure what the pirate is reading. For that we turn to The Pirate Bay.

This week the well-read pirate is downloading pretty much the same eBooks as last week. Really, the only change is that the titles on the list were shuffled.

1. Windows 7 Secrets
2. 7 Weeks to 50 Pull-Ups: Strengthen and Sculpt Your Arms, Shoulders
3. Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets
4. 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups: Strengthen and Sculpt Your Arms, Abs, Chest
5. 1,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You

image by Olivier Bruchez

The latest list of popularly pirated eBooks shows that Amazon’s post-Christmas honeymoon has come to a close. Every couple weeks I like to look at the I’m not looking to get the content; I prefer to buy my eBooks (or download legally free copies). No, I use this as a way to gauge what people are reading.

It’s actually been close to a month since I checked last, and not much has changed.

Read more

The Pirate Bay announced today that they’re adding a new category to the site: Physibles. The file sharing site has decided to highlight a little known type of file in the hopes of encouraging the spread of knowledge.

Physible is the name that TPB has given to the data file for 3D printers. Assuming you have the right app, right 3D printer, and an adequate supply of source materials, you can use the info in a physible file to print a 3D object.

The new category only lists 7 files t the moment, so this move might have been premature. But TPB believes that the future is going to be the copying and sharing of physical objects. Thanks to tech like 3D printers, scanners, and so on, they’re probably right.

Leaving aside the piracy, I have to say that the 3D printing is pretty cool.  How would you like to download a car?

via

Today I am continuing ongoing series here on eBN. I like to check the top ten lists on The Pirate Bay every so often. I don’t use this as a source of eBooks, but I do want to see what the well-read pirate is interested in.

It’s been just under 2 weeks since I last checked, and not much has changed. The list is made up of the same 5 titles, and only the order has shifted.

1. 1,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You
2. 7 Weeks to 50 Pull-Ups: Strengthen and Sculpt Your Arms, Shoulders
3. 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups: Strengthen and Sculpt Your Arms, Abs, Chest
4. Kindle Library (4,687 Ebooks – Mobi)
5. Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets

Clearly the Kindle is still having a great holiday season. But the rest of the list does not tell us anything new. Fitness books have been on this list before, and so have titles like the 2 pop culture books.

image by fdecomite

Every few weeks (this part tends to get repetitive) I like to visit The Pirate Bay and see what are the most pirated ebook titles. I actually refer to buy my eBooks, but I also like to now what the well informed pirate is reading.

It’s been a couple weeks since I last checked, and 2 of the top 5 titles have been replaced with exercise books.

1. 7 Weeks to 50 Pull-Ups: Strengthen and Sculpt Your Arms, Shoulders
2. 1,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You
3. Kindle Library (4,687 Ebooks – Mobi)
4. Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets
5. 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups: Strengthen and Sculpt Your Arms, Abs, Chest

Read more

About every other week or so I like to visit The Pirate Bay and check out their top ten lists.  I’m not interested in pirating the eBooks (I prefer to buy), but I am curious about what is popular as compared to the last time I visited.

Today’s list is very different from the one I saw 2 weeks ago. Only 2 titles are still on the list, and that is the collection of pirated Kindle eBooks and a book on manners.

1. Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets
2. 1,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You
3. How to Be a Gentleman: A Timely Guide to Timeless Manners
4. Playboy January-February 2012 PDF
   
5. Kindle Library (4,687 Ebooks – Mobi)

This list has been dominated by how-to manuals before, so the current composition is rather interesting. But it is also easy to explain. The ebook collection is on the list because the Kindle is hot this holiday season.  And the Playboy is on the list because it was just released. And as for the top 2 items, the titles suggest that popularity is viral. I want to read them just based on their names (and now I’m on the waiting lists at my local library).

Every so often I like to visit The Pirate Bay and check out their top ten lists.  I’m not interested in pirating the eBooks (I prefer to buy), but I do want to see what is popular.

1. Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best-Kept Secrets
2. How to Be a Gentleman: A Timely Guide to Timeless Manners
3. Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Perfect Selections and Amazing Photos
4. Excel 2010 Formulas
5. Trick Photography and Special Effects
6. Kindle Library

It’s been quite some time since I last posted on this topic, and not much has changed. The list is still filled with nonfiction titles and most are how-to guides. Four of the top 5 are also rather expensive and cost $18 or more. Not that I’m justifying the piracy; the prices are usually comparable to the paper copy.

The 6th item on the list was a particular surprise. It was a 4GB collection of Kindle compatible eBooks, with over 4,600 titles included. This was unusual because most of the time this list is filled with PDFs, not the Kindle format. But that collection probably made the list because of the release of the new Kindles a few weeks back. I would expect it to drop off the list in the next couple weeks.

Every so often I like to go over to The Pirate Bay and see what the well-read pirate is downloading at the moment. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted this list, and surprisingly little has changed.

The list has a new most popular book, and it should come as no surprise. It really falls into the same category as the other books on the list; they’re all self help titles.

That seems to be a constant for this list. All of the eBooks that have appeared on the list provide advice or instructions of some kind.

1. Porn Star Secrets of Sex: Over 100 mind-blowing tips, tricks
2. Never Be Lied to Again: How to Get the Truth In 5 Minutes Or Less
3. How to Instantly Connect with Anyone: 96 All-New Little Tricks
4. How to Win Every Argument : The Use and Abuse of Logic
5. Men’s Fitness – 12 Minute Workout