# Warning! The FBI won't help!



## Gnarl (Sep 12, 2014)

On super bowl sunday of 2013 I published my first book. It was copywrited with the the US copywrite office prior to publishing.

Only Amazon (kindle) has permission to publish or make it available to the public. Today I found out that a Blogger on Wordpress.com has been giving away almost 900 copies a week for free without permission. I called the FBI and was informed that they could do nothing! That means that this blogger has cost me almost a quarter of a million dollars in potential sales and our government is just going to sit on its ass! I have contacted a lawyer and was told that it would cost more than it is worth to make them pay. It took me ten years to write that book in my spare time so If I ever find out who that blogger is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It seems that as long as they are not charging money for it they can get away with anything! They are calling it "FREE SOURCE". They couldn't even steal the copy that had been spell checked. I know it is no consolation that it has a 9.2 out of 10 rating and that is another thing that has me chewing nails!
Please everyone call congress call the FBI call the cops!!!  Shielah of Earth is my work and not for this dumbass  "giodiasybesch1986jingnadidddu" idiot to give away!


Sorry to be so upset If I were a yunger man I would do them some real harm!!!



Update: I received an e-mail from WorPress promising that they would investigate. I filled in their form and will see what comes of it. 
It erks me to no end.... they were given away a thousand copies a week! Shit I could have retired in November when I am eligible on that kind of money. 
I only $4 us dollars a copy but shit 4 thousand bucks a week???? I would have been in heaven!  And hundreds of positive responses that I will never get to see...
From a person who does not drink.... God I could use a drink right now!!!


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## Conker (Sep 12, 2014)

Well yeah, the FBI isn't going to do anything about that. Not really their jurisdiction.

If wordpress gets you the guys name, you can file a lawsuit for copywrite. You took the time to actually protect your work that way, and since it's pretty obvious the dude violated your copywrite, then have at him. I don't know if there will be a huge monetary return, but sometimes it's just the principle that counts.

Fucking sucks this happened to you. There's a lot to self publishing that's just god damned irksome, and this is part of that. No big publishing houses to help you out when someone converts an epub to a word doc and shares shares shares.


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## Gnarl (Sep 12, 2014)

Well, it may be only a small victory but WordPress has forced its removal and it is no longer there! Thank god for some good people in this world! 
I hope I never find out who it was or how many copies! I should also not drink that much coffee. May Karma repay them for what they did!


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## Conker (Sep 12, 2014)

Do keep in mind that a copy given freely does not equate to a copy purchased. You no doubt lost out on some sales, but I imagine a monetary entry barrier would have kept many away. Just how the world works.

Was your name on the copy he was giving away? If so, maybe the freebee version will get readers to check out the stuff you have up for sale. 

Still sucks that this happened at all though.


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## Gnarl (Sep 12, 2014)

Conker said:


> Do keep in mind that a copy given freely does not equate to a copy purchased. You no doubt lost out on some sales, but I imagine a monetary entry barrier would have kept many away. Just how the world works.
> 
> Was your name on the copy he was giving away? If so, maybe the freebee version will get readers to check out the stuff you have up for sale.
> 
> Still sucks that this happened at all though.


Yes my name was on it! The big issue was that when I first posted it I was still learning how to do this stuff, so I had posted the wrong file. The one he was giving away was the version that had not been spell checked and the cover art was not completed. Now even though a lot of people seemed to like it, they probably think I am an idiot! How many will bother to read anything else if they think I don't even spell check the works? good grief.... I understand that probably many of them would not bother with a book that they had to pay for but still, I had intended it to be a part of my retirement funding. I was going to retire in November but there is just no way I can ever afford to. It sucks that there are people in this world who do such things to others. 
Even with shit like this.... I am not giving up writing or self publishing! It makes me happy when someone reads my stories, I know that there are honest good people out there who have properly enjoyed my work and for them I will get better and keep trying! I do offer free works as well, like  Joshua and the GargaTom. Hell I put it up on FA and that other site.... and between the two it has gotten over 200 reads. Maybe sales will go back up now.... they were down to only a couple dozen a month. I was worried that it had run its course until I saw the numbers. 900 a week not to shabby if you think about it!


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## funky3000 (Sep 12, 2014)

I thought the government was against piracy.

Now we've stopped SOPA several times, I guess the government's all "you're being pirated? I thought you wanted piracy!". Load of bull but really, if you think about it, I guess we did it to ourselves. 

Not our fault tho, SOPA is a pretty controlling group, they had the right idea, but the execution was ALL wrong.


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## SkyeLansing (Sep 13, 2014)

No offense, but your initial post shows a remarkable lack of understanding about Copyright and your rights. Judging by your post you live in the United States.

In the United States a Copyright dispute is a civil matter, not a criminal one. This is why when people are accused of piracy by the MPAA or the RIAA they get sued, not put on trial. The FBI wasn't going to do anything about it, nor would the police, or any portion of the criminal justice system because it was not something they are required to police. The job of policing copyright is generally a matter for the copyright holder.

For the future I suggest reading up on US Copyright Law and should you have this problem again consider speaking to a lawyer. DMCA takedowns are probably your best approach to protect yourself without explicit legal representation. If you are concerned about people stealing your work in the future you can also set up some Google Alerts for your book title, name of author, and a few random selections of text from every chapter.

A lawyer may be able to do a bit more. For instance getting a court order to reveal the personal information of who is distributing your book and then filing a suit for damages. Most likely this will just result in legal expenses with little actual return.

I am a bit curious about how they got a hold of your book if it was only put on Amazon. Your comment about spelling errors makes me almost think that they got hold of an early draft, which is odd. Realistically though I doubt you lost 1000 sales a week. The type of people who are willing to steal a book aren't the type who would pay for it in the first place and as such they aren't even really customers (though I suppose arguably they may not have known it was pirated depending on the source they received it from).


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## Gnarl (Sep 13, 2014)

I am familiar with the laws. I am also an old man with a heart condition and get very emotional as a result of ..... things. 
I did not know about the google alerts and will look into them thank you! I did contact a lawyer and it made me even more upset.


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## Gnarl (Sep 13, 2014)

Thank you all for your understanding while I went off the deep end!


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