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Theft and Plagiarism: The Crime against Authors

Posted on 2012-Aug-06

by BB eBooks Staff

Creative Initiative

Book

For eBook writers, writing and self-publishing have become much simpler processes for them to launch their creative initiatives. They can pick up free tips and paid courses from bloggers, developers, and colleagues who have generously shared information as if they were working in the same gigantic publishing firm.

Anybody’s Game

Money

Sales records from Amazon and everywhere else sound so convincing and promising that eBook success can be anybody’s game. With the humble investment of merely $2,000, Christophe, Robert Greene, and John Weger have earned 50,000 downloads to date for their humor book. They sell their books everywhere from Kobo to Tesco just so they could rub shoulders with TV celebrities – Tiny Fey and Chelsea Handler.

‘Cut and Paste’

Cutting Money

Just when the technology advances make our lives easier, they can also turn against us. The double-edged method of ‘cut-and-paste’ has been around for some time, enabling the computer typist to select the entire information and copy it onto wherever deemed fit to store that chunk of information. Copying photos can be done instantaneously as well.

Plagiarism

Copyright

Plagiarists take this lesson to heart and manipulate intellectual property to make sure they could enter the bestselling hall of fame on the red carpet on behalf of your creativity. Literally, the term plagiarism means to steal somebody else’s work and claim it as their own. Although copyright infringement is nothing new, a case of food blog content stolen and digitally republished as an eBook is unforgivable for Elise Bauer, the founder of Simply Recipes. The case has also become a seasoned dispute with Amazon, who took down the illegal copy but was unable to refund her loss. Social media played her best defensive strategy to respond to the information theft so effectively that it garnered enough attention to attract the major online bookstore.

eBook Copyright Infringement

Alarm

Her proof of content ownership led her to track down the illegal publishers within and outside the U.S. McCord, the writer of the article about Copyright Infringement in the eBook Marketplace begs the reader to estimate the damages if the thief makes use of your online identity and conduct transactions. Regardless of Bauer’s verdict or victory, the ongoing theft continues to ripple through the eBook business and it is up to you to protect your intellectual property.

What would you do if you found that your entire book had been published under different pen names? What legal procedure would you pursue and what could be your first response to the plagiarists? Sound off. Your opinion always counts in order to make the new world of eBooks a better place to live and hope for.

Label: Self-Publishing

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