Richard Rider's Blog - Posts Tagged "thieving-bastards"
Grabby bastards offering my files as downloads!
Earlier today, my friend linked me to some threads on dpgroup.org where someone was offering my files as free downloads without my permission. It's not sooo much the fact that the files were available for free download (seriously: if you honestly, genuinely can't afford £5 then message me and I'll send you the damn file myself!), I was mostly pissed off by how HOW.FUCKING.DIFFICULT it turned out to be to get them off there!
I started off by writing a polite but firm notice of copyright infringement, but then when I sent it to the email address listed in the FAQ, it bounced back and said: "Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 No Such User Here (state 13)."
Okay. Fine.
So I signed up on the forums and tried to raise the issue of 1) the bad email address, and 2) you thieving fuckers stole my books! (because I was getting really grumpy by that point), but whenever I made a post or comment it stayed up for about five minutes then got deleted by a mod. RRRAAAGGGEEE.
Then finally I tried to make a comment to replace one that had been deleted, but I got this:
"You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never"
?! OH RIGHT. SORRY, GUYS. SORRY I SPAMMED YOU WITH MY UNFAIR DEMANDS. HOW RUDE OF ME NOT TO WANT MY BOOKS ON YOUR BULLSHIT STOLEN GOODS SITE.
It does look as though the specific threads with my books have been deleted, so I'm a bit calmer now. ;) I'm sure they'll go up again, though. They're all over torrent sites as well. I don't know if people expect self-published authors not to chase them down or something when they shit all over copyright like this. I imagine JK Rowling's lawyers would be after them pretty quick if they'd uploaded all the Harry Potter books or whatever, it's always going to be harder to police it without that kind of "official" back-up. It's just so ANNOYING. It's not the money issue, it's just for the same reason that I've never tried to get these things "properly" published - it turns out these stories are the only things in my life that I'm a massive control freak about. I don't want editors swarming all over them, even though it would probably improve them. I don't want anybody else's name on the cover or the spine or the copyright page or anywhere. These are (imagine bulging forehead veins, red face, frothing mouth) MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE THEY ARE MINE so seeing them up on a site like that is making me want to kick someone in.
I know I'm not the only one who's having trouble with shit like this - I've probably got it easier because I don't write a lot, it's not like they've got loads to steal. It's still the most aggravating thing in the world. :(
I started off by writing a polite but firm notice of copyright infringement, but then when I sent it to the email address listed in the FAQ, it bounced back and said: "Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 No Such User Here (state 13)."
Okay. Fine.
So I signed up on the forums and tried to raise the issue of 1) the bad email address, and 2) you thieving fuckers stole my books! (because I was getting really grumpy by that point), but whenever I made a post or comment it stayed up for about five minutes then got deleted by a mod. RRRAAAGGGEEE.
Then finally I tried to make a comment to replace one that had been deleted, but I got this:
"You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never"
?! OH RIGHT. SORRY, GUYS. SORRY I SPAMMED YOU WITH MY UNFAIR DEMANDS. HOW RUDE OF ME NOT TO WANT MY BOOKS ON YOUR BULLSHIT STOLEN GOODS SITE.
It does look as though the specific threads with my books have been deleted, so I'm a bit calmer now. ;) I'm sure they'll go up again, though. They're all over torrent sites as well. I don't know if people expect self-published authors not to chase them down or something when they shit all over copyright like this. I imagine JK Rowling's lawyers would be after them pretty quick if they'd uploaded all the Harry Potter books or whatever, it's always going to be harder to police it without that kind of "official" back-up. It's just so ANNOYING. It's not the money issue, it's just for the same reason that I've never tried to get these things "properly" published - it turns out these stories are the only things in my life that I'm a massive control freak about. I don't want editors swarming all over them, even though it would probably improve them. I don't want anybody else's name on the cover or the spine or the copyright page or anywhere. These are (imagine bulging forehead veins, red face, frothing mouth) MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE THEY ARE MINE so seeing them up on a site like that is making me want to kick someone in.
I know I'm not the only one who's having trouble with shit like this - I've probably got it easier because I don't write a lot, it's not like they've got loads to steal. It's still the most aggravating thing in the world. :(
FORBIDDEN
You don't have permission to access [URL removed] on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
...this is the message I got when I tried to go back on that forum to see if they'd actually removed the download links to my books. Between that and the "Date the ban will be lifted: Never" message I posted about before, I was livid - seriously, someone complains and you just try to block them from seeing what you're up to?! I had no problem accessing the site before with the exact same URLs, so I can only assume that's what they were doing.
So I did a bit of digging, found out where they were hosted, reported them to the abuse team for copyright infringement, and BOOM:
Hello Richard,
You are contacting the right address for abuse notifications at i3D hosted servers.
We have already told our reseller to remove this website from our network and as of yesterday he has asked the owner of that site to take it off our server. The owner of dpgroup.org is now moving his website elsewhere.
I hope this information helps!
Best regards,
i3D.net Abuse Desk
So they're not gone for good, and there's never going to be a way of get rid of thieving little arseholes like that, but hopefully this has been really annoying for the site owner >:D That's good enough for now!
I don't know how everyone feels about these sites, or how much they're used by people on here, but there's nothing anyone will ever say to make me think they're anything but vile shitty little stains all over the internet. It's so much worse because they appear to steal only from smaller publishers and self-published authors, i.e. the ones without the funds for proper legal smackdowns. It's difficult enough already to get people to pay attention to self-published books and be respectful about authors who don't have their own nice tidy shelf section in Waterstones, without having to lose out on profits because of blithe little bastards like this who go skipping around expecting everything for nothing. Every book I sell is half an hour less soul-destroying overtime I have to do at my ~real~ job just to keep on top of my mortgage and bills. I will chase you fuckers down to the end of the earth like Liam Neeson to keep hold of those half-hours!
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
...this is the message I got when I tried to go back on that forum to see if they'd actually removed the download links to my books. Between that and the "Date the ban will be lifted: Never" message I posted about before, I was livid - seriously, someone complains and you just try to block them from seeing what you're up to?! I had no problem accessing the site before with the exact same URLs, so I can only assume that's what they were doing.
So I did a bit of digging, found out where they were hosted, reported them to the abuse team for copyright infringement, and BOOM:
Hello Richard,
You are contacting the right address for abuse notifications at i3D hosted servers.
We have already told our reseller to remove this website from our network and as of yesterday he has asked the owner of that site to take it off our server. The owner of dpgroup.org is now moving his website elsewhere.
I hope this information helps!
Best regards,
i3D.net Abuse Desk
So they're not gone for good, and there's never going to be a way of get rid of thieving little arseholes like that, but hopefully this has been really annoying for the site owner >:D That's good enough for now!
I don't know how everyone feels about these sites, or how much they're used by people on here, but there's nothing anyone will ever say to make me think they're anything but vile shitty little stains all over the internet. It's so much worse because they appear to steal only from smaller publishers and self-published authors, i.e. the ones without the funds for proper legal smackdowns. It's difficult enough already to get people to pay attention to self-published books and be respectful about authors who don't have their own nice tidy shelf section in Waterstones, without having to lose out on profits because of blithe little bastards like this who go skipping around expecting everything for nothing. Every book I sell is half an hour less soul-destroying overtime I have to do at my ~real~ job just to keep on top of my mortgage and bills. I will chase you fuckers down to the end of the earth like Liam Neeson to keep hold of those half-hours!
