Ebook Copyright: How Can You Secure Your Ebook? -

Last update was Oct 5, 2022

Maybe you've spent months or many years working on the ebook. Then you've released it, to great excitement, to the world. You've made some money ... perhaps not as many as you'd like.

One day, you Google the name of your ebook and hope to find some review or even tweets about the book. In your disappointment, you discover websites offering your book at no cost.

Your work is taken over by pirates. All your hard labor is now being offered to anyone who visits a questionable website.

It's an upsetting moment to every writer. Naturally, your first reaction likely to be trying for ways to shut down the pirates. You might be worried about the fact that the information you've obtained is just the tip of the the iceberg.

What do you have to do? (And are you really required to take any action at all?) These are the things you must be aware of when protecting your eBook.

What is Ebook Piracy?

The phrase "ebook piracy" refers to when your book is released without your permission.

It is available in many varieties:

• The person who purchases your book , and shares the book with friends and acquaintances. This may be accidentally (they don't realize that they shouldn't use the book for sharing) or maybe even deliberate.
• Your ebook is uploaded to a website which allows others to download. This is what most authors are aware of when they look at pirated ebooks. There are a myriad of sites available - though (as we'll discover in the future!) they frequently claim that they provide an ebook when they actually do not.
• The book you've written has been purchased by someone else ... and without your consent. They're taking all the profits. This is not so common as other forms of piracy but it's certainly occurred.

Different Types of Ebook Theft

A related problem is people copying your work, and making it appear as their own. It's not what people consider "piracy" but it can be very damaging. This is also illegal, as it is a violation of the copyright you have.

A different possibility is the possibility of someone stealing the entirety or a small portion of the writing you did and incorporates it into their own work without your permission, and does not acknowledge you as the author. It is the definition of plagiarism.

The law provides legal safeguards. You may find however it's not necessary to do that. Simply advising people to cease or threaten them with legal action may suffice.

The fight against Ebook Piracy With DRM (Digital Rights Management)

And what do you need to do about pirated ebooks?

An option that is popular is to use DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools to protect the files you have. There are a variety of ways to do this, such as preventing the sharing of and forwarding of your book.

The idea is to deter pirates. It is especially effective in preventing individuals from purchasing your ebook and forwarding it on to friends.

DRM's drawbacks DRM

Unfortunately, DRM isn't bulletproof. Determined pirates will be able overtake it one way or the other. Whatever secure your eBook may be, there's no stopping anyone from reading it on one device , then copying and pasting it on another. This is a lengthy process - so most pirates simply don't take the time to bother.

Another big problem in DRM is the fact that it may hinder the readersThere are organisations that are against DRM for reasons like the defective By Design. The customers who purchased the book may find it challenging to download it and read it according to the way they prefer to. This is not something you prefer to do because this could deter them from shopping with you in the near future.

Hugh Howey, a bestselling self-published science-fiction author, explains his attitude towards DRM by stating:

I wanted it to be easy for other people to have access to my books. That meant never putting DRM on my electronic books. This is the digital rights management security that prevents me from being able to modify my books' content and copy them elsewhere or in any other way. I was hoping to give buyers a reward and not be concerned about pirate.

Utilizing Social DRM

Social DRM is the process which allows the ebook of the buyer to be produced or printed using data such as the email address of the purchaser, day of purchase. It is an option for PDF documents. This won't negatively impact the customer, and it can stop pirates (as the file is clearly identified as to who has shared the document).

What else should I do to ensure the safety of my work?

An easy way to stop the piracy of your ebook without adversely affecting customers could be to restrict the frequency at which your ebook may be downloaded by customers.

This is because people can't transfer their download link to anybody else.

It's best practice to allow people to download your book at minimum three times. If you only let them download the ebook once, this can cause issues when they fail to save the downloaded file or wish to download the file to several devices (instead of copying it across).

The ideal solution to meet the user's needs as well as preventing piracy, is to limit the number of downloads to five downloads. This is the default setting when using .

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How do you respond If someone steals your Ebook

How do you respond if someone's giving an ebook for no cost, making you a victim of a scam?

If you're the victim of a copycat It is possible to:

• Get in touch with them (if they have contact information). In some circumstances asking the pirate to remove your ebook may be enough. They might not want to contact you in the future.
• Send the DMCA note to the web hosting company (you can find this through whois.net). DMCA is sometimes referred to as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There's no formula that is set to use for a DMCA notice to take down the notice, however it has to contain certain components.

It is possible to find templates for emails within this Google Doc, when it comes to contacting pirates themselves, and to create your DMCA notice.

How Do You Know If your book is being used to piracy

Occasionally, authors find out the existence of a fraudulent ebook after an unhappy reader contacts them to inform them of the issue.

The majority of pirates won't be disclosed to the user. If you're looking to determine whether the book you purchased was stolen It is possible to:

1. Find your book using Google

Type the title of your book along with"download "download" in Google and see what comes in the display. You may find websites that offer (or say they have! - your book available.

Take care when you click to ensure you're making use of a reliable anti-virus software and that it is running to protect yourself. The majority of pirate websites will be packed with suspicious ads, or even worse.

2. Create Google Alerts

It is possible to set up Google Alerts to know the times that you and your work are mentioned on the internet. This is a fantastic way to be current with recent reviews or discussion of your book. it will also allow you to know how much the work you wrote has been duplicated.

3. Use instruments such as Mention.com

Mention.com works similar to Google Alerts. It has advanced features like the possibility of receiving daily recaps in addition to being able to receive emails when there's a sudden rush of references to the name of your novel or writer.

The most frequently asked questions

These are the most common questions readers frequently have about Pirated books:

Do I have to legally copyright My Ebook?

No. In most countries, the book will be copyrighted as soon as you've written the book. You don't need to alter it in order to copyright your book. The majority of authors put an explicit copyright notice in the beginning or at the end of their ebook, but there's no need for it.

There's a website which lists my ebook for the download ... but do they actually have the ebook?

The majority of the time, not! Many websites provide ebooks for free, but they aren't able to provide the ebooks. Actually, as Dave Chesson states it, they're trying to make people sign up for subscriptions on their website ..., or trying to sell malware and viruses.

Do I really want to waste my time combating Piracy?

If you're a brand new writer ... almost certainly you're not. You could spend all day fighting pirates, which won't affect your sales for your book in the slightest.

In this article of the Alliance of Independent Authors describes:

"Chasing down pirates that most likely do not violate the rights of your copyrights, or hinder the sale of your book is a waste. Your time and funds should be put into writing, editing or refining your advertising and polishing the description of your books, and many other things which contribute in a major way to the success of your company."

A time when it might make sense to take action to deal with the issue of pirated books is when they're dominating the search results. If the pirates' websites are highly ranked on Google for example, like that of Tim Grahl's has shared it is likely that you will take action:

"My author friend was trapped in a situation in the case that the third result from Google for the name of the book was a foreign website that allowed you to download the PDF version of the book for free."

Do I have any concerns about Ebook Piracy?

If you're an aspiring author, most likely you're not. Being unnoticed is a better chance for authors. If readers don't even know what you write about, they can't buy them.

A lot of people think that the market for pirated books can benefit authors because it puts your books into the hands of a larger number of readers ... A few of them could be paying readers.

If you're a seasoned author but you may find that pirates have a negative impact on the sales of your books. YA author Maggie Stiefvater posted her story on her Facebook page in which she explained the fact that sales from printing the third installment of the series was better than the ebook sales which was a result of pirates. She also explained how pirates hurt her book to follow in the series:

Then [the publisher] told me that they cut the printing run for The Raven King to less than half the printing run of Blue Lily, Lily Blue. There's no hard feelings here, you know, they said, they just felt that the demands of Blue Lily was not enough to justify printing extra copies.

Maggie Stiefvater was able to prove that the piratey caused sales to decline by publishing their own pirated copy of the book's fourth edition in which they repeated the initial four chapters. The print run was eventually completely sold out, and ebook sales skyrocketing too (until authentic books began getting pirated).

Author Elizabeth Lennox related a similar experience with piracy resulting an obvious decline in sales

At one point I noticed that my sales were decreased by 50. I was shocked. It was difficult to understand what was going on when my husband informed me that he'd found my books on pirate sites. We then hired an attorney to send the notices to remove them. Later that day, sales increased.

Ultimately, book piracy won't go out of style. It is up to you whether you're willing to fight it or not. If you're an author who's only started out it is more sensible to be focused on selling your book ... as well as writing the following.

If you're experiencing a significant drop in sales, it's evident if pirate websites appear very prominently on Google for your book's name or the name of your author It's the right moment to act. It's the issue with DMCA notices is the most effective method to address the issue. Make sure you get templates that are easy to use in this Google Doc.

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