Legitimate eBook Lending Community Closed After Copyright Complaints

Ian Lamont writes "LendInk, a community for people interesting in using the lending features of the Kindle and Nook, has been shut down after some authors mistakenly thought the site was hosting pirated ebooks. The site brought together people who wanted to loan or borrow specific titles that are eligible for lending, and then sent them to Amazon or BarnesAndNoble.com to make the loans. Authors and publishers who were unaware of this feature of the Kindle and Nook, and/or mistakenly assumed the site was handing out pirated copies, were infuriated. LendInk's hosting company received hundreds of complaints and shut the site down. LendInk's owner says: 'The hosting company has offered to reinstate Lendink.com on the condition that I personally respond to all of the complaints individually. I have to say, I really do not know if it is worth the effort at this point. I have read the comments many of these people have posted and I don't think any form of communication will resolve the issues in their eyes. Most are only interested in getting money from me and others are only in it for the kill. They have no intentions of talking to me or working this out. So much for trying to start a business and live the American Dream.'"

Comments

Easy....

[Immostlyharmless]

Make a EULA that states you can charge for responding to errant take down notices.
Respond to every take down notice with a bill for hourly services rendered.
Profit??

Re:Easy....

[houstonbofh]

And remember all those "Under penalty or perjury" parts. Sue for libel on each and every one.

Re:Easy....

[Baloroth]

The DMCA (which I assume the takedown requests are filed under) already includes a provision that states the claimant is liable for all costs associated with false takedown requests. People just haven't bothered to push them on it.

Re:Easy....

[pepty]

do "all costs associated" include lost revenue or just direct expenses like hiring lawyers? Somehow I don't think the lobbyists who wrote the DMCA would have wanted the former.

Re:Easy....

[dark12222000]

EULAs, like any contract, are limited to what is legal.
It IS legal, as per the DMCA, to bill for false takedowns.
Therefore, so long as the EULA otherwise survives Probate (and is a valid contract), then you can, in fact, bill people for wrongful takedowns.

However, in this case, it seems like these are just very loud complaints, not actual DMCAs. Complaints carry no legal weight, but may, say, convince your hosting company to turn you off.

Re:Easy....

[Baloroth]

17 U.S.C. 512(f) Misrepresentations. – Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —

(1) that material or activity is infringing, or

(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,

shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

Take that as you will, I imagine it depends on a case by case basis but lost revenue should be included, in at least some cases (IANAL, of course).

Re:Easy....

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA (which I assume the takedown requests are filed under) already includes a provision that states the claimant is liable for all costs associated with false takedown requests. People just haven't bothered to push them on it.

Ahem. (cough, cough).

Ah, attention legal staff of the EFF. This is what we like to call a "golden moment"...

Re:Easy....

[HiThere]

You need to read the wording of that more carefully. The filer of the request for a takedown just says that he has a good-faith belief that he is acting on the behalf of the owners of the copyright. The guy who tells him to fire the notice isn't under any kind of oath or penalty at all.

So all the lawyer has to say is "I believed my client." and he's off the hook. And the client was never ON the hook.

Re:Easy....

[cpu6502]

And now they are engaging in book-burning..... I mean topic erasing. The topic where the authors complained has been deleted. They are trying to cover-up their actions.

I created a new topic here: http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,122736.0.html

Re:Easy....

[cpu6502]

And now I got banned.
No warning of any kind.
They just didn't like my copying of slashdot's article to their forum. That shows you how these authors operate in the real world. Censorship and shutting-down personal websites of their readers/buyers.

Re:Easy....

[galaad2]

in this case it's simple to prove the "knowingly materially misrepresent". The contract that those authors SIGNED with Amazon explicitly says in very BOLD LETTERS:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=APILE934L348N

5.2 Marketing and Promotion; Kindle Book Lending Program.
[...]
5.2.2 Kindle Book Lending Program. The Kindle Book Lending program enables customers who purchase a Digital Book to lend it subject to limitations we establish from time to time. All Digital Books made available through the Program are automatically included in the Kindle Book Lending program. However, for Digital Books that are in the 35% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page), you may choose to opt out of the Kindle Book Lending program. This will disable lending of the Digital Book by customers who purchase it after you have opted it out, but this will not affect the right of customers who purchased it when lending was enabled to continue to lend it. You may not choose to opt out a Digital Book if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel. If we become aware that a Digital Book you have opted out is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel, we may enable it for lending. Digital Books that are in the 70% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page) cannot be opted out of the lending feature.
[.... and a bit below...]
KDP Select Option Terms and Conditions.
[...]
2.2 Inclusion in Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program. Digital Books included in KDP Select will be automatically included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program described in more detail here. ( https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200798990#KOLL )

Q.E.D.

Re:Easy....

[Anonymous Coward]

So all the lawyer has to say is "I believed my client." and he's off the hook. And the client was never ON the hook.

You confuse criminal and civil law. The standard for proving your case is MUCH lower in civil cases. All you need to do is convince a judge that the lawyer should have done his homework before sending off a takedown letter.

And it's REALLY easy to convince a judge that some lawyer didn't do his homework.

Can't he sue?

[rebelwarlock]

Surely this falls under harassment, or something equally court-worthy. The American dream isn't to start your own business, it's to sue some rich asshole and get showered with money.

Re:Can't he sue?

[Br00se]

She's a Christian. No surprise there; those types are always quick to judge...

So by that definition, I guess you are a Christian too.

Re:Can't he sue?

[Voyager529]

I have mod points and karma, but I'm down for losing both...

The Bible doesn't say "Thou shalt not judge". In Matthew 7:1-2, Jesus says, "“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." For the extent of your post it's merely a point of semantics, but it does go both ways. If the measuring rod I will be judged with is my own, then it makes the most sense for me to assume as little as possible, gather as much information, and attempt to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. After all, that's the measuring rod I'd want to be judged with.

That said, as a Christ follower myself, I do my best to put up with a lot of the general anti-Christianity sentiment on Slashdot. Plenty of it is deserved for a lot of reasons, and I realize that it comes with the territory of the name. I consider it quite possibly the greatest irony of all time that "Christian" was a term first used by nonbelievers to describe those following Christ because of how closely they emulated Him. Today, that same name is nearly synonymous with acting the opposite of Jesus.

The reason I bring this up is this: Yes, Christianity has its issues. Yes, we've got a bad reputation that we've, in many cases, brought upon ourselves. Yes, we could, as a whole, stand to become a lot more loving and a lot less judgmental. We could stand to do a lot more listening and a lot less talking. BUT...having been raised in church - and a fairly stiff, conservative one at that - and having visited several others in my area from many different denominations - I have yet to meet ONE Christian who agrees with abortion clinic bombings or the Westboro Baptist protests. On the contrary, they're generally just as outraged as you are about those issues.

I know it goes against the stereotype, but unfortunately an extremely vocal minority gets a lot more press coverage than the positive groups that help feed homeless people, work to facilitate drug rehabilitation, and just in general try to service their communities. Don't believe it happens? I've personally been involved in these activities numerous times throughout the years, but think about it: the people picketing want attention, and get it. People actually helping, generally don't do it for the publicity, so they don't get any.

No church is perfect, and some are more involved than others. That doesn't mean that churches generally support causing harm or performing acts of vandalism to the staff and buildings of abortion clinics or wish physical harm toward homosexuals.

Re:Can't he sue?

[cpu6502]

>>> I have yet to meet ONE Christian who agrees with abortion clinic bombings or the Westboro Baptist protests.

Neither have I actually.
The problem is that they keep their trap shut. They need to open their mouths and say, "This is wrong," the way that I do. Otherwise their silence is viewed as approval of the hatefilled Chritians' actions. (Just the same as the silence by Muslims is viewed as approval of the terrorists.)

Crowdsource

[ktappe]

Crowdsource the job of responding to them all. I'm sure enough of us are infuriated at this turn of events that we could all lend a hand. I think the first thing you'd need is a lawyer-type to draft a boilerplate response. Nothing too long, but substantial enough to explain in, say, 3 paragraphs that you are 1) your site is 100% legal, 2) this is a standard feature of the readers, and 3) no money will be paid out to anyone under any circumstances. Then let us volunteers each "adopt" a complaint to handle. If a sufficient percentage can be done away with, perhaps your venture can survive.

Re:Crowdsource

[EdIII]

There is another option.

Go with a provider that has some backbone and won't just shut someone down on some specious and dubious copyright claims.

He is a business already paying fees, why not just give those fees to a place like Free Speech hosting?

Re:Crowdsource

[Anonymous Coward]

whois reveals that their host is: http://www.medialayer.com/contact/index.html

Re:Crowdsource

[b4dc0d3r]

Crowdsourcing is only a viable option when you only need "good enough", and you can get an informed crowd together. In this case, not only is it inadvisable, it is dangerous. I would not trust volunteers to respond. An inadequate response could very well led to an undesirable situation.

If no reply is sent, the author's representation will almost certainly file suit, so you want to ensure no response is overlooked. If you do not sufficiently address each point of a C&D, your response will be considered evidence against the person you are trying to help. If in any way the volunteer gives the impression of disdain or dismissiveness, intentional infringement will be claimed.

Keep in mind, you will win any lawsuit, because they agreed to lending as part of the publishing agreement. But paying for the defense could be expensive, especially if multiple suits are filed. One volunteer screwing up and you are probably financially ruined.

And no need to bring up the "have to be rich to get justice" garbage, it's been beaten to death. Yes, it's not fair, and yes in most cases it is true. We have discussed it to death, just leave it be.

Re:Crowdsource

[oakgrove]

I let them know what I thought about the situation and how they could help recover at least a little goodwill. Dropping the requirement for them to respond individually to the ridiculous "complaints" would be a good start.

Re:Crowdsource

[number11]

If you know you're going to win why pay for a defense? Just represent yourself. The facts in the case are self-evident.

You never know you're going to win. It's always a crapshoot. Sure, sometimes the dice are loaded in your favor, but even loaded dice fall wrong sometimes. You didn't know the proper legal procedure? And no, it's not intuitively obvious. You're screwed. Even if you did everything legal right, dotted all the "i"s and crossed all the "t"s, it's still a crapshoot. Especially if an opinionated judge, or a jury, is involved.

"A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." It's unfortunate, but true. Sometimes, if you have a sympathetic judge, you can get away with it. But don't count on it.

Re:Crowdsource

[cpu6502]

That..... and he lives in California, which Amazon is in dispute with. They suspended all affiliates in that state, so the guy's "business" has not made any money in 9 months. I can understand why he has no motivation to restore a website from which he gets no income.

Re:Crowdsource

[mwvdlee]

I suggest hosting the site at Amazon Web Services.
Surely the irony of them shutting down this website would have imploded the universe.

Re:Crowdsource

[cpu6502]

He used to be an Amazon affiliate. He hoped that people using his site would do more than just borrow books, but also buy books. And then he would get a cut of the sale (something like 2%). Unfortunately his timing was bad because Amazon terminated all California affiliates.

Fully Automated Solution

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

for Complainer in Complainers:
          print("Dear " + Complainer + ", \n");
          print("No.");

If you are done with it, open source the code.

[beernutz]

This would let a LOT of these kind of sites flourish.

I say, turn it around on them. Let them all spaz out when they see 100 more sites offering this service pop up.

Publish and they'll perish

[Anonymous Coward]

He should publish the name of the authors who complained. Authors are definitely vulnerable to negative press. And certainly legal threats can't be thought to be private.

Re:Publish and they'll perish

[number11]

He should publish the name of the authors who complained. Authors are definitely vulnerable to negative press. And certainly legal threats can't be thought to be private.

Mod this up!

Names? No, publish the entire email. So that we can, for instance, write the authors and share our opinion with them.

Re:Publish and they'll perish

[canajin56]

People are currently scraping forums looking for authors complaining about the site and bragging about getting it taken down. Their works are being compiled into a single torrent for easy piracy ;) The idea is to get all of these beyond-retarded inbreeds tilling at TPB so that they won't bother burning down any more libraries.

Re:Paradigm Shift Backlash

[msauve]

"This was just the equivalent of a book club"

The first rule of book club is: You do not talk about book club.
The second rule of book club is: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT BOOK CLUB...

Re:Alternative?

[bmo]

>Is there any alternative sites out there?

Yes, it's called bittorrent, because clearly the publishers are not interested in playing by the rules anyway. If it was up to them, brick and mortar libraries would disappear too.

--
BMO

DMCA irrelevant

[b4dc0d3r]

I did not see DMCA mentioned, only "cease and desist". The "were infuriated" link contains equal parts infuration and people reminded the infuriated that lending was part of their agreement, if they checked the box to allow it.

You invented DMCA because you associate it with copyright protection. What seems to have happened, based on the information presented, is that the hosting company was inundated with C&D notices instead of DMCA. These are legally backed threats which can lead to lawsuits directly, outside of the control of the DMCA process.

In other words, the hosting company most likely had a choice between shutting down the service and responding to multiple court summons, if not full blown cases. Were I the hosting company, I would have folded, and I would have laid the responsibility of responding to the customer, just as this company did.

C&D is a lose-lose proposition unless you have deep enough pockets to defend yourself. DMCA covers the host well enough if tey do what they are supposed to do. Which is most likely why the authors went with C&D instead of DMCA. One is quicker, one is more effective. If you're going for the kill, as the summary says, C&D is the way to go.

Re:DMCA irrelevant

[cpu6502]

Then the hosting company can be sued. They are not supposed to remove material (or suspend accounts) unless they FIRST receive a DMCA-compliant takedown request. Plus give the owner a chance to respond to the request. That is the current federal law and the ISP violated it.

Also I doubt there was a single lawyer involved; just a bunch of angry authors sending nasty messages. Those have ZERO legal standing, unless they were specifically formatted as a DMCA takedown notice.

Re:DMCA irrelevant

[TubeSteak]

A Cease and Desist Notice is an entirely different animal than a Cease and Desist Order, signed by a judge.
It's far more likely that random authors sent out copypasta C&D threats^w notices and the hosting company folded as a result of ignorance.

Re:DMCA irrelevant

[cpu6502]

Yes and my housing association contract says, "No antennas or dishes allowed on roofs." That clause was nullified by the 1996 Telecommunications Act and so too is any ISP clause that is nullfied by the DMC Act.

They are not allowed to suspend a user simply because of an email from a complaining author or lawyer. They MUST follow the DMCA process and give the user a chance to respond, "No this does not infringe anybody's copyright or ownership."

Re:Paradigm Shift Backlash

[Baloroth]

"This was just the equivalent of a book club"

The first rule of book club is: You do not talk about book club.
The second rule of book club is: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT BOOK CLUB...

It'd be a little ironic if you couldn't write about it, though.

As an Indie Author Myself...

[Synchis]

This really disappoints me. :(

I saw this coming when the site started circulating the facebook groups I'm involved in. In each case I explained how the site worked, and defended LendInk.com for what they were doing.

The knee-jerking that resulted in this sites shut down is a perfect exampled of what happens when a bunch of frustrated indie authors don't take the time to read or research a site before crying foul.

Re:As an Indie Author Myself...

[Pembers]

Another indie author here. I saw the hysteria in one of my Facebook groups last week and decided to see for myself. I searched lendink for my name and saw my three books listed. One of my titles is available only for the Kindle at the moment, so I thought I'd ask to borrow it for the Nook. That should determine whether they really were just matching up people to borrow books, or were pirating them.

Before they'd let me borrow a book, they wanted me to offer one for someone else to borrow. I pretended to have one of my own titles to offer. They asked me for the author and title so they could do a search on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but then seemed to ignore the author and just bring up the first match for a search on the title. One of my books has the same title as about ten other books. The others have "and" in the title, which most search functions ignore. So the site wouldn't let me offer my own books to be borrowed. Meaning that regardless of whether they were pirating or lending, they weren't very good at it.

I suppose for some indie authors, it's easy to believe that the reason they're not making megabucks is because everyone's pirating their book. Easier than believing it's because of Sturgeon's Law...

This is why I still buy paper books

[SilverJets]

I own them. Neither Amazon nor the author can take them away from me.

I can loan them to whomever I wish for however long I wish and the author can go pound sand.

Re:This is why I still buy paper books

[nitio]

Now here is the interesting part: I buy all my books through the Big A but the first thing I do is copy to my computer, remove DRM and have it being backed up in a format I can read anytime I want.

Do I send this out? No. Do I lend these DRM-free? No. Do I copy this DRM-free to all my other devices? No- I really use their reader for all devices.

I just want to make sure that in the event that they go down, my books don't go with them.

Re:Paradigm Shift Backlash

[bky1701]

I just wonder how we're going to get rid of this false concept of ownership, which is what needs to happen for us to have any chance of keeping our free speech and open internet, considering the last time it required a civil war. "Occupying" a park certainly isn't going to change things, nor is voting, nor is the libertarian dream of "voting with your feet."

The Great American Dream!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not home ownership, it's vigilante justice.

Yes folks, if you are an American you can shutdown -k a the website of your choosing simply by complaining. There's not waiting for some crusty old judge or lawyers saddled by common law or the rules of evidence. Just pick a site and complain to their hosting service that something on the site violates the Mickey Mouse/Sonny Bono law Copyright or the DMCA and wait for 5 minutes.

Re:"So much for the American Dream"

[Firethorn]

Authors had to sign contracts allowing said lending though. Not all did, and you can't lend out those books, not even once.

Thing is, book lending is good for sales, as Baen has discovered.

Publicly Post Each and Every Complaint

[medv4380]

Let the crowd have their Names and Contacts. If they're lucky 4chan stays out of it.

And piracy stll goes on

[SealBeater]

I bet this didn't make the slightest dent in book piracy either.

Re:And piracy stll goes on

[LordLucless]

Quite the opposite. I wonder how many ex LendInkers, frustrated that their legitimate channel for sharing books was denied, threw their hands up in frustration, said "screw playing by their rules then", and took themselves away to the Pirate Bay.

Re:Paradigm Shift Backlash

[TubeSteak]

The third rule of book club is: You bring bagels and coffee when it's your turn

Re:Authors still attacking their Facebook page

[Ian Lamont]

Go to the "see all" discussions on this page to see authors' misguided complaints (most are in early August). Some samples:

Remove my books from your lists immediately...The Eternal Question and Children of Hamelin. I am seeking legal action... ... I own the copyright to my books and I did NOT give you permission to put them on your sight for lending. REMOVE THEM IMMEDIATELY! ... Please remove my three books from this site. My novel Queen Sacrifice took over a year to write and I consider book piracy to be theft from authors. Any readers who download stolen books are also guilty of stealing from authors. ... I'll add my name to this list of people pissed off that you are lending my book without my permission. This will serve as your only notice that you are to remove my book Morgan: The scandal that shook Freemasonry from your service immediately.

Re:Alternative?

[canajin56]

It's not the publishers doing it in this case, it was the authors. And most authors don't want libraries gone completely. Oh no, they want them to pay the author 10 cents each time the book is loaned out. That's what they managed to get in England, and they are furious at how small it is (the fee, not England). They say that since each loan is a loss of a 5-10 pound sale, they are reasonably owed at LEAST one pound each time somebody borrows a book from the library, absolute minimum. The lesson is the oft repeated "give an inch and they'll take a mile." You extend copyright a year, they'll keep demanding it again and again until, oh look, it lasts 150 years. You give them a cent and they will demand a million dollars because they have come to rely on your government handouts but find they are insufficient. In this case the list of anti-sharing, anti-reading, authors needs to be published so they can be boycotted.

Re:Authors still attacking their Facebook page

[Anonymous Coward]

To save all of you the trouble, here's the moblist so far on the facebook link:

Robin Helm, OG Tomes, Buck Stienke, Ken Farmer, Dawn Sinclair, Joyce Godwin Grubbs, Tony Riches, Rebecca Treadway, Lisa Kz, Mari Passananti, Melody Peugh, Stephen Dafoe, Karen Kennedy Samoranos, Gerry Huntman, Rhea Rhodan, Kai Starr (Kaichi Satake), Anne Barnhill, Vicki Batman, James F. Ross, Scarlet Hunter, Alisha Paige, Merris Hawk, Cathie Dunn, Roscoe James, Trish Marie Dawson, Mark Patton, Sandra Peddle, Bill Wilbur, Rachel Lyndhurst, Melinda Hammond, Chrystalla Thoma, David Naughton-Shires, Electa Scott Graham, Kate McCormick, Seumas Gallacher, Juliet Cardin, Benita Brown, Julie Parker, Jenny Woodall, Pam Mangol Bitner, Liz Ringrose, Anne Polhill Walton, Lesley Cookman, M.m. Bennetts, Gerry Huntman, Prue Batten, Chrystalla Thoma, Karl Jones, Anna Jacobs, Deborah Gafford, Nely Cab, Tessa Berkley, Nan O'Berry, Sharon Cathcart, Lauren Gilbert, Naty Matos, Tory Michaels, Cerian Williams Hebert, Karen Cino, LaVerne Clark, Erin Dameron-Hill, Kissa Starling, Emily Harvale, Rosalind Smith-Nazilli, Seumas Gallacher, Paula Martin, Melanie Pearce, Jeanette Baird Vaughan, Trace Rybarczyk Broyles, Trevor Belshaw, Pam Howes, Deb Harris, Gayl Taylor, Nanette Del Valle Bradford, Ella James, Raven McAllan, Linda Gillard, Jenny Woodall, Virginia McKevitt, Morticia Knight, Judith Arnopp Novelist, Heather Nelson, Ruth Watson-Morris, Rebecca Rynecki, Victoria Pearson Writer, Maxi Shelton, David J Howe .... and a whole lot more I'm sure but Facebook refused to load the messages any further.

Special mentions go to :

Aimée Reinhart Avery (belittling posters), Renaissance Romance Publishing (yes, a publishing house that cannot be bothered to investigate), Shawn Lamb (unremorseful), Danielle Yockman (abusing/belittling posters esp. with comments like "Doubt you would've bought a copy anyway. *shrugs*")

Authors who apologised:

Jennifer Hanning

Authors who actually took the time to investigate and found no wrongdoing:

Michele Poet, Philip Catshill, Shanon Nowell

The deleted your message as well

[Taco Cowboy]

They not only banned you

The message you posted also got deleted !

I have just lost all respect to those so-called "authors"

What got to me...

[Havenwar]

What got to me was that on the complaining authors blog - which someone linked to - there was a part of a post saying that the reason they complained was because lendlnk was not an authorized lender, and only loans through authorized lenders cause the author to get their commission from the loan. Now, from what I've gathered lendlnk didn't loan the books themselves, they sent people to amazon - an authorized lender. However that's really not the big news here.

The big news is that authors are getting paid when we loan an e-book to someone else. If this is true it's horrendous.

Seriously, what's next, will they want to get paid if we read it in a new room? If we remove it from the kindle and then re-download it? If we read it in the dark? I mean, clearly it's amazon that pays out, but of course the cost ends up with the end consumer eventually... and even if it didn't, we really don't want to create another class of content producers that are fully expecting to write a book or three and then sit on their fat asses and ride the royalty checks for the rest of their lives. That's how the music and film industry got to be the giant douche-nozzles they are today - keep getting paid over and over again for the same work they already did and moved on from.

Man, I wish I could go to work at say a supermarket, work for a day, or hell work for a year... and then get paid a .01% royalty every time someone goes through the checkout for the rest of my life.

Now I'm not one of those people who devalue abstract goods... Ideas, books, poetry, whatever... these are valuable things. People should get paid to bring these to the world... However they should get paid for the work they do. Paid per book, per work, or per hour - whatever business model the REAL WORLD can handle... but they shouldn't be paid for future use of work they've already done. If they write a book in three months, they should write another one six months later, or a year, if they want to keep making a living as an author. Or if they do it for fun, because they WANT to write... well then they can just as well do it while working in wallmart to put food on the table. A lot of us - me included - could probably live off things we do for fun... But only if we made it our fulltime job. Of course eventually the market for professional gameplayers and buckyball artists would be saturated, but you get the idea. If it's a fulltime job, you should get paid while you work it.

So stop going the other way by bending to give these lazy fucks more money for things they shouldn't be able to even know. If I lend my hardcopy to someone, the author doesn't get paid again. Nothing has changed in what happens, so nothing should change in the payscheme.

Re:What got to me...

[Havenwar]

If someone - Amazon - starts paying people off so that you can use property you have legally bought in a legal fashion, then that's a horrible precedent no matter how you bend it. I don't know about you, but I don't feel comfortable about money trading hands so that I can do things that are my legal right to property that is legally mine. Why?

Well because if Amazon pays for it, you can bet your sweet ass it's included in the price when you buy it from them. Which means you are paying extra to actually use your legal rights with your legal property. Charging people for property is okay, like a book. Charging people for a service, say renting a book to them, is okay. Charging people for property, and then charging them some extra for the permission to use it legally... that's getting paid for a bridge that wasn't yours to sell.

I'm glad I found out about this, I'll make sure never to use the lending feature on my kindle. I'll just either lend them my actual kindle so they can read it, or I'll direct them to a pirated version of the book. Both are the exact moral equivalent of lending them the file, they get to read it, decide if they want to own it... neither way gets the author paid extra for this new reader, unless they catch them as a new reader of their own.

I dont think its even that...

[Cyno01]

I think many of them DO actually at least partly approve of these things, but feel guilty enough to lie about it. If there are so many of these purported "moderate christians" who dont want to burn gays at the stake and dont want to tell women what to do with their bodies and dont want to teach creationism in science class and just want to be good people and love their neighbors and follow the teachings of christ... do they not vote?

Because various referendums around the country definitely indicate that these mythical voiceless moderates dont really represent a significant percentage of christians, much less the general population.

Re:Authors still attacking their Facebook page

[jaymemaurice]

The facebook page is quite entertaining, here are some of the comment threads

Some are not only stupid and ignorant, but incomprehsibly so:
Linda Gillard - TAKE MY 6 E-BOOKS OFF YOUR SITE IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS BOOK PIRACY AND THEFT! I receive nothing for these loans & you haven't even asked for my permission to give away my books. (And you wouldn't get it.) I have informed Amazon, my agent and The Society of Authors of your illegal activities.
Linda Gillard - It looks as if the whole thing is a scam. You can't download the books. Borrowers are referred to Amazon to buy them. Whoever runs the site is probably just collecting referral fees from Amazon. Neat racket.
Jenny Woodall - Linda, have you tried registering and 'borrowing' a book?
Linda Gillard - No, but someone else has. I think their post is on this page if you look back.
(previous referenced comment: Philip Catshill Hang on hang on.... I have just registered and tried to download my own book, But the site tells me the Book CANNOT BE BORROWED - ONLY BOUGHT : Click on BUY and you go to the Amazon sell page. Its just a referal site - I have similar links for "friends" novels on my Website so I reckon this guy is just out to collect referal fees from Amazon.)
Jenny Woodall - Thanks, will do.
Jenny Woodall - Did a 'Who is" search and have now contacted the Domain host with a cease and desist letter as well.
Linda Gillard - I've just heard back from the SoA who think what they are doing is not illegal but is probably misleading to both borrowers & authors.
TLDR; Even after understanding site is reffering customers to buy her books through legit channels, Jenny Woodall decides to bother the hosting company.

And then there are some clearly out for blood money:
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - EVERYONE ON THIS SITE!!! EMAIL ME YOUR ADDYS AND WE WILL FILE A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!
Rosalind Smith-Nazilli - I have mailed them also and commented here..
Philip Catshill - ?"Hang on hang on.... I have just registered and tried to download my own book, But the site tells me the Book CANNOT BE BORROWED - ONLY BOUGHT : Click on BUY and you go to the Amazon sell page. Its just a referal site - I have similar links for "friends" novels on my Website so I reckon this guy is just out to collect referal fees from Amazon."
Miranda Stork - This 'guy' is not a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and so is not collecting referrals. We currently have a lawyer looking into all of this for us, as even if the site WAS legit, he has books there that are DRM protected. These should not even be SHOWING up. On top of that, if he is legit, why has he answered no emails, or removed any books?
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - Please keep me in contact with you about the lawyer. My book is on Kindle Select and he should not have access to it a all!
Miranda Stork - We will do, as I mentioned in the message to you, we are just sorting out things before we make a lot of statements, as we don't want too much information floating around panicking people until we have compiled everything, but this guy will NOT get away with this.
Dawn Sinclair - If this action goes ahead, could you inform me as I have 2 books on Amazon Kindle and they are both on Lendink's lists illegally...Theresa Dawn Sinclair...my email address is dawnspen@gmail.com...thank?s very much
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - He has taken down the site for now. Wish we could still get him financially!
Miranda Stork - That's what we are still looking into, we're still talking to our legal counsel.
Miranda Stork - Also, he didn't take the site down, it was taken down by the server after several lawyers got in touch :)
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - Awesome! Who are these lawyers...let's join forces!!
Miranda Stork - I heard about it from a friend, Maxi Shelton, so if you ask her, she can tell you the full details.

How much lost revenue we have because of the draco

[devent]

It really saddens me that we have invented that machine that can make copies for effective 0 costs and distribute them around the world with light speed for effective 0 costs again, but we pass legislation to cripple the new technology as best as we can.

It's like we invent the warp engine and pass legislation to limit the maximum speed to 100km/sec to prevent the old space rockets to go out of business. Or we invent the replicator and pass legislation to throw out at least as much food as we produce out of energy to save farming.

We need finally wake up and stop destroying new emerging markets. No wonder entrepreneurs have trouble come up with business models in the internet. It's not that people don't pay or the piracy or any other straw-man. It's the simple fact that any business on the internet is dealing with information and we try our best to destroy information sharing via politics.

Put the copyright back in the way it was (with registration, only 14 years and 14 years extension) and then successive lower the copyright terms as the distribution becomes easier and easier.

How much lost revenue we have because of the draconian copyright laws? How many new jobs can we create in the new markets?

Re:How much lost revenue we have because of the dr

[dbIII]

Here's an example of how truly insane it is.
In 1932 an Australian music teacher wrote a song: "Kookaburra."
In 1934 she entered it into a competition run by the Girl Guides Association of Victoria and won, giving over the rights to the Girl Guides in exchange for a prize (I don't know what, but the budget would have been low so most likely something donated by a local business). The rights for the song were sold in 1934 and the proceeds used to buy a camping ground far from the city where land was cheap. After some years Australian copyright expired and the song would have gone into the public domain.
Fast forward to around 1980 and the flute player with the band "Men at Work" put a riff from "Kookaburra", at that time public domain, into the song "Down Under", and that version was recorded by the band in 1981.
Move ahead to near the present day and Australia adopting copyright extensions on the insistence of some shady characters in the USA as part of one of the many one sided conditions of a "free trade" deal. Then one recording company wanted to take over another but they were not selling. The lawyers were called in, the archives searched, and it turns out the company doing the takeover had previously owned the rights to "Kookaburra" before it entered the public domain and thanks to new laws it was out of the public domain and theirs again, and even better the company they wanted to take over had recorded the song "Down Under" with that "Kookaburra" riff. It all went to court, the law had changed to retrospectively make it an offence to use part of a song that had been in the public domain. Substantial damages were paid, of course none went to the heirs of the composer or the Girl Guides, and the flautist that included the riff suffered months of depression before being found dead in his home.
All that messing about just so one company could find a blunt instrument to use on another.