the link: please go act on it and spread the wordIf you’re just now tuning in, an overseas pirate has put up a ripoff masquerading as a Foreigner novel, which is actually a repackaged ripoff of a Foreigner novel. Do honest writers a favor and hit this little offering, along with Rendezvous with Zama and the rest of his piratical offerings…with the most scathing reviews you can manage. They put this stuff out on a weekend, apparently, so all the people that could act are out of the office—but WE aren’t. So go do a good deed. Here’s the link.
Campaign against a pirate…thank you: your reviews are brilliant. Keep them coming.
by CJ | Jul 14, 2012 | Journal | 39 comments
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You’ll find my review under the nice, neutral, felicitous three-word title, “Liar, Thief, Plagiarist.” While not subtle, it is not rude or directly confrontational. Well, not quite. It is, however, truthful.
I submitted two quite negative reviews. Whoever or whatever is behind it hasn’t even bothered to change titles and descriptions on some of the major science fiction works he/she/they are attempting to sell as their own work. Other books, they have changed a title or a description slightly. But at least you are in good company with Mr. Heinlein, Mr. Clarke, and several others. Apparently, the thief thought it would be easy to get away with this and no one would notice. Apparently, the thief didn’t bother to check how famous or how alive an author and his/her work might be. At least they came up with an original title for the one they stole from you, as a living author of a series still in its original run. The nerve!
Okay, I did get a chuckle out of the description of one, how he met and proposed to his girlfriend for alien sex. Hmm…. Points there for style, but still not original!
I have to think someone’s out for a quick buck, or else they are testing the waters for some other purpose. Either way, it’s not right. Intolerable and wrong.
In both cases, I recommended that if someone wants to make a buck with ebooks, then write something original. That’s honest. There’s a market for original works.
If someone wants to write fanfic, then okay, but make very sure it is *original* using the characters and situations, and not plagiarizing the original series, and for goodness’ sakes, give credit to the original creators and copyright holders, and don’t sell it unless you have permission from the copyright holders, because otherwise, you are on shaky or non-existent ground. Fanfic can be good, but it must respect the original authors, actors, artists, musicians, and creative talents. Most fans would want to do that, but may not know how to go about it.
But of course, the person(s) attempting this fraud are not even doing that. They’re trying to pass off other people’s masterworks as their own, outright, brazen.
If it were my work, none of which is out in ebook form, you can bet I would be quite unhappy for someone to attempt to pass it off as theirs and sell it, or even sell it for $0.00.
I’ll trust that Amazon and others are honest and sensible merchants and will put a stop to this. There are bound to be enough people there who would not appreciate someone trying to make a dishonest buck off of some of the finest SF&F in history.
It would be funny if it weren’t so bad.
Just for the record: SELLING fanfic is an absolute unadulterated NONO!!!!!! Unless, of course, you’ve purchased legal rights from the original author, but other than MZB, I’m not sure that’s every been done because she got burned so badly. I’ve seen published books that began life as alt-universe fanfic, but you wouldn’t know it reading the published versions as the universe is different, the names are different and the scenario only vaguely reminiscent of the original. i.e. it’s a new story anyway and not really fanfic.
I’ve Filed Intent on “Trespasser” as well as “Stranger in a Strange Land”. The chuzpah is absolutely unbelievable.
“Look inside the Book” of Trespasser. “Copyright 2012 by Ibnul Jaif Farabi”. Don Wollheim’s good name is just above it. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.
I sent this email directly to Amazon:
“PIRACY:
Kindle Direct Publishing has allowed “Ibnul Jaif Farabi” to pirate and publish multiple copyrighted books, incl. re-titling one of C. J. Cherryh’s well-known books as “The Trespasser”.
Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” has also been stolen this way, along with a constellation of other titles.
Please revoke publishing rights and ban this “author” permanently!
Also, please institute stringent safeguards so that unproven authors/publishers can’t continue to do things like this. I suspect a simple ban will result only in the pirates changing their IP address, then continuing on their merry defrauding way.”
Amazon is supposed to reply within 12 hours. Stay tuned.
I see that suddenly all of this “author’s” Kindle books have been re-priced to $0.00. A few minutes ago they were all $2.99.
My guess is that Amazon is reviewing this issue.
GOOD!
I posted VERY scathing review, lets hope amazon will actually post it on their website.
I think in situations like this old law (cutting off right hand) should be still in use, maybe it’s bit harsh, but hey, CJ is my favorite author 🙂
This so-called “author” has also ripped off John Scalzi, Arthur C. Clarke, and more. Not only is “he” a prolific sf author, but also *accomplished” in the travel/outdoors genre.
Every single “offering” under “his” name (Ibnul Jaif Farabi) now has at least one scathing review. As of 2:15 AM PDT, all of “his” books are remain listed, with the price of $0.00.
One thing the internet has made me aware of is how many complete jerks there are in the world…….more common than hydrogen. I was very glad to see that all of this person’s “books” are priced at $0.00!
What I want to know is whether or not that $0.00 pricetag corresponded with an inability to purchase/download period. Of course, a freebie that got someone started on a long series wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing…. But I do wonder what their procedure is. Can’t find anything that describes the situation in all the endless pages of the amazon publishing process.
Jane, I tried to phone you 10 minutes ago. No answer, so I left a message. I do hope you aren’t in the throes of adopting a litter of puppies from Nigeria.
You probably already know this, but Amazon Prime members can download certain titles for free, as frequently as once a month, with no “due date”. Of course, who is to say that said titles are not then downloaded to their hard drive and able to be kept forever?
Secondly, the $0.00 pricetag for Prime and non-Prime members appeared to have a live “Buy Now with 1-Click”. I didn’t “purchase” anything via it for several reasons. Now I’m wondering if I should have, just to see what would have happened.
Third, Carolyn’s dedication to you remained in the pirated copy. Several people have commented on this, including bmills at Shejidan:
“Strangely, the thing that aggravated me the most about that was that the plagiarizer kept the dedication to Jane. I’m sure it was just mindlessly copied as part of the text, but somehow tainting the personal sentiment seemed nastier to me than stealing the monetary proceeds.”
One earnestly wishes that one could file Intent on this fool, nadi.
Comments sent.
Complaint sent to Amazon. When “looking inside” it is interesting to see the dedication to Jane in this “original” work!
Wow. This guy does have taste, though. And cojones – perhaps to compensate for his lack of a functioning brain? “The End of Childhood”? “Stranger in a Strange Land”? Plagiarize, plagiarize, let not a word evade your eyes. Only please to be calling it RESEARCH!
I do love Joel Salomon’s review title – “Infringer”. LOL!
Amazon’s reply to me. Typical.
“Hello,
If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide Amazon.com’s copyright agent the written information specified below. This procedure is exclusively for notifying Amazon.com and its affiliates that your copyrighted material has been infringed.
– An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest;
– A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed upon;
– A description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site;
– Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address;
– A statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
– A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.
Amazon.com’s Copyright Agent for notice of claims of copyright infringement on its site can be reached as follows:
Copyright Agent
Amazon.com Legal Department
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
Fax: (206) 266-7010
E-mail: copyright@amazon.com
Thank you for taking the time to contact us about this matter.
Thank you for your inquiry. Did I solve your problem?
If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A3CJYLQOXPCQ26&k=hy
If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A3CJYLQOXPCQ26&k=h
Srinivas D”
I’m checking “no” and will escalate the complaint.
You guys are wonderful. Thank you. The only problem is now that they are allowing a no-money download of whawt amounts to Intruder. Sigh. But I’ve also put DAW onto it.
I’m still seeing the price as $2.99 — the $0.00 is for Amazon Prime members, who can “borrow” any Kindle book for two weeks. My opinion of that author-unfriendly scam may be inferred.
When I was up last night, I saw about half of his books at $0.00 and the rest for 2.99. I later went up and found one that had been 2.99 at 0.00, so some one was doing something…and I’m not an Amazon Prime.
I hadn’t realized that AP members could do that. Grrrrrr….
My email to amazon received only a canned reply from an off-shore amazon rep. It was totally unsatisfactory. So, I just escalated my complaint and spoke on the phone to a man clearly from the US. He was very helpful in providing info but not surprisingly is unable to take definitive action himself.
Per my conversation with him, we can contact amazon’s legal dept using the info provided on my canned reply. We do not need to be the author or publisher. He encouraged me (us) to do that. He also suspected that amazon might even already be working on it, but because of the ongoing volume of piracy, it may take a while for books to get pulled.
He also said that authors/publishers don’t get paid right away for their amazon sales — that there is a lag time. If amazon becomes aware there are copyright infringement issues, payment to the “author” is withheld.
Of course, this doesn’t address the question of unscrupulous customers who download the pirated copy, thus depriving the true author of royalties — but at least the scammers don’t get rewarded for their theft.
What you got, btw, is exactly what any author who complains to Amazon about piracy gets—as in—zero help.
The price went down to $0.00 for everyone, not just Prime members, during the middle of the night. I see it is back up to $2.99 this morning.
My sister* who lives in British Columbia reports this morning that the books remain available via the Canadian amazon, also for a price.
Shejidan is Filing Intent, en masse.
*Carolyn, you’ve met her.
I would guesstimate that even ebooks “sold” for $0.00 are generating payment for (1) the person/entity who has posted the ebook; and (2) Amazon Kindle’s ebook publishing/sales arm. But the blame rests with the thief/plagiarist.
I’m not sure how they would check all works submitted for original copyright, except to compare the ebook’s copyright/bibliography page against copyright filings and publisher listings. For the text of an ebook itself, that would be a tough task to compare by machine, and tough for a well-read human. But it may be necessary.
The other problem is, crooks like that may cause such nonsense that it could become very tough for legitimate new/indie authors/publishers and the established pro authors/publishers to prove *they* are the original, real sources.
All because some nutcase out there wants to make a fast buck off of other people’s work.
By the way, I’m curious what “Ibnul Jaif Farabi” translates to. It might be someone’s idea of a joke. (Apologies if it’s a real name, but given what’s going on, I tend to think someone’s trying to be cute, there. At very least, I’d estimate sleight of hand.)
I wouldn’t expect any real, substantive answer until late Monday. — But Amazon and DAW being alerted, and authors and the fan community, should get the ball rolling. Sissyphus, perhaps?
Chutzpah, I can admire. Cojones, I can admire. 😉 But this is neither of those.
The trouble is, it does say something about how much time someone might have to abuse the system.
Few things get me more aggravated than hurting a friend.
There’s supposed to be an auto check of content against other books published on Amazon. Similarity of content greater than a certain percentage is supposed to raised a red flag.
We see just how effectively this works. The only time I’ve ever heard of it catching someone is when they were trying to put up their own work and a pirate had already posted it.
Ain’t Amazon grand?
Amazon allegedly has a program designed to catch pirate duplications of another’s work. Apparently what their touted software does is to catch identical titles.