Damned Pirates?!?

I love Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner. Those are some super sexy pirates who can steal me away into their lair anytime. I doN'T love ebook pirates like the people who wrote this "policy" below. Ebook piracy affects all of you who are authors and hopeful authors. They adversely affect you as readers, too. How? If this happens enough, writers may give up writing and go into other lines of work. Your favorite author may be one of them. Publishers may very likely have to increase prices to cover the legal costs of combating pirates, etc. Why should any one work for free? Slavery was outlawed years ago and deemed unethical and unlawful. Robbery's also illegal. If someone were to come into your home and steal your television and all your electronics, you'd be upset and think the robber to be the lowest form of pond scum. You'd a police report and possibly other legal action. Copyright infringement is also stealing. Since when do the robbers have the legal or moral right to say they'll return stolen goods at their discretion? When caught, that is. The complaints and abuse policy by the company in question, is below in red. To me, it looks as if they get to decide whether or not to take down copyrighted material they don't own. They've got BIG, IRON balls. Legally, I think my attorneys and the legal system really has the final authority. At least I hope so. What do you think? For complaints or abuse by (blank).com customers.

To make sure we will investigate abuse reports effectively, we need you to give us sufficient information. If you have gathered the necessary information, you can send it using the form below.

Required information

Below you will find details of the information that is required in order to investigate abuse.

Please note that it will not always be possible to send a personalised request for more information if the required information is not provided.

All information should preferably be sent in normal text format (plain text).

Depending on the seriousness of the case, we may decide to cease our services to the user concerned. In cases where services are not ceased, we may decide, at our own discretion, (blank).com’s General Terms & Conditions.

Copyright infringement

To file a copyright infringement notification with us, you will need to send a written communication to us with all of the following information in it:

• your statement telling us that you have found data on our site which you believe infringes your copyrights, or any other right;
• detailed information about your (copy)right;
• the title of the content concerned and the full URL for its page;
• a detailed explanation about how the content infringes your (copy)right;
• your contact information, so that we can get in touch with you (email address is preferred).

We reserve the right to ignore your complaint, if you provide us with insufficient information. Ugh!!! The last line "We reserve the right to ignore your complaint" is what galls me! I've reported them to my publishers involved and my publisher confirmed this is definitely a pirate site. I just sent a cease and desist order to the pirate site and a formal notice to my publisher. If they persist, I will have my attorney from the day job pursue them and he is very very good, and this is not a threat but a promise. The pirates don't have to worry that I will not have the money to pursue them as legal representation is one of my free perks. I just found this comment that really sickens me by someone who obviously knows this is an illegal act. "Unfortunately, nowhere is safe as long as the author can sniff you out. What worries me most is how easy this website comes up during Google search. Just type the title of the book, for example." Thanks you very much Google Alerts for leading me to these pirates.

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook,
Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch,
Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape
are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Held Up At Gunpoint

Envision this: It’s Saturday night, Lotto night, and you want to play it. You have big dreams of winning the jack pot. So you stop at your ATM to get out some cash and then you go to the store to buy your tickets. You get your tickets and you get back in your car. You go to your next destination. In this case, you go and you get out of your car. You’ve been there many times before without incident. This time, however, it’s rather isolated and you’re alone. You probably think nothing of it as you’ve been there a thousand times before and it’s always been safe. This time, however, as you’re walking into the building, a car drives up. You don’t think much of it—you think it’s security. However, a guy with a gun hops out of the car sticks the gun in your face, yanks your cell phone out of your hand and hurls it to the ground and smashes it. Then he demands all your cash or else. This happened to my oldest son last Saturday night. He works a lot of side computer jobs so he goes all over town, and it seems, even late at night on Saturdays. Luckily, the robber didn’t hurt my son and he only got $35 in cash which is all my son had on him. He didn’t take the credit cards or anything else. The police took what was left of my son’s cell phone to look for the thief’s prints. The robber was caught later this week. It turns out that the man was waiting at the ATM, killing time before he went to rob a house (nice guy, right?) When he saw that my son got out cash, he followed him. He waited while my son went into the store where there were several other people. Then when my son drove away again, the guy followed him again. He was waiting until my son stopped somewhere secluded to make his move. Supposedly this guy was from Miami and likes to come up to Broward (our county - where Ft. Lauderdale is) to rob people who get out cash at ATMs. I’ve heard about things like this from the Internet and whereas I read them and went yeah yeah, I’ll keep an eye out while I go to the ATM, I really thought it was just one of those paranoid emails that circulate. For all I know, that’s how the thief got the idea. I have to wonder if stealing $35 was worth serving years in prison (I don’t know how many the guy will get). I’m also not sure if they caught the thief because of my son or if they caught him later and connected him because of his prints on the cell phone. I stop at the ATM a lot. I usually only get out $20, just enough to get lunch. I watch the people around me, and so far, no one gave me bad vibes and so far, I’ve not noticed someone following me. The son that got robbed is a really bright guy, so if he didn’t notice, I have to think he’s not the only one who could fall prey. We, his family and friends, feel blessed that our Luke is okay. Not only do we love him dearly, but he has a wife and two small children depending on him. What a tragedy this could have been. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)