Ebook Piratey: How Do You Protect Your Ebook? -

 Last updated: 5 October 2022

Perhaps you've worked for months or years, working on the ebook. Then you've released it, to huge excitement, into all the world. You've made some sales ... though perhaps not quite so many as you'd like.

Then, one day, you search your ebook's title, hoping that you will find review or even tweets regarding the book. But to your horror it turns up on websites where you can download your book at no cost.

Your eBook was stolen. All your hard work is being given away for free on a dodgy-looking site.

It's an upsetting moment for any author. The first reaction, naturally, is probably to figure out what you can do to stop pirates. There's a chance you're concerned that the listing you've found is only the beginning of the iceberg.

So what can you do about it? (And are you really required to do anything?) Here's everything you need to be aware of to safeguard your eBook.

What exactly is Ebook Piracy?

Piracy of your ebook is made available without your permission.

It can come in a variety of types:

• Someone buys your ebook and then gives it to their acquaintances or friends. This may be carried out in a manner that is innocent (they don't realize they shouldn't be sharing it) or even deliberately.
• Your book is uploaded to the internet for people to download. This is what a lot of authors think of when they consider ebook piracy. There are a myriad of websites out there - though (as we'll discover further!) they may often claim to offer an ebook, but they aren't.
• Your ebook is being offered for sale by another person ... with or without your consent. They're taking all profits from it. It's not as common like other types of piracy but it's certainly been known to be happening.

Other types of Ebook Theft

The other issue that can be a problem is copying your work and passing it off as their personal. This isn't what most people call "piracy" but it can be extremely damaging. This is also a violation of the law, as it violates your copyright.

There is also the possibility the possibility that someone steals a portion from your writing and integrates it into their personal work without permission and also without naming you as the author. It is plagiarism.

In any case, you do have legal rights. You may find it, however it's not necessary to go as much. simply telling people to stop and threatening legal action could be enough.

Fight Ebook Piracy With DRM (Digital Rights Management)

What can you do to combat ebook piracy?

Another option that is popular is to employ DRM (Digital Rights Management) devices to secure your data. There are a variety of options to do this like preventing users from sharing or forwarding your ebook.

It can definitely deter pirates. It is especially effective at preventing people from buying your ebook and sharing it with acquaintances.

DRM's drawbacks DRM

Unfortunately, DRM isn't bulletproof. Certain pirates will be able to circumvent it one way or another. Whatever your eBook's security is, nothing could stop someone from accessing it on one device and retyping the same information onto another. Naturally, this is a lengthy process which is why most pirates wouldn't be bothered.

A further issue associated of DRM is it may make life harder for the readersas well as organizations that oppose DRM for reasons like Defective By Design. The legitimate customers who've purchased your book may discover it difficult to download and read it as they would like to. This is not what you'd like to happen since it may discourage them from purchasing from you in the future.

Hugh Howey, a bestselling self-published science fiction author explains his attitude to DRM like this:

I wanted it to be easy to allow other users to have my work. That meant never putting DRM on my electronic books. It is the protection provided by digital rights management which is a hindrance to change my books' content, copy them around, all that stuff. I wanted to reward buyers, not worry about pirates.

Using Social DRM

Social DRM is the process that allows customers to have their ebook printed or watermarked using information including the buyer's email address and date of purchase. This is possible for PDF files. It doesn't negatively affect customers, and can discourage pirates (as it would be obvious who used the document).

What else can I do to protect My work?

One way to easily make piracy harder - again and without impacting your customers in any way is to restrict how you can allow your book to be downloaded by customers.

It also prevents users from sharing their download link with others.

It's best practice to allow people to download the ebook at least three times. If you let them download the ebook once, it could cause problems if they lose the downloaded file, or download the file to several devices (instead of simply copying it across).

A good solution to meet the user's needs and preventing piracy is to set a limit of 5 downloads. This is the default setting when using .

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How to Handle a Situation When Someone Pirates Your Ebook

How do you respond in the event that someone gives an ebook for free, thereby which is denying you any income?

If you are the victim of a copycat You can:

• Get in touch with them (if the website has contact information). In some situations, asking the pirate to remove your book might be enough. They may not wish to go through to deal with you any further.
• Make  Issue a DMCA notice to the web hosting service (you will find this information on whois.net). DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There is no standard formula to use for an DMCA notice to take down, but it should contain certain components.

There are a few emails templates within this Google Doc, in both the event of contacting pirates directly, as well as issuing the DMCA notice.

How Do You Know If Your Ebook is Being Pirated

Sometimes, authors learn about pirated books because a concerned reader emails to inform them of the issue.

However, most pirates won't be reported to the user. If you want to know if your ebook is being pirated, you could:

1. Search for your book on Google

The title of your book and"download "download" to Google and then see what results come on the screen. You may find sites which have (or claim to offer - your book available.

Make sure you are aware of what you click on, though, and make sure you use a reliable anti-virus program and active to protect your computer. The majority of pirate websites are filled with fake ads or even worse.

2. Create Google Alerts

It is possible to set up Google Alerts to be aware of what times you or your book get mentioned on the internet. This is a great way to keep up to date with recent reviews or discussion of your book - it will also help you figure out if your work has been pirated.

3. Use tools like Mention.com

Mention.com works in a similar way to Google Alerts. It offers advanced features, such as the capability to receive daily updates in addition to the ability to be notified when there's a sudden rush of mentions of the name of your book or author.

Commonly Answered Questions

Here are some questions that people frequently ask regarding book piratey:

Do I Need to Copyright My Ebook?

No. In the majority of countries, your book is copyrighted automatically as soon as you've written the book. You don't need to make any changes to make it copyright. A majority of authors place a copyright notice somewhere at the start or end the book, however it's not a necessity.

The site has my book for downloading ... but are they actually possess the ebook?

Most of the time, no! There are many websites that offer free ebooks however, they do not provide the books. In reality, as Dave Chesson explains, they're trying to get people to pay for a subscription to their website ... as well seeking to spread malware and viruses.

Is it Worth Spending My time fighting Piracy?

If you're a brand new author ... probably not. You could spend an enormous amount of time fighting the piracy problem, but this might not affect your sales for your book in the slightest.

According to this piece from the Alliance of Independent Authors provides:

"Chasing off pirates who likely don't violate the copyright of your business or affecting the sales of your book is a waste. This is time and energy better spent on writing, editing, refining your advertising, improving the descriptions of your books, or any other activity that add in a effective way to your success."

One instance when it's logical to address the issue of pirates is when they dominate the results of a search. If pirates' sites are ranking very prominently on Google, in cases like that one Tim Grahl shares it's time to take action:

"My author friend was in a situation that the 3rd result in Google for the name of his book was a foreign site that let you get the pdf of the book at no cost."

Should I Be Worried About Ebook Piracy?

Also, if you're not a new author, probably not. The risk of being obscure is much greater risk for most authors. If readers don't even know that the existence of your book it is impossible for them to purchase them.

There are some who believe piracy can be helpful to authors, because it gets your book into the hands of many more readers ... certain of which could be paying readers.

If you're a seasoned author but you could be noticing that piracy could hurt your book sales. YA author Maggie Stiefvater posted her experiences of this on her Facebook page and explained how book's print sales for the third book in her trilogy were much higher than ebook salesand the way the piracy harmed the next novel in the series.

After that, the publisher informed me they had cut the print run of The Raven King to less than half the print run for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. No hard feelings, understand I was told by them, but the numbers of Blue Lily didn't justify printing additional copies.

Maggie Stiefvater was able prove that pirated copies were hurting sales through publishing a fake pirated version of the book's fourth edition in which the four first chapters of the book repeated. The printing run was has sold out and the book sales exploding (until actual copies of the ebook started being pirated).

Writer Elizabeth Lennox related a similar story with piracy resulting in a noticeable drop in sales:

In one instance I realized that my sales had been cut in half. I was shocked. It was difficult to figure out what was going on , until my husband informed me that he'd discovered my books on pirate sites. After that, we hired a lawyer to send remove notices and next day the sales started increasing.

The fact is that book piratey will not go out of fashion. It's your responsibility to decide if it's worth fighting it or not. For the majority of first-time authors It will be more sense to focus your time instead of marketing your book ... or writing the next one.

If you're beginning to notice a noticeable decline in sales, or if the piracy sites rank extremely high in Google in search of your book's title or author's name, then it's an appropriate time to do something about it. Issuing DMCA notices is the best solution to the problem: remember, you can find out easy-to-use templates in this Google doc.