by: Roy Thomsitt
Illegal downloading of music gets high profile publicity. However, those are not the only illegal activities taking place online.
Copyright theft relating to ebooks, articles and software is rampant. People with no rights at all sell the software of others, sometimes even giving it away in a thieves' bundle. The same is true of ebooks. The authors of these products may have spent months or even years working on them. They will, no doubt, have put them up for sale, either directly, through affiliates, or by selling resell rights, at a market price that will make it all worthwhile, and possibly after taking professional advice on the pricing. They will then have planned and set up all the marketing, again maybe with expensive professional advice. The owner has done all the hard work, and now expects the rewards their effort deserves.
Things may seem to be going well, with a few sales rolling in on a regular basis, until one day they find someone selling their product at a knock down price, having no rights to do so. Within hours, that product can be spread around auction sites and the rest of the internet at low or zero cost, while the owner and his affiliates, plus those with genuine resell rights, are trying to compete at the original price.
How can that poor author police such blatant theft alone? Instead of working on new products that people want and maybe need, the author is forced to waste time trying to track down thieves, take legal action, and look for ways to stop it happening again.
Such an occurrence is far from rare.