Warning Authors; Someone Could Be Profiting From Your Book

Writing a book is a labour of love. Imagine going online and seeing your hard work with someone else’s claiming the work as their own.

With the growing popularity of Kindle and other online book publishing platforms, the written word is now so much easier to access…and to steal.

Cathryn Warburton, intellectual property lawyer from Acacia Law, said just because something is on the internet does not mean it can be used and repurposed. “The Copyright Act protects copyright in works published in digital form,” she said.

“This means the content is not there for the taking without the permission of the creator.”

Cathryn said it is also important to register the name of the book as a trade mark. “This means your intellectual property is also protected,” she said.

“There are people out there who go trawling through sites, particularly those who offer free downlands of eBooks and other written content. They often  simply change the name of the author on the books and sell them as their own.”

Cathryn said authors also need to be careful when they hire a copywriter. “By default they do own the copyright unless you have a written agreement or unless they fall within the strict legal definition of being “commissioned”. However, if the copywriter is an employee, you as the employer owns the copyright, but only if the written work is something they would normally product in the course of their employment. The rules of ownership can be complex and appear to conflict at times. Your safest bet is to have a written agreement about copyright ownership,” she said.

“Book piracy is a growing trend especially with our increasing use of online platforms to market and sell our products and services.  We are all being encourage to write blogs and books to raise our profile.  But we also need to become savvier about protecting our intellectual property.

“According to a 2010 study of e-book downloads, the global publishing industry loses $2.8 billion annually to book piracy.”

Cathryn said if your work is stolen, contact the user asking them to remove your content. “You’ll then have to contact whoever is hosting the content – Amazon, book suppliers – and contact search engines under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 to work with you,” she said.

There are a few ways you can keep an eye on your content to make sure someone is not profiting from your hard work.

1.    Google Alerts – Set up an alert with keywords from your book or content, your name and other key phrases. Google will send an alert to your inbox.  

2.    WordPress Dashboard – If you have a WordPress site, you can monitor for Incoming LinksCheck Trackback and Incoming Links. If you content is taken from your site, you can create a trackback to find who is using your content.

3.    Google Images – Use Google Images to do a keyword search because the thief may have also stolen your artwork.

4.    Check your website server: Look into the back end of your website to see if you have a spike. If you are not a website genius, get your webmaster to look into it.

5.    Never host the entire contents of your electronic book on your website on a “hidden” page as this is very easily hackable.

    www.acacialaw.com.au