No matter what side of the fence you sit on when it comes to piracy issues, this sort of behavior is something that just should not be tolerated--the owner of a site that allows copyright infringement of the copyrighted material of authors has stooped to the level of posting an author's personal information online.
Why?
Because this author had the apparent gall to try and protect her copyright by sending the site owner a legitimate DMCA takedown notice. The site owner not only posted the letter in its entirety, including all of the author's personal information, he's also hiding his common decency behind word games, as well as mocking the author (the blog post is titled "Why Can't Writers Read" for crying out loud).
On this site's main Facebook page (which I am not directly linking to, but if you want to check it out, copy/paste into another window and close the gaps in the link: https:// www.facebook.com/ tuebl) , they say:
And yet in the blog post, they say that they are following Canadian law and requiring a signature in order to comply. So which is it? If they were actually complying with US law, as they claim, then Ms. Sinclair's DMCA takedown should be enough for them to put their money where their mouth is and remove the copyrighted material.
They also state:
The icing on the bitter cake, for me, though is this:
If someone wants to promote my or another published author's books, blog ABOUT them. Write a review ABOUT them. Don't offer them for free on your Facebook page, smile at me, and pretend you're doing me some kind of favor. It's just gross.
Through correspondence shared with me by an author friend, I've learned that the site owner claims he has no idea who is uploading content so he isn't responsible for anything uploaded illegally (as a personal aside, not knowing this information might work for him as a fancy side-step when it comes to being held legally responsible, but to me it makes him a pretty crappy administrator and site owner if he doesn't know who's providing his content).
Willingly turning a blind eye to copyright infringement doesn't help his claim to want to support authors and books, it only makes him look like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. Posting the personal information of an author on the open internet, when she was trying to protect her copyright via the US law he claims to follow, does not support authors, either. Frankly, it makes him sound like a schoolyard bully who keeps changing the rules of the game to suit his need to win.
I'm not one-hundred percent sure why I'm posting this. I DO NOT want it to devolve into an argument over piracy, copyright infringement, and whether or not it's theft. We've had that argument so many times it makes me dizzy. Mostly I'm interested in comments over the site owner's actions. He mocked an author who served him with a legitimate takedown notice and posted her personal information in public. He is not consistent in his claims of which laws he's following. He claims he is somehow "promoting" books by maintaining a website that allows copyright infringement.
Thoughts?
Why?
Because this author had the apparent gall to try and protect her copyright by sending the site owner a legitimate DMCA takedown notice. The site owner not only posted the letter in its entirety, including all of the author's personal information, he's also hiding his common decency behind word games, as well as mocking the author (the blog post is titled "Why Can't Writers Read" for crying out loud).
On this site's main Facebook page (which I am not directly linking to, but if you want to check it out, copy/paste into another window and close the gaps in the link: https:// www.facebook.com/ tuebl) , they say:
They don't need to comply, and yet they do? How nice of him. So if he complies with US law, then Ms. Sinclair's DMCA takedown should have been enough to get her copyrighted material removed.
And yet in the blog post, they say that they are following Canadian law and requiring a signature in order to comply. So which is it? If they were actually complying with US law, as they claim, then Ms. Sinclair's DMCA takedown should be enough for them to put their money where their mouth is and remove the copyrighted material.
They also state:
The icing on the bitter cake, for me, though is this:
In a strange way, I agree with that first sentence. Reading is a wonderful thing. Literacy is important, as is access to books. However, he's right in that we will never agree on how to do that. There are ways to legally make books available that do NOT require infringing on an author's copyright.
If someone wants to promote my or another published author's books, blog ABOUT them. Write a review ABOUT them. Don't offer them for free on your Facebook page, smile at me, and pretend you're doing me some kind of favor. It's just gross.
Through correspondence shared with me by an author friend, I've learned that the site owner claims he has no idea who is uploading content so he isn't responsible for anything uploaded illegally (as a personal aside, not knowing this information might work for him as a fancy side-step when it comes to being held legally responsible, but to me it makes him a pretty crappy administrator and site owner if he doesn't know who's providing his content).
Willingly turning a blind eye to copyright infringement doesn't help his claim to want to support authors and books, it only makes him look like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. Posting the personal information of an author on the open internet, when she was trying to protect her copyright via the US law he claims to follow, does not support authors, either. Frankly, it makes him sound like a schoolyard bully who keeps changing the rules of the game to suit his need to win.
I'm not one-hundred percent sure why I'm posting this. I DO NOT want it to devolve into an argument over piracy, copyright infringement, and whether or not it's theft. We've had that argument so many times it makes me dizzy. Mostly I'm interested in comments over the site owner's actions. He mocked an author who served him with a legitimate takedown notice and posted her personal information in public. He is not consistent in his claims of which laws he's following. He claims he is somehow "promoting" books by maintaining a website that allows copyright infringement.
Thoughts?
I'm Dakota Cassidy, and I'm the author the aforementioned threatened with a lawsuit for labeling him a thief on my FB page that Kelly posted about. Amongst his threats of libel, he emailed me via Facebook and encouraged me to file a cease and desist with him. 
