Ebook Piracy: How Can You Secure Your Ebook? -

 Updated: 5 October 2022

You've spent months, maybe several years, writing your ebook. Then you've released it, to great excitement, to the world. It's made a few revenue ... though perhaps not quite so many as you'd like.

A few days later, you type in the title of your book, hoping that you will find reviews or tweets about the book. To your dismay it turns up on websites where you can download the book for free.

Your eBook is being pirated. All your hard effort is now being offered for free on a dodgy-looking site.

It's a traumatic moment for anyone who writes. Naturally, your first reaction likely to be trying to find out how you can stop the pirates. There's a chance you're concerned that the listing you've found is only the beginning of the of the iceberg.

So what can you do? (And do you even need to do anything at all?) This is everything you should be aware of to safeguard your book.

What Is Ebook Piracy?

The term "ebook piracy" refers to when your ebook is made available without your authorization.

This can take several different shapes:

• Someone buys your ebook Then they share it with friends or acquaintances. This may be carried out in a manner that is innocent (they aren't aware that they should not be sharing it) or in a deliberate manner.
• Your ebook has been uploaded to the internet for people to download. This is what a lot of authors think of when they think of pirated ebooks. There are hundreds of these websites on the internet, but (as we'll discover further!) they may often claim to offer an ebook, but they really don't.
• Your book is offered for sale by another person ... without your consent. They're taking all the money from it. This is not so common like other types of piracy, however it's certainly been known to occur.

Other Types of Ebook Theft

Another issue is taking your work, then using it as their personal. This isn't exactly what people call "piracy" but it can be very damaging. This is also a violation of the law since it is a violation of your copyright.

Another possibility is the possibility that someone steals a portion or all of the work you wrote and integrates it into their personal work without permission and also without naming your name as the creator. It is plagiarism.

In any case there are legal safeguards. You may find, though that you do not need to take it that far. Just warning people to stop or threating legal action might suffice.

Combating Ebook Piracy With DRM (Digital Rights Management)

So what can you do to combat the piracy of ebooks?

Another option that is popular is to employ DRM (Digital Rights Management) devices to secure your files. There are many options to do this for example, by preventing the sharing of or forwarding the ebook.

It can definitely deter pirates. This is particularly useful in stopping people from buying your ebook and forwarding it on to acquaintances.

The drawbacks of DRM

Sadly, DRM isn't bulletproof. Certain pirates will be able to get around it one way or another. However well-protected your ebook is, there's nothing that can stop someone from opening it up on one device and retyping the same information onto another. It's true that it would be a time-consuming process and therefore, most pirates don't bother.

A major issue in DRM is the fact that it may make life harder for your customersThere are groups that are against DRM due to reasons like Defective By Design. The legitimate customers who've purchased your ebook may find it harder to get access to and use it in the ways they want to. That's not something you want since it may put them off buying your products in the future.

Hugh Howey, a bestselling self-published author of science fiction, explains his attitude to DRM as follows:

I was hoping it would be as easy for others to have my work. It meant not putting DRM on my ebooks. DRM is the protection provided by digital rights management which is a hindrance to convert my book and copy them elsewhere, all that stuff. I wanted to honor the buyer rather than worry about pirates.

Using Social DRM

Social DRM refers to a method where the customer's ebook is printed or watermarked using information including the buyer's email address, day of purchase. This can be done for PDF files. This doesn't adversely affect customers, and can stop piracy (as it is obvious who's sharing the file).

How Can I Safeguard My work?

One way to easily make piracy harder - again, without affecting customers negatively is to restrict how you can allow your book to be downloaded by customers.

The reason is that people are not able to share their download link with others.

It is recommended to let individuals to download your ebook at minimum three times. If you only let them download it one time, this may cause problems in the event that they lose the file they downloaded, or download it to multiple devices (instead of copying it across).

The best compromise between meeting the reader's needs and preventing piracy is to set the limit to 5 downloads. This is the default setting when using .

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What to Do if Someone Pirates Your Ebook

What can you do when someone is giving the ebook away, leaving you without any money?

If you are the victim of a copycat, you can:

• Get in touch with them (if their website contains contact details). In some cases, simply soliciting the pirate to remove your book may be enough. They may not want the hassle of dealing with you for a long time.
• Send a DMCA note to the web hosting provider (you are able to find it on whois.net). DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There is no standard formula for an DMCA notice to take down, but it should contain certain components.

It is possible to find templates for email within this Google Doc, to both contact pirates, as well as for sending out notices under the DMCA notice.

What to do to determine if your eBook is being pirated

Occasionally, authors find out about a pirated ebook because a concerned reader emails to inform them of the issue.

However, most pirates won't be disclosed to the user. If you'd like to find out if your ebook is being stolen, it is possible to:

1. Find your book using Google

Enter the name of your book and"download "download" to Google and check what pops out. You may find websites that offer - or claim to offer - your book available.

Take care when you click, however be sure to are using a good antivirus program and running to guard your computer. Many pirate sites will be full of dubious ads, or worse.

2. Set up Google Alerts

You can set up Google Alerts to be aware of what times you or your book are mentioned online. This is a great way to keep on top of things like recent reviews or discussion of your work - and it could also allow you to find the extent to which your work is being copied.

3. Make use of tools such as Mention.com

Mention.com works like Google Alerts. It includes advanced features such as being able to receive daily updates in addition to the ability to be notified when there's a sudden rush of references to the name of your book or author.

Commonly Answered Questions

Here are some common questions readers often have concerning book piracy:

Do I have to copyright My Ebook?

No. Most countries recognize that your ebook is automatically copyright after you've finished writing it. You don't need to take any steps to make it copyright. Most people put the copyright warning near the beginning or at the end of their ebook, but it's not a necessity.

The site has my ebook for downloading ... but are they really possess it?

Most of the time, you won't! Many websites provide free eBooks however they really don't provide them. In reality, as Dave Chesson explains, they're trying to make people pay for a subscription to their website ... or they're trying to spread viruses and malware.

Is it Worth Spending My time fighting Piracy?

If you're just starting out as an author ... most likely not. You could spend an enormous amount of time trying to stop the piracy problem, but it might not be affecting the sales of your books in any way.

In this article from the Alliance of Independent Authors provides:

"Chasing down pirates that most likely won't be infringing your copyright or cutting into the profits of your business is inefficient. This is time and energy that could be better used creating, editing, and refining your marketing, polishing the book's descriptions and a myriad of other tasks which contribute in a more meaningful way to your prosperity."

One instance when it makes sense to take action against piracy is when it's dominating the results of a search. If the pirates' websites have been ranked very highly on Google, in cases like that one Tim Grahl is a part of that you're likely to act:

"My author friend found himself in a situation in which the third result of Google for the name of the book was an international site that let you download the PDF version of the book free of charge."

Do I have to be concerned about Ebook Piracy?

Again, if you're new to the writing world, you're probably not. Obscurity is a much bigger risk for most authors. If people don't know about your work, they can't buy them.

Some people even think that the piracy market can benefit authors because it puts your book in the hands of more people ... certain of whom may become paying readers.

If you're a seasoned author but you could discover that piracy has a negative impact on the sales of your books. YA author Maggie Stiefvater wrote about her experience with this via her page on Facebook and explained how printing sales of her third book in her trilogy was much more successful than ebooks, and also how the pirated book hurt the following book in the series:

After that, the publisher informed me that they were cutting the printing run for The Raven King to less than half the printing run of Blue Lily, Lily Blue. There's no hard feelings here, remember I was told by them, but the numbers for Blue Lily didn't justify printing additional copies.

Maggie Stiefvater was able demonstrate that piratey was affecting sales by publishing a fake pirated copy of the fourth book, which was just the first four chapters repeated. The printing run was went out of print, and eBook sales increasing dramatically (until actual copies of the ebook began becoming pirated).

The author Elizabeth Lennox related a similar story which resulted an obvious decrease in sales

At one point, I saw that my sales had reduced by half. I was stunned. We couldn't figure out what was going on until my husband informed me that he'd discovered my books on pirate sites. We then engaged a lawyer to issue removal notices. The following day, sales began rising again.

In the end, book theft won't go disappearing. You have to determine if it's worth fighting or not. If you're a first-time author It will be sense to spend in marketing your book ... as well as writing the next one.

If you're seeing a distinct decrease in sales, or if the piracy websites are showing up very high on Google when searching for the name of your book or your author name, then it's time to take action. The issue of DMCA notices is the ideal method to address the issue: remember, you can find out easy-to-use templates in this Google Doc.