I'm just about to release a new ebook I've written and was wondering if anybody knew of some good ways to scare people away who are thinking about devaluing your work on a website such as Ebay. I know there are programs such as VERO on Ebay but unless you have a solid copyright you probably couldn't join. I need a way that can guarantee I can file legal action against the person if they were to try that.
Find out where they live and show up with some shotguns and some friends. What? It works. Seriously, if someone wants to copy you, they will. Most criminals are on what I like the call "rung one of intelligence." Think about the message before movies. It says that copying is illegal. It talks about money and prison. Yet, people copy them all day long. A threat is only as good as the entity making it. Think about it. If some string-bean looking guy who was two feet shorter than you said he'd kick your butt if you didn't move, would you perceive that as a viable threat? No. Well, at least I wouldn't. That doesn't mean you should do nothing. Just do what you can and move on. Monitor the search engines (Google alerts if great for this) and Ebay.
I'm more interested in some of the scare tactics you can use BEFORE they buy the ebook. If you can keep your product from being abused in the first place you probably won't have to search all over the net to find people who are innocent and thought the product had resale rights. A lot of the people who sell resell rights products normally don't check it to verify that the product does in fact have resale rights.
Intimidating emails can be effective, but you have to be careful not to step on any toes. If you cross the line, you can be sued, as well.
You can get an honest to God copyright for $35 electronically. Just key in copyright and one of the links will show up. I don't have it at the moment. I've been looking into how to secure a pdf at least somewhat. I'm not good at it yet. Perhaps if one or both of us does get good at it, fire me (or I you) a PM and share the secret. So far I'm not seeing the security features as being all that secure.
I was thinking about adding the following text at the top of the ebook. Please let me know if I should add anything onto this or whether it will help or not. Warning: This ebook DOES NOT include resale rights. You may not resell or reproduce this information without prior permission from (my website). Anyone who violates this rule will face legal action from (my website). If you purchased this ebook from anywhere other than (my website) please report this to (my email).
Require a credit card for purchase, use slightly different wording in every copy of the ebook, changing a word or two, place in the purchase agreement that in the event it's discovered they have made available copies of the product they will be charged for every copy that is found. The important part is not telling them their copy is unique & making sure you accurately track card numbers to book versions. If you find copies of the book online, see who bought that copy & charge their card once for every single page you find a link to that copy. If nothing else, you'll generate a huge buzz.
What if their argument is that somebody hacked into their computer or server and stole their copy? Also, that will make it harder to automate the entire process since you will have to manually personalize each ebook for each buyer.
Not really. When the purchase is made, have a script randomly replace what would normally be considered a "stopword" & generate an md5 or sha hash of the new content for your records. As for the hacker part, that's none of your concern. You being responsible for that would be like the company who made your carpet being responsible for someone breaking into your house and stealing it.
That seems fairly complicated, and risky. I wouldn't screw around with charging people's CC without their authorization. You could end up in a world of trouble for that.
I agree on that one. What do you think about the warning on the ebook? Do you think it would scare off most people who have that idea in the back of their mind? I'm also interested in finding out how to obtain full copyright ownership of my work?
You probably aren't going to catch anyone selling 1-2 copies. If your e-book is actually good, I would only be worried about someone trying to mass re-sell. Suggestion: If your going to put a warning on the top of the book, offer a 5$ reward to anyone who contacts you showing that they bought the book from a venue not controlled by you. This will help your chances of preventing crooks.
Maybe I can offer a $5 reward for each person that is reported. That might motivate more people who would've otherwise said nothing.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket, diversify. Have links to tips, tools, or resources that you have on your website then monetize that site so that it is an extra stream of revenue for you. You may get so much business on your site that you find it is cheaper to give away your content than to sell it.
You could put something like this along with the copyright warning: "So far, 11 individuals have been found re-selling this book illegally and have accordingly been sued straight into Satan's sweet arms." Of course, you want to use more professional verbiage but that should give you the idea People won't usually ask you for proof that you sued anyone before but if someone does, I'm not sure if you're legally entitled to oblige them. You can verify this with a lawyer. Actually, I've seen many websites including the Rich Jerk's putting this type of a warning and a lot of these sites show the same number so I'm guessing they probably haven't sued anyone. Good luck anyway.