I saw your post on the WritersWeekly board and I see that you were able to help other writers in a similar situation.
Yesterday, I became aware that a publisher used a short story in their anthology without my knowledge or consent.
This week, I received an email asking me to comment on a situation regarding textbook publishers suing individuals for publishing “answers to homework problems.” It’s briefly discussed on techdirt.com HERE. In a nutshell, some publishers of textbooks are suing authors/publishers of guides that contain answers to the questions in those textbooks, claiming they are derivative works. I have to agree. When someone else uses your original work for profit it is, well, just plain wrong, and very likely illegal.
I recently had a bizarre run-in with a copyright-infringing web site owner who went crazy when I found that they’d illegally published one of my articles. But their extreme response taught me a valuable lesson that I now want to share with you. It’s a lesson about making sure you keep your private information private – always.
It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon when I began scanning one of the several Internet law blogs that I read with some degree of regularity.
The post happened to be a bit longer than normal and as I scrolled down I noticed a reference to two of my books published by BookLocker in the blog’s right sidebar. Thinking that this might be a link to BookLocker’s site on which these books are listed or, perhaps, a review by a reader, I clicked on the first title, The Discipline Book.
Instead of a link to BookLocker, which publishes a number of my books, or a review, I was greeted by the book’s title page. Hmmm, I thought as I scrolled down, perhaps the blogger has posted some examples from the text. Not so, I quickly learned. Instead of seeing a review, or a link to BookLocker, or an excerpt or two from the book, I was confounded to see the entire text of the book, all 564 pages of it, posted on the site.
