Tools for dealing with piracy

Scroll down for:

  1. Sarina's cease and desist letter

  2. How to report a pirate who takes paypal donations

  3. How to report infringing posts on Facebook, Instagram, Threads

  4. How to report infringing Google Drive files

  5. How to report infringing OneDrive files to Microsoft

  6. Report a Tweet that’s spreading piracy

  7. Report a YouTube video of your audio book

  8. How to ask Google to forget a search result to a pirate site

  9. Google’s full menu of delights

  10. Reporting apps that include your stolen books, in the Apple or Android app store

Disclaimer:

The author of this website is not a lawyer and is certainly not your lawyer. Rather, this is a list of things that have worked for us. Your mileage may vary. And we are not responsible for the result of any advice you take from this page. See a lawyer or the Authors Guild for legal advice.

 

1. Sarina's Cease and Desist (DMCA) Letter

Authors, this letter is the same one we send to infringing websites (unless they have a form to fill out.) The language sounds very formal and scary but there is no reason to fear. We file dozens of these every month. We use a PO Box for privacy. We also use our pseudonym as the author’s name.

You have our permission to copy our letter (below) and to use it for your own purposes. Just don't forget to personalize it. :)

 
 

I, AUTHOR NAME, have full authority to act as the copyright owner. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner of the  following works.

The following titles are being traded illegally via this particular page(s) and user through your site and page(s):

TITLE by AUTHOR

LINK GOES HERE

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed

Stated again: The use of my copyrighted work has not been authorized by me and I have a good faith belief that it has not been authorized by any agent of mine or the law. These users do not have permission from me, my agents or my publishers to offer these books for download. This constitutes theft on the part of your users and this note serves as official notice of illegal activity taking place through your website.

Treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization including the
Berne Convention (Worldwide) Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (United Kingdom)
Copyright Act 2000 (Belize) Copyright Act 1968 and Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Australia)
Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament (European Union)
Copyright Act of 1976 and all subsequent amendments, including Digita Millennium Copyright Act 1998 and Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 (United States of America)

Please cease and desist from allowing the uploading and trading of these materials immediately and, where possible, set a filter to reject future submissions.

Author and copyright owner,
YOUR NAME PO Box XXX YOURCITY, YOURSTATE, YOURZIP.

2. Fighting Pirates who profit with paypal

Sometimes you'll find a pirate site that's taking Paypal donations. There is a mechanism to report those. Two steps:

  1. Download Paypal's complaint form at this link. Don't write your own DMCA, just use their form.

  2. Mail the completed for to: infringementreport@paypal.com.

3. Reporting infringing Facebook Posts, Reporting infringing Instagram posts, and reporting infringing threads posts

First of all: what is infringing content?

Infringing content is anything that you created and haven’t given permission to post. Some examples are:

  • A photo you took, or licensed from the photographer for your exclusive use

  • A video you made

  • A link to download an ebook that you wrote

  • Art you made

  • Music you wrote

Facebook:

Note: the infringing post can be on a Facebook page, profile or inside a group. It doesn't matter. You will use the same link for everything. This is what you'll do:

1. Start here: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/634636770043106 

2. Choose: "copyright"

3. Choose: "continue with copyright report"

From here on out just keep clicking on the radio buttons to advance the form!

USEFUL NOTES: You will be asked what kind of content, and ebook won't be one of the choices! You'll choose "other."

First, you’ll be asked to supply a link to the content where it is used legitimately! For ebooks, you can just put in an Amazon link to your book in English! You do not need to upload a file. 

The rest of the steps are self explanatory. Go forth on our chosen date and conquer.

Instagram:

https://help.instagram.com/contact/552695131608132

Threads:

https://help.instagram.com/contact/552695131608132

4. Reporting Infringing Google Drive files

Google's reporting form is ugly and confusing. Things before we start:

  • The most important thing to know about this process is that you need to walk through a slightly separate "door" at Google to report a Google Drive file vs, say, a Blogspot post or a YouTube video. These instructions are for Google Docs / Google Drive removals.

  • Also, when reporting the file, you have to make sure you're reporting a file and not a folder. The form won't accept the folder.

  • You'll supply two links: one to the infringing content and one to the legitimate content. Use your book's Amazon page for the legitimate one, even if you're reporting a book that's been translated into another language.

For removing content from a Google Drive, first log in to Google.

Then start here: https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?hl=en

And then fill in the world's ugliest form. 

5. Reporting Infringing OneDrive (Microsoft) files

Microsoft lets you use a plain old email, but it has to follow this exact formula. Just copy/paste the body of the email (below) and send it off to dmcaagnt@microsoft.com. And then wait a ridiculously long time for them to act. 

NOTE: A Onedrive link looks like this: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21APReWsG8Gt1RObA&cid=F5E3923680001A70&id=F5E3923680001A70%21158884&parId=F5E3923680001A70%2122583&o=OneUp 

 
 

SUBJECT LINE: Notice of Infringement 
 

First name: 
Last name: 
Contact email: 
Name of the intellectual property (IP) owner (if not you): n/a
Country of submitter: USA
Please describe your intellectual property (IP) in detail: The ebook of TITLE
Specific online location (URL) where we can view your work (if available online):

Specific online location (URL) where your intellectual property (IP) is being infringed: 

 

Additional information: This entire OneDrive account is full of pirated books! 
Required Statements
Good Faith Belief: Checked
Authority to Act: Checked
512(f) Acknowledgement: Checked
Signature: TYPE YOUR NAME HERE!

6. Twitter aka x and Piracy

Don’t just hit that “report” flag. There’s a special destination for reporting copyright claims at Twitter. And it is: https://help.twitter.com/forms/dmca

7. YouTube piracy of your audio

Audio piracy is some of the most financially damaging. Don’t let a few assholes ruin the audio market for your fellow authors. The form takes a couple of minutes. And YouTube is generally very responsive.

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form

8. Google search results that point to your pirated work

Sometimes there’s a site who won’t comply with your takedown. You can still ask Google to “forget” that link in search results. It won’t remove the site, but it will make it more difficult for people to steal from you if they can’t find the work.

Remember that Google is a vast company, so you need to walk through the right door to DMCA a search result.

Start here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/legal-removal-request?hl=en&authuser=1&pid=0&complaint_type=1

9. Google’s Menu of Delights

The full menu of Google removal forms begins here: https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?hl=en

You can ask Google to remove things from: web search, Google Drive, Blogger/Blogspot… and so on.

10. Reporting apps that contain your stolen work

When we have found apps containing stolen ebooks and audio, they are usually available in both the Apple and Android stores.

Report an Android app here: https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_dmca?product=googleplay&uraw=&hl=en The form will look familiar if you’ve sent Google takedowns for other things. When it asks for a link, report the app itself, not your book.

Report an Apple app here: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices/#?lang=en

When it asks for a link, report the app itself, not your book. Apple is actually quite fast to respond. And their response is fairly entertaining, because they also cc the pirate’s email on their response, and demand that the pirate takes action.