Paul Whybrow
Full Member
- Jun 20, 2015
This report from the book section of the Guardian newspaper shows that we shouldn't worry too much about our work being pirated :
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/24/ebook-pirate-uk-statistics-2015
It's easy to worry about someone copying your plotline, or of having inadvertently borrowed key elements from a novel that you read ten years ago and had largely forgotten about. There's only so many stories under the sun, and it's reckoned that there are only seven (or five) basic plots, so there's bound to be some coincidences.
It's quite likely that someone has written a thriller that contains elements of my novel, which is about a war-hardened mercenary who's killing victims as part of some twisted role-play game. After all, there's been much reporting on how computer games induce violent acts in real life, and more people are aware of the ongoing trauma of PTSD for veteran soldiers. I was more concerned that another author would get their book published before mine, with the same title of The Perfect Murderer.
I like catchy titles, and though there's nothing crucial about my narrative that would prevent me changing the title, I'd still be a bit miffed that someone beat me to it. Mind you, I was a bit surprised that a famous crime novelist, H.R.F. Keating had written his first Indian detective story featuring Inspector Ghote with the title The Perfect Murder. I probably read it when I was in my twenties, forgetting the story but storing a form of the title in my memory banks.
Some theft does occur with books. It's impossible to take legal action against those who've stolen your entire story if it's in the Far East - unless you're a major corporation, and tough even then. A writer friend who published a series of romance novels as ebooks in the U.K. went to visit friends in India. They'd read her books, and tentatively showed her some pirated versions of them, which had been printed as paperbacks with the Western names changed to Indian, along with other cultural details referring to clothing, food and religion.
There was absolutely nothing that she could do about it, and the supposed author looked to be a made-up identity for an online search found nothing about them. My friend moved on through Asia, as part of her post-retirement backpacking adventure, ending up in China. She wasn't entirely surprised to find her romances were on sale in street markets, again altered to represent the country.
She hadn't used Digital Rights Management for her ebooks, not thinking that such foreign piracy would ever occur. DRM is easily removed anyway.
We might be more widely read than we know...
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/24/ebook-pirate-uk-statistics-2015
It's easy to worry about someone copying your plotline, or of having inadvertently borrowed key elements from a novel that you read ten years ago and had largely forgotten about. There's only so many stories under the sun, and it's reckoned that there are only seven (or five) basic plots, so there's bound to be some coincidences.
It's quite likely that someone has written a thriller that contains elements of my novel, which is about a war-hardened mercenary who's killing victims as part of some twisted role-play game. After all, there's been much reporting on how computer games induce violent acts in real life, and more people are aware of the ongoing trauma of PTSD for veteran soldiers. I was more concerned that another author would get their book published before mine, with the same title of The Perfect Murderer.
I like catchy titles, and though there's nothing crucial about my narrative that would prevent me changing the title, I'd still be a bit miffed that someone beat me to it. Mind you, I was a bit surprised that a famous crime novelist, H.R.F. Keating had written his first Indian detective story featuring Inspector Ghote with the title The Perfect Murder. I probably read it when I was in my twenties, forgetting the story but storing a form of the title in my memory banks.
Some theft does occur with books. It's impossible to take legal action against those who've stolen your entire story if it's in the Far East - unless you're a major corporation, and tough even then. A writer friend who published a series of romance novels as ebooks in the U.K. went to visit friends in India. They'd read her books, and tentatively showed her some pirated versions of them, which had been printed as paperbacks with the Western names changed to Indian, along with other cultural details referring to clothing, food and religion.
There was absolutely nothing that she could do about it, and the supposed author looked to be a made-up identity for an online search found nothing about them. My friend moved on through Asia, as part of her post-retirement backpacking adventure, ending up in China. She wasn't entirely surprised to find her romances were on sale in street markets, again altered to represent the country.
She hadn't used Digital Rights Management for her ebooks, not thinking that such foreign piracy would ever occur. DRM is easily removed anyway.
We might be more widely read than we know...
