Rip-Off Alert
Regular visitors to rifters.com know that most of the stuff I've ever published is freely available in a variety of e-formats on this site (and on some others). I'm a bit worried that this may not be a sustainable approach over the long haul (especially in times of global economic meltdown), but so far the counterintuitive-yet-undeniable truth is that going the Creative Commons route has only helped my writing career, such as it is. (In fact, I believe CC actually saved my career outright, by rescuing Blindsight from the oblivion to which it would have otherwise been doomed.) Anyone who wants to can download my work, copy and distribute it, convert it to other formats, hand it out as party favors, and masturbate in a warm tub to the soft erotic glow of my pixelated words on their e-book readers. Yay me.
There are some restrictions on this license, however. Authorship must be attributed, regardless of format. You're not allowed to rewrite the text, even you think the torture porn was gratuitous in behemoth and you know you can make Blindsight's infodumps less clunky. And you cannot charge money for work that I created and for which you paid nothing. (Or at least, you come to me first and we work out a deal where I get a cut.) The rights granted under my Creative Commons license are strictly noncommercial.
You can imagine, then, my reaction upon discovering this doofus here, selling "The Ultimate Peter Watts Collection" for £4.99 over at eBay.uk. The fact that he describes my short stories as "books" makes it pretty obvious this is no fan; he probably hasn't read a word of my stuff, and is in fact selling the works of numerous other authors as well.
Anyone willing to pay for the Ultimate Watts Omnibus will most likely have already dropped by here and taken what they want, so it's not as though I expect e-bookkeeper_norwich to get rich off my efforts. Still, it burns my ass that he's even trying to; so if any of you have an eBay.uk account and ten minutes to kill, maybe you could report norwich-boy using eBay's handy on-line fink menu. (I myself lack that option, having no such account — although I may well report through more formal channels over the next few days).
No biggie. But what an asshole.
There are some restrictions on this license, however. Authorship must be attributed, regardless of format. You're not allowed to rewrite the text, even you think the torture porn was gratuitous in behemoth and you know you can make Blindsight's infodumps less clunky. And you cannot charge money for work that I created and for which you paid nothing. (Or at least, you come to me first and we work out a deal where I get a cut.) The rights granted under my Creative Commons license are strictly noncommercial.
You can imagine, then, my reaction upon discovering this doofus here, selling "The Ultimate Peter Watts Collection" for £4.99 over at eBay.uk. The fact that he describes my short stories as "books" makes it pretty obvious this is no fan; he probably hasn't read a word of my stuff, and is in fact selling the works of numerous other authors as well.
Anyone willing to pay for the Ultimate Watts Omnibus will most likely have already dropped by here and taken what they want, so it's not as though I expect e-bookkeeper_norwich to get rich off my efforts. Still, it burns my ass that he's even trying to; so if any of you have an eBay.uk account and ten minutes to kill, maybe you could report norwich-boy using eBay's handy on-line fink menu. (I myself lack that option, having no such account — although I may well report through more formal channels over the next few days).
No biggie. But what an asshole.
Labels: misc, writing news
posted by Peter Watts at
5:37 PM
12 Comments:
Reported to eBay.
Next stop: pitchforks aand flaming torches.
I can't help with the ebay problem, but thank you for posting your works online. I didn't realize you'd done that.
I read a lot of fiction, far more than I could afford to purchase. Most comes from the library, some comes from Internet sources like your website or tor.com. Or Project Gutenberg, for that matter. But I do purchase as much as I can manage, and it's almost entirely from authors I like and want to support. That generally means they a. write well; b. have an online presence; c. have at least some material freely online. I try especially hard to support authors who are interested in encouraging their fans, and in developing business and promotion models that make use of modern technologies.
Giving away some of your work is good advertising, and makes readers think favorably of you. Or at least, it makes me think favorably of you, though I also have a soft spot for biology PhDs turned writer.
Good god -- "asshole" is indeed the operative word.
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/vero/notice.html
According to eBay, you have to be the person who files this one. Looking at his book collections, though, I suspect the best option might be informing some of the other authors, or their publishers.
What an ass. This problem calls for fire!
It's at times like this that I ask myself: What would Ken Lubin do?
Seriously dumb asshole. Wow.
Wow. Wrong on so many levels. Anybody know that guys home address? email address?
This guy fails at fandom. Way to break Rule No. 1, doofus!
and masturbate in a warm tub to the soft erotic glow of my pixelated words on their e-book readers.
This, though? This is just asking for trouble.
Ever read K.W. Jeter's NOIR?
Extract spinal column and mid brain of pirate and transform it into high quality sound cable.
Happy Birthday my dear friend...
Getting older, hu?!
Luv, Jessie
Ive taken it off, Im so sorry, you don't actually think about the person before you do it. I feel like a complete asshole.
My appologies and regards
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