Category Archives: Your Rights Online

On pirates

More and more pirating-websites pop up that offer free downloads of thousands of e-books. That is of course good news for readers, but for writers this is far less good. Books that were written with a lot of effort and in a lot of time are also offered for free there. Please respect the hard work and dedication of an… (more…)


Don’t wait to download your e-book

Dear reader, Do you buy e-books? And do you pay for them by credit card? If yes and yes, it is wise to download your e-books as soon as you can, and keep them safe somewhere! Read on why, as I found this on “Opposing Views“: DRM rears its ugly, malformed, malignant, cross-eyed head again. Despite the fact that, as Cory Doctorow so aptly put it, no one has… (more…)


DRM

Dear reader, As you may know, DRM stands for “Digital Rights Management.” It’s a copy protection scheme designed to prevent piracy. While few would disagree that authors deserve compensation for their hard work, the problem with DRM is that it treats law-abiding customers like criminals. DRM controls how, where and when a reader reads books. Oh, and then there’s the small… (more…)


How Smashwords smashed PayPal’s erotica publishing restrictions

Fast Company has an interview with Mark Coker of Smashwords in which he discusses the recent moves by PayPal to force removal from sale of certain categories of erotica, and how public pressure from writers, readers, the press, and others was able to make the company (and the credit card companies behind it) back down. He also expresses his opinions on the agency pricing anti-trust lawsuits. Perhaps the… (more…)


New cover image for “Lily Marin”

Dear reader, As there has been some confusion about the legality of using the image of a steampunk lady for the cover of Lily Marin, I have officially acquired an image that replaces the original. This to make sure nobody gets upset or otherwise will stumble with their knickers in a knot. So hereby I present the new cover image:… (more…)


PayPal revised policies.

Dear reader, It looks like the brouhaha that PayPal made, concerning certain types of fiction being sold, is resolved. Following is a post from the Smashwords blog, which addresses this: In a victory for free speech, PayPal today announced plans to revise their content policies to allow Smashwords writers full freedom to publish and sell legal ebooks. I met with PayPal at… (more…)


Interesting news about Paypal and the writing industry

Dear reader, After a previous post about Smashwords removing certain kinds of erotica (link to post), another writer pointed me today to an online article that shows more background about the reason for Mark Coker, Smashword’s founder, to take this step. It seems that PayPal, for some reason, is taking it upon themselves to become a police for morality: Adult content… (more…)


How SOPA and PIPA affect Authors and their Readers

Shared from Indie Books List I suppose you’ve seen all the posts on SOPA/PIPA today. You’ve noticed that Google has a blacked out logo, and that Wikipedia went dark in protest.  We considered going dark today, but we had authors that we had already informed of posting. Instead, we are choosing to educate authors and readers on what this means… (more…)


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