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Copyright Violation is Theft

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I love the internet, I believe in the internet as the voice and the flow of the demotic, and I staunchly advocate for a free internet.

I think Snowden and Assange are heroes. Individuals have the right to privacy, no matter what Obama’s Big Brother government believes–and do I risk a drone targeting me for saying that?

What I do not believe in is THEFT. Piracy. Stealing. Copyright violation.

I suppose it happens to all authors these days–we google ourselves online and find our books offered as free downloads. It cuts into sales and steals money from our pockets.

To everyone who posts those files, or who downloads them: YOU ARE THIEVES. You are setting yourselves up for bad karma, and I for one will be thrilled to see you meet your just rewards for such acts of conniving thievery.

Here is my standard takedown letter, and I have to send it regularly:
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Dear Admin:

The email is notification of copyright infringement. I am the author of “X NOVEL.” Please remove my novel “X” from your website

www.dirtyrottenthief.com/xnovelfreedownload

immediately. It is a copyright violation for you to have it posted for free on your website; this is a blatant example of online pirating.

I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of here is not authorized by me, the copyright holder, or the law. The information provided here is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I swear under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright holder.

Please send me at the address noted below a prompt response indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter.

I am copying the author’s guild legal services department on this email so that they can inform other authors of the infringement and piracy on your website.
Sincerely,

Traci L. Slatton

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TO all my readers: PLEASE DO NOT participate in free downloads of copyrighted material. It is theft. It is wrong.

Big Brother is Watching
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Big Brother is Watching

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A courageous news team in Houston reported on the Houston Police Department’s testing of an unmanned drone with a high-def, long-range camera that can see inside people’s homes. Check out the video report here.

Mostly I regard the Fourth Estate with skepticism. News media have long since sold out to the government to garner exclusives and to curry favor, to Big Business because Big Business owns the media outlets, and to the lowest common denominator of populist taste because they need to sell copies or gain ratings to stay in business. Objectivity is a myth. Wikileaks is doing what the media should do, but media outlets long ago lost the balls to execute their own mandate: inform the public. Of everything.
However, in this case, local K2 news in Houston did what the media should do: it kept an eye on the police. The Houston Police Department tried to keep media out, and lied to the pilot of the news copter about FAA restrictions. When the Houston Police Department realized that they’d been seen despite their attempts at security, they scrambled to give a press report.
Yes, unmanned drones can have helpful, protective, practical applications, like putting out brush fires and following bank robbers. But make no mistake: this drone will certainly be used by Big Brother, by which I mean the police, FBI, Homeland Security, etc. to deprive civilians of their privacy. To collect information “just in case.”
We all know that information can be massaged to prove any point whatsoever.
It is unfortunate but true that 9/11 has been used to destroy civil liberties. “American freedom” is a myth, a nostalgic idea from a past that has vanished. Totalitarianism approaches. Much of it is financially oriented. We live in a time when Big Business has won, and continues to win, so many legislative victories depriving individuals of choice and forcing individuals to pay outrageous prices that Big Business has become an arm of the government, controlling us. I’ve said it before and will say it again: There is a pattern at work in the world. The pattern is the slow but steady erosion of civil liberties and individual rights. These are handed over to Big Business so that the few can make money at the expense of the many. BEWARE.
Then there are the security forces, who inexorably increase their power so as to enslave the public, eradicate free speech, eliminate the free dissemination of ideas, and deprive us of our privacy.
Beware.