V.J. Waks just contacted me and informed me that pirated versions of her e-books and print books have been on the market overseas, even in brick-and-mortar retail outlets. She also informed me about a British company that charges subscription rates and offers free downloads for open domain material, and that many of their titles are still under copyright.

In many ways, with traditional publishing frozen, self-publishing is a boon for us writers. However, even though our work may be copyrighted and is our intellectual property, we don’t have the legal teeth that Random House does. I recently viewed a documentary about Google scanning all the world’s literature with an eye on commercial use. Many literary critics and librarians came out in interviews on the side of Google, claiming that copyrights are ethically null and void as no original work is possible after thousands of years of literary tradition.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. The money is fast going out of writing for all except a few. If that is the way of it, then so be it, I shall write for free. But to have my creative effort pirated by a multinational corporation for profit feels wrong on many levels.

Do what you can to protect yourself.