Category: Site News

‘Bartending,’ Piracy and a DMCA Takedown Request [Updated]

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Earlier today, I was alerted by @FloridaLegal via Twitter than a full copy of my ebook, Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius was for download, free go charge, on a website named “Ebookee.”

The site describes itself this way:

EBOOKEE is a search engine of ebooks on the Internet (Hotfile Megaupload Mediafire Fileserve Rapidshare) and does not upload or store any files on its server. Please contact the content providers to delete files if any and email us, we’ll remove relevant links or contents immediately.

This afternoon, I sent a DMCA takedown request to the site, per their template. It took just a few moments, and the email was sent.

I then noticed the paragraph at the bottom of this page that reads:

The administrator of this site (Ebookee.org) cannot be held responsible for what its users post, or any other actions of its users.

I expect to hear back by mid-week.

The .epub and .mobi files were posted at FilePost.com. That site has an online form that can be used for takedown notices, so I filled that out and submitted it.

Again, I expect to hear back in a few days. 2012–06–25 Update: The files have been removed, after a prompt email back from their support team.

I really don’t know how I feel about all of this. It’s easy to be mad at such services for being a source to find and host pirated content.

In reality, there are lots of sites that can be used to find pirated content. To help fight this on their services, Google has an online form that can be used to request information be removed from the company’s web search tools and more.

If something is published on the Intenet, it can be re-posted, re-packaged or even out-right pirated. I can have these files taken down, just to have them pop back up elsewhere.

At $3, my book isn’t a lot of money, but it’s clear there are some people who don’t want to pay for it. Hell, even 99¢ apps are pirated. It’s a cat-and-mouse game, and the cat probably won’t ever win, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting for my content.

Of course, it took me about 5 minutes to alert the two sites about the violation. What if it took an hour? Two hours? At what point does fighting piracy become a bigger expense than the piracy itself?

Slight CSS Changes

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Recovering from surgery and jacked up on pain pills, I decided yesterday to make some changes to the site:

  • Just about everything is in Chaparral Pro, a typeface by Adobe
  • Highlighting text is more fun
  • The meta data that appeared between a post’s headline and body is gone. I’m working on a solution to show the date an item was published

Additionally, iPad users are now served up the “desktop” version, regardless of device orientation.

Why I Run Ads

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There’s been a lot of talk about advertising on independent websites this week, so I thought I’d outline my thoughts on the subject.

I run two types of advertising here on 512 Pixels.

The first is a sidebar ad, provided by the Fusion Ad network. The income generated from this ad covers my monthly hosting fee almost exactly. With this ad alone, 512 Pixels would almost break even most months.

Secondly, I run “RSS Sponsorship” ads, through The Syndicate. These ads show up as “linked list” posts on the site and in the RSS feed.

With most of the hard costs covered by Fusion, The Syndicate gives me the freedom to expand my coverage to include reviews. This income also covers the various fees and taxes associated with the LLC I formed earlier this year around the site and other projects, including Bartending and the 512 Podcast.

Lastly, I do offer a membership to 512 Pixels. Currently, the number of members is very small compared to the daily readership, perhaps because it comes with no real perks besides the satisfaction of helping me keep the lights on.

Without ads, I would be paying for this site out of pocket. With them, I can pay the bills and spend some money improving things on the site, as well as spending some money to help produce better content. That said, I’ve never once reviewed an item or run an article at the behest of an advertiser — and I never will.

I’ve never had a complaint about the ads here, and would be surprised if I ever did. I’m not doing anything any other major independent site does. I think readers have come to understand that if content is to remain free to them, things like ads are a necessary component of the site.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t make a killing on this site. I don’t make nearly enough to go full-time with it. It is, however self-sustaining, and that’s all I can hope for it for now.

Syndicate Openings for April

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As you may know, the 512 Pixels RSS feed is sponsored via The Syndicate, an ad network with 11 sites, with over 170,000 weekly views. That doesn’t even count the thousands and thousands of RSS subscribers.

We have two openings next month:

  • April 9 – 15
  • April 23 – 29

If you want to share your product, app or service with a bunch of good-looking, well-read people, get in touch.