I recently signed up for Google Alerts, and let me tell you…talk about an education.  I knew my books were appearing on Torrent sites (because I send a never ending stream of “you’re violating my copyright, please take this down” emails), but I had no idea how MANY torrent sites until I signed up (which is weird because, like 99.9% of authors out there, late at night when the manuscript is going slowly, I’ll Google my name, just to see what’s out there, and I would only rarely find these sites.  GA finds tons.  Several per day.  Damn depressing.)

So I thought this post was particularly appropriate, and very informative.  My husband works in a school, and from what I hear about what the kids talk about, most of them just don’t get it.  It’s out there, online, how can it be bad?  But it is, because, hey, it’s stealing.  Folks need to be educated, folks.  Pass it on.

“Piracy.” It sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? The high seas. Adventure . . .

But there’s nothing romantic about the case in Minnesota where a woman was fined $2 million for illegally downloading 24 songs and sharing them with others. Last Friday, the judge slashed her fine dramatically – by more than $1.8 million — saying the initial punishment was too much.

via Blog – Murderati.

After LJ’s article last week about Brigham Young University’s (BYU) usage of the Kindle ereader device for faculty-driven interlibrary loan (ILL), the university is suspending the pilot program, saying that it wants to get written rather than verbal permission from Amazon.com.

via At BYU, Kindle Program on Hold, But University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Program Going Strong – 6/17/2009 – Library Journal.

I thought this article raised an interesting question. I love my Kindle, but I can’t share my Kindle files. Just doesn’t work. But I could share my Kindle, and, in fact I have. I’ve uploaded stuff for my 7yo, and let her read it when we were in the car (and she was bored). I’ve passed the thing to my husband to have him read favorite passages. Nothing unusual about that.

In that way, the Kindle (or any ebook) is just like any book. I mean, if Mary is reading Carpe Demon, she can’t lend the book to Joe, and still have the book herself. I.e., they can’t both have the book at the same time (as would happen if I could copy my kindle files and email them to my friend Kathleen).

But the physical book, sure. And the e-file turns the kindle into the physical book. So lend that puppy out.

Which makes me wonder: WHY would a library think it needs permission from Amazon to do this? Sure (as an author) it would be great if there were 16 copies rather than 1 (16 royalties!) but that’s not the way the world works (and, in fact, most libraries do order multiple copies of popular books, and then if readers find the books, they’ll buy copies, etc. etc.).

So what am I missing? Why is this causing a hulabaloo? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?