Have you heard of a site called Yumpu?

By the way, anybody else here ever come across a site called Yumpu? They've mirrored access to the first two books of my EMPRESS OF THE DAWN series:

www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/12232769/...bright-empire-home/7

Without asking me, of course, but since it's free fiction I can't complain. The first book is my greatest success, with some 11,000 downloads from my site since 2010, Yumpu's link dates back two years, and has been viewed only 800 times since then, so it can't account for a significant share of readers for EMPRESS I or II (close to 7,000). The home page for the site says its main business is digital publication of special interest magazines.

--Brantley

Would probably cost me more than it was worth, given typical legal fees and the fact that I don't have a pecuniary interest in the story myself. But I have a friend in DC who's a lawyer, so I could ask her what she thinks. Something I've already learned is that Yumpu is pretty secretive -- no snail mail or e-mail address, no phone number; and on its own Facebook page there's a recent complaint from a disgruntled subscriber who can't gain access to reset his password.

--Brantley

brantley wrote: Would probably cost me more than it was worth, given typical legal fees and the fact that I don't have a pecuniary interest in the story myself. But I have a friend in DC who's a lawyer, so I could ask her what she thinks. Something I've already learned is that Yumpu is pretty secretive -- no snail mail or e-mail address, no phone number; and on its own Facebook page there's a recent complaint from a disgruntled subscriber who can't gain access to reset his password.

--Brantley

Unfortunately sites like this are all over the place. I have a habit of searching them when someone points them out to see if any of my writing is there. Thankfully so far I've turned up nothing.

You're probably right that it's going to cost you more than it's worth to stop it, especially since they're from a different country.

I'll never understand the point of stealing something that's free, but whatever.

DarinSatre wrote:

brantley wrote: Would probably cost me more than it was worth, given typical legal fees and the fact that I don't have a pecuniary interest in the story myself. But I have a friend in DC who's a lawyer, so I could ask her what she thinks. Something I've already learned is that Yumpu is pretty secretive -- no snail mail or e-mail address, no phone number; and on its own Facebook page there's a recent complaint from a disgruntled subscriber who can't gain access to reset his password.

--Brantley

Unfortunately sites like this are all over the place. I have a habit of searching them when someone points them out to see if any of my writing is there. Thankfully so far I've turned up nothing.

You're probably right that it's going to cost you more than it's worth to stop it, especially since they're from a different country.

I'll never understand the point of stealing something that's free, but whatever.

I know in my case, the AU sites were blocked in some countries ever since the creation of the various Great Firewalls. So free content wasn't always available. I don't know how Yumpa gets around that, but it seems to be part of their business model.

Bizarrely, in parts of Asia, sexually explicit Internet content is still restricted by the governments,, but gross violation of intellectual property is encouraged. Those same governments also tolerate and even support prostitution, sometimes even the child variety. But a sexy story about a super heroine... no way are they letting that in.

Sigh...

A Swiss registration but a German e-mail address. A couple of Marvin Kusters who live in Germany are on Facebook, but neither may be the registrant. The phone number is also listed for a site called youbuy,com, which does business in Berlin. Not easy to sue, but maybe we could get their e-mail address put on spam lists...

--Brantley

brantley wrote: A Swiss registration but a German e-mail address. A couple of Marvin Kusters who live in Germany are on Facebook, but neither may be the registrant. The phone number is also listed for a site called youbuy,com, which does business in Berlin. Not easy to sue, but maybe we could get their e-mail address put on spam lists...

--Brantley

I'd suggest you work on encouraging further distribution of material, not restricting it. You are providing free content after all.

Copyrights mean nothing these days beyond giving you a basis to spend money on lawyers. If you are a major publisher or media company, with big bucks at stake, you pay your lawyers their six figure salaries by feeding them pirates. For the rest of us, it's a distraction.

Just keep writing.

Or so my thinking goes...

Shadar

I have friends who work at big sites Like the Onion complain about the same kinda stuff all the time. its very easy for websites to take stuff from any free webpage writing wise and put it on there site and make....

probabbly very little per article. if this site has a 1000 users i would be surpised. Cause this is stupid. More crafty sites just mirror stuff from bigger ones and give it for free with diffrent adds-but agian pottoes, as black market online advertising doesn't generate all that much advertising.

The onion has pursued Legal action against this kinda stuff...and not gone all that far with it. In the end there is very little you can do. Its like online piracy of any kind

I'll just link to what I dug up the last time you brought this up: www.superwomenmania.com/index.php/forum?...0786&start=125#41025
Since that was six months ago, I don't know if the info is still accurate, but at least it's a place to start.

Strange, I'd forgotten all about that. Seems we got more information then than we did starting all over now. But I guess Shadar too had forgotten about that exchange!

--Brantley