Comments from a Concerned Librarian

Help stamp out media piracy.

I recently received this email from a librarian who understands that it takes the personal action of those who care to stop the rampant media piracy that is supported by several online sites. Want to assist in protecting the copyrights of our nation's writers and artists? Here's a few suggestions on how.

The Concerned Librarian writes:

I am a librarian turned computer teacher. One of my passions is to answer questions on Yahoo Answers. I just made over 400,000 points for helping others.

I have gotten increasingly upset by requests for pirated books. I saw all the postings for Stephenie Meyer books and I checked them out. I could not believe how many kids were scanning her books and posting them on file sharing sites for others to read. Not just in English; but in Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Croatian.

I saw the viral process when her fourth book came out. Twenty-four hours before the books came out in stores, there were copies online. And there were copies of the 12 chapters that Stephenie Meyer gave to the director and Rob Patterson to help with the Edward character in the movie.

The worst sites are Scribd.com and 4shared.com but wattpad.com and others are guilty too. For the past two years, I have been writing down the file names and sending a letter to abuse@   and cc the author and publisher. I have removed thousands of files. Kelly Armstrong, Eoin Colfer, and Darren Shan have sent me nice letters thanking me for my work.

Another good site is copy not. They are aimed at movie and audio theft. I reported Suzanne Collin's Catching Fire audio book on one site and many sites have posted the Twilight movies.

http://www.copynot.com/

Obviously the kids are reading science fiction and fantasy. These are the most requested books to be pirated. These are the most requested movies to be pirated. Illinois recently mandated copyright to be one of the lessons taught. A video piracy ring was apprehended in one of the towns that is part of my school district.

Be aware that your students may be tempted to obtain pirate copies. Some do this because they can't remember or be bothered to take home their books. Some just want their own copy of the hottest books. Some prefer to read on their cell phone or computer rather than go to a library.

I can sympathize that the kids want to read, but authors are being ripped off. Good authors may lose future publishing contracts because of poor sales and we all lose when the price of books goes up to compensate for piracy.


Lindalee Stuckey
http://www.goldenduck.org