Piracy and More Than Two: Caveat Emptor

[tacit]

This Blog post has been updated; updates are at the end.

Recently, a concerned blog reader sent me an email alerting me to a Web site that claimed to have a free ebook download for More Than Two He found the link on a YouTube "video" that was basically just a still spam image claiming that the book could be downloaded free, with a Web link in the

Comments

Downloader beware

[edm]

Out of interest is this the "pirated copy" that led to the concerned backer email? Or are there more pirated copies floating around? While it's sad to have your brand hijacked like you describe, if it's only the cover art stolen there's still more chance people will buy the original. So it'd be sadder still if the pre-release copy were available in full

[sweh]

Last year I was slightly interested in the chain that you drew up so followed one branch of it. At the end I did run the downloaded exe file on a sacrificial machine (Windows XP) to see what it did. It went out and downloaded a tonne more stuff. Avast flagged one as a virus, but I also got 3 firefox addons, 2 MSIE addons, home page redirected, and additional search engines.

Oddly I didn't detect any bots but I wasn't sure, and wasn't convinced I could sanitise the OS so I burned it to the ground and rebuilt it from scratch from a XP-SP2 CD.

(And then learned how hard it was to get WindowsUpdate working on a virgin XP-SP2 + SP3 build; something in the MS rebuild process leaves either the registry or a critical DLL in a bad way and WindowsUpdate errors out).

[dawnd]

Tempting... Though of course there is also the possibility of choosing the older meaning of "gay," as in "Franklin is HAPPY," presumably because he got this bogus book copy taken down....

;)

What Suggestions

[anonymous]

I published a paperback book in June and found the other day that it is listed for download on the Masszip site. I don't want to go through the path you describe above to find out whether it is or is not available. If it is, of course, it violates copyright.

Is there anything you suggest (emails to write, etc.) to keep the pressure on this scam site?

A Question

[anonymous]

I published a paperback book in June and found the other day that it is listed for download on the Masszip site. I don't want to go through the path you describe above to find out whether it is or is not available. If it is, of course, it violates copyright.

Is there anything you suggest (emails to write, etc.) to keep the pressure on this scam site?