‘For Dummies’ Publisher Sues BitTorrent Users to “Educate and Settle”

Ernesto
December 16, 2011
86
wiley
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John Wiley and Sons, one of the world’s largest book publishers, is continuing its efforts to crack down on BitTorrent piracy. The company filed a new mass-lawsuit this month, targeting dozens of John Does who allegedly shared Wiley titles online. Talking to TorrentFreak, the publisher states that it’s not their intention to litigate against individuals, but to settle and educate instead.

dummies During October, John Wiley and Sons became the first book publisher to go after BitTorrent users in the US. With this lawsuit the company followed mostly in the footsteps of movie studios, who together have sued more than 200,000 people in the US since early last year.

Last week the major publisher picked up the pace by filing another mass-lawsuit, yet again targeting those sharing the “For Dummies” series online. The complaint lists 36 IP-addresses through which the defendants downloaded and shared titles including “Hacking for Dummies,” “Vegetable Gardening for Dummies” and “Cooking Basics for Dummies.”

In nearly all BitTorrent lawsuits that have been filed in the US, the copyright holders do not intend to file individual cases. Instead, they want to obtain the identities of account holders behind IP addresses so they can send a settlement claim ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

TorrentFreak got in touch with the book publisher to find out if their end game is any different. It appears not.

“Our intention is to stop the infringement and let individuals know that they are violating the law and depriving the creators of the works of rightful compensation. Our preference is to educate, settle, and prevent further infringement,” Wiley’s attorney William Dunnegan told us.

Aside from a settlement, Wiley also hopes the legal action will deter others from engaging in the same behavior. This is the same approach the RIAA took when it got involved in mass-lawsuits years ago.

Although the strategy works in theory, the problem is that the evidence the company holds against file-sharers will never be tested in court. This is an issue, because due to faulty evidence many people have been wrongfully accused of sharing copyrighted works on BitTorrent. When tested, the evidence can turn out to be untrustworthy.

In a past RIAA court case experts described the evidence gathering techniques “as factually erroneous”, “unprofessional” and “borderline incompetent.” In addition, academics have shown that due to shoddy technique even a network printer can be accused of sharing copyrighted files on BitTorrent.

Wiley’s attorney is aware of the critique, but says they do everything they can to prevent screw-ups.

“We understand that the ISP account holder may not be the actual downloader. That’s why we will do due diligence after we receive the information from the ISP,” Dunnegan told us. The lawyer didn’t want to elaborate on what steps are taken but said that they “have a flexible approach depending on the situation.”

Thus far things are going smoothly for the book publisher in court. In their first case District Court Judge William Pauley recently ordered that Wiley can send subpoenas to the ISPs of the defendants, which means that the first settlement letters should go out soon.

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Dugsmuggler

Extortion for dummies.
- Abc
  
  it’s funny coz it’s true
- Junk
  
  amazing the usa is in shit trouble finacualy and companys are goign broke.
  not because of torrent users just because products are crap to start with.
  so what do they do spend more money chasing people and hoping to get money sigh when will it end!!
- http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock
  
  Nope. I think the one you were looking for was “fair compensation” for dummies.
  - Anonymous
    
    Steal a book from a store, get a slap on the wrist. Download a book, go bankrupt and spend the next decade in court.
    
    Fair.
    - Danny
      
      …..for dummies
  - Jacque Coquebloque
    
    If John Wiley and Sons only ask for the cost of the book someone shared during the settlement – that would be fair compensation. Asking for more money than the cost of a physical copy of a “For Dummies” is extortion.
    
    I’ve never read about a filesharing lawsuit where the complainant only asked for what is actual fair compensation.
    
    One download does not equal one lost sale.
    - Resin
      
      “One download does not equal one lost sale.”
      
      There’s something I’ve actually been wondering about recently; we have data that suggests that filesharing can increase profits for entertainment products (maybe not all of them, but at least those that are small enough that publicity is their limiting factor). I have to wonder; does this hold true for other types of products, such as self-help books or textbooks? Logically, I don’t see why it would. If someone is pirating a “for dummies” book, they aren’t necessarily or even probably going to spend the money saved on another self-help book, and I know that students who download a biology textbook aren’t springing to use that money to buy a chemistry textbook. In these circumstances, can we actually say that a download equals a lost sale (or, to be more specific, some portion of a lost sale, and certainly not a profit for the book writers)?
    - None
      
      Resin:
      I pirate (well actually stream more than pirate any more) a lot because I rarely have more than a dollar in my bank account at the end of the month. Not because I’m making poor choices either; the computer and internet I’m using to type this are my two luxuries in life and they’re school property.
      
      In my case at least, it’s no lost sale. There are definitely things I’d love to give people some money for, but I simply can’t at this stage in my life. Unless I want to skimp on toilet paper this month :D
    - Resin
      
      I’m not denying that poverty can be a reason for piracy; that is indisputable. However, I am not speaking about the reason why any single individual would do it, but what the overall trend is. To make a point, piracy may not generate a lost sale from you, but it may generate a lost sale from your neighbors. Now, data does suggest that the exposure generated from filesharing can make up for this.
      
      For many, the majority I would easily wager, poverty is not the reason for their filesharing. An example would be my roommate in college. He pirated anything he wanted, from movies to textbooks, even though he was quite wealthy. His argument, if I may paraphrase, went as such: “There are other people out there not paying. Why should I be the chump who does? Why should I play the fool here?” Now, I can say that he did spend money going to the movies, and he did occasionally buy a DVD (although he still paid for less than 5% of the media he consumed), but I never saw him buy a textbook with the money he saved pirating them. Not once did he buy a single one of them. In cases such as this, where the good being pirated is a necessity or otherwise essential, can we really say that, on a population level, this doesn’t lead directly to a decrease in revenue for the producers and writers? You can argue about whether or not that is acceptable at some other juncture, but what I’m saying is that if I accept the current filesharing rhetoric, I can’t see how this doesn’t equal the traditional idea of a lost sale.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000617943487 Máté Bikfalvi
      
      Sorry my reply is for @Resin, but Disqus won’t allow further replies.
      
      But the money saved from downloading a textbook might be used to buy a film. Just as money saved from downloading a games might be used to buy(or at least contribute a portion) a textbook.
      
      What I’m saying is that the money won’t be lost, it still gets spent.
    - Resin
      
      A textbook is not an entertainment product. Let me make this clear; someone may pirate a textbook and use the money saved to pay for something else they want, but no one is going to pirate a movie, and then use that to buy a new textbook, unless that textbook was something they already needed.
      
      The entire reason filesharing is considered good for the entertainment industry is because people will still spend the same amount of money on entertainment products. However, if someone is buying a textbook, it is because they are required to. (and yes, I know that some people buy textbooks for fun, but they represent an insignificant part of the market).
      
      Let me make a thought experiment here to demonstrate my point (For the point of this, assume that the cost of a movie and a textbook are the same. I know they aren’t, but it’s just to demonstrate a point).
      
      If someone needs 3 textbooks, has enough money for 3 textbooks, but pirates 2 textbooks, then he’s only going to buy 1 textbook, and he’ll spend the rest of the money somewhere else. If a student has enough money for 3 movies, and he pirates 20, he still may use the money to buy 3 movies, or maybe 3 games. However, I guarantee you that he won’t use that money to buy 3 textbooks, unless he already needed them (and if he needed them, then the money for the movies wouldn’t exist in the first place because it’s a matter of luxery cost versus necessity cost).
      
      You see, the textbook manufacturers do have a reason to claim “lost sale”.
      
      To end, I’ve been working on the axiom that self-help books like these work on the same logic as textbooks, in that if someone needs a certain one, that doesn’t mean he’s likely to need or want a different one.
- http://site-content-for-dummies.blogspot.com/ Site-content-for-dummies
  
  Google Panda For Dummies
Abc

time to seed hell out of some “For Dummies” ebooks via my seedbox
http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

I saw “Dummies for Dummies that was awesome. Their should be “Government Crooks for Dummies” and “Mpaa/Riaa are Dummies for Dummies”.
h33t

Ernesto is working late because he is up all night listening to the SOPA debate :-)

live now on http://www.justin.tv/dreyen
- time to troll
  
  Justin Beiber in hospital
  
  http://www.justin.tv/dreyen
  
  RT: #SOPA #JusinBeiber
  - Guest
    
    who gives a shit
  - Anonymous
    
    probably got sand in vag and needs it removed.
dummie no more

I bought C++ for Dummies years ago. Online today there are far better resources for learning C++ than that stupid, personal drama filled book.
- F Reynoso713
  
  What kind resource do you recommend??
  - Danny
    
    Sams teach yourself books are the best for C and C++. They are available online as well as on hard copy (book).
Ven has no soul

BitTorrent For Dummies

That’s a real book ! LmAo

http://www.dummies.com/store/product/BitTorrent-For-Dummies.productCd-076459981X.html
- Abc
  
  And I quote from the site “This book not only shows you how to acquire BitTorrent, but also how to use it without picking up worms, viruses, and lawsuits”
- Bjornhudson
  
  http://librarypirate.me/details.php?id=3507
  - Abc
    
    Good call Bjorn
  - Anonymous
    
    Please keep in mind that links to pirated material is not allowed to be posted here when this is only a news and discussion site. Best edit it out before they notice.
Pingback: Notrackingme | Proxy » Blog Archive » ‘For Dummies’ Publisher Sues BitTorrent Users to “Educate and Settle”
Anonymous

so what actual proof do they have about those they are accusing? how much are they trying to extort out of each supposed ‘infringer’?
Dagger

Alot of this is total bull crap I recieved a letter saying that i downloaded a movie called the “Hurt locker” never heard of it and nothing is adding up. the times and dates i was not at home, i have had my computer scanned by a forensics expert who is nationally recognized, and i have never downloaded a movie period, let alone never even heard of this title before this date, and when i did research about 50,000 people are being sued, this is total horseshist
- Ididntdoit
  
  well im waiting to be served to with official paperwork and when they prove the case with there Bit torrent information hash and there GUID, information, ooh and it coresponds to an IP address, ooh scary stuff
Anonymous

Does anybody know what percentage of sale price John Wiley & Sons pays
original writers on the “Dummies” series?

Does anybody know what John Wiley & Sons’ profit margin is on a digitally distributed
copy of a “Dummies” book?

I express these two questions because John Wiley & Sons, like all digital distributers who enjoy 100 year exclusive market distribution opportunity under the copyright laws, reminds us of their “fair” treatment of both their customers and their Artists. They remind us most poignantly of their concern that piracy damages those financial benefits that John Wiley & Sons returns to original artists.

Critics, on the other hand, suspect that the copyright laws allow digital distributers, like John Wiley & Sons, to maintain what is in fact a predatory relationship with both
their customers (who pay extortionate prices above cost) and their Artists (who receive a minimal percentage of total price). In this context, John Wiley & Sons’
law suits, like the law suits of all other digital distributors under copyright law, feel like legislatively protected corporate pillaging.

Someone who works in this industry might be able to shed light.
- http://www.cheapassfiction.com Aelius Blythe
  
  I don’t know the specifics of the authors’ cut or publisher’s profit. I will try to find this out.
  
  I do know that with the “For Dummies” books, the author actually signs away the copyright, as opposed to the usual situation (with novels and non-academic books) where the author just signs away publishing rights and keeps their copyright. It basically means that the authors of these books have no right whatsoever over the “protection” of their own work.
  
  Since I heard of the first Dummies case, I have been trying to communicate with the authors of the books in questions. Those who have responded admit that they have no control over the work and they do not own the copyright. I’m continuing to try to communicate with them.
  
  http://cheapassfiction.com/2011/11/09/writing-to-authors-for-dummies/
  
  They may see royalties from the sales of their books (doubtful) but it is very unlikely that they will see any money from these settlements (if they happen.) Understand that John Wilen & Sons are “protecting” THEIR OWN copyright, not the authors.
  - Anonymous
    
    I can’t imagine that a compensation scheme based on authors signing away their copyrights is put in place for the financial benefit of Artists.
    
    I also can’t imagine that a publication process in which a digital distributor, like John Wiley & Sons, calls in writers to produce basic information books on specification, under conditions where they waive their copyrights, is going to pay those writers much more than coolie wages.
    
    As an outsider, I am ever so glad to have received a response to my two questions. In fact, I suggest to TF that the posturing of digital distributers that theirs is other than an exploitive relationship with Artists, can and should be countered with a few timely articles on the artist compensation policies of companies like John Wiley & Sons.
    - http://www.cheapassfiction.com Aelius Blythe
      
      I too would like to see more articles on the publisher-author relationship and policies (which, yes, is often exploitative or at least not very beneficial to writers.)
      
      Especially since publishers are trying desperately to convince readers and writers that they are still relevant, despite an increasing show of incompetence in the digital world. Joe Konrath–an author with experience both in and out of the publishing industry–recently responded to (read: tore apart) a leaked memo from Hatchette about what publishers “do for” their authors. Interesting stuff.
      
      http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/12/eisler-konrath-vs-hachette.html
      
      Given the actions of John Wiley & Sons and the increasing defensiveness of others in the industry, it like they are trying to squeeze as much as they possibly can from their writers before everyone realizes it, and before everyone realizes that these companies provide very little of worth.
  - LyleD
    
    In order to get Wiley to publish your material, you HAVE to sign away the copyrights to them.. It’s a requirement..
    - Anonymous
      
      Shi tMan! You guys are a goldmine of really relevant information! Thanks.
    - http://twitter.com/orinthomas Orin Thomas
      
      This is bullshit. I’ve written a books for Wiley (and O’Reilly). I “own” the copyright. Those that have digital copies are shared like a mofo on sites, but have sold very little despite pulling great reviews. The ones that aren’t digital sell a lot better. Long term though there is no future in writing textbooks for the English speaking market as there is a doctorowish belief that while textbooks might prove useful, the authors don’t need to be paid.
- LyleD
  
  I worked for Wley recently and can tell you as fact, their markups are anywhere between 80% and 8000%.. Royalties paid are between 5% and 12%.. These for dummies books cost pennies compared to their RRP…
  
  Wiley are one of the main Higher Education publisher and push their books like mad to get them made ‘required reading’ in our schools, colleges and universities..
  
  Then they also have a huge business in Journals Publishing where they sell access to our own publicly funded research..
  
  Altogether, one of the worst companies I’ve ever had the misfortune to work for…
  - Anonymous
    
    Seems to me that not enough of the right questions are being raised in the press
    or in the courts or in the legislatures about the real relationship between these digital distributors and the rest of us. We must be amazed at how successfully these companies have positioned themselves as champions of customers and Artists. It’s almost as if they control intellectual property enough already to effectively determine what we can think publicly. I hope these lawsuits can be taken as an opportunity to really air their dirty laundry.
    
    We need to make it better known that the digital distributor is NOT the Artist; but
    merely an extremely overpaid warehousing, replication and transmission conduit (this is what distributors have always done, except that in the digital universe the computer does ALL of this essentially for free).
    
    We need to make it better known that the primary, perhaps only, effect of the copyright laws is to allow DIGITAL DISTRIBUTORS to charge legislated monopoly prices eternally on the illusion that their economic functions have not
    been rendered unnecessary by even the cheapest computer.
    
    Think about it: If any potential customer or artist on the planet can store 15 terabytes of audio, video, or text data for half a decade for a retail cost under 800 dollars; and, if anybody on the planet can replicate a 30 gigabyte file of that audio, video, or text data in a few minutes for the total cost of pressing a button and having the patience to wait for it to complete; and, if anybody on the planet can transmit that same 30 gigabyte audio, video or text file two or three times around the world, in effect instantaneously, to any other computer on the planet that desires it at an effective cost of zero; and, if moreover, if anybody on the planet is equally as able as any other person to render that audio, video, or text file no matter what their position on the globe, then just EXACTLY WHAT is the function of a digital distributor and WHY would any democratic law put that distribitor in a position to collect a monopolistic economic premium on unnecessary services?
    
    There is a huge theft going on alright, but it’s not the digital pirating.
    - Resin
      
      “. We must be amazed at how successfully these companies have positioned themselves as champions of customers and Artists. It’s almost as if they control intellectual property enough already to effectively determine what we can think publicly. ”
      
      Not to be a downer, but it seems there that you aren’t really addressing what the companies offer the artists that make them want to join. If your argument can be boiled down to “brainwashing”, then you’re probably overlooking something, and if I may be so bold, I think I know what it is.
      
      Well, it seems to me that distribution isn’t the only service the companies offer. They offer publicity, investment, etc. In this sense, they offer Artists services that pirates and a filesharing system don’t offer (at least, not presently, and not to the same degree or with the same reliability). In addition, they do handle the distribution, which can be a blessing to an artist working in an expensive medium who has little sense for business In that sense, it does seem that the companies are actually doing something for the artists.
      
      To make this clear, P2P websites very often cater to consumers, but they don’t offer many services to artists. It’s worth considering that because the companies cater directly to artists, they have more success in drawing them in.
      
      It’s not an insurmountable problem for pirates to overcome, but it is a reason why artists still favor the current system. With that in mind, maybe developing a service that has more structure than the traditional P2P website, with more services directed at the artists instead of solely the downloaders.
Dummy

He should read Common Sense For Dummies. I guess common sense isn’t that common anymore though.
Jojo

time to smear buggers on all of the dummies books down at the bookstore
- Anonymous
  
  Damm man! You’ll give all of us the nasal kooties!
Alyssa Blindy

Hmmm. Interesting. Pay Up or Else for Dummies.
TeamPoison JK

200,000 people don’t use VPNs.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m sick of people boasting about VPNs!
  
  Go fight against the stupid laws instead of hiding your ass!
  
  If SOPA passes, your VPN will be worthless as CERTAINLY there will be even harsher policies which will ban and hunt those using them AS WELL.
  - TeamPoison JK
    
    Well:
    1 – Have fun fighting laws that will never be taken down and in the process getting sued
    2 – SOPA will never get passed
- Anonymous
  
  Is this the new business model for pirate survival?
http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

How To Take A Shit For Dummies.
http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

“I don’t care about your profits and infuriates me that you think I should” pretty much sums up every single mean spirited remark that’s even been directed at a rights holder. If you put your time and money into something, you wouldn’t like it if other people were handing it out for free.
- Anonymous
  
  If they really are capitalist entrepeneurs, rather than previleged corporate parrasites with a reserved suite in the hotel of big corporate socialism, then they
  had better wake up long enough to read the state of the technology and the state of their complaining market. Asleep at the wheel should never have become a
  hot strategy for economic success; and, only corporations big enough to have confused themselves with governments would have devoted themselves to the fantasy that human beings woulds allow themselves to be eternally victinized by it. Failure is as failure does. Stop whining long enough to tell your bosses that
  the future was once open to them, but that it has closed while they were sleeping. All that’s left now is the waiting.
- Anonymous
  
  If those people handing my stuff out got me more exposure in the process, then I’d tell them to feel free.
  
  You people and your tunnel-vision-economics; look at the big picture for once.
- Danny
  
  You’re such a whining shit Jack.
  
  You’ve given up trying to defend the rights holders with arguments as each time you do you get beaten beyond belief.
  
  When I create things at work (I’m a design engineer) I don’t feel entitled to money for it, I get paid a fixed wage whether it sells or not. Many of the things I have designed in the last few years have gone on to make the company I work for millions but I don’t feel entitled to a cut like the right holders seem to. In fact something I designed and we produced was cloned by a company in china, instead of bitching and whining about it we just moved on and made something new as we had already profited from the product and recouped our development costs many times over so who cares?
Anonymous

I think they are making a mistake.

They claim they want to “educate” people but they are already well educated and know what they are doing. Then they claim they want to “settle” which due to the unreasonable laws we would term “exploit”.

And last of all they claim they want to “stop infringement” which we all know is simply not going to happen and if anything these cases will turn into a PR disaster for them making even more people wanting to infringe their stuff. So they will just end up with their own Jamie Thomas-Rasset in a court case that seems to never end.

In fact I will tell them exactly how they can take a book down if they want to listen to some advice. This is to ask really nicely and treat file sharers with respect. To give them a good reason like “incomplete creation”. Then to not hate people sharing their stuff where these court cases are sure not helping. This is all true when shared BT media has been taken off-line if such cases and it even wins you more sales due to extra respect.

Stopping infringement is not possible. If you are not being pirated then you are a nobody so be thankful to be a somebody. The people will still buy if they value the book.
- Anonymous
  
  Agreed. By targeting those whom they consider to be uneducated, and simultaneously demanding a “settlement” from them, they are admitting that they are taking advantage of people who clearly have no idea that what they’re doing is wrong.
  
  Good intentions don’t come with invoices. :/
Pingback: ‘For Dummies’ Publisher Sues BitTorrent Users to “Educate and Settle” | TorrentForce Blog
Davio

Uh oh, I have downloaded multiple books from them without any anonymity because I don’t really see downloading books having the need to use a VPN or peerblock.

But, good thing I live in Canada, and they’re after US users :)
Anon

I don’t understand how they can get any money out of this when the accused can simply say that their wifi was unsecured and they didn’t download anything, someone else must have done so? They can’t prove anything since an IP is not any single person.
- Anonymous
  
  Unfortunately the majority of the American public are uninformed of the situation when the mainstream media has largely neglected reporting the exploitative nature of speculative invoicing,
  
  So if they get such a demand they may panic. Worst yet often don’t see this lawyer as the enemy and may believe them to be reasonable. Then worst of all they may actually confess or to grass on someone else.
  
  The worst situation possible is to confirm that they did it but to have no money at all to pay their settlement. They can then be taken to court and forced to settle including a seizure order like to have their car taken. Of course most of these fines are so high they can sell all they own and still not afford it.
  
  Our greatest hope of all is that before they reply to this lawyer they actually do some research and to get themselves informed. It is true to say that without their confession it would be very hard to make claims stick. It does not take much advice to end their panic, fears and concerns by letting them see what is the true nature of speculative invoicing.
http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

I have gas for dummies.
LOLZ-DUMMIES

So these idiots should have downloaded: Download for Dummies aka. don’t use public trackers or DC++ – anything else will do, i.e. private trackers or cyberlockers
Anonymous

@FoxyLady……?his is ?r?z?…?y fri?nd`s sist?r m???s 78/hr ?n th? int?rn?t. Sh? h?s b??n un?m?l???d f?r 11 m?nths but l?st m?nth h?r inc?m? w?s 7985$ ?ust w?r?ing ?n th? ?? f?r ? f?w h?urs. Read about it here …….
Neotoasty

Suing People for Dummies
The Idiots Guide to Censorship
The Money Bible
Anonymous

Should be reather interesting to see hwo that all works out.
RealPrivacy.tk
http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

Dear John [Wiley & Sons],

I’m an ardent filesharer who will happily support authors with my hard-earned cash when and if I deem such financial support worthy of my time and I genuinely gain something worthwhile as a consequence of reading that author.

Your current business model is now based on a falsity due to the internet because you STILL want readers to buy blind without first having sampled or read the so-called product for sale. You STILL want us to rely on a ‘critical analysis’ by a small group of select journalists, authors or others prior to full-scale production of the work.

The internet has made this business model obsolete, and authors can take their work to readers directly at their own pace and in their own terms without your defunct industry getting a cut of the profits properly earned by the original author.

Wake up and smell the shit – coz it’s flying in your face every.
The biggest enemy of the up-and-coming author or artiste used to be anonymity, but now we have the internet, you evil fuckwit leeches are no longer needed.

So STFU and die already. The creators and originators can now “do it for themselves”.
A. Nnoyed

Woes me. When are the copyright police going to come get me? I shared Books, Movies and Songs with hundreds of people, I am sure. I even reported my sharing with a non profit organization, my local library, to the IRS. Whenever I found myself with a book, movie or CD that I did not want I gave it to the local library. I am sure the copyright police will come after me because they are stupid. The valuable newly released material is always available free, books and movies at the local library and songs at the local top 40 FM Station. The only holders of copyrighted material that are actually making a windfall are those selling out of print CD’s and Books on ebay or Amazon.com. I found one CD I have in my collection offered on Amazon for around $200.00. I am sure I have more.
Anonymous

tinyurl.ie/7fb
DRuNKeN MaSTeR

We need to publish an “Anonymous Surfing for Dummies”, so the MAFIAA (and Wiley) can’t find out who it was.
Jk

I really liked what the GOP candidates tell to the people who have lost their jobs to cheaper labor elsewhere ” Its not the job of government to protect your business model, compete with the Chinese for slave labor” So the same holds true for RIAA/ MAFIAA the government should not be protecting their outdated business model compete with the pirates else be extinct
Anonymous

I think they are courting bad publicity. The businesses and artist that support the organic growth of the net are reaping the benefits of great publicity and the respect of a newly created globally wired community. Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails are two artists that gained profound respect from the net communty by “rolling” with it rather than fighting it. I know the Cambridge University publishing house issues 5 or more “removal” notices a week (stated on their site) but doesn’t seem to have prosecuted anyone. Hopefully Cambridge won’t prosecute anyone; after all it’s mainly students grabbing extra material to complement the books that they have already had to buy for their course. John Wiley and Sons have made a terrible decision to be the first book publisher to prosecute. Should’ve taken a leaf out of the Bill Gates approach – complain little, introduce lame easily broken protection systems on the basis that your market share might decrease if you actually made it impossible to crack (remember he’s a hacker), avoid prosecuting anyone without the money to pay and just let everyone else panic. Yeah! I know people don’t always like Bill Gates but you got to respect the guy for his “sea of calm” approach. Wiley and Sons – best bet – drop all your ongoing cases; make it clear to the net that you’re not stalking file-sharing sites anymore; be quiet for a few years and who knows you might repair the damage. One more thing – sack that lawyer/manager or whoever it was that proposed that you prosecute – they are obviously not paying attention.
Ted Kaczynski

I approve of “Vegetable Gardening for Dummies” and recommend it to all of my friends.
Chronoss2008

.001 per cents per download cost and what do they want for a book , now think of a real book and the actual cost of materials and the margin they get…..

that’s the point if they gave out the books online for 5 cents each you’d see millions grab one book
and you just have to scan it once …..OR maybe it was written on a computer in first place…..

ITS LIKE the SCO saga they couldn’t make a product and tried to sue everyone and we know it took 7 years but they are turfed to nothing now.
so when your company or as a share holder they start this know you better bail out quick….it wont make money in the end except for the lawyers.
http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

If they tried this with me, I would give them the finger and tell them “Try to prove it was me who downloaded your stuff illegally (not really, since I can check the same book out of the library). An IP address doesn’t prove anything, since I have a wireless network!”
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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000178860781 Bug Lord

“rightful compensation.” I already want to detonate c4 in his ass.
if I use millions to dig out a mountain and form it as a dome of rock, I can’t get any fucking “rightful compensation” for that, I should get fined billions for that.

or if I use millions to make a picture of a cat acting as jesus on the cross I still wouldn’t & shouldn’t get any “rightful compensation”
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GizGaz

blah… blah… blahblahblah, it goes on and on… pass me a beer please… I’m…

WHAT’S THAT?!?!?!?!

(grin)
Anonymous

tinyurl.ie/7fb
lastchancelottery

no comment. except…… no, no comment, america, you are unworthy of a comment from here on.
Anon

Digital books are insanely priced you can’t be serious to pay five times more for a book thank huge movie or game production! Again they don’t offer a fair legit way so they get bumped. All these people catch are the newbies those in the know are unwatchable even if the ISP is helping lol. What we are going to end up with is an encrypted scrambled Internet as there load of people going to pay for it while these companies do nothing to use get rid of draconian copy laws and tryno hike prices so they can be rich. I think in hundred years artists will publish directly and people will fund themselves as they can sell online…iTunes etc are not going to stop this…and new kids with new tech not seeking to be rich will create this paradigm and all the middle men will need to get real jobs.
Anonymous

phlpn.es/829r8s
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Anonymous

From reading these comments, I guess I can safely assume that none of you have ever written a book and have absolutely no idea how much work is involved. Well, I am a Wiley author who has written multiple books and I have aided the company by identifying websites that host file sharing. The problem is the people who upload copyrighted material and the websites who encourage people to do so. Over the past two years I have advised the company to seek legal action against these people. There is no excuse for websites to continue to host copyrighted material after they have started receiving DMCA notices to remove such material. Although Wiley is the first publisher to pursue legal action, undoubtedly other publishers will follow them.
http://twitter.com/DrHRGoetting Dr. H.R. Goetting

John Wiley & Sons Leaks:
US book publisher John Wiley & Sons spies on employees like a secret service w/ C.I.A. methods; nobody controls the dirty spy merchant c.u.m scientific publisher John Wiley & Sons!
Is the criminal versatile John Wiley & Sons publishing empire violating the right to privacy in the workplace under U.S. Constitution’s 4th Amendment as well as Chinese, German and EU privacy laws?
Yes, John Wiley & Sons (SOPA shark) commits felonies by secretly listening on employee conversations at the workplace. John Wiley & Sons culture is a fangs-out, snoop-snoop-snoop culture. This nightmare is aided and abetted by Chairman Peter Booth Wiley and his entourage, who engage vulnerable employees in the literary equivalent of trench warfare. The smoldering banality of evil by Chairman Peter Booth Wiley creates a ridiculous public-relations disaster for himself and ruinous consequences for John Wiley & Sons.
The magnitude of information John Wiley & Sons has available about each of its employees for discriminatory practices must be enough to create digital Doppelgangers of their employees.
In the US private companies such as SPOKEO and STRATFOR provide John Wiley & Sons with information how many cars their employees have; in this dangerous world John Wiley & Sons has to know their employees job history; John Wiley & Sons is raising “legitimate” questions about political leanings of employees; a priority question for John Wiley & Sons is if there are employees who act as civil rights activists, or worse as socialists; John Wiley & Sons insists on surveillance of Muslim and Arab employees; in which year employees bought (or lost) a house; to assess guilt by association, John Wiley & Sons needs to know what their employees do on social networks and what they talk about; in addition, vital security information for John Wiley & Sons covers what books or magazines employees read and what brand of coffee they drink; John Wiley & Sons’ “constitutional” warrantless surveillance includes 1) on moral grounds the sexual relationships employees have and 2) on puritanical grounds coverage if they got divorced and 3) on religious grounds if female employees had or were seeking an abortion; if they ever declared bankruptcy; “appropriate” leads on shocking traffic tickets; John Wiley & Sons has employee information compiled from public sources on criminal history; John Wiley & Sons record-keeping includes employees’ dieting habits; and if depression or addiction history or taking pills for recreational purposes leads to criminal activity.
John Wiley & Sons predictive analytics team makes sense of the demographic data to figure out how John Wiley & Sons employees might think and behave and to hire and fire or demote and promote. There are no laws in the U.S. to tell employees what information John Wiley & Sons has bought about them – and the espionazis at John Wiley & Sons have no shame using the flood tide of spy-data.
To write my strange memoir about criminal secrets, I worked for eighteen months at John Wiley & Sons’ San Francisco archive, located in Chairman Peter Booth Wiley’s office. After eighteen months of interviews with Chairman Peter Booth Wiley, the quotes from him were a big pile of unorganized papers in a shoe-box containing only my hand-scribbled notes before I edited the straight d.o.p.e and made it ready for a good-experience publication. To use some words of novelist Curtis Sittenfeld: I might be guilty for the intrusive nature of what I am telling, but every single thing in my investigation is plausible!
I selectively report word by word what I had penciled down during the intimate ‘interviews’, in which he had a penchant for screaming at me. I also played the devil’s advocate by brainstorming and debating the tongue wagging of Chairman Peter Booth Wiley. I gave his nonfiction words satirical interpretations and use the method of dramatizing and narrating. My sarcastic undertones fall under the protection of the First Amendment. It’s a new kind of investigative journalism, where obsolete rules where thrown out. I use an intermediate standard for publishing, since the quotes from Chairman Peter Booth Wiley do not lend themselves to firm corroboration. Should I fact-check my ‘Deep-Throat’ with U.S. authorities?
Today the position of no-good-for-anything Chairman Peter Booth Wiley is: admit nothing, deny everything, and make counteraccusations.
As editor I was not only participant in reconstructing and the artful arrangement of the conversations, its p.e.r.v.e.r.s.e drama of unwanted soap opera h.o.m.o-s.e.x (there was no DSK-button in his office) and the Chairman’s alcoholism, but also commentator to turn John Wiley & Sons’ ugly history into sophisticated literary journalism. Any reader would have come up with the same interpretation had it been his investigation based on interviews, in which he tried to get answers from Chairman-no-shame Peter Booth Wiley.
Find out the story behind the story: Black-ops textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons is snooping with Orwellian intelligence methods on its own employees. No matter what the human cost, greed rules at John Wiley & Sons. Quote from Chairman Peter Booth Wiley’s Mission Statement: “We can intercept telephone conversations, supervise e-mail messages and get through a contractor banking information”. D.e.m.a.g.o.g.u.e & Chairman Peter Booth Wiley thinks rules do not apply to a spy merchant. For him profit means more than to the meanest w.h.o.r.e; what Peter Booth Wiley, craving for power with the eyes of a herring on ice, cannot buy, the misanthrope in a flesh-presser’s profession steals.
The self-proclaimed “fifth and sixth” Wiley generations at John Wiley & Sons were hunting – unprecedented – for in-house employee dissidents at John Wiley & Sons’ NYC offices in the 1960s. “I secretly searched through offices; my daddy had a contractor monitor homes when necessary”. Daddy W. Bradford Wiley was blessed with social-Darwinist brutishness; he became paranoid about his stock grubbing critics among John Wiley & Sons employees.
Why?
“My daddy’s branch of the family was so far removed from the line of inheritance [at John Wiley & Sons Inc.] that all he got was the name Wiley” said the privileged son of an unprivileged son while crossing and recrossing his legs. Daddy Wiley’s attachment to the heirs of John Wiley & Sons was not ‘real’, theirs was not his blood; he was a model of self-creation. He had grown up in a rural New Jersey two-room house with concrete walls and an outdoor l.a.t.r.i.n.e shared with a trailer park next door. But power-hungry ‘Jackpot Daddy’ would expertly and efficiently enriched himself in Glimmerglass New York City with twenty percent of John Wiley & Sons shares, which he grabbed from legitimate John Wiley & Sons Inc. shareholders. These were Daddy Wiley’s high-times of cream and dumplings – while shamelessly breaking wind.
This mundane reality explains why ‘Daddy Wiley’, before his forced retirement, was beggaring the career chances of John Wiley & Sons’ key employees with fat dossiers. “Our employee monitoring system pays instant results up to this day were we use more sophisticated methods”. John Wiley & Sons has become a human-rights crushing industrial publishing machine.
With serious educational deficits, Chairman Peter Booth Wiley [besides being ‘out of the labour force’, the best low-skill service job he ever got on his own was as a ‘less-than-full-time’ taxi driver] and his low-IQ siblings are not the cream of educated society. Their s.t.u.p.i.d.i.t.y is not staged; Daddy Wiley, for good reasons, had explicitly forbidden his two sons to work at John Wiley & Sons!
One of the siblings is a d.e.generated i.d.i.o.t and was kicked out from college, because failure for him is not only an option but a habit. He is unable to compose a comprehensible sentence. Befitting for a member on the board of directors at John Wiley & Sons, his writing skills are at the low end of Fishtown’s public-school curriculum; his trembling hand produces scores of misspellings – unless, for example, he signs with an X. Childless brother/director Bradford Wiley II was eligible for America’s Eugenic Board sterilization program, where genetic engineering was applied between the years 1933 [when Hitler came to power in Germany; he abdicated w/ a bullet to the head in 1945] and 1977. America’s ‘Human Betterment League’ of wealthy businessmen such as ‘Daddy Wiley’ financed the eugenics program and 70 percent of the sterilizations took place after 1945.
The other two fertile Wiley brother/sister academic Wunderkinder of rather low mentality were left unfairly behind by “rising academic standards” and graduated only because of the generous donations made by their “Daddy”. In short, they are all blissfully detached from academic standards.
The Wiley country-bums [Bootleggers for Generations] from a bad place aptly labelled Fishtown in New Jersey were just very distant relatives to the New Yorker publishing family Wiley [Knowledge for Generations]. According to the Chairman, the reason why the bootlegger Wiley clan was able to grab & keep control of the publisher John Wiley & Sons lies in the bootlegger family’s “small gene pool”. Maybe God pissed intentionally into the disadvantaged bootlegger’s “small gene pool”. Or shall we say the bootlegger Wiley clan is the unlucky winner in the genetic lottery for an extremely “small gene pool”? Certainly there is a moral leprosy built into the DNA of the bootlegger Wiley clan. Although the Chairman never mentioned incest for the “small gene pool” of his bootlegger clan, he didn’t rule it out!
But that is not all: “My ancestors were British royals” said the uncrowned king of a.s.s.e.s and pointed to some drawings of ‘royals’ on the walls of his S.F. home. The aging paranoid Chairman wants out of his inferior criminal underclass identity. What he wants is a fake entrée into aristocracy and identify with royals. Or did Chairman Peter Booth Wiley mistake his bootlegger family tree with the restroom doors in Disneyland royally marked ‘Prince‘ and ‘Princess‘?
Chairman-wannabe-royal Peter Booth Wiley was dragged up by rude, unpleasant, psychopathic parents of criminal origins – so let’s just say faux royals! Peter Booth Wiley might be as p.e.r.v.e.r.s.e as some British royals, but this is as far as royal British relations go. Maybe Peter Booth Wiley, the pinstriped effluence from an ex-bootlegger family, had a royal s.y.p.h.i.l.i.s? Signaling the depth of his longings for a blue-blooded ancestry, Chairman Peter Booth Wiley, who smelled vaguely fishy, scratched his from blue h.e.m.o.r.r.h.o.i.d.s ridden royal rear end with a long sigh of relief again and again and again!
Anyone can be blue blooded in America.
That’s America’s exceptionalism!
But let’s come back to John Wiley & Sons. Electronic stalking of employees with Global Positioning System tracking boxes replaced Daddy Wiley’s monitoring of homes. GPS is a common corporate tool in America and turn U.S. workers lives into the proverbial open book.
Surveillance will get even better in America come 2015, when privately operated drones can fly the US skies under new Federal Aviation Agency law. This will allow John Wiley & Sons’ SWAT team to celebrate aerial spying on employees with state-of-the-art routine monitoring practices. ‘Daddy Wiley’ will roll over in his grave with satisfaction, worrying a little less about ‘criminal’ employees gossiping how he got his shares in John Wiley & Sons.
John Wiley & Sons treats his national and international subsidiaries like sweatshops. All quotes from Chairman Peter Booth Wiley’s support his mission that the “fifth and sixth” Wiley generations should become the richest and happiest family clan in the world.
Should John Wiley & Sons be held accountable for crimes against human rights, just as individuals are? The Alien Tort Statute might soon allow victims of John Wiley & Sons’ snooping to find justice in American courts.
“Through an American security contractor we collect fingerprints from overseas employees”. “… Details about the past five employers…” “…The previous three addresses…” “…Medical records indicating any trouble…” “…Travel destinations for the past five years…” “… Reported income and expenses…” “… Migration background and country of origin…” “I have this information put together as soon as we acquire a new company.” “…That’s in violation of the privacy laws but improves our security…”
That’s pretty much in line with IKEA’s snooping on its employees in France. Chairman Peter Booth Wiley’s narrative s.t.r.i.p.t.e.a.s.e is such a bundle of hate all in one place! The burly bearded and tattooed American textbook people from John Wiley & Sons are just unpopular like the Ebola virus!
Whilst the middleclass is being eliminated, Chairman-Darth-Vader Peter Booth Wiley’s mind has hardened into h.a.t.r.e.d against all John Wiley & Sons employees.
Shake John Wiley & Sons’ employee spying system to its roots and expose thin-skinned White-T.r.a.s.h Chairman Peter Booth Wiley, known for his weakness for the bottle.
A reader’s poll gave John Wiley & Sons a 10 percent approval rate, lower than BP during the oil spill. Book readers, take the gloves off and punish the snoop-snoop-snoop perpetrators at John Wiley & Sons. Throw a monkey-wrench into their Gutenberg press.
“And they conspire to silence us” — Rainer Maria Rilke
Appalled by what you’ve read, silence is not an option

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