Authors fight free ebook downloads
Writers say the website Ebook Bike is stealing work and stifling profit
CALGARY— A Vancouver man who led the now-defunct Pirate Party of Canada is being accused by authors around the world of giving their ebooks away for free on a website that boasts everything from Michelle Obama’s bestseller to hundreds of indie books from small publishers.
Among the aggrieved writers is P.J. Vernon, a grant co-ordinator at the Calgary Public Library. He said a friend alerted him March 2 that his debut novel, a psychological thriller called When You Find Me, was available for free on a website called Ebook Bike.
“I don’t usually think it’s valuable to go chasing after pirated ebooks,” said Vernon, adding that ebook piracy is a “reality” every author has to deal with.
However, when he logged on to Twitter, he realized authors from across the globe were talking about this website — and someone was talking back. Vernon was shocked to see the owner of Ebook Bike publicly defend an operation that he said takes away revenue from authors such as himself.
“I accept that … there’s copyright infringement on the website,” Travis McCrea told the Star in an interview Friday, adding he has done “everything that I can to help mitigate that problem.” Ebook Bike has been operating since at least 2015 but had a previous iteration titled the Ultimate Ebook Library, according to McCrea. He called the website his “passion project” and said it was originally founded so that he and other authors could upload their own work for free.
He maintains the website is still, and has always been, for that purpose — but is sometimes misused by others.
On March 5, Philippine author Rin Chupeco posted a Twitter thread about Ebook Bike, tagging authors whose work was on the site. Authors had been complaining since at least Feb. 28, but Chupeco’s thread took off, with about 1,400 retweets before she deleted the thread, archiving it on her website. McCrea said authors can make Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints to have their books taken down, using a form provided on his website. The DMCA is American, but McCrea said he feels it lays out a more complete “takedown procedure” than Canadian copyright law. However, he reiterated he feels he is “upholding Canadian law” with his website’s procedure. “It’s very difficult … from a technological perspective to just block all copyrighted material from being uploaded,” McCrea said. Authors on Twitter have claimed this process does not usually pan out, or if it does, their books end up back on the website after about a week. McCrea said he is still working on ways to “better manage” this situation but stated that if a book is re-uploaded, that is the responsibility of a third-party user doing so illegally.
The Star did a random check of 10 books whose authors claimed on Twitter that even though they or their publishers had made a DMCA complaint, their book was still available for download. As of Friday, three were still available. Seven were either no longer listed or were still listed but an attempt to download them results in a notice that the book has been removed.
In response to this, McCrea said every DMCA complaint he is aware of has been addressed.
“I want authors to use that system,” he said. “It makes my life easier.”
He said the fact he’s operating this website alone without advertising revenue makes it more difficult to address every case of copyright infringement, resulting in “a situation that’s unfortunate for everybody.”
“Even these multibillion-dollar companies can’t solve it,” he argued, referencing YouTube and Facebook as examples. “I would love to solve it, because I bet there’s a lot of money in it for the guy who figures it out.”
According to the Canadian Copyright Act, both downloading and uploading copyrighted material is illegal unless the user doing so owns the copyright. So, uploading Michelle Obama’s Becoming is only legal if you’re Michelle Obama or possibly her publisher.
When it comes to operating a website like Ebook Bike, things are less clear.
University of Windsor law professor Myra J. Tawfik said in an email that if a website operator has a complaint system and can be shown as acting upon all infringement reports, that could absolve liability.
McCrea likened his current system to YouTube’s content ID system and said he’s exploring various ways to make it harder for ebooks to be illegally re-uploaded after they are taken down.
In her March 5 Twitter thread, Philippine author Chupeco posted about McCrea’s affiliation with the Pirate Party of Canada and a congregation called the Kopimist Church.
McCrea was the leader of the Pirate Party of Canada, which supported net neutrality, open government and intellectualproperty reform and participated in multiple federal elections between 2010 and 2015. McCrea ran for MP in the riding of Vancouver Centre in 2011.
He said he currently operates the Canadian website of the Idaho-based Kopimist Church and that according to his Kopimist beliefs, “all information should be shared.” The website calls copying information a holy act.
Vernon, the author and grant co-ordinator at the Calgary Public Library, said websites like Ebook Bike also take support away from public libraries — a statement McCrea disputes. Vernon said the website not only prevents authors from getting paid for their work but also circumvents the library’s role in providing free books to the public without stealing from authors.
“We appreciate … the community, sort of social-net role that libraries play,” Vernon said. “To think that he’s in the same vein is absolutely ridiculous.”