{"id":3057,"date":"2011-11-02T16:59:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T23:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/?p=3057"},"modified":"2011-11-02T23:15:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T06:15:48","slug":"avast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/avast\/","title":{"rendered":"Avast!"},"content":{"rendered":"

View 699 Wednesday, November 02, 2011<\/p>\n

\"line6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First order of business is personal\/professional:<\/p>\n

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You might see whether they’re scamming you, too <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/?p=3235<\/a><\/p>\n

Harry Erwin<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A quick excursion to Carolyn Cherryh\u2019s web site reveals that there\u2019s a real problem. Carolyn says<\/p>\n

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Everybody first search my books on B&N, and if you find Hephaestus Books with omnibuses of my work, go to customer service at B&N\u2019s corporate site and write them explaining these are ripoffs and not real books. Be nice, but be firm that these are ripoff collections of Wiki articles purporting to be a book by me and that these have been tossed off Amazon and are now victimizing customers of B&N and cluttering up the search list under my name. This is the e-mail form: http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/help\/customer_service\/morehelp.asp<\/a>
Arrgh.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I went Googling for Hephaestus Books and my name, and found lots, at both Amazon and B&N. All of the Hephaestus Books I looked at had publication dates of September 2011, meaning that this is a rather recent event. I certainly have never authorized any publications of anything of mine by this publisher, and I am sure that Niven has not, but they sure will sell you a lot of works by us. They\u2019ll also sell you works by Harlan Ellison, and many many others. I called Harlan and Susan to let them know. I note they also have many collections of Heinlein stories. I am pretty sure that Robert\u2019s estate never authorized any such thing.<\/p>\n

These appear to be actual printed books, which may mean a considerable investment? It\u2019s certainly a larger operation than the usual pirate site.<\/p>\n

My experience has been that readers prefer to buy legitimate copies of books rather than get them from a pirate site, and that includes libertarian friends who don\u2019t believe in intellectual property as such; for them it\u2019s a matter of ethics and courtesy. The argument is that if they download a pirate copy of a book it doesn\u2019t cost the author anything; it\u2019s not like stealing a chair or a car or something. That isn\u2019t my view, but it\u2019s also not the point of what I am saying: even the strictest libertarians apparently prefer to buy copies of books including eBooks, presumably as courtesy to the author. That view makes all eBooks operate the way this site does \u2013 it\u2019s free but I encourage subscriptions because if there are no subscriptions I can\u2019t do it. That works here, but I doubt it\u2019s a good business model for publishers. Of course the way the publishing world is changing there may not be any good business models for publishing but that\u2019s another story entirely.<\/p>\n

In any event there are to the best of my knowledge no authorized Hephaestus Books by Pournelle or Niven. The good news is that the Hephaestus editions don\u2019t appear in early pages when you Google my name, but I don\u2019t know how long that will last. <\/p>\n

Doing a Google of Pournelle Hephaestus turns up a ton of such books offered for sale by Abe Books http:\/\/www.abebooks.com\/servlet\/SearchResults?paratrk=&isbn=9781242814747&ltrec=t&bi<\/a>= including one published by Superbookdeals, which appears to be in some way connected to ABE BOOKS. There are giant collections of my stuff, none ever authorized by me in any way. I don\u2019t know what the quality of the book might be. I suspect these will turn out to be Print on Demand books if they exist at all, but they are also said to be available through Amazon. There is some indication that ABE is owned by Amazon. This would mean that Amazon owns a pirate book company and I hesitate to say that; but I do note that http:\/\/www.abebooks.com\/servlet\/BookDetailsPL?bi=5892701584&searchurl=isbn%3D9781242814747%26ltrec%3Dt<\/a> offers<\/p>\n

Novels By Jerry Pournelle, including: The Legacy Of Heorot, The Mote In God’s Eye, The Gripping Hand, Footfall, Inferno (novel), Fallen Angels (scienc
(ISBN: 1242814744 \/ 1-242-81474-4 ) <\/h3>\n