Spammers and Scammers: What to Do When Your Book Is Sold Under a False Name

Welcome to Spammers and Scammers, our third edition in this series where we look at different scams targeting our indie author and publisher community so we can stay educated and protected from bad actors and sneaky service providers.

This month we want to move away from email scams and take a look at a different kind of problem that we're seeing more and more of coming across the Watchdog Desk, and that's authors' books being scraped in bulk and sold on different platforms — mainly Google Play Books — under false author names.

There's quite a lot to this one, and while there isn't a way to actively prevent this from happening yet, there are steps you can take to reduce the risk. We've also outlined what to do if you have been targeted by this sort of scam.

What's Happening

ALLi's Watchdog Desk has seen a rise in the number of reported cases of authors having their books scraped, duplicated and reuploaded onto Google Play Books under a false name in order to be resold illegally. This is plagiarism on a grand scale, and despite ALLi and the authors involved flagging this to Google, it can take weeks or months for them to respond. This is particularly concerning given that these operators appear to post in bulk, using one fake pen name to cover hundreds or thousands of stolen titles in one go.

As many of you may be aware, Google Play Books allows any user to register as a publisher through its Partner Programme. And while that might sound handy, the problem is that Google has yet to add any form of verification step to check whether the end user is also the rights holder.

And while the authors we've been made aware of have followed the correct channels by filing a takedown notice, the listings have stayed up with no timeline given, and in some cases, no reply from Google at all.

Having looked into the issue, ALLi has learned that by default the Google Books team will only communicate with the complainant if there's a specific issue with the request you've made. So even if they are following up and actively dealing with your request, you likely won't hear from Google.

What You Can Do About Prevention

Frustratingly, there's no surefire way as yet to prevent this from happening to you. As mentioned above, the issue sits with Google's verification process, and until they make changes, the best we can do is take some preventative measures that might make it harder for the scammers to target your work.

Some tips:

• Set a Google Alert for your book title and your name. That way, if either has been scraped, you're more likely to find out.
• Upload your own book to the Google Play Books Partner Center, even if you have no plans to sell there. Having your legitimate listing on there can help if you ever need to prove authorship.
• Similarly, you can link your author profile across Google Books, your website, and your social channels, so there's a consistent link between your legitimate titles and your other online presence.
• Even if you have set up a Google Alert, make sure to check periodically, as Google Alerts are not fail-safe.
• Consider watermarking your files, which won't stop a scraper but can help trace a pirated copy back to its source. We'd steer away from DRM for this specific problem, since it mainly affects readers who've paid for your book rather than the operation that stole it.

If This Has Happened to You

If you have found that your titles have been falsely uploaded to Google Play under a false identity, make sure to follow the steps below to maximise your chance of getting it resolved:

File a formal DMCA notice. Use Google's official copyright removal form at support.google.com/legal, selecting Google Play or Google Books as the product. List the URL of every infringing listing individually, and include proof of your own legitimate edition: your real listing, your ISBN, your publication date. Leaving any of this out could mean the request is ignored or deprioritised.

The notice needs to come from you or your formally authorised agent. Google will generally disregard notices filed by a third party.

Make sure to report the uploading account, not just the individual title. Since these operations often post in bulk under one false identity, reporting a single book will only ever address that single listing. So make sure to report the account itself, for impersonation and systematic infringement, which will then give Google grounds to remove the whole catalogue at once.

Expect to follow up more than once. If you haven't heard back within six weeks, look back over your report in case you've missed any of the above, and send the notice again. Remember to always keep dated records of everything you've filed, and open each follow-up by referencing the notices sent before it.

Before You Go

If you've had an experience with this kind of scraping or impersonation, successful takedown or not, we'd like to hear about it. The more patterns the Watchdog Desk can document, the stronger the case gets for everyone affected. Email us at [email protected].