I had to deal with a crime a few days ago.

I’ve done well as a writer. Every year I sell more books than the previous year, but I’m still small enough to know all of my online book distributors, Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play, iTunes, and a few more. So, when I received word that my novel Through Many Fires was available on Behance.net I was immediately suspicious.

I checked the pages on Behance. The price was wrong and the description was an old one used for a sale more than a year ago. Clearly the website was not legitimate. So, I did a Whois search and found the Behance.net is owned by Adobe Systems. I couldn’t imagine why Adobe would be selling illegal copies of my book. Further checking revealed that someone created a shop on the website to sell books they didn’t own.

I'm thrilled that people share my stories with friends. That is not a problem, the issue is when someone steals my work and profits from my labor. Several sites in China sell my books and there is little I can do about it, but Behance is here in the United States.

So, for the first time since I went into the publishing business, I filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Takedown request with Adobe Systems, to remove content, and Google, to remove search results from the web. That took less than thirty minutes. Because I figured it couldn’t be that easy I emailed my lawyer asking him to be ready.

I’ve got to admit that I was surprised. Adobe advised me the next day that the site had been removed from Behance, and a few hours later Google told me that the pages were no longer in its search results.

Now, if I could only get the Chinese sites removed that easily.

Digital Crime