Recently I've heard a lot of justifications for downloading books from these alleged free sites. Can we just agree that it's stealing and be done with it?
Public libraries exist folks. Even if it's not a big-name author that your local branch is guaranteed to stock, you can request books be added to the collection or borrowed from other branches. The majority of my books are $0.99 on Amazon! AND I have a handy link, right here on my website, that allows you to join my ARC team where I will send you FREE copies of my books in exchange for reviews with your honest opinion! There is absolutely nothing you can say that will justify taking my copyrighted work, with countless hours and dollars poured into it, and uploading it to a book-pirating site. NOTHING.
I spent the last hour filing DMCA forms with google after finding FOUR of my books on such a site. I sent them the same forms and requested the removal of my property two months ago, when it was only two books uploaded, but never got a response. Right now my only recourse is to get Google to remove the link from searches, but outside of paying a lawyer to pursue the copyright infringement (something I cannot afford to do--see the above "I charge $0.99 for my books so I make no money") there's nothing else I can do but continue to lose money.
To make it clearer, one of my books has sold 39 copies. That's it. But on this site, where it can be downloaded or simply read right there on the screen, has been viewed 2,500 times! Even with making about $0.35 per book sold on Amazon, that equates to close to $900 lost. And my newer books are at a higher price-point, so even though their views are lower, they both are showing a close to $3,000 loss.
I am so upset. Upset that someone would steal from me. Upset that people think this kind of theft is ok. Upset that there isn't anything I can do to fix it. Upset that I have 5 "fans" on this site that follow my name so they can get notified when more of my books are stolen and uploaded there.
All I can do is ask, genuinely, if you use these book pirating sites, to reconsider.
I would hope an artist's time and abilities are worth something.