This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.
I found this notice on the copyright page of something I bought at a recent used book sale. I can’t recall seeing a warning so overtly hostile to book borrowers and hope I never do again. I know about the first sale doctrine, and that this is completely unenforceable, but it still offends me. Should I contact the author for instructions on returning it unread?
This sounds straight out of early 'oughts Napster panic. Did Metallica write a book?
I hope Napster Bad never dies.
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What an aggressive tone lol! If the author knew you bought your copy used, he seems willing to burn it
Just ignore it. It is not enforceable.
I really want to know which book now!
Send the author a set of photos of different people reading it, with a tally mark for every one of them.
Probably the author is unaware no?
Probably the publishing company.
Seems uninforceable
Decline the license. Now you are limited to just the basic rights that copyright law gives, which includes the ability to resell or lend the book.
I would just remove that page physically from the book.
Once the copyright holder sells or gifts the book they no longer can control it. The only right they still hold is copyright. Their distribution right is exhausted.
For what it’s worth the author may not know that warning is there OR if it was self-published it was maybe a default notice automatically added by their publishing tool/software.
It does appear to be self-published, by a local author. He should have known of and approved what boilerplate he was attaching to his text.
The terms have no legal standing in the United States. The first-sale doctrine limits right holders ability to restrict resales of their work.
He should have known of and approved what boilerplate he was attaching to his text.
Agreed. Sometimes it’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume honest mistake until they demonstrate otherwise though.
Pretty sure the only solution to this is to rip out the page, band it to a brick, and throw said brick through the publisher’s window
I once visited the web site of an author whose series I was enjoying and was surprised by her angry insistence that selling used books is theft because the author doesn’t get a cut. Never bought the rest of the series. It just felt weird.
When I decide I can’t support an author, I specifically buy the books used. Maybe that’s an option for you, here.
I got my kid the whole Harry potter series second hand from thrift stores, cost me maybe 15$ total, didn’t finance Rowling at all. Took me a bit, they only show up once in a while.
That or straight up piracy. Author gets the same 0$ either way.
I could probably find the rest of the series on Z-lib, if I wanted to, but reading them would feel like engaging with the author as a person more than I now want. There’s plenty of authors who don’t speak negatively of readers who get their books used. I’d rather give them my time and attention.
That’s very fair. Plenty of books out there.
I’ve had the same problem. Like books I genuinely enjoy. Then I find the authors twitter or bluesky, the author is upper middle class, yet they demonise piracy and get super mad people would dare pirate their 25$ book.
That just icks me.
Like their book was anticapitalist, but here they are blind to the fact some people can’t afford books and we shouldn’t be gatekeeping knowledge. Ewww.
Pirating an anticapitalist book sounds so morally correct
but it also kinda implies it’s not a great anticapitalist book, as a truly anticapitalist author would outright make the book public domain.
While I agree an anticapitalist author would lean that way, I don’t agree with the implication that you need an anticapitalist author to write a good book.
It just means they know the truth, and decided to be capitalist, anyway. Ignorant people can be educated, but this author understood the cause and sold us out for money, instead of joining.
Naturally, I won’t be supporting them.
YUP.
I get it if the author is in poverty. But in the case I’m referring to they were upper middle class, maybe even liberal eliteish.
Book prices have gotten ridiculous. Independently published ebooks aren’t bad, but that fact that the cheapest physical books you can find new are around $10, and $20-40 is common, puts them way out of reach of what I would buy regularly.
A book that’s anti library, interesting🤔
reminds me of the good ol, fuck you license license
FUCK YOUR LICENSE
You may not reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from this work.
You may not view, access, or use this work in any way.
You may not download, install, or execute the software described or contained in this work.
You are not allowed.
The author of this software denies ever creating it. This software doesn’t exist, and is a figment of your imagination. You are insane.
If you are seeing this notice, you are doing so without permission.
Just seeing these words means you’re a pirate. Arrrrrrrr.
If you attempt to reproduce, distribute, create derivative works from, view, access, modify, download, install, or execute this software in any way, you are in violation of this license and are probably in violation of some bullshit laws that some officious prick of a lawmaker decided on without your consent or knowledge.
Fuck you and fuck your license.
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Not sure what the rest looked like, but some newer authors have the unfortunate inexperience that results in copy/pasting those pages. I’ve seen this exact wording out there before and I suspect that the rest also includes some iffy sections. I’m fairly sure that whoever cooked up the one I saw was either making it up entirely and thinking that they could throw in anything they want and have it binding; or were outright generating it via one of the llm models.
Either way, whoever cooked it up, and anyone that copy pastes it like that don’t understand how copyright works, at least here in the US, and I’m unaware of anywhere in the world where this would be legally enforceable at all. I’ve looked, to the best of my ability, but only so deep.
What’s kinda dumb is that there are a ton of options that are used by publishing companies that you know are written up correctly, and are easy to find. Iirc, the etail booksellers all have copyright pages available as well.
It’s like trying to home brew your own contracts; yeah you can do it, but you’ll screw up.
But, yeah contact the author since it’s self published. Let them know the text as is not only isn’t enforceable, but arguments could be made that it invalidates the rest of their boilerplate copyright page. I’ve never heard of it being challenged in court, but other forms of licensing can be invalidated in entirety by one bad section.
