Authors Guild Steps Up: A Guide for Authors to Remove Books from Internet Archive

The Drama Unfolds

Ever feel like your hard work just got pirated and slapped onto the Internet for free? Well, you’re not alone. Big-name publishers like Hachette, Harper Collins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House have faced this very issue with the Internet Archive (IA). The good news? They took ’em to court and won, declaring that unauthorized full-text hosting is copyright infringement. But here’s the tricky bit: the court ruling doesn’t cover everyone according to Publisher’s Lunch.

Who’s Covered, Who’s Not?

The court ruling was pretty specific. It applied only to the plaintiffs (those big publishing houses) and to AAP member publishers who opt-in. More importantly, it’s for titles available as ebooks. So, if you’re a self-published author or your book was released by a smaller press, you might be wondering, “What about me?”

Authors Guild to the Rescue

Enter the Authors Guild (AG). They’re saying, “Hold up, this ruling should protect any copyrighted book.” They’ve even prepared a handy step-by-step guide and a sample takedown letter to make it easy for you to contact the IA and get your work removed.

What’s in the Guide?

Here’s what you can expect:

Identification Steps: How to search for your copyrighted material on the IA website.
Contact Info: Where and how to send your takedown notice.
Sample Letter: A well-drafted sample that makes the process less intimidating.
Follow-Up: What to do if your initial demand isn’t met.

Final Thoughts

Why go through all the trouble? Well, each pirated copy is a potential sale lost. It also undermines the value of your work.