Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Registrant:
Henry Stewart
7610 heather Ave SE
Snoqualmie, Washington 98065
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BOOKAZA.COM
Created on: 15-Feb-05
Expires on: 15-Feb-06
Last Updated on: 15-Feb-05

Administrative Contact:
Stewart, Henry
7610 heather Ave SE
Snoqualmie, Washington 98065
United States
(206) 202-4426
Technical Contact:
Stewart, Henry
7610 heather Ave SE
Snoqualmie, Washington 98065
United States
(206) 202-4426

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.BOOKAZA.COM
NS2.BOOKAZA.COM

Registry Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK

Pirate site?  Must be.

He’s hosting his own server subscribing to the Internet backbone probably via a T-1 line which is costing about $1500 a month not including the hardware.  Interesting.  Very interesting.  Means he could have a LOT of businesses running off his system - wonder if all of them are scams.

This message has gone across the internet today. What I wonder is how many readers will see this message “warning” authors and readers and decide to pay the membership price and download books?

They’ll think “No one will ever know” and “I’ll never have a chance to get Harry Potter on e-book again, I’d better do it”

Sometimes I wonder if spreading the word doesn’t do more harm than good because it’s like free publicity and a lot of people don’t care about silly little things like author royalties and whether something is legal or not :( Too bad, isn’t it?

Angie has a good point, but I’m hoping people will be honest, and also, that they’ll realize it’s a bad bargain.  If you go to Fictionwise.com, you can buy my ebooks for $3.75, less if you’re a member of their club.  Bookaza is selling them illegally for over $6.00.  Hardly a good deal.

I debated not spreading the word about these thieves, worried about publicity for them.  But I’m pissed.  And I want to do something, and I have confidence that the folks who frequent “Smart Bitches” believe in doing the right thing.

Bookaza are being real sneaky little bastards about the pricing, too. LTDBooks has Pirate’s Price listed at $5.00 for the download, while Bookaza lists the “regular” price at $11.95, then bumps the price down to $6.95 to make it seem as if you’re saving money by buying from them. Sneaky. Bastards.

I saw this posted about on a PDA eBook list, and it was mentioned there that this is probably a “phishing” site - not meant to be up long, designed to collect as many credit card numbers it can in a short period of time.

So for those tempted to pay the $30 to download as many books as they can in 30 days...this may be more expensive than it sounds!  Buy the books from legitimate sources!

This started whirling around one of my listservs a couple of days ago...I know of several companies and organizations siccing their lawyers on them, and a LOT have told them to cut it out. We found one of our books on there that is actually not even for sale anymore by us.

What stinks is that even if the site is shut down, these asses that walk like men just open another under a different name.
Then the process begins again. Makes you want to call the Geek Squad and have them shut him down.

I think their punishment should be to have them tied to a chair and beaten by all of the authors they cheated, as well as paying them all the lost royalties. Then maybe an anthill and some honey…

Oh, this is one way to fight it. Since he’s with GoDaddy:

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?se=%2B&pageid=TRADMARK%5FCOPY

Enough people holler and they’ll shut his butt down.

I do have a bit of a temper where idiots are concerned. I have my own award for them on my blog.
http://rianmonaire.bravejournal.com/

And keep in mind--the best way to get GoDaddy to pay attention is to have the actual owners of the copyright make a specific complaint for their own.

A publisher may actually hold less weight than the author themselves, because while the pub has the contracted rights, the author actually holds the copyright. So let the injured authors know they should be the ones who speak up, and follow GoDaddy’s procedure, however detailed it may be.

probably a “phishing” site - not meant to be up long, designed to collect as many credit card numbers it can in a short period of time.

The probability of this being a phishing site is high. 

Stef, Darlene, and Ferfe, you have my solemn word that I will never, ever, fuck with you.

Second, let’s go get this theiving bastard.

I vote for reporting it to GoDaddy - already did that, in fact.  Posting a warning to keep people from going there - in progress on my sites.

And staying very far away from that site and the owner.  I know what a geek with no fear of law or repercussions can do.  You don’t want to attract that attention to your site. 

Bad, bad people go to the kind of expense and touble this person has gone to and spent the kind of money he or she has, to set this up.  Registering the domain in the US says they could give two shits about being caught.

That’s some serious mean going on.

Just say’n.

I’ve already called godaddy who registered the domain name, and sent an email to (their suggestion) explaining the violation of their terms of service.

Also, Elizabeth Butler posted info about this on her site this morning and I sent her a list of government and police numbers and contact emails so people can turn them in and she posted all the info on her blog, figuring that the more people that complain to the authorities, the more serious this situation will be taken and the quicker the action. http://elizabethbutler.bravejournal.com/

I’ve known Laura Adlam from LTDBooks for a long time, and it’s bull$hit that this is happening (I helped shut down a site a few years ago that basically was giving away copies of e-books, including LTDBooks’ titles).

Thanks for posting on this and hopefully all of us working together will put an end to this - and if we get enough exposure it might make future thieves think twice before stealing books.

Update: one of my authors called the big boys at Time/Warner and Scholastic.
Apparently both Stephen King and JK Rowlings have pending lawsuits against this jerk. They asked her for whatever info she had.

So the more we holler, the faster they’ll get an edge and he will be destroyed forever. They got the power and money, we have the voices. Bwahahahaha!!!

Stef wrote:
So the more we holler, the faster they’ll get an edge and he will be destroyed forever. They got the power and money, we have the voices. Bwahahahaha!!!
------------------

I agree, Stef.

Now here’s what I’m also wondering - if these @ssholes have been contacted by the big boys in NYC, and 2 major authors are suing them, and they’ve kept the site up, I wonder what they are really up to.

The bottom line is that he either plans on making as much money as possible in a short time and splitting, or he’s looking for publicity for some reason.

I mean, smart people would realize that 2 hugely wealthy authors with technically unlimited resources, as well as the law on their side, will kick his butt in a court of law. Judging by the fact this guy put up the site (in February), he’s not a total idiot - just a bad person and a criminal.

Should be interesting to see where this goes - but it won’t hurt to file the complaint with the Department of Revenue in Washington state (he’s NOT a registered business in Washington state and is therefore breaking the tax laws) and call his local police department (he’s doing illegal things). They can’t ignore or put an investigation off if they are being flooded with complaints.

They’ve got two of my books. I have no idea about the legality of the whole thing, but I’m forwarding this to my agent. If they are doing this without permission, Bantam will jump all over them. And I’ll get the Author’s Guild on their tails, too.

The Author’s Guild has been a great help in the past with things like this.

I assume it’s to make money. I mean, it does seem pretty damned arrogant.

From what I’m told, The problem is that he has a notice on the site saying he pays the publishers royalties. Now, not a damned person seems to actually get any, but he says he does. So GoDaddy can’t just kick his ass right off.

Which is why we need to have each voice speak up and say “Not me, I didn’t get paid!” Enough people do that, and hopefully logic will dictate that he has to sell SOMEBODY’S books or he wouldn’t be able to afford the setup.

A thievin’ scum update--As of this afternoon, the Bookaza site was no longer available.  I hope that means the owner got shat on by a diarrhetic elephant and drowned, but that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

See? It worked - a bunch of readers and writers banding together for justice:)

I got a call this afternoon from the local police dept in Snoqualmie, WA (where Bookaza is located) - a detective asking for as much info as I could give him. The site was still up at that point, because I loaded the site to double check the phone number given on the website. I don’t know if he did something, if he forwarded it to the FBI, or if it was a result of everyone complaining to GoDaddy.com - but whatever it was, it worked, and rather quickly.

I’m surprised NY was just suing him rather than also going to the authorities and domain registrar, etc.

Anyway, I’m just glad he’s been shut down, at least for the time being.

Another thing, Elizabeth did a search and found other book sites similar to Bookaza that can’t be checked through a whois search and can’t be accessed through the browser, so it looks like this guy might have been doing this for some time at several URLs.

The police called you? That rocks! I didn’t even think that, short of a major player multi lawsuit and some big legal filings, anything would happen to this numnuts. But dang. We rule.

I have to wonder, how did he get these publications into some semblance of ebook form? That’s a looootta typing.

The snake has duplicated more sites! He runs several sneaky sites under different domain names, as we found out from someone at EPIC.

I did an ARIN whois sesarch for this guy ( http://www.arin.net ) and it seems all his sites are on the same network, so I emailed the abuse email for the network from http://atrivo.com/aup.html where it says they will kick him off, charge, and prosecute him for these types of issues.

So, do the same if you see any other of these sites out there. I will spread the word on some of the scam sites and marketing sites I know of.

Rebecca
http://www.chippewapublishing.com

Ella has started PEAR which people can discuss ebook pirating:
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/peargep_group

It was a phishing site.  I am married to a fed.  Phishing is a Federal crime.  That pretty much covers it.

Request ID from anyone contacting you about this issue.  Please.

Baby steps, but they will add up to his eventual destruction.

More infor:

Bookaza has branched into a few other site names. Here is how to fight these people:

If you find one of these sites, here is how to trace these people:

http://www.whois.com

type in the domain name and press enter. Get the IP address of the server and then visit

http://www.arin.net

type in the IP address and hit enter

It will list the owner of the IP subnet - these are the people you want to talk to because they can turn off the IP address or refer you to the hosting company. The whois database may or may not be accurate and is easily changeable, ARIN is accurate and is not easily changeable.

Give this guy no room to grow. Make him pay for domain names until he’s out of cash.

Here’s where Bookaza is now:

http://elbook.com/

Married to a fed? Now THAT is cool!

Rebecca

Kinda cool - means I don’t have to look far for stuff.  File a report at https://tips.fbi.gov/

Simple.  Dave works for Homeland Defense, Customs (Pilot).  This matter is FTC and FBI.

Another…

http://realsoft.biz/

I have to wonder, how did he get these publications into some semblance of ebook form? That’s a looootta typing.

Scanners. If you look on the site, a lot of the print covers look cheesy.

Sarah, the police called me because I called them the day before (along with the Atty General’s office and Department of Revenue in Washington, and several other gov’t offices).

The bottom line is that everyone is going to move faster for the police than they are for a civilian (and I don’t have an “in” like Ferfelabat:)).

I just had to make sure Henry Stewart and his company weren’t registered with the Department of Revenue (they weren’t), and then I could go back to the police and tell them the Atty General’s office can’t do anything (they take consumer complaints against legit businesses only according to them).

The one good thing about that particular run around was that I had the distinct pleasure of helping get this guy investigated for tax evasion with the Dept of Revenue, as well hahaha (no, it’s not automatic that the tax aspect of this gets attention because gov’t offices don’t always communicate).

Once that was done, the detective and I played phone tag for a few calls, but once we spoke, he seemed really keen on pursuing this.

I’ll email him directly with the URLs that are on this board of Henry’s other sites so he can add those to his list, just in case it’s him that’s doing something on this with the FBI or through his dept.

Lawsuits do nothing to really stop guys like this, because it’s a “catch me if you can” deal when it comes to him showing up in court and him repaying the money he received from his stolen merchandise. He was probably waiting until the lawsuit resulted in an order for his site to be shut down, at which time GoDaddy.com would have been ordered to do something on their end, or the server ordered to do something on their end (but I think Henry had his own server). Until then, he’d have kept doing business as usual, and after that, it would only be a matter of the guy registering a new URL and setting up a new site until the next lawsuit went to court.

Get the guy arrested and put in prison, and that’s a whole different situation - it’s much harder for him to set up a different site under a different name if he’s behind bars.

Henry leased a server from a dedicated IP company. All they could do was shut off his server. His other servers are served with the same company. The first one has been moved to an IP address in China.

Hey, he can go to prison and then he can become a dumb bitch who loves copied novels. (I simply love the title of this site).

Get the guy arrested and put in prison, and that’s a whole different situation - it’s much harder for him to set up a different site under a different name if he’s behind bars.

Oh, right. Jail. That works.

Yes, incarceration is the only way to even slow them down. You saw how quickly he switched domains. He probably bought a ton of names just for this purpose.

Oh, Stef, I like that one better. Tie him naked on an ant hill with his eye lids taped open and honey all over his body. In Nevada, of course.

Actually, elbook.com was already pointed to the bookaza.com site (his listed email address with GoDaddy was… get this… “legal@elbook.com")

So obviously this domain hasn’t been shut down.

Making mental note to work on this domain today. You guys with me? LOL

Heck yeah...Let’s go, girls!

Yikes! Someone just posted to Elizabeth’s board http://elizabethbutler.bravejournal.com/ that Bookaza is back up. @#$%!

Well, he can jump around from service to service, but once he gets caught for fraud...ta ta, see you behind bars, baby. Someone on a list mentioned the whole site might be a credit card harvesting system. YIKES! So, maybe these customers never even GET a book—the snake just runs off with the credit card numbers and sends it to the highest bidder is the rumor.

(one reason why we use PayPal instead of just a credit card).

Several of our titles are on Bookaza as well.  We’ve already sicced the lawyer on the site but as it is still up I’m presuming the guy isn’t getting the message.  At this point I’m wondering if it might not be a good idea to submit a story about this to Slashdot and overload the guy’s servers.  *evil grin*