Opportunity Makes the Thief

 Ever been robbed?

 Yeah, me too.

At gunpoint?

For me, luckily, no. 

Seen the face/faces of the thief/thieves who robbed you?

 Not me.

 The first time I got robbed someone stole the stereo out of my car, along with a case full of cassettes (yes, I know, I'm dating myself.).

 The second time I got robbed someone stole the stereo out of my truck, along with a case full of CDs (yes, I know, still dating myself.).

 The third time I got robbed someone broke one of the windows on my Jeep, stole the stereo (I had the detachable face with me in my pocket, so I'm not sure what good the player by itself was going to do them, without the face and the controls to work it.), and this time they didn't bother with the CDs (Don't say it. It's not even funny anymore.).

 Of course, in this, the Age of Streaming, I currently run nearly zero risk of being parted from any one of a car stereo or CD/cassettes collections. I have an app for that (and it's TIDAL, not Demon Spotify).

And that tracks, because thieves today, they've gone digital, too.

I've taken all of the recommended steps (and then some!) for protecting myself, my identity, etc., online. That's not where the most recent incarnation of thieves to cross my digital path and darken my virtual doorway have struck.

Not at all.

Instead, when these cyberfootpads strike, they steal pieces of me, and can't even be bothered to sell them. Nope. They offer these chunks of Brian gratis on the web, and their profit mechanism to ask people who download these Brianparts to "buy them a coffee," if they like what they took.

 For FREE.

I'm speaking of course, of my own catalogue of books. These latterday pickpockets pirate the content, converting it to downloadable PDFs, and collect "tips," for "doing the world a favor."

You got that last part right. These cyberhousebreakers are posing as altruists.

But don't just take my word for it. Let's go to the site of the most recent gang of banditti to lift my shit and peddle it on the web.

The site is OceanOfPDFs. I'm not linking to it because I don't want these jackwagons to get the idea I support their "cause."

Get all that?

Pretty pious sounding, and yet it's NONSENSE.

A quick story from my more tender years: when I was a kid I loved the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, etc.). One of my prized possessions was a first edition of one of Tarzan's books, published in 1928 by Frank A Muncey & Company.

My work.

One of my grandmothers was living with my family at the time. and wound up taking this book and giving it to one of my cousins. One that I did not particularly like.

So when I saw this cousin reading my book, and asked where she had gotten said book, only to be told my grandmother had given it to her because she thought she might like the adventure element to it, I had to explain to my teenaged, very bright, but somewhat obtuse cousin, that the book wasn't my grandmother's to give. She didn't own it.

I did. 

So it wasn't hers to give.

Also my work.

It was mine to give, should I have chosen to do so.

My cousin and I cleared up what turned out to be the result of a number of misunderstandings.

The only misunderstanding between myself and every other author whose work is illegally featured on that site and the site owners, is their muddle-headed notion that they are somehow entitled to give away the works of the authors they feature on their page, including mine.

They aren't. I've already asserted my extant copywrite on these guys (and not for the first time. I've run afoul of them before). And if you are a published author as well, take a moment to peruse their site. If you need to register a complaint and get your illegally taken work removed from the site, look for me a link to the appropriate form for getting that done in the comments.

And since we had a serious wind-storm related power outage yesterday, and I and my family are some of the victims of said Act of God, that's gonna be it for me this go round. More when next we gather together here among the SleuthSayers!

See you in two weeks!