[numberonepal]

Thanks for all the advice in advance. I've learned my lesson.

[ikka]

Copyright law is not like “theft” there are subtle differences. Since you took down the content as soon as you were made aware of the problem, under the DMCA he has little additional recourse, unless he sues you in court.

[Netizen]

Why didn’t you just upload it for storage? No link. You could access it from the directory without the link for others.

[Federalist Society]

I would tell him to pack sand, that his book was of no value, and in fact you want a refund!

[Alberta's Child]

I would retain the services of any good attorney at least for an initial consultation. You may find that your exposure is minimal, and if you can clearly document how many times the e-book was downloaded you will know exactly how much revenue the author has "lost."

Anyone here have a ping list for lawyer Freepers?

[Realism]

should retain the services of an attorney

No. You acted properly at the authors request. The ball is in his court let him initiate the fight. Be apologetic after all you were in the wrong, but do not give the impression that you believe there may be a case for compensation. Don't put any resources into this unless you are forced to.

[Malsua]

Robots.txt

For the next time.

[WayneS]

I agree with Realism's advice in Post#6. That is what I would do if I were in your situation.

Keep in mind, though, I am not an attorney - nor do I play one on TV.

[jilliane]

Curiously...how many downloads to you THINK may have been done to the book? Have you notified Google that the spider indexed the page and it needs to be removed (in addition to your removing the copy) - erase any reference that it was there. There is a content removal link at Google.

How did the author discover it? Just out searching his name and your link was there?

Your personal space does not have a password protection? In other words, it was published to a public website? If it were password protected, the hits could have come from something else since no one could access it. I’m trying to help assess how many hits actually came from visitors who happened upon your site. People pay a fortune for search engine results to get people to their site and this content just happened to be found out there? They either searched for the book (is it a best seller or something?) and found your link (as mentioned get that removed)...or, not too many people found your personal URL pdf by surfing out on the web.

[El Laton Caliente]

At this point you really have no idea if it was even downloaded (and neither does he). I perform searches all the time and back out of several links before finding what I was looking for; still counts as a hit.

I would think at this point he has to prove damage. To do so he would have to prove others made copies from you site. That is almost impossible.

Further, you had no intention to cause harm and corrected the problem as soon as you knew of it.

The burden is on him...

[MomwithHope]

I would just come up with a number and pay him. He is expecting it and you don’t want to have to pay an attorney too.

[aposiopetic]

You have FReepmail.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

The author wants compensation for loss of business. He has asked me to come up with a number for compensation.

He is making you do the work here. I hope your legal council advises you well. If you have an AAA membership you may be able to get a free 1/2 hour consultation.

[cqnc]

Certainly, if you can avail yourself of the opinions of an attorney at little or no cost, go ahead. You complied with the DMCA as far as removing the file when notified. His recourse is to sue you, by VOLUNTEERING information or funds you only diminish your standing should it come to that. His material is freely available on other sites anyway, and they will not be as understanding as you were to take it down. Regardless of how much you enjoyed the book, I would cease communication with him as he has chosen an adversarial position. Anything you say WILL be used against you, you can rest assured.

[numberonepal]

I’m touched you would all be interested in my plight. All this input makes me a lot more optimistic of the outcome. Grazie ad tutti!

[Hyzenthlay]

Well, unless Google actually ‘posted’ the link, instead of the link just showing up in someone’s search results, they’re not really at fault here - all someone needed to do is (simplified version) search for pages with the word ‘directory’ in them, then limit the search to PDF files, and add the name of the book or the author’s name or another keyword so they don’t have to sift through every PDF file on the entire web. That would give them the results of basically every pdf file with their search terms in the name that are sitting on website servers somewhere, even if it’s not openly posted.

So, in the future, double-check with an IT person to make sure that your online backups are secured and people can’t access the folder that contains them from the web (an attempt to do so would result in ‘403 forbidden’ showing up in their browser window) and name the ebook backup something else so it won’t show up in search results to begin with, or just keep your backups in an external hard drive.

[Weirdad]

This will probably not be of much comfort, and this is a little tongue in cheek, because placing a computer on the net with port 80 open is in reality an invitation in the real world, but...

<tongue slightly in cheek>

...technically your computer (server) on the Internet was "hacked" by Google.

Google is the party who should be sued, if anyone. You did not ask to enter into business with Google. They somehow without your invitation or a proper normal link found a private "deep link" to your content, and then they downloaded your copy of the book which you intended for personal use. They probably even took kept their own copy cached, and they distribute that to any of their cronies (users) who want your content or to link to and attempt to hack your computer some more.

If any of us got similarly creative by mining deep content on some company's computer--for example if we mined and deep linked to a new unreleased movie stored on a Warner Brothers computer--then both WB and the movie producer would call it hacking and would try to press criminal charges against us. So why is Google exempt from the same charge and why is the book publisher railing against you instead of Google?

Maybe you could tell the book publishers to report Google for hacking your site.

</tongue slightly in cheek>