Why on Earth Is Someone Stealing Unpublished Book Manuscripts? (nytimes.com) 42
A phishing scam with unclear motive or payoff is targeting authors, agents and editors big and small, baffling the publishing industry. From a report: Earlier this month, the book industry website Publishers Marketplace announced that Little, Brown would be publishing "Re-Entry," a novel by James Hannaham about a transgender woman paroled from a men's prison. The book would be edited by Ben George. Two days later, Mr. Hannaham got an email from Mr. George, asking him to send the latest draft of his manuscript. The email came to an address on Mr. Hannaham's website that he rarely uses, so he opened up his usual account, attached the document, typed in Mr. George's email address and a little note, and hit send. "Then Ben called me," Mr. Hannaham said, "to say, 'That wasn't me.'"
Mr. Hannaham was just one of countless targets in a mysterious international phishing scam that has been tricking writers, editors, agents and anyone in their orbit into sharing unpublished book manuscripts. It isn't clear who the thief or thieves are, or even how they might profit from the scheme. High-profile authors like Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan have been targeted, along with celebrities like Ethan Hawke. But short story collections and works by little-known debut writers have been attacked as well, even though they would have no obvious value on the black market. In fact, the manuscripts do not appear to wind up on the black market at all, or anywhere on the dark web, and no ransoms have been demanded. When copies of the manuscripts get out, they just seem to vanish. So why is this happening? "The real mystery is the endgame," said Daniel Halpern, the founder of Ecco, who has been the recipient of these emails and has also been impersonated in them. "It seems like no one knows anything beyond the fact of it, and that, I guess you could say, is alarming."
Mr. Hannaham was just one of countless targets in a mysterious international phishing scam that has been tricking writers, editors, agents and anyone in their orbit into sharing unpublished book manuscripts. It isn't clear who the thief or thieves are, or even how they might profit from the scheme. High-profile authors like Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan have been targeted, along with celebrities like Ethan Hawke. But short story collections and works by little-known debut writers have been attacked as well, even though they would have no obvious value on the black market. In fact, the manuscripts do not appear to wind up on the black market at all, or anywhere on the dark web, and no ransoms have been demanded. When copies of the manuscripts get out, they just seem to vanish. So why is this happening? "The real mystery is the endgame," said Daniel Halpern, the founder of Ecco, who has been the recipient of these emails and has also been impersonated in them. "It seems like no one knows anything beyond the fact of it, and that, I guess you could say, is alarming."
Vanish or looking in the wrong place? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes getting an un-authoritative translation of a bestseller out may net you much more than bootlegging the bestseller in the original language.
Having a couple of weeks advantage on the competition may be the difference between making that money and missing it.
Re:Vanish or looking in the wrong place? (Score:5, Informative)
Congratulations to the New York Times for publishing a story about something that has been going on for at least 4 years.
https://www.publishersweekly.c... [publishersweekly.com]
Really on top of things there.
Re: Vanish or looking in the wrong place? (Score:1, Troll)
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Think incompetent nepotism and cross industry idea theft. Think the STD (sexually transmitted disease) of the star trek universe. Those incompetents who will pay to still written ideas to then use, in game design, TV series, movies and animation. You see nothing because it is not public, it is all behind closed doors in major nepotistic organisations, zero creative talent, just shallow greed and not so attractive people, visually or spiritually, the Jar Jar Abrams of the world.
So an organisation rich enoug
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This makes the most sense.
To take or steal a concept, and spin it to animation movie or web pod cast, maybe a game or something that the IP can be used.
I would like to think that for every few manuscripts stolen, there must be at least 2 great ideas that no one's ever thought of.
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Run it through Google Translate, throw it on Amazon...
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What's weird here is that they're going for *draft* manuscripts. Even in the rare case where a book is a big economic success, some crappy, unedited draft is going to be worthless -- particularly of this kind of literary fiction.
So I'm guessing this may be something along the lines of industrial espionage -- a rival publisher or agent seeing who has what in the pipeline.
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The final consumer may not know it's a dodgy draft. They go looking for a given title for a discount, not having any clue why it's discounted.
And maybe the pirate will clean it up ... and even improve it, like China did with the F35 plans.
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Perhaps look at the authors being deceived, or the genre's being stolen, and consider some other longer-term possibilities.
If they are destined to be really great writers, then perhaps having copies of unpublished manuscripts may have some value in the future in the collecting world.
If they are perhaps tied to subversive or anti-establishment topics, then perhaps their writings are being fingerprinted for matching against other writings that may come from "other" authors. Doing so from an un-edited copy wo
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It isn't clear who the thief or thieves are, or even how they might profit from the scheme.
Duuh, it's the Unpublished Book Manuscript Gnomes:
Leaking, you mean. Or copying. (Score:1)
Or were thy somehow ... gone ... at the original storage location?
Re: Leaking, you mean. Or copying. (Score:1, Troll)
I wish this kind of drivel would be removed from the original storage location, never to be released: " "Re-Entry," a novel by James Hannaham about a transgender woman paroled from a men's prison.".
Jeesh. By now you can call them 'transtrenders' right?
Re: Leaking, you mean. Or copying. (Score:2)
Spotted the Jesus man.
When will you religious snowflakes give up on pushing your god on everybody else?
Glad I don't believe in him, the thought of being pushed around by an all powerful, hateful, vindictive, and insane bully for all of eternity is truly terrifying.
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Re: Leaking, you mean. Or copying. (Score:2)
It would be a great way to hijack the copyright of the author as well.
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New to Google [tinaontech.com] you are.
Why on Earth Is Someone Stealing Unpublished Book Manuscripts?
~ tinaontech Admin on December 22nd, 2020
or it's just rabid fans (Score:2)
Some rabid fans love early spoilers so much they'll go to any lengths to get them. Maybe they're sharing them on some forum.
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Spoiler alert. Dumbledore is gay.
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According to the book Harry Potter and the Author's Twitter Account
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Oh no he's just bi-curious.
*Raises hand and waves* (Score:2)
I know, I know!
When a book goes Gold, the drafts will be valuable, especially for major hits.
yw
It's the Manuscript Gnomes!! (Score:3)
Step 1: Steal all the manuscripts!!
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!!
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Step 2: Run them through GPT-3
Step 3: Generate "new" works by those authors
Why? (Score:2)
To sell, them, blackmail, ransom demands, the possibilities are endless.
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Good editors are very helpful, not only for paying the writers but for guiding writers in length, style, continuity, plot, spelling, and syntax.
Editors are essential. (Score:1)
Little known debut authors (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively, this is done by someone who doesn't have the slightest clue about literature and what makes money and what doesn't, and gets paid by the book manuscript.
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How does that work? They wouldn't become famous until the book is published, what value would having an early copy of the manuscript have then?
Does the copyright office look for duplicates? (Score:2)
Getting a manuscript registered at the copyright office before the actual author may be possible. If course, replace the author's name with your own, and make enough editing changes. Then, a few years down the line, if the book becomes popular, sue for copyright infringement.
And the evidence in your favor is the registered copyright dated prior to the popular "infringing work".
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Wholesale theft of good lines, plots, or chapters would especially be useful for a writing course, where the document is only seen in that course and will not show up in a Google search by the instructor.
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Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, and *gasp* Ethan Hawke are LGBTQ authors? Whodathunkit?
A Very Simple And Devious Answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Criminals launder money through Amazon's book publishing service. [theguardian.com]
Until now, they're just had software writing the "books" by barfing random sentences together, and then they publish the book, but don't publish the link to it right away. Instead, they send the link to their buyer immediately after publishing it, so they'll usually be the first ones to see it. Each copy of the book is listed at some ridiculous price, like, say, $1000.00 each.
The buyer, who owes the "author" 50k for whatever, usually drugs or something, then buys 55 copies. That covers taxes, printing fees, and most importantly, Amazon's cut of the profits. The buyer then gets the shipment of the books, and the seller gets their money. And best of all, the taxes are paid! Uncle Sam is none the wiser.
But wait! It gets even better!
The buyer now has 55 books that are "worth" $1000 each. When it comes around that someone owes them money, they just put the books up for sale on Amazon under used books. The person who owes them the money, can buy however many of them will take care of the debt.
So these boxes of nonsense books filled with gibberish are just passing back and forth between criminal empires, right under the nose of the authorities.
But here is where it gets to the story...
Previously, the books have been filled with gibberish, to which Amazon has been getting wise, and cracking down.
Now?
Now they have actual stories that they can "publish."
And once again, slip quietly beneath the surface.
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The same method of moving dark money has been piggybacking on overpriced computer parts for at least 15 years, which is why sometimes you'll see Amazon or eBay listings for a $500 USB cable, or a $5000 twenty-year-old motherboard. (If you search for a Tyan S1830S board, you'll probably find one that's been a regular since the early days of eBay.)
And it's old news in the art world, where inflated-value nothing-much has been used for money laundering since forever:
http://mileswmathis.com/launde... [mileswmathis.com]
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book nerd (Score:2)
RICH & POWERFULL silencing potential harmful s (Score:1)