District Court Judge William Sessions ruled on Thursday that the ADA lawsuit filed against Scribd will be moving forward.

As regular readers of this blog know, Scribd offers a subscription ebook service where users can pay $9 a month to read as many titles as they like. It’s a good service, and judging by the latest funding round, it’s also a popular one.

But it’s not accessible to the visually disabled, hence the lawsuit.

The story got little press attention at the time (I missed it completely), but in July 2014 Scribd was sued by lawyers working on behalf of a blind Vermont woman, Heidi Viens. The lawsuit alleges that Scribd violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by depriving blind readers access to its online service.

This lawsuit came across my desk on Thursday when a reader tipped me to Scribd losing its motion to dismiss. (Thanks, Rebecca!)

Scribd had argued that "the ADA does not apply to website operators whose goods or services are not made available at a physical location open to the public". While it might sound ridiculous that a website wouldn’t be included under the ADA, there is precedent to support the argument (see Young v Facebook, Earll v Ebay, etc).

Judge Sessions disagreed. He concluded in his ruling that (PDF) that "The
fact that the ADA does not include web-based services as a specific example of a public accommodation is irrelevant because such services did not exist when the ADA was passed and because Congress intended the ADA to adapt to changes in technology."

And so the lawsuit is moving forward to its inevitable conclusion. Scribd is going to lose, and well they should.

The law is clear on this point, and what with the $22 million in capital which Scribd raised in December 2014 Scribd has both the means and the ability to comply with the ADA.

The fact that they would rather fight it out in court rather than invest in an accessible service is simply reprehensible.

image by quinn.anya

I have long been expecting that OverDrive, the dominant player in the library ebook market, would one day be acquired by a bigger fish who wanted to secure control of a market, and today that finally happened.

Rakuten and OverDrive announced on Tuesday that the latter had been acquired by the former for $410 million. The deal is expected to close in April this year, after which OverDrive will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary.

OverDrive is a leading player in the library ebook market, and it distributes audiobooks, ebooks, music, and video to over 30,000 libraries and schools around the world. It also counts a number of retailers among its customers, including Waterstones (which sells Kindles in store but also has its own ebookstore).

Rakuten is a $5 billion a year Japanese conglomerate with a presence in a dozen retail markets as well as a solid core business in the financial services industry. OverDrive is the third digital publishing company Rakuten has acquired in the past 4 years, and perhaps the 8th or 9th media company (this is important, trust me).

Rakuten bought Canada-based Kobo in late 2011 for $315 million, and followed that up a short while later with the purchase of Aquafadas, a French company which offers a platform for building and distributing apps and Epub3 ebooks (it also builds said platforms under contract for other companies, including one for Kobo).

Yes, OverDrive is selling today for more than the asking price of Kobo 3 and a half years ago. This can be explained by the fact that Kobo was sold before the bubble burst, and also because OverDrive is profitable (Kobo was and still is a money pit).

Rakuten hasn’t shared many financial details from OverDrive, but they did say at the press conference earlier today that OverDrive generated an EBITA of $25 million in 2014. There’s no info yet on annual revenues, but Rakuten did say that they expect the acquisition will push its ebook division into the black in 2015.

The purchase will likely also have a positive synergy with Rakuten’s other media companies. It’s a little too early to predict exactly how it will play out, but I expect that OverDrive’s experience with distributing audiobooks, music, and video will also prove useful.

***

So is anyone surprised by today’s news? I’m not.

I’ve been expecting this deal since July 2013, only with a slight difference: I thought Amazon, and not Rakuten, would buy OverDrive. In fact, when OverDrive had that Kindle ebook snafu last month I wondered whether that snafu was actually an Amazon negotiating tactic. It really could have been, but there’s no way to tell for sure.

Google may operate the second largest app store in the world and serve a billion people in over 190 countries, but for the longest time that store was allowed to operate under Wild West rules. Just about anything short of malware was allowed free reign, but that’s beginning to change.

Google announced this morning that it would now review apps prior to publication. In fact, it actually started reviewing apps several months ago be having real people, including "a team of experts who are responsible for identifying violations of our developer policies " examine the apps and pass judgement.

Alas, this review process doesn’t extend to ebooks, just apps, so the ebook section of Google Play Books will still be stuffed chock full of malware-ridden and pirated ebooks, but at least Google is raising their standards for the app section.

In related news, Google is also going to adopt the local rating system in each of their local markets.

Here in the US, for example, the apps will carry ab ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) rating, while elsewhere users will find ratings from the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI), Australian Classification Board, Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (USK), and Classificação Indicativa (ClassInd).

Apps sold in markets which lack a specific ratings authority will display an age-based, generic rating.

TechCrunch reports that Google has actually been working to implement the new app review system for over 6 months now, and that it went live a couple months ago with few complaints and little notice. They quote Purnima Kochikar, Director of Business Development for Google Play, as saying that: "We started reviewing all apps and games before they’re published – it’s rolled out 100%." The review process was so fast and efficient that "developers haven’t noticed the change."

Part of the reason that the process is so fast is that it has largely been automated. Each app is scanned for malware and possible content violations. For example, the images, music, and videos in an app are scanned for possible copyright infringement as well as for adult material.

The automated process is helped by a new questionaire which Google is going to start requiring in May. Developers will have to  complete the new rating questionnaire for each of their apps, otherwise the apps will be marked as unrated and could be excluded from some markets. Come May, app updates and all new app releases will have to have a completed questionnaire before they can be published on Google Play.

Amazon released its monthly KDP Select report yesterday, and the news was unsurprising.

The report revealed that last month Amazon was paying indie publishers and authors  an average of $1.41 each time an ebook was loaned from Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library. The loans were funded out of a pool of some $8 million, and with a little math and the back of an envelope we reach an estimated 5.67 million loans for February.

That’s down slightly from January, (6.16 million loans) but the February figures still represent the second largest number of loans since Kindle Unlimited launched last summer.

In short, the peak in January was the expected post-Christmas surge as users tried Kindle Unlimited for the first time, and the slight drop in loans in February reflects the readers which didn’t stay past their trial.

Update: Sometimes I miss the obvious. February has 10 % fewer days than January, so the fact that loans dropped by less than 10% is not remarkable. (Thanks, Fbone, Daniel!)

Given that Kindle Unlimited has yet to reach its first anniversary, we don’t have enough data to do a year over year comparison. But I do find it interesting that I can see a clear connection between the expansion of KU into Germany (October), Spain and Italy (November), France and Brazil (December), Mexico and Canada (February).

Kindle Unlimited was the subject of controversy late last year as a number of indie authors claimed that readers had stopped buying ebooks as they switched to KU (I had an alternate theory). In retrospect, that seems more than a little implausible, given that the US ebook market alone was worth a couple billion dollars last year, and Kindle Unlimited funding worth only millions of dollars a month.

Foner Books, Roger Packer

The best things in life may be free, but registering a new domain with Amazon’s new TLD probably won’t be one of them.

This hasn’t shown up in the wider blogosphere yet, but The Domains reported on Saturday that Amazon had outbid Google, Donuts, Minds +Machines, and Uniregistry in a private auction to buy the rights to DotFree top level domain.

Along with DotBuy and DotBook, this is at least the third top level domain which Amazon has bought the rights to over the past 6 months.

A top level Domain (or TLD) is the suffix on  website names, and includes familiar terms like DotCom and DotOrg as well as country specific suffixes for the UK, Poland, Libya, and a host of other countries.

Over the past couple years ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been expanding the number of available TLDs by auctioning off the rights to the highest bidder. Around 1,200 TLDs have either been proposed or sold with about half being specific brands and the other half generic TLDs.

Amazon hasn’t shared any specific plans for its newest TLD, but it’s widely expected that Amazon will be selling domain registrations to the public. "Why would they close it off?" Raymond King, CEO of Top Level Design asked PW when Amazon bought the DotBook domain last November. Top Level Design owns the generic TLD .ink. King went on to add that "You don’t want to limit your TLD. Amazon is known for being a visionary company, and it’s in their interest to make .book available to all authors."

While the DotBook domain could well end up as being administer by either KDP or Amazon Publishing, I would bet that DotFree and DotBuy will more likely fall under the purview of Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing platform Amazon has been running for the past decade. I’d think that selling domains more closely aligns with AWS' web hosting services than with Amazon’s retail operation.

image by protohiro

This being the 21st century, I’m sure that we’re all used to a certain lack of privacy online, but this next tale is simply appalling.

Students in New Jersey are in the middle PARCC testing right now. This is a new standardized test which is administered by Pearson. It’s not without its detractors; many parents are opting their kids out of the test, and after what Pearson just did I’m sure the number will grow.

A blogger by the name of Bob Braun got his hands on an email one NJ school district superintendent sent out to a mailing list. Said email discusses a dire "security breach" in which a student tweeted a mention of the recent PARCC test.

As you can see in the photo below, we found out about the security breach because Pearson is spying on students:

So one kid mentions a test question to another kid online, and Pearson calls down the wrath of the New Jersey state Dept of Education as well as the full weight of the school district administration upon that student.

Luckily for the kid, it was only a single tweet. Had several students gotten together to form a study group, they might have been prosecuted for felony interference with a business model and gotten the death penalty.

Do you suppose Pearson has hidden microphones set up around the schools so they can also listen in and see if students discuss the tests during lunch? I ask because that is basically the offline version of the student’s infraction.

Incendiary reaction aside, the WP reports that Pearson has confirmed the spying, and I can add that the superintendent confirmed that the email is real.

This is not the first time that states or other entities have monitored social media during standardized tests, but due to the bungling on the part of the NJDOE it is the most appalling.

This student was accused of tweeting an image during a test, when in fact they didn’t. Luckily the school district investigated before responding, otherwise this would have turned out so much worse.

Had the school district simply taken the "security breach" notice at face value, they would have suspended or expelled the student. Instead, the student was merely frightened to learn that his school went Big Brother bsed on nothing more than the complaint of a publisher.

So rather than come out of this with a tarnished record, the student learned a couple valuable life lessons: you can’t trust those in power, and there is no such thing as privacy any more.

Those are lessons we all need to learn at some point, and thanks to Pearson it has been driven home.

image by laverrue

Writing communities like Wattpad, Write On, and Widbook represent concentrated sources of writing talent, and Kobo is looking to tap in. Earlier this month Widbook and Kobo announced a new partnership which will enable Widbook members to sell ebooks through Kobo.

According to Widbook’s blog post, premium members can sell their ebooks through Kobo with only a few clicks. The member simply has to set the price, title, description, and category, enter an ISBN (it’s not provided), and the ebook can be automatically uploaded to Kobo and sold through Kobobooks.com and Kobo’s retail partners in around the globe.

Although I don’t think this by itself is worth Widbook’s $5 a month premium membership fee, it could prove a convenient option for Widbook members.

Let’s just hope it’s not too convenient.

I’ve been browsing Widbook today, and I noticed that a lot of the ebooks had basic formatting and editing errors. I mention that not as a criticism of the writers but as a critique of Widbook. The formatting errors in particular are a sign that Widbook isn’t designed to produce good quality content as a default (other platforms, like Feedbooks, have pulled it off).

This tells me that authors would be wise to either engage an editor or give their work another pass before publishing it for the second time.

Founded in February 2013 and based in Brazil, Widbook boasts over 200,000 members, with the highest numbers coming from the US, Brazil, and India. The site offers a community where writers and readers can write, read, and critique stories as they are published, and according to PW it offers a special emphasis on collaboration – writers can publish one chapter at a time, or they can write an ebook in partnership with another user.

And now that those writers have finished the story, they can publish it via Kobo – which they could have done on their own, thus making me wonder whether this deal has any value at all.

It’s a shame this deal isn’t with Apple. Kobo has their own publishing portal, which any author or publisher can access, but iBooks is difficult to get into. You either need an Apple computer to upload an ebook or you’ll need to have to go through  distributor like Draft2Digital. Had Widbook struck a deal with Apple it could have become a de facto portal for iBooks (perhaps that is Widbook’s next step).

Widbook via eBookPress

I’m sure everyone regularly backs up their computer, online account, and mobile devices (or at least we should), but when was the last time you double checked that the backup was working properly?

Now’s your chance. Today, 13 Friday, is the International Verify Your Backups Day. We should all take some time today to make sure that the files we backup both locally and online are actually backed up, and can be accessed in an emergency.

Now’s the time to download copies of whatever you’re storing in Dropbox and open them to make sure that the files are valid. You might also dust off the hard disk or flash drive which you’re using for a local backup and run an integrity check, and also see if you can access the files.

When was the last time you backed up your iDevice? You might want to check to see if that backup is still valid.

One might also use the System Restore feature of Windows to revert to an backup of the OS, but I wouldn’t do that unless you have the time to deal with any issues should complications arise.

This unofficial holiday was proposed by Adam Engst of TidBits earlier this year as a compliment to World Backup Day, which is coming up on 31 March. So far as I know there’s no official support for the idea from any quarter, but this is such a good idea that I’m pushing it anyway.

Creating regular backups of your data, profiles, and settings is just basic common sense security, but for all that we are constantly told to make backups, we are rarely  reminded to check back later and make sure the backups are actually usable.

And that’s what we should be doing today.

I am unfortunately away from my home so I can’t check my local backups, but I double checked the files on Google Docs, Dropbox, and that secret CIA server which no one know that I can access. My documents are all good.

What about yours?

images by jm3,karola riegler photography

Many famous authors gained public acclaim for their sharp wit and sharper pen, but they didn’t always get along.

Faulkner fought with Hemingway, Gore Vidal criticized Capote, who took pot shots at Kerouac, and HG Wells didn’t appreciate George Bernard Shaw’s work at all.

Here are a few of the choicer barbs authors have directed at their colleagues. (Do let me know if the infographic missed any good insults.)

AussieWriter.com

Scribd scored a victory today in its battle to be the largest ebook subscription service. It’s just signed a deal with  Xinxii, the Berlin-based ebook distributor, to add more indie published titles to the Scribd catalog.

Xinxii clients can now elect to distribute their ebooks to Scribd and earn 70% of the net proceeds each time a book is loaned to a reader. To be more accurate, all titles carried by Xinxii will be automatically added to the Scribd catalog unless an author opts out by 20 March.

Scribd has also worked out deals with Smashwords, BooksonDemand, and Draft2Digital. Readers can enjoy indie published titles distributed by those firms for $9 or 8 euros per month.

Self Publishing Bibel

The best books have the power to touch people on every corner of the globe, allowing readers to expand their horizons and discover new cultures and different ways of thinking. But if these books are to be enjoyed all around the world they need to be translated into different languages first.

Created for World Book Day last week, the following infographic details 50 of the most translated books. I’m not sure this is a complete list of the  top 50 titles, but what details we do have come as a surprise.

For example, Harry Potter has been translated more times than 1984, and Twilight has been translated more times than either Gone with the Wind.

The most translated title on this list was The Little Prince, with a record 253 translations. It set that record not just due it its popularity, but also because it has long since fallen into the public domain. In fact, five of the top 6 titles on this list are all in the public domain (not a coincidence).

Update: That book only just entered the public domain in much of the world in 2014. (For some reason, I thought it was published in 1843, and not 1943).

via 7Brands

There are a hundred and one places to get free ebooks, including free ebook sites, through the Kindle Store and other ebookstores, and (last but not least) your local public library.

Many public libraries on the US and around the world lend ebooks through OverDrive, 3M Cloud Library, and other services.

When it comes to fiction, OverDrive is the most used platform. OD offers apps for Android, Windows Phone, and iOS. It also lets you read in your web browser and works with most ereaders, including the Kindle (but only in the US).

Here’s how you can read OverDrive ebooks.

First Things First

To start, you will need a library card for a library which is also an OverDrive partner. You can search for a local library through the OverDrive website.

Most libraries will only issue a library card to local residents, but a handful do issue cards to non-residents. You’ll of course need to get a library ebook before checking out any ebooks, and for that you’ll need to check with the library.

Once you have the library card (you may also need a pin or password), stop and ask yourself this:

Do you want to read on the Kindle or in your web browser, or do you want to read on OverDrive’s apps?

I’m asking you this question now, because the steps you take will differ depending on your choice. You can read the errata section for more details as to why.

If I were you, I would use the Kindle. It’s easier. But the choice is yours, and I will lay out both methods.

Kindle

Sit down at your computer, and visit your library’s digital branch on the OverDrive website. Mine looks like this:

Browse the page, and once you find an available ebook you like you can check it out using the library card number and pin.

Once you have the ebook in your account, you can read it in your web browser (with most titles) or send it to your Kindle.

If you have a Kindle account and you’re in the US, you can read most OverDrive library ebooks on your Kindle. It is in fact easier to read on your Kindle than it is to read in Overdrive’s own apps.

After you’ve checked out an ebook, select the option to download the Kindle ebook.

This will take you to Amazon.com and, after you log in, you’ll be presented with a page where you can choose to send the ebook to your Kindle ereader, Fire tablet, or Kindle app.

If the option is available, that is less work than using OverDrive’s apps. But if it’s not, here’s how to read the ebook on an OverDrive app.

OverDrive Apps

Before you can read an ebook on an OverDrive app, you’ll need to download and install an app. OD offers apps for 4 mobile devices:

• Android (Google Play)
• Windows Phone
•  iPad iPhone (iTunes)

I’ve just spent the past several hours struggling with the Android app, and according to OverDrive’s website the basic procedure is the same across all the apps.

You’ll need to set up an OverDrive account inside the app. You can either create a new account or log in with your Facebook credentials.

Once you’ve logged in, you’ll be prompted to search for a library where you have a library card. Select it, and then log in to that library with your library card and pin.

The app will save the info, so you won’t have to do this nonsense a second time.

Now that the ebook is checked out, find the ebook in your bookshelf.  Press the download button, and choose the option to download the Epub ebook. Then confirm your choice. This should automatically send the book directly to your OverDrive app.

To find and read your ebook, open the sidebar menu and choose the bookshelf option. This will take you to a menu where you can see all of the ebooks downloaded to the device you’re holding.

You can select one of the ebooks and it will open:

And now you can read the ebook!

Errata

Here are a few of the problems and quirks I’ve encountered.

• You might want to change the default checkout period from 7 days to 21 days. You can find this under the settings menu.
• The option to read on the Kindle is only available in the US, sorry.
• For some unknown reason, I can’t check out an ebook in my web browser and read it in the OverDrive (Android) app.
• There’s an option in the settings menu to exclude mature content from your search results, and another option to prevent mature covers from being shown.
• Here’s the link to the OverDrive help pages.

image by Raymond Bryson

When one is confronted by new technology, one can either adapt existing rules to suit the new tech or one can blindly apply the rules – even when it doesn’t make sense.

The European Court of Justice chose the second option this week when it handed down a ruling (PDF) which declared that ebooks weren’t books, but were actually digital services and should be taxes as such.

Following a several-year-long legal battle, the ECJ ruled that France and Luxembourg were wrong to lower the VAT they charged on ebooks.

From the WSJ:

In its ruling, the court argued that a reduced rate can only apply to physical books and that even though electronic books can be read on tablets and computers, they should be considered “electronically supplied services”, not goods. According to EU law, reduced VAT rates can only apply to goods, not e-services.

Back in 2012 Luxembourg reduced the VAT it assessed on ebooks from 17% to 3%, the same rate it charged for paper books. It was followed a short time later by France,which dropped the tax rate to 5% (and then late last year Malta and Italy followed suit and cut their VAT rates on ebooks from 18% to 5% and 22% to 4%, respectively).

France and Luxembourg were sued by the European Commission in 2013 over this matter, lost, and then appealed to the ECJ. The court ruled against them, and now all four countries will have to raise their rates.

Luxembourg and France have already indicated that they will comply with the verdict while at the same time they plan to push for a revision to EU VAT rules. "Luxembourg is of the opinion that consumers should be able to buy a book with the same VAT rate, be it online or in bookstores. We will continue to advocate for adapting the EU legal framework to technological advancement," the Luxembourg finance ministry said in a statement.

French culture minister Fleur Pelerin told France Inter radio that: "We will continue to push for what is called technological neutrality, meaning the same taxation for books, irrespective if they are on paper or electronic."

While the ruling does fit with existing EU regulations, it is still absurd.  While the EU requires that ebooks be taxed as a service, many countries in the EU view ebooks as books and enforce fixed price book laws on their respective ebook markets.

In short, ebooks are denied both the benefit of price flexibility and the benefit of the lower tax rate, resulting in the worst of both worlds.

image by tolworthy

With over a decade of ereader design behind them, Bookeen is the oldest surviving ereader maker in the world, and they’re not slowing down.

Yesterday Bookeen announced a new partnership with Sunpartner Technologies, a French solar panel maker. The two companies are going to cooperate to add Sunpartner’s transparent solar panel tech to Bookeen’s next ereader.

For the past 5 years Sunpartner Technologies has been developing a new photovoltaic tech which is designed to go over a mobile device’s screen and provide power.

This Wysips tech has been showing up in the news for several years now (although I  can’t find any evidence that it has made its way into commercial devices and not just prototypes).

The idea behind this tech is that mobile devices have limited surface area, much of which is taken up by the screen. Just about the only place to put a solar panel on a tablet/smartphone/ereader is on the back, and that’s a problem. Given that you generally hold a mobile device with the screen up and the rear facing down, that’s not going to prove very effective as a power source.

You could put the solar panel on the cover of a mobile device, like we found with cases for a couple Kindle models, but with Wysips you can put the solar panel on top of the screen. Like so:

As you can clearly see, the Wysips panel degrades the screen quality. But that image is 4 years old, and the Wysips has probably advanced considerably since then, so I wouldn’t assume that Bookeen’s new ereader will have similar issues.

According to the press release, the new ereader will be released some time in 2016.

The copyright notice and takedown provisions of the DMCA may help creators by shielding sites like Youtube and the Kindle Store from liability, but that same provision can still be used as a weapon to harm authors and other creators.

Author Becca Mills posted on Monday about a recent encounter she had had with Amazon’s and Smashwords' DMCA policies. That encounter has only lasted a few days, so it is more emotionally painful than it is financially painful, but it offers a few useful lessons in how to respond.

Mills reports that on Friday she received an email from Amazon with the bad news that her book Nolander had been pulled from the Kindle Store in response to a DMCA notice. At first she thought it was a mistake,but then she got a similar notice from Smashwords:

I have just unpublished your book Nolander, formerly found here:https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/272292

As we received a DMCA Notice and I was able to verify that the text in your book, published on Jan. 07, 2013, matched the text of a book made public on August 2nd, 2011.

If you have any questions or can give me critical information about the book, please do.  Per our policy, the book needs to remain unpublished until Smashwords is given consent by both parties to republish it.

The tale is much longer than this, but let me take a moment and point out the first few lessons.

One thing I’ve learned at this point is that both Amazon’s and Smashwords' DMCA policies are flawed. Neither party forwarded key details from the DMCA notices, thus depriving Mills of any chance to directly rebut the claims made against her work, and Smashwords admitted that they responded based on the weakest of evidence.

Smashword pulled the book based on similarity to a blog post. Given how easy it would be for someone to clip a part of a book, paste it into a blog post, and then set the date back X years, that strikes me as insufficient evidence.

On the other hand, if we look at this from Smashwords' perspective, it’s not so unreasonable. Ask any group of 10 authors and 4 of them will tell you of horror stories where an author’s work was scraped from their website by a pirate and then uploaded to an ebookstore.

From Smashwords' perspective there’s no way to tell who actually owns the rights, so they have to take a work down on the flimsiest of claims.

Moving on …

Mills went on to detail the next couple emails she received. After she disputed the DMCA notice with Amazon, she got another email from KDP which finally included contact information from the person who filed the DMCA notice (but no mention of evidence to support the notice).

She also got an email from a helpful "fan" who said that he could fix this for her:

Hello Becca,

I am Kushal, who posted on your blog with the screen name Kelvin. I have experience with various aspects of online business including DMCA process, hence I thought about contacting you.

Since you are saying that there has been problems both at Amazon and Smashwords, are you sure that it’s a mix-up? That would be quite unlikely. I don’t know about Indie Fiction Authors but in case of Webmasters, YouTubers and Indie Non-Fiction Authors, DMCA process is often abused. Are you sure someone is not deliberately doing this? Anyway, if the problem does not get resolved then you can let me know what Amazon is saying and I will see what can be done.

Paranormal authors with unique story telling angles are damn hard to find, so I don’t want you to go through this. A malicious DMCA attack can end a person’s career (happened with many YouTubers).

While there are fans like this, an out of the blue offer to help should raise red flags, especially when it comes within hours of the DMCA notice.

And Mills is a textbook case as to why. She started looking into the contact email for the DMCA notice, and after spending a few minutes Googling that email address she ended up on a forum where members left these complaints against "Kushal Das" ghost writing service:

It’s not entirely clear to this blogger what is going on here, but this smells enough like bae (in the correct Danish definition) that I wouldn’t touch Kushal Das with a 10 foot pole.

And so I am passing along a warning. Pirates and/or scammers are targeting indie authors, and you need to be on the lookout. If an offer of help sounds to good to be true, investigate the source before accepting the assistance.

And when you get a DMCA notice, immediately push back. File a counter notice, dispute the claims, and don’t wait for a second to defend yourself.

Correction: The book has been restored at Smashwords, but not Amazon. As of Tuesday morning, the retailer is still sitting on the DMCA counter notice.

Mills' book was only down for a few days, but it was only restored when she fought back. Had she simply passively waited, nothing would have happened. And that is the most important lesson here; one cannot win a legal battle if one does not act.

image by jepoirrier