There's a lot of talk about generative AI hallucinating, but what kind of hallucination has to happen in a human brain for them to think it's right to take someone else's work, slap their own name on it, and put it up for sale (aye, and here's the rub) at more than the price of the genuine article?
The question isn't purely rhetorical. While creating links for the Fabled Lands bookstores (US here, UK here) I came across some of my own gamebooks on sale on Apple Books under different titles. Well, nearly different -- whoever pirated them was dumb enough to leave "Critical IF" in the name, which is why they popped up on a Google search.
As you can see, one rip-off edition wasn't enough for them. And that time could have been so much better spent teaching themselves English. And, I dunno, ethics. Others have pointed out that they've also ripped off images owned by some big hitters, who might well come gunning for them with more than a rusty cannon. Happily, Apple's legal department has now deleted the books, though I suspect the same piratical individuals will just upload them again under new titles.
If you think all that is bad (and I hope you do) you should hear what happened to my wife. A company offering online courses ripped off the entire contents of her Nail Your Novel books and spent years selling "their" writing course for considerably more than the cost of the books. She only found out about it because the company had lazily cut-&-pasted everything from the books including a mention of her name, enabling one of their customers to track her down to ask if she'd be doing any more courses. (In fact she does have a bona fide online course, Become a Ghost-Writer.) She found a lawyer, but after months of effort all she got was a desultory payout -- a fraction of the money the company had made off the back of her work. Sadly, often crime does pay.
Anyway, on the principle that one has to rise above such knavery, I'll just point out that you can get the most up-to-date editions of the Critical IF books for less money from legitimate sources. Don't let the hornswogglers win!
Critical IF e-books are available on Amazon US and Amazon UK from $0.99 to $2.99.
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteIt is terrible to see someone trying to republish your gamebooks under another name. I think it was a good move for you to republish your links (in your blog above) to the legitimate article. However this is of no use to me - I have already purchased your back catalogue of gamebooks!
Which brings me to my next subject - has there ever been consideration of bringing the Duel Master gamebook series back (Mark Smith and Jaime Thomson)? I was recently reminded of this excellent series a number of months ago, and even when looking at ebay - it looks near impossible to to get a pair of books for this series.
eternally hopeful,
Peter
I'm with you on this one, Peter. For my money, Duel Master are the best gamebooks ever published. I keep pestering Jamie and Mark to re-release them, and at one point the excuse was that they don't have copies to scan. I even offered to typeset the books for them if they could get me the text and images. So far, no joy -- but I'll keep nagging them.
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