Authors Without A Yacht (AWaY) discussion

I've read quite a bit about piracy and it's always torrent and download sites mentioned. How much of an effect is the pirating thats going on in the mIRC channels having?

I don't think a lot of people have even considered mIRC channels as avenue for piracy, let away tracked its impact. It is an interesting thing, though. Thanks for bringing that up.

I've not heard of mIRC channels. Can you explain what they are?

Guido wrote: "I don't think a lot of people have even considered mIRC channels as avenue for piracy, let away tracked its impact. It is an interesting thing, though. Thanks for bringing that up."

From what I have heard it's a hotbed of activity for pirates and it's automated. I think if IRC is overlooked the amount of pirating there is going to grow rapidly. Author's and publishers will be fighting the battle at the websites and the word will spread about IRC. I wonder how authors will be able to get there work taken down when it's passed out by a computer program instead of a person.

I'm sorry Rowena either you posted while I was replying to Guido or I didn't see your comment. IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. To be quite honest I don't understand how it works myself. What I do understand is it's a program that you download and then you set it up which I hear and read on the IRC website is a complicated procedure. Once you get into the program you then choose a server and a channel and that opens the chat window. In the channels I heard about with ebook pirating what looks like people talking in a normal chat room is actually an automated program. They tell you what to type to receive there list of books, some of these lists contain thousands of books Rowena and the instructions with what to type to have the book file sent. If a person can't find the book they are looking for from the list then they can use a search bot which I guess looks through all the lists of all the bots and then sends you the list of what they have found and what to type to get the book.There are pirate channels for all kinds of things and then there are just channels for typical topics where people chat about what ever their interests are.

My goodness, Ilovetoread, that is appalling news. Would you mind if I were to copy your explanation and forward it to Richard Curtis (an agent and publisher who blogs about piracy).

If you haven't visited Richard's blog at ereads.com , you might find his blog interesting. He is quite an outspoken fellow!

I don't mind at all and I look forward to reading Richard's blog.