I'm the Captain Now

No you're not. Get off my boat and leave our books alone

Photo by Amy Syiek on Unsplash

If you’ve watched Captain Phillips than the title of this piece will immediately bring to mind the iconic scene from the film. If, for some reason, the line “I’m the captain now” means absolutely nothing to you, then allow me to set the scene.

Captain Phillips stars Tom Hanks as the titular character, Captain Richard Phillips, who is in command of a container ship that’s sailing from Oman to Kenya. During the trip Captain Philips notices that the ship is being followed by Somali Pirates. The Somali pirates first attempt to board the ship is unsuccessful after Captain Phillips pretends to call a warship for assistance and the pirates boat loses power. However, the pirates are able to board the ship on their second attempt and when taking over the bridge, the leader of the Somali pirates, Abduwali Mase, tells Captain Phillips, “I’m the Captain now”.

It’s a great scene and a great movie but why am I quoting lines from Captain Phillips?

Let me explain.

Book piracy.

Yes, you heard me correctly, book piracy.

I have a strange brain. The minute book piracy became a trending topic, in the many online writers groups that i’ve joined over the years, my brain immediately joined the dots to that scene in Captain Phillips.

Book piracy is defined as the illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted work, but it didn't just emerge in the digital age. People have been illegally copying and distributing counterfeit books since the 15th century. If copyright exists in either a printed work, art, musical score or item of clothing then you can guarantee that someone in the world has attempted to breach it. It’s unfortunately how the world works. Twenty years in criminal law, and life itself, has shown me that someone out there is always trying to get something for nothing.

In the past book piracy was hard work. You had to physically copy the book and then distribute the book. How people found a dodgy copy of a book was usually down to word of mouth:

“My mate Dave, knows a guy who works in the The Nags Head whose sister can get you copies of The Count of Monte Cristo”

or

“‘There’s a guy down the market selling Jackie Collins books and ‘Now: That’s What I call Music 18’”.

But the arrival of the ebook and Amazon Kindle changed everything. Suddenly every single book was available for you to buy. In a matter of seconds, you could read your ebook on your tablet or even your phone. Ease of availability meant that it was now easier to illegally copy and distribute books.

As a criminal lawyer I’ve lost count of the number of clients I’ve represented who were charged with fraud. Pick a fraud and I’ve dealt with it. Fake driving licences, designer bags, identities, passports, banking websites and sham marriages. In the early noughties, I spent a lot of time as a baby lawyer representing clients charged with producing and distributing counterfeit DVD’s. You would be amazed at the size of these counterfeit operations but the arrival of online streaming services changed things. As LoveFilm morphed into Netflix, the physical counterfeit DVD business was reborn as the illegal streaming business. I continued representing clients charged with fraud, but considering how prevalent it is, I never represented anyone charged with book piracy. Although I’ve been working in Criminal law, for what feels like forever, I had no idea about book piracy websites until my debut crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, was published in 2021.

Without naming names, I was talking to someone about my book. This person told me that they now read books on their tablet. That fine. I have no issue with that. This person then told me that they got their books from a website. I assumed that they were reading ebooks on their kindle and were buying their books from Amazon

That is not what they meant.

This person then went on to tell me that they downloaded all of their books for free.

No. We’re not talking about books being offered for free as part of a promo. We’re not even talking about buying an ebook and returning it after you’ve read it (a topic for another day).

Now you would have thought that the criminal lawyer part of my brain would immediately kick into gear but it didn’t. It’s as if I couldn't believe that anyone would illegally download books. Finally my brain did kick into gear and I asked the person to send me the link.

It was a link to a book piracy website. I was shocked because this website looked like a legit online bookstore, however, there was one big difference. You selected a book and clicked ‘Download PDF’ instead of selecting ‘Add To Basket’ and completing checkout. Every single book, in every genre imaginable, was on the website. I remember putting my own name in the search box and thinking that the result would be “Not Found” because my book had only been published a few months prior and I was Nadine Matheson not JK Rowling.

Ha! Well that was a joke. Not only was ‘The Jigsaw Man’ available to illegally download but also my first book, that I self-published in 2015, ‘The Sisters’ was on there too. I was beyond infuriated that my book was on this website and this person (still remaining nameless) was using this website.

What did I do next?

The only thing that I could think to do in that moment was to tell my editor and to give her the website details . A few months later the website disappeared but then it remerged with a slightly different name but with the same and expanding library of books.

You’re probably wondering what I said to the nameless person about their illegal downloading of books. I told them to stop but I also asked them why? You can probably guess their response.

‘It’s only a book and I would never download your book.’

Here’s the thing. Whether it’s my book or any other book, it’s not just a book. A book is the result of someone’s extremely hard word. Literal blood, sweat and tears. Illegally downloading a book is theft. You're stealing the book and stealing money. There is not one author who is benefiting financially from book piracy. The only people benefiting financially are the book piracy website owners who have to cheek to include a ‘Donate’ link on their website.

You can tell me that I’m wrong, but i’m going to assume that people who illegally download books believe that you’re loaded because they’ve seen my or your book on the shelves of Waterstones and Sainsbury’s. There is an assumption that we're (the writers') signing multi-million pound book and movie deals each week and that our non writing days are spent having expensive lunches with our agent, publishers and fellow writers.

All writers, whether you're self-published or traditionally published, know that that is not the case.

The reality is that a lot of writers are stealing time to write. Writing on buses and trains to and from work, getting up an hour early, before the rest of their household, to write and using annual leave to work.

There’s also something else that most people don’t know about author life.

There are no guarantees in writer life and no such thing as job security.

There is no guarantee that the books we have written will even end up being published, placed on supermarket shelves and eventually dropped in shopping baskets next to your frozen peas.

---

There’s an argument that culture should be free for all but did you know that the average salary for a writer in the UK is £7,000 per year.

Yes, you read that correctly. £7,000 (US -$8,000). What on earth can you do with that?

For context, the current National Living Wage in the UK is £11.44 per hour which is £22,308 per year. Next year (2025) the National Living Wage will increase to £12.21 per hour (£23,873.60).

Imagine as an author. Actually, scratch that. It doesn’t matter if you're an author, an electrician or a landscape gardener. Imagine not even being paid minimum wage, after spending a minimum of 37.5 hours a week, doing the thing that you love to do.

Imagine how much that £7,000 is diminished when 17% of ebooks are illegally downloaded.

There’s a reason why most writers still have full time jobs. We write because we love it. We persevere because we want writing to be our full time job but you cannot keep a roof over your head and food in the fridge on seven grand per year.

I agree to a point that culture should be free but there’s a big difference between campaigning for cheaper theatre tickets and free entry to special museum exhibitions and illegally downloading books.

You may only be earning £7,000 per year but at least you’re making something.

Books are expensive.

What about people who can’t afford to buy books?

Don’t get me wrong, there have been times where I’ve balked at the price of a book. Barak Obama’s political memoir had a RRP of £35 (US$45) in hardback. 35 quid is a lot of money to pay for a book but that doesn’t mean that anyone should be rushing to a book piracy website to download the latest release. There is a simple and free alternative.

The library.

Now, do authors benefit from library loans? Yes, we do.

PLR (Public Lending Right) is the legal right for every author to receive payment every time their books are borrowed from a UK public library. The amount that authors are paid isn’t huge, less than 12 pence a book, and the rate has decreased significantly over the past few years.

Take a look:

• 2023- 2024: 11.76p for each book borrowed

• 2022-2023: 13.69p for each book borrowed.

• 2021-2022: 30.53p for each book borrowed.

  ---

Hardback, paperback, ebooks and audiobooks. The library has it all and it won’t cost you a penny. In fact, you don’t even need to leave your house to request, download and renew ebooks from your library. You can log onto your local library’s website, browse the virtual shelves and download your book from the comfort of your sofa.

Again, I’ve lost count of the amount of times I've sat in consultation rooms with clients charged with fraud and explained to them that fraud, whether its a dodgy driving licence or counterfeit cigarettes, is not a victimless crime. Book piracy is not a victimless crime. Book piracy is theft and authors are the victims.

I said earlier that I’ve never represented a client charged with book piracy but that doesn't mean that criminal prosecution isn’t possible. You can be prosecuted if you make copies of illegally downloaded books and distribute them and you can go to prison if convicted. The maximum sentence is five years imprisonment.

Now, you’re probably thinking that going to prison for illegally downloading and distributing books is unlikely to happen but let me draw your attention to the case of Jonathan Edge.

Earlier this month, Mr. Edge was sentenced to three years and four months imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to three fraud offences. Now what exactly was the fraud?

Mr Edge uploaded unauthorised products onto Amazon firesticks and then sold the fire sticks.

What were the unauthorised products?

Football games.

You might be thinking that it’s a bit harsh sentencing a man to prison because he provided a way for people to watch football games on their fire sticks without paying Sky Sports or TNT Sports for the privilege. You might also be thinking that watching Arsenal v Man City on a dodgy fire stick is not the same as illegally downloading a copy of Nadine Matheson’s new book, but that’s where you’re wrong.

The interesting bit about Mr. Edge’s case is that he was also sentenced for accessing and viewing illegal football streams. How is that any different to accessing and viewing illegally downloaded books? Whatever way you dress it up, it’s copyright theft.

The premier league privately prosecuted Mr Edge for fraud so my question is, how long will it be before someone is prosecuted, whether it's privately or publicly, for illegally downloading books?

I don’t think that it will be too long before the owners of these book piracy websites and the people who download these books, learn the hard-way, that they are not the captain and that they need to get off our boat.