[NatCh]

Originally Posted by cmbs

To me the main question is what are they distributing and how do they have the right to distribute it?

[snip]

But why does any one blog or similar website have the right to distribute a lot of still in copyright ebooks from a lot of authors? MOST DON'T.

That's quite likely the case, and any place giving content such as that away for free is certainly automatically suspicious. Any place selling it a bit less so, since they're a bit more visible and more likely to draw publisher/author/lawyer attention.

Originally Posted by cmbs

Even if an author is giving a book away for free, that doesn't make it legal for everyone else to do the same.

No it certainly doesn't! We've had to pull links to such things several times here at MobileRead, even before we started hosting the uploads section. In fact I recall one incident that we had to take down some fan fiction because, while it's usually ignored by authors/publishers, it's also, technically, not legal.

Originally Posted by cmbs

You've got to read the specific copyright notice on each book and if there's none - then nobody has permission to distribute. It's something that isn't automatic, but has to be given.

Excellent advice. Unfortunately, you often have to download the file to see the copyright info, even at indisputably legitimate places like MobiPocket Fictionwise, and the like.

Originally Posted by cmbs

Individual author sites will have the work of the one author, and usually a lot more from them, like regular blog posts, announcements, etc.

Most of the ones I've seen do fit what you're describing.

Originally Posted by cmbs

I think if you do want to be careful then you do need to have a little knowledge because some of these sites will try to fool you if you don't know any better. A copyright notice is not assurance that the distribution is legal. It can be hard to tell. If I'm suspicious, I leave a site alone.

And that's one of the better, and better worded "rules of thumb" I've seen on the matter.