We’ve had so many requests to post this, we decided just to go ahead and do it.  Below is an excerpt from our password protected post GR & Copyright (leaving out the confidential information of course.)  We’ve gotten literally hundreds of authors emailing us to ask us about how they can get their books removed from GR.  One of those authors, who was the victim of a bully attack mentioned in Bully Attacks This Week, is now seeing posted and bashed BEFORE the book is even published.  That’s right.  The GR bullies are now rating and reviewing her book when it isn’t even done yet (you’ll notice a few familiar names):

HAS1

HAS2

I’d like to draw your attention for just a moment to .  If you click on her name, you’ll notice that she has a brand new account.  This is her THIRD account.  To read more about Miranda, visit Miranda’s Request when she requested a reviewer remove her 5 star review of a book.  Then Miranda staged a fake exit from GR in Miranda’s farewell by creating a new, private account.  Now she has deleted both accounts and has created an entirely new one.

Uh… wow!

Anyhow, back to what I was saying… Authors who see this kind of thing happen to their books feel that since GR did not have their permission to post the books, they shouldn’t be allowed to.  These authors are right to a certain degree.  After doing quite a bit of research on the topic, we have discovered this:

  1. GR DOES NOT have the right to publish copyrighted material that they do not own.
  2. This material includes:
  • Book cover images
  • Book descriptions
  • Author bio photo
  • Author bio
  • Book trailer videos or book promo videos
  1. GR does have the right to publish the following under fair use:
  • Author name
  • Book title

If you own this copyrighted material and want it removed from GR, the first step is to contact Patrick Brown and let him know in no uncertain terms that the material on his site is copyrighted, owned by you, and that Goodreads needs to remove it immediately:

Patrick Brown

Community Manager

Goodreads

Usually at this point, the material will be removed, but if it isn’t, the next step is to do a DMCA.com takedown.  If you go to DMCA.com, you can do a takedown by yourself very cheaply or you can pay more and have them do it, but this will assuredly get your material removed from GR.  If you do go through DMCA.com, you will need to provide links to where you have published this material and links to GR where the material was stolen.  Hopefully it won’t come to this, but if DMCA does a takedown, GR will have no choice but to remove it.

If you know someone who wants their books removed from GR, please feel free to share this information with them.

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Addendum

Because of Amazon’s recent acquisition of Goodreads, if you attempt a takedown of your copyrighted material on Goodreads and your books are published on Amazon, Goodreads will respond with something like this:

Hello [author name],
Unfortunately, we cannot comply with your request to remove the cover image and description from the book record, each of which are provided by Amazon. Under that license, we are able to display information about your book, including the cover image, for purposes of discussion, evaluation and analysis by Goodreads members.
Best regards,
The Goodreads Team

In KDP terms and conditions (and Createspace), there is a clause that states:

“5.5 Grant of Rights. You grant to each Amazon party, throughout the term of this Agreement, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, right and license to distribute Digital Books, directly and through third-party distributors, in all digital formats by all digital distribution means available. This right includes, without limitation, the right to: (a) reproduce, index and store Digital Books on one or more computer facilities, and reformat, convert and encode Digital Books; (b) display, market, transmit, distribute, sell and otherwise digitally make available all or any portion of Digital Books through Amazon Properties (as defined below), for customers and prospective customers to download, access, copy and paste, print, annotate and/or view online and offline, including on portable devices; (c) permit customers to “store” Digital Books that they have purchased from us on servers (“Virtual Storage”) and to access and re-download such Digital Books from Virtual Storage from time to time both during and after the term of this Agreement; (d) display and distribute (i) your trademarks and logos in the form you provide them to us or within Digital Books (with such modifications as are necessary to optimize their viewing), and (ii) portions of Digital Books, in each case solely for the purposes of marketing, soliciting and selling Digital Books and related Amazon offerings; (e) use, reproduce, adapt, modify, and distribute, as we determine appropriate, in our sole discretion, any metadata that you provide in connection with Digital Books; and (f) transmit, reproduce and otherwise use (or cause the reformatting, transmission, reproduction, and/or other use of) Digital Books as mere technological incidents to and for the limited purpose of technically enabling the foregoing (e.g., caching to enable display). In addition, you agree that we may permit our affiliates and independent contractors, and our affiliates’ independent contractors, to exercise the rights that you grant to us in this Agreement. “Amazon Properties” means any web site, application or online point of presence, on any platform, that is owned or operated by or under license by Amazon or co-branded with Amazon, and any web site, application, device or online point of presence through which any Amazon Properties or products available for sale on them are syndicated, offered, merchandised, advertised or described. You grant us the rights set forth in this Section 5.5 on a worldwide basis; however, if we make available to you a procedure for indicating that you do not have worldwide distribution rights to a Digital Book, then the territory for the sale of that Digital Book will be those territories for which you indicate, through the procedure we provide to you, that you have distribution rights.”

To get around this, you will need to remove your books from Amazon and then demand the takedown.  Some find that it’s not worth the trouble.  Others disagree.  The decision is up to you.

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