Palmbooks.org
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
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Electronic books may become important, now that they can be read on a Palm Pilot. Moreover, the Gutenberg Project has been making a number of classical and genuinely public domain books available in a variety of formats.
Then there are other electronic publishers.
I first heard of this place, www.palmbooks.org through Science Fiction Writers of America, where it was thought to be a new pirate site: it claims a number of works to be in public domain when they do not appear to me. Certainly my own works posted there are not, and to the best of my knowledge these people have no contracts with me or my agents.
Apparently the site is now down.
I mentioned this in View, and Roland Dobbins took a look. He sent the following on the site's ownership and management:
----- www.palmbooks.org - 63.164.139.125, domain name registration handled by www.godaddy.com.
Hosted by Kauai Internet, www.hawaiian.net
Kauai Internet 2970 Haleko Road Lihue, Kauai, HI 96766 Lihue Office Phone Number: 808-245-4598 Fax: 808-245-7428 After Hours: (808) 338-9884
Their upstream Tier-1 ISP is www.sprintlink.net, 800-232-6895
-----
The guy who owns www.palmbooks.org:
Registrant: Steele Smith PO Box 938 Kilauea, HI 96722 United States of America
Registrar: ASP Free Web Hosting (http://www.secureserver.net) <---- (DBA for www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: PALMBOOKS.ORG Created on: 20-Jul-01 Expires on: 21-Jul-06 Last Updated on: 20-Jul-01
Domain servers in listed order: NS.HAWAIIAN.NET NS2.HAWAIIAN.NET
Roland found there is also an extremely odd "disclaimer" offered if you try to become a subscriber. Roland's comment was:
Yet another Internet lawyer, heh; read the whole thing, word for word, it's a great laugh:
-----
Welcome members! Disclaimer and Terms of Admission
By entering this site you agree to all of the following:
WARNING: The creator of this site takes no responsibility or liability for anything that happens as a result of reading or downloading anything on this page or anything contained in subsequent pages.
Copyright Status: PalmBooks.Org E-Book Library retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce these documents, or allow others to do so, for reference purposes. These documents may not be freely distributed or used for any commercial, noncommercial, scientific and educational purposes. Commercial use of the documents available from this server is protected under the U.S. and Foreign Copyright Laws. Individual documents on this server may have different copyright conditions, and that will be noted in those documents as applicable. No copyright searches have been made to any of the documents in the members section. If you feel that there has been a copyright violation, procedures for correcting this are located here.
Disclaimer of Endorsement: Reference here in to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the SchisMatriX E-Book Library. The views and opinions of authors expressed here in do not necessarily state or reflect those of the SchisMatriX E-Book Library, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
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Limitation of Access and Use: For controversial reasons, if you are affiliated with any government, any PUBLISHING company, hold any COPYRIGHTS, ANTI-Piracy group or any other related group, or were formally a worker of one you CANNOT enter this web site, cannot access any of its files and you cannot view any of the HTML files. If you enter this site you are not agreeing to these terms and you are violating code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995 and that means that you CANNOT threaten our ISP(s) or any person's) or company storing these files, and cannot prosecute any person's) affiliated with this page which includes family, friends or individuals who run or enter this web site. By continuing to enter this site, you are expressly and impliedly agreeing to all terms as stated above, and affirm that you are in compliance with all federal, state and local laws concerning the content of this site.
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This document is a contract between you and the SchisMatriX E-Book Library. If you are unable to enter into legally binding contracts, then you must choose "I DISAGREE".
I AGREE |
It will be interesting to see what comes of all this. I have sent copies to my agents. I don't think that 'disclaimer' is worth a lot. I have sent a polite note to the person who lists himself as the site's owner.
More from Roland:
He's doing redirects from the www.palmbooks.org; it appears that some or all of the pirated material may actually be on this server:
207.150.192.12
which is operated by www.affinity.com:
101 Continental Blvd, 3rd Floor El Segundo, CA 90245 Phone: 310.524.3000 Fax: 310.388.1335
and on this server:
216.185.159.21
which shows up as www.ahnet.net, but which in reality is operated by the abovementioned www.affinity.com.
He has Mr. Niven's _Crashlander_, _Neutron Star_, & _Tales of Known Space_, in addition to your joint _Legacy of Heorot_; Clancy's _The Hunt for Red October_ & _Executive Orders_, as well as a lot of Piers Anthony and J.K. Rowling. Also, he has Mr. Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ & _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_.