Shortly after joining PBS a few months ago, I became friends with a person who turned around and burned me.  All the books she had requested, which I believed was done in good faith, turned up on ebay.  One even had my signature on it, which could be enlarged.  I asked her to please remove that one item from the ebay listing, which after denying it had my signature on it, she finally removed.  Her words and attitude were more or less...I decided to copy them and then sell them on ebay.  I'm happy with the copies because I have a laser printer.  I'm sorry you felt used.  USED?!  There were over 40 books posted on ebay that had been mine. 

Now I don't care if she went out and burned them, but many of the women I've become friends with said they wish they had gotten them first.  It was her "So what" attitude that got my dander up.  I told her never to order a book from me again, which she agreed to.  We no longer PM; she's off my buddy list. 

Aw poodle-snoodles! What I'm trying to find out is if there's any way that I can ban her from ordering books from me?  I just cancelled a request a few minutes ago from her.  The bad thing is having to okay the request, just to find out who ordered the book.  Can someone throw me a lifeline for this problem? 

kacee

I thought the terms of use specify that you are not allowed to sell books from here, that they are to be for personal use and swapping only...

No, there is no way to keep her from ordering books from you.

You could report her to PBS. It is against the rules to request books specifically to resell. Unless they could somehow verify it for themselves, though, I am not sure if they would be able to do anything.

Thank you for the quick responses to my question.  I was told by a member of PBS team to report it, which I did.  However I never got a reply.  I do have the url for the ebay site, and held onto the PM from her.  If no reply soon, I'll contact PBS again.  Until tonight, I really thought this was all behind me, but guess it will always be there.  I'll just keep cancelling any requests from her....life is too short to bogged down with something like this!  Once again, thanks for the help!

Until you accept the request, you won't know who it is from, and I think refusing a lot of requests will actually be a mark against  you. Definitely keep TPTB in-the-know about this, so if you do cancel several requests from her, it's documented why.

Wait - is she copying books to sell? Literally making copies of them?  That not only violates the terms of service here, that violates copyright law, and is illegal.  I hope you told the team about that bit as well.

You could put your bookshelf on private so that it doesn't publicly show. Since you aren't a regular forum poster, is there any reason why you need it displayed? You can also have it only where only people on your buddy list can see your bookshelf. Go to MY ACCOUNT, then the SETTINGS tab, then the Privacy Control tab.

I am glad you reported her. The site will kick people off if TPTB see them selling a large amount of books received from here. Since you had concrete proof she was, I think she will be gone from the site soon and you won't have to worry about it. This site has no use for members that take books out of the system only to sell them on e-bay.

Kathy, we responded to you.   Check your Club Communications file for a copy of the email we sent you on 5/9/2009, if you missed it in your email inbox. 

Pitiful!  But on the upside, I just ordered 4 books from your shelf.  And they won't end up on ebay:P

Just to clarify....you CAN sell books you obtain here at PBS. The books are yours to do with what you wish. It is when you obtain books here for the sole purpose of selling them that you can get banned. I have sold a few books from here at my local Half-Price bookstore, ones that had 100+ in the system, and were thick hardcovers that I didn't have room to store at the time. A great majority of the books I get here, I repost though.

Edited to Add: I took the OP's saying she copied the books as being, she made a copy for herself and then listed the originals on Ebay, so she was not selling copied books.

Cheryl

Oh, here is what the PBS help docs say about it:

When you receive a book you requested, it does belong to you, and you can do whatever you would like with it after you have read it.   An occasional resale of an item obtained here for personal use is OK.

• Of course we would like to see you repost your books on this site when you are finished with them, because it makes more books available for our many members to choose from.

• Again, the occasional PBS book that is obtained for personal use, and then ends up being sold elsewhere, is perfectly okay. However, any systematic attempt to obtain books for resale (instead of personal use) will jeopardize your membership, and may lead to criminal prosecution.

• That means: if you obtain books to read, and sell an occasional one, that is fine. If you request a book not to read, but in order to re-sell it, that is NOT fine.

40 books is an awful lot to be considered "occasional" though.  That seems pretty excessive to me.  What they can probably do is look at her ebay ads - if she has many current - & get an idea of how many of them are in her transaction archive.  That coupled with Kathy's 40 books might establish whether or not she's systematically reselling PBS obtained books and possibly be justification for suspending her account.  I would think it depends on the circumstances.  If she sold them in a single lot, possibly mixed with a bunch of other books she wanted to get rid of, or it was something more along the lines of 40 plus ebay auctions, or maybe an ebay store, where she's consistently selling books she gets from here.  I would think these are different things.  I can certainly see if if someone has hundreds of books that aren't moving here, and they just want to clear them out all at once by selling the lot on ebay.

She made copies of the books to keep for herself?  Wow! How much time and effort does that take?

Plus it is a violation of copyright law as reported above. I'm pretty sure this would be the same as software or music. If you get rid of the legitimate copy for which the author received royalties, then you also have to get rid of all the copies you made.

Oh yes--I do agree, 40 books at once is a lot...and that does sound like a possible abuse of the system. I was just pointing out that it is okay to occasionally unload a book obtained here elsewhere, that people shouldn't feel they have to feel guilty nor look over their shoulders for the PBS police to slap the cuffs on them if they don't repost every single book they get here. LOL

Cheryl

As stated, I don't care if she burned them all in a huge bonfire.  What bothered me was the fact that so many women told me they wish they had the books because they are really crocheters, knitters, etc, and would have gotten good use from them.   And here she was telling me it was her idea to make copies and then sell the books on ebay?  Her whole attitude about it was unbelievable!  It quite honestly upset me when I saw my signature on one of the books that could be enlarged for a closer look.  Hey, in this day of identity theft, that was a shock.  She insisted that there was nothing with my signature on it listed there because she looked.  I had to give her the the url to prove it to her.  She finally agreed to remove it.   I've received books here that didn't appeal to me, so I repost them.  I do my homework on the book first by reading reviews and trying to find out what's inside (such as Amazon's site).  But sometimes the book just does nothing for me.  I thank the person I received the book from, and explain that I'll be reposting it, telling them why.  It's only common courtesy, imho...that's how my Momma raised me. 

I do appreciate the responses I have received from ya'll.  It's nice to know that people care enough to voice their opinions. 

Sorry about getting my feathers so ruffled, I'm drinking a QUART of chocolate velvet cappuccino right now!  "Mmmmm!", she says, as she tries to stop the twitching.  8>) 

OK I get it now. They had patterns in them, which she copied, and then sold the actual book. I was confused at first.

Ah that explains it. I was trying to wrap my head around someone standing at a copier with a 280 page work of fiction!

Nevertheless, it's still copyright infringement to copy an entire book of patterns and then sell the original. I'm not sure if you could copy just one pattern that you're working on and then sell the book.

Okay just so I understand this too.

She got books from you about knitting, crocheting, etc  - craft books.

Then took them and copied the patterns and sold the patterns on eBay.

Is this correct?

Then took them and copied the patterns and sold the patterns on eBay.

I think she is saying that the person sold the books on eBay after making the copies of the patterns for herself.

Received craft books, mainly knitting and crochet books with patterns...decided to sell them ebay, so she made copies of each book before listing them there.

I don't see what all the brouhaha is about. When I recieve a book I consider it mine- to read, or to give away as a gift, to repost it, to put it on my permenent shelf, to burn it or to sell it. And if I send someone a book I consider that it is theirs and I couldn't care less what they do with it. If the 2nd person is making so much money on ebay then why doesn't everyone do it? As for as copying patterns and then selling it, well, I don't know if copying is legal , but even then she can still sell it after the copying. It does not violate a copyright law to sell a book after you've "used" it. The thought of going back to the recipients of the 39 books I've sent out, in order to make sure that they are properly reading them , amd not selling them, is incredible. Don't mean to sound snippy but PBS is a great friend, NOT a police state looking over our shoulders.

What is the brouhaha?  If she burned every book in Germany who cares?  Not me!  BUT...

1:  There are older women than me (I'm 59), who have told me that they cannot afford to buy books, so PBS is where they get their craft books.  They wished they had known about them.  I know that they would have gotten so much use from them.  Maybe you're too young to remember all the wonderful crochet/knitting books, but I'm not, and neither are they.  We TRUE crafters value our books and hold on to them.  (The only reason I was getting rid of the books is because I've advanced beyond what they had to offer.)

2:  She told me she really liked the books she was getting me from me...I'll really use them all, they're wonderful, even if I can't use them now, they'll be wonderful to look at, yada yada yada.

3:  One of them had my signature on it that was flashed around the world on ebay.

Can you tell you've gotten my dander, Tom?  HUH?  No PBS is not a police state, thank goodness for that in today's world.  But when someone tells me they are my friend, they love all my books and they will get good use from them, then by jiminies, USE THEM!

Why don't more of us sell the books we get here?  BECAUSE WE'RE HONEST, ABOVE THE BOARD BOOK READERS WHO ARE NOT OUT TO BEFRIEND SOMEONE ONLY TO MAKE MONEY OFF OF THEM AND THIS SITE!

That's what the brouhaha is about, Tom.

KATHY

What is the brouhaha?  If she burned every book in Germany who cares?  Not me!  BUT...

1:  There are older women than me (I'm 59), who have told me that they cannot afford to buy books, so PBS is where they get their craft books.  They wished they had known about them.  I know that they would have gotten so much use from them.  Maybe you're too young to remember all the wonderful crochet/knitting books, but I'm not, and neither are they.  We TRUE crafters value our books and hold on to them.  (The only reason I was getting rid of the books is because I've advanced beyond what they had to offer.)

2:  She told me she really liked the books she was getting me from me...I'll really use them all, they're wonderful, even if I can't use them now, they'll be wonderful to look at, yada yada yada.

3:  One of them had my signature on it that was flashed around the world on ebay.

Can you tell you've gotten my dander, Tom?  HUH?  No PBS is not a police state, thank goodness for that in today's world.  But when someone tells me they are my friend, they love all my books and they will get good use from them, then by jiminies, USE THEM!

Why don't more of us sell the books we get here?  BECAUSE WE'RE HONEST, ABOVE THE BOARD BOOK READERS WHO ARE NOT OUT TO BEFRIEND SOMEONE ONLY TO MAKE MONEY OFF OF THEM AND THIS SITE!

That's what the brouhaha is about, Tom.

KATHY!!

I can't imagine anyone making that much money of it unless you gave her a really good deal.  If those other ladies wanted the books why didn't they order them from you?

Craft books - especially hardcovers - are notoriously expensive and have a relatively short shelf life, so the better ones tend to get very pricey over time.  Just a for instance, one craft book on my WL retailed at $19.99 and is now listed at Amazon & half.com for about $75.00.  That doesn't mean it will sell for that, but it does mean that if you could obtain that particular book (or others like it) from PBS, you could resell it for a substantial profit.