Second hand Ebooks?

I was doing a Google search for my name, just to see what would show up.  I do that now and again and have found book reviews that I didn't know had been done.  Which is exciting. 

Last night, though, I found ShadowsForge 1: Three Times a Hero listed for sale in a blog along with many other books from most of the top print and ebook publishers around.  I'd never heard of the site, so I asked around to see if any of my author friends, many of whom were also on the list, had heard of it.

Joy of joys, we found that someone had in some way acquired ebook copies of hundreds of titles and were selling those copies on the internet.  Now, if you have a used print book and you sell it in a yard sale, cool.  But an ebook is illegal to copy and resell in this manner. Most people do not know that, thus I post this bulletin.

When you buy a second hand ebook, you are in essence stealing from the author and the publisher. The person selling the ebook is guilty of copyright infringement and theft. They may have purchased the ebook, but that only gives them the right to read it, not resell it, or make copies of it for resale. This is theft and it is illegal.

When the site authorities were questioned about this site, it was immediately shut down.  But people who pirate ebooks are compared to cockroaches. When hit with the light, they scatter, but they show up again elsewhere.

Please, please, please, do authors and publishers a favor. Do not buy "used or second hand ebooks" from anywhere, including eBay. (Yes they have shown up there, too.) Make sure that you buy ebooks from the Publisher or the Author or reputable authorized outlets like Amazon or Barnes and Noble, etc.  If ebooks are being sold on a free site or blog, it's a good bet that it is not a legitimate outlet that is going to reimberse the publisher or author for the sale.  Don't let your hard earned dollars be spent on illegal ebooks. You work too hard for your money and we authors work too hard to produce high quality ebooks for your entertainment. 

I appreciate you letting me vent my frustrations on this issue but if the public-at-large do not know of this, they can be taken in by ebook pirates. And no one likes to be taken in.