From a couple of weeks ago:
Mr. Shumate:
The cover you’re pushing here as authentic:
https://lousybookcovers.com/?p=11416
was fake.
The real cover can be found here:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6904337.Norm_Augustinus
Or here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20517281-stump-humperBest,
Gertrude Silverstein, LLP
Hi Gertrude,
Thanks for writing. What do mean by “fake”? That was the cover by which it was available for sale on Amazon at the time (the page to which I linked on Amazon at the time is no longer functioning, it seems).
Mr. Shumate:
Be advised: the book cover you have posted on Lousybookcovers.com doesn’t depict the correct title: ‘Stump Hump’ is not ‘Stump Humper’ which is and always was the correct title. The image/bookcover you are presenting as genuine was illegally torrented from the actual essay and retitled (and uploaded to Amazon), and that individual was prosecuted.Gertrude Silverstein, LLP
I see. Well, thanks for the background…
Mr. Shumate:
Please understand that by posting a known counterfeit book cover that you can be prosecuted. As such, you have 72 hours to remove said cover or face legal action by this office and the publisher.Sincerely,
Gertrude Silverstein, Esq.
Gertrude,
Forgive me, but if you’re actually an attorney, you’re a lousy one.
1) You nowhere have cited any attorney-client relationship with the publisher and consequent authority to make demands on the publisher’s behalf. Heck, you don’t even identify the publisher by name.
2) You took THREE messages to me to even mention that you wanted me to take the cover down.
3) You’re asking — excuse me, THREATENING — me to take down a blog post from two and a half years ago, with no legal rationale. My blog post says that the cover in question was to a book that was for sale at Amazon at that time. Are you saying that my referencing the fact is somehow illegal?
4) There is no such thing as a “fake” or “counterfeit book cover.” The fact that the publisher of the work that the cover went to was (by your unsupported assertion) not the copyright holder of the book in question, does not give you any right to curtail the display of the cover — which was, by your own statement, NOT part of the copyrighted material in question.
5) Which is it? Are you “Gertrude Silverstein LLP” or “Gertrude Stein Esq.”? In what state are you admitted to the bar? What attorney uses a gmail account without any sort of email signature for her “official” email?
I think you better try again at this “acting like an attorney” thing, because this attempt was piss-poor.
(BTW, posing as an attorney to make legals demands constitutes “unauthorized practice of law.” That’s a for-real crime, just so you know.)
That said, the original cover was actually much better. *Sips tea.*
I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t see how simply displaying a book cover on your website would be against the law, fake or not. You weren’t trying to sell it yourself after all.
Oh…my.
So there’s more than one loser in La La Land.
This is EXACTLY how Ulysses Everett McGill got sent to jail, and why he’s no longer bona fide.
Streisand Effect, anyone? Thanks to the complaint, a forgotten lousy book cover is front’n’center again.
Yup, a stupid book I’d have never known existed, hooray! This is a delightful update.
Because ‘Stump Humper’ sounds WAAAAY more classy than ‘Stump Hump,’ Nathan!
And yeah, I agree with will, the first cover WAS better. 🙂
That’s a lot of energy to expend defending an erotica short story called “Stump Humper.”
Top Posts & Pages 7:33AM EST 5 Mar 2017
#1 An interesting exchange
#2 “Stump Hump”
The lawyerly demand to take down a forgotten 2 1/2 year-old post has called more attention to it than it would otherwise have gotten.
If everyone involved were as notable as the parties involved in the Streisand affair (Streisand: stop posting aerial photos of my house, Media: here’s the photos she’s objecting to), this would be a good example for the Wikipedia article on “Streisand effect”.
Lousy Book Covers posts examples of bad covers to expose them to criticism, snark, and positive suggestions. Sometimes these covers are examples of pirated books or stolen art work and LBC is exposing or documenting fraud not perpetrating it. Frauds exposed by LBC have been taken down from sites selling the books, but the LBC book pages are still up documenting the frauds. Taking down the evidence of piracy does not benefit the victims (the Amazon page for “Stump Hump” is gone) but could help cover up the pirates.
The lawyerly demand is based on the mistaken premise that people come to Lousy Book Covers to find books to buy.
People come to Lousy Book Covers to check out the decline and fall of Western Civilization and Art as chronicled by bad book covers.
I am totally going to get that on a T-shirt.
Good for you, Nathan, for standing up to this ditz. Obviously, her “alternate facts” version of actual legal reality is lame, laughable, and a loser. 🙂