Morality aside, one argument for not indulging in book theft is purely personal: you're liable to get ripped off. A lot. Book thieves want you to sign up for 'subscriptions'. In other words to hand over your personal credit card supposedly in return for access to servers that will, in return, feed you 'free' stolen software, music, movie and books. What the mugs who fall for this scam don't appreciate is they're likely to get a lot else in return, from credit card fraud to ID theft.

Surprised? Why? Think about it. These are people trading in stolen goods. And you're going to give them your credit card and personal information? What do you think they're going to do with it?

And here's another truth. They may not even have the contraband they're promising you in the first place. Let me give you an actual example.

It's called Zedload.com and stems. Judging from this screenshot <a href="http://www.zedload.com/david-hewson-nic-costa-series-4-books-pdf-crack-serial-download.html" target="_blank">which you can see for yourself here</a> they have a pretty full portfolio of my work and lots and lots of other stuff too.

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-09.58.54.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-8121" title="Screen shot 2011-04-15 at 09.58.54" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-09.58.54-640x284.png" alt="" width="635" height="281" /></a>

But do they? Try typing anything into Zedload and you'll find they promise they have it. And I mean anything? But if you try to download 'it' they'll either scam your card/email details, sell you some other stuff,  or drop a virus/trojan onto your PC.

They even seem to have a sense of dry humour about their dishonesty. <a href="http://www.zedload.com/search.php?q=yeah+right+like+this+file+really+exists%2C+it+does%3F+Oh+okay+then+I%27ll+download+it...&amp;log=1&amp;x=14&amp;y=17" target="_blank">How about this? </a>

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-10.02.00.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-8123" title="Screen shot 2011-04-15 at 10.02.00" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-10.02.00-640x367.png" alt="" width="635" height="364" /></a>

Ha, ha.

It is, by the way, very easy to nail down the fact they're con artists. Just take a look on the excellent Web of Trust web site which keeps an eye on some of the nasties out there. <a href="http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/zedload.com" target="_blank">Here is the entry for the charmless criminals of Zedload</a>. Among the comments...

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8126" title="Screen shot 2011-04-15 at 10.07.56" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-10.07.56.png" alt="" width="426" height="343" />

These are the people you deal with when you go looking for contraband books, movies, music and software on the web. Lying, thieving criminals. Zedload are hiding in the Czech Republic which probably means they're tied up to some Eastern European crime syndicate (if not, Zedload, please sue me, and for the lying, thieving criminal bit above, because that is, most definitely, aimed at you too).

If the credit card companies had their heads screwed on they'd refuse to reimburse anyone dumb enough, and dishonest enough, to take part in this squalid little game. And, of course, they'd stop crooks like Zedload using them to collect payment in the first place, which they usually will but only when someone finally complains. After which the whole scam resurfaces under another name, of course.

But if you're minded to risk this to get a £3 or £4 book for free don't let me stop you. Perhaps the more people who fall victim to these scammers the sooner others will realise how vile this grimy trade really is.