How I Discovered My Stolen Books and Found $12,000

It seems a while ago we discussed this over here in Meta, AI, & the Indie Author wherein we discovered these books had been stolen from me by LibGen–a pirate site where they were just given away in droves– and then by Anthropic who used them (and so many others) to ‘train’ an AI. Thanks to this article in The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/ I was able to find my books.

At the time, I was pissed, who wouldn’t be? I didn’t realize I was going to get the chance to get my $0.02 for my work but the other day some really official paperwork showed up in my real mailbox. Two nice packets of them one just for me and one for my ‘publisher’ Moon Mistress Publishing (also me!)

I opened it, glanced at it, put it aside, and today I went to the website and started the process of trying to get my $0.02 for the works that were stolen from me.

OR, In THIS CASE….$3,000 EACH! Hot damn! Being an Indie Author might finally have something that looks like a PayDay. I almost fell over when I read that. Seriously. Just nearly hit the floor. I really thought, you know, maybe I’ll get $100.

NOPE.

For the love of all that’s good and righteous in this world, if YOU got one of these notices in the mail…the real mail….FILL IT OUT!

If you remember, LibGen stole these books from me the Anthropic added insult to injury:
The Heart of War
Child of War-A God is Born
Child of War-Rising Son
Christmas Eve on Olympus

Can I just say that one more time please? You can hear Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman if you want because it’s the same amount and I really kinda feel like ‘Vivian’ right now:

THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

(EACH!)

I went over to their website today (https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/) and spent some time there because I kept coming back with this:

Yep, some how, as with the original time I looked this up, A God is Born and Rising Son have been combined. I NEVER put those two books together. At one time you could get Heart and A God is Born in one download but not this. At one time, you could get the whole series in one download but that’s long gone. I cannot find Christmas Eve on Olympus.

I looked at their main screen again and decided to try looking things up by their numbers; ASIN, ISBN, LOC. That meant I had to open my files to get two of those numbers. I think I found the problem, although Rising Son does have it’s own LOC and ISBN, I didn’t publish it correctly in the final files. Nope, missing a few numbers.

Damn.

I went to https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/ so I could look up my own copyright numbers. This is a very handy thing. I typed in my name, my list popped up, again, I almost hit the floor! I thought I was being scammed. I thought someone copyrighted an old book….FOR me?

Probably not.

• Full Title: Burning embers /Lisa Beth Darling.
• Registration Number:TXu000413423
• Date:1990-04-18
• Type of Work: Text
• Claimant:Lisa Beth Darling-Gorman.

Yeah, that’s my very first copyright ever back in 1990. So long ago I forgot I had done it. All this time I thought The Heart of War was the first book I’d ever copyrighted. It wasn’t. Yeah, no, Burning Embers won’t be part of this class action suit because it has never seen the Digital World. Not sitting in that suitcase with Save Me from the Roses, what’s left of my Elvis and Historical memorabilia collections it won’t.

Anyway, I got all of my numbers; ISBN, ASIN, and LOC, then wrote an email to the lawyer’s office asking what I should do since the two books had been, erroneously, combined into 1 file.

After that, of course it was after I hit ‘send’, I noticed Christmas Eve on Olympus is missing from their database. So, looking like an idiot, I had to send a second email trying to straighten that out. If so, that’s 4 books.

4 x 3=12

I tell you what, I would not mind walking away with a very cool 12k! By now, I’m owed that much money in just what’s been pirated away from me by unscrupulous and very cheapass people who read my stuff FREE for YEARS (not just OF WAR but ALL of my books) and then some even cheaper jerkwad steals it to totally profit off of. Look, it’s one thing if someone downloaded it free, read it, and enjoyed it then went on with their life. It’s another if someone downloads it free, never reads it, never enjoys it, but, instead uses it to make money.

MY friggin’ MONEY.

NOT THEIRS.

Please listen to me here if you’re an Indie Author…or an author at all…check this out! Even if you think there’s only a snowball’s chance…do it. Go. Now. Stake your claim if you find it. Don’t let them get away with this. It’s YOUR money. YOU earned it.

Go get it.