An Update to the LendInk Author List

Aug 16, 2012 | Opinions

THIS POST WILL BE UPDATED AS AND WHEN I RECEIVE MORE INFORMATION. LEAVE NOTES IN THE COMMENTS HERE.

I’ve decided to go through the list and record who among the guilty have apologised for the LendInk fiasco, mostly because I want the world at large to see who’s doing the right thing. I’m checking this by doing a google search for the author’s name and ‘lendink’ and by trying to find their site and most recent updates. Much obliged to A.B. Dada for his work in getting screenshots – full credit at his site here.

If I mark an author down as ‘nothing’, it means they were involved but I cannot find any apology or further information for them.

UPDATE 8/20/2012 – I’ve received an email from an author who is being harassed and threatened. Although I will not remove any names from this list, I want to say this again: nothing, NOTHING, justifies that kind of behavior. For many of the authors below, to the best of my knowledge, the extent of their involvement was a single tweet or Facebook post and nothing more, unless I have noted otherwise. If you can’t express your displeasure without resorting to harassment, then you are far lower than them and you have my complete and utter contempt. 

Some things to note

All of the authors listed posted at least an attack on LendInk on Facebook or Twitter, to the best of my knowledge. Many have deleted those posts and tweets. Many also sent either Cease and Desists or DMCA takedowns to LendInk’s host, though we will never know the full extent of that.

I have seen more godawful websites in the last few hours than I’ve seen in the entire year previous to this. I can count the ones that I would consider at an acceptable minimum standard for a professional site on the fingers of one hand. Authors, please, please get a professional to do your site! There were also more than a few for which I couldn’t find a site at all!

Although all these authors are culpable in some way, please reserve your ire for the ones listed in bold. They are the ones who don’t regret their actions, to the best of my knowledge.

If you believe that the authors listed below who have apologised have done so in good faith, then I ask that you forgive them. They may not deserve a pat on the back for doing the right thing, but they certainly don’t deserve your hate.

One argument was made by John Davis that LendInk did not have permission to display the book covers, hence the takedown was justified. I believe this is false; Amazon’s T&Cs cover this kind of usage. See my comment here.

(As an aside, it looks like the personal attacks are mostly happening on Facebook right now. For shame, people. You can express your feelings about this without resulting to name-calling.)

One final word on all this.

I want to give a shout out to the authors on Facebook who defended LendInk in the face of the angry hordes. I’m sure that couldn’t have been easy.

  • Philip Catshill, for repeating himself endlessly that LendLink was just a referral site and telling them how to use it
  • Michelle Poet for her support, and for starting the #DoTheRightThing tag on Twitter
  • Alberto Garbino for arguing with them
  • Ben Bookbinder for arguing with them
  • Martin Dooley for telling them over and over again that they agreed to lending when they signed up to Amazon
  • Kinnear David for telling them to use the site and see how it worked
  • Doc Mordin for linking the Amazon TOS that points out where it says they’re allowed to lend