How ArewaPen protects your writing from piracy
Piracy is a genuine concern for any author who has spent months writing a book. The WhatsApp-era of sharing chapters meant almost no protection—anyone could screenshot, copy, and redistribute your work with zero friction. ArewaPen was designed with this problem in mind.
Platform access controls. ArewaPen's "App Only" setting restricts a book from appearing on the web version of the platform, requiring the Android app to read it. The app makes text selection and screenshotting significantly harder than a web browser. For authors publishing highly sensitive or commercially valuable content, App Only is worth considering for paid chapters.
Purchase binding. Paid chapters are tied to the purchasing user's account. They cannot be shared as standalone files because the reader must be authenticated to access the chapter. There is no downloadable file—the content is rendered within the platform's secure reader.
Reporting and takedown. If your content appears on another platform or website without your permission, ArewaPen has a takedown request process. Email info@arewapen.com with the original publication URL (your ArewaPen chapter), the infringing URL, and a brief statement that you are the copyright owner. We prioritise these requests.
What you can do as an author. Watermarking your cover image with your ArewaPen username makes it harder for people to repost your cover and pass the book off as their own. Publishing a clear copyright notice in your book description ("© [Year] [Your Name]. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.") is not technically enforceable everywhere, but it signals seriousness and deters casual piracy.
Copyright law and digital content. Your writing is protected by Nigerian copyright law the moment it is created—you do not need to register it. The Copyright Act protects original literary works. If someone commercially exploits your work without permission, you have legal recourse. The practical challenge is enforcement, which is why platform-side controls matter more for day-to-day protection than legal threats.
The honest reality. No platform can eliminate all piracy. The goal is to make copying inconvenient enough that the vast majority of readers simply use the legitimate platform instead. ArewaPen's controls achieve this for most threat vectors. The readers who are determined to pirate were never going to pay anyway. Focus your energy on the much larger group of readers who will pay when it is easy and convenient to do so.