[ebookpirate]

MaggieScratch
.....! I maintain that a lot of the people who downloaded it on the darknet not only would not have bought the book, likely they will never read it. They are collectors.

........But they MUST HAVE EVERY PATTERN. ........... It's a form of OCD, I guess. I think a lot of darknet e-book collectors operate from the same place. I do it myself a bit with the free books here at MobileRead. I'll see a book that looks interesting and I download it and I have no idea when or if I'll get to it, but maybe I will someday, and there is plenty of room on my SD card, so why not?

So my point (and I do have one) is that there's no use stressing over illegal downloads too much, because the sales you lose are infinitesimal compared to the bad will you will engender with actual readers if you treat them like criminals by locking up your ebooks with restrictive DRM. I'd rather see authors turning their energies to finding a better solution. I'm not sure what it is, but complaining about a tiny minority snatching the bread from your mouth is not it.

I DEFINITELY agree. I myself have a partial OCD complex. I don't care if the book is bad, if it's so and so author and the DL is free, I MUST DL it. Sometimes, I'll also DL other authors' works since, yeah, i have the HD space. I never actually READ most of my free DL'ded ebooks - I hardly have the time in my busy life - who does? - but sometimes in the future when it's talked about positively on a website or when I'm searching for certain books, if that author and book pop up, I"ll look thru my HD and WHOAH, I ACTUALLY HAVE IT!! So i'll go to read it. If i like it, i'll add that author to my "buy" list, whether it's ebooks or pbooks.

pilotbob
Have sales gone down since the non-DRM files (iTunes Plus and Amazon MP3 store) opened? I'm thinking no, sales have increased at iTunes month over month, year over year, even with nonDRM files out there. Yes, people still pirate, but buyers still buy. DRM only hurts the legit customers.

Oh so true. If I see my favorite author's ebook DRM-infested, I'll head over to the darknet. I don't care how much it costs, I'm not here to rent. I'm here to own my books. I consider myself an e-booklover and have shifted away from pbooks and now read exclusively ebooks.

Shaggy
............What many people are saying is that the concept of creating something that is trivial for anybody to copy/distribute and trying to make a living off of artificially limiting the supply is doomed to failure. As with any other profession, you need to earn your living by either doing or producing something that people can't easily do themselves. That's what provides your product/service with value.

It's not that you're doing more work for the same profit, it's that the original item (the easily copied/distributed intellectual property) doesn't have much profit potential because there's little financial value in it. In order to make a profit, you need to do other things.

I really can't agree with that. The author is still needed in order to create the stories no matter what the medium. As long as their books are sold online as ebooks at a reasonable price in a non-infested e-format, pirates have better things to do - they're consumers, too - and EVERY ebook consumer will just buy the ebooks.

MaggieScratch
On the other side we have Cory Doctorow. I appreciate Cory's position on ebooks and DRM but at the same time, giving away free electronic versions of all your books as a loss-leader to get people to purchase the hard copy books essentially devalues the electronic edition. I don't think that's quite the right approach, either. Making electronic editions of books worthless certainly will put an end to piracy--technically--since you can't pirate what is yours to freely trade, but it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater IMO. Ebooks should be on a par with at least MMPBs, I think.

I agree. I first read a publisher, Rob Preece, I think who stated that the ebook should be OVERvalued because it had more benefits than the pbook and after being shocked for a while, i thought it over and I agree.

The ebook is a DIFFERENT animal from the pbook. The ebook is portable, content can be accessed IMMEDIATELY rather than weeks shipped to you online or you paying for cargas to the large bookstore or library 5 miles away, no storage is needed thereby saving you storage dollars, font size can be changed without needing printing of a "Large Print" edition, many books can be stored without having to carry a luggage -full (again portability), access from anywhere in the world by just finding a coffee internet cafe, ability to buy a deeply backlisted work from an obscure author so consumer choices has increased, reading content from a 1980 or earlier book in ebook form is easier rather than going thru an old, mangled, yellow-papered, stained, binding falling apart, pbook which you have to be careful with.

Obviously, you can't charge more for an ebook than its pbook version since you want to stimulate more ebook sales, but neither can you put it under lock and key at a price equivalent or only slightly discounted from the hardcover format.

So my take is this, ebooks should be correctly valued. If the hardcover edition is $30, then the ebook edition should NOT be free but it should not be ridiculously priced either at $30 or above and it should not be in an infested format in a "lock and key" method such as DRM or a proprietary format. This just opens up the avenue for pirates to come at it at a cost of FREE in an OPEN format where consumers can do ANYTHING ANYWHERE with their FREED ebooks. Instead, the ecost should be perhaps $15 or less in, again, a non-infested format with perhaps a mixture of ads supporting it. I'm willing to go for ads and I'm sure many consumers are since it brings a reduction in cost. This already happens with television, radio, newspapers, magazines, reading articles online, etc.


Shaggy
There is no such thing as DRM that can't be broken, there is no solution that will work. As a programmer, you should know this. Going down that path is a losing battle that just acts to delay the inevitable.

I agree, but again, if the price for ebooks is reasonable in a non-infested format, there would be no need for pirates to step in to fill that market.

tirsales
Can it be broken? Yes. Even when using hard cryptografic approaches (each device with a given security-chip and a book-encryption specific to that chip, etc). Will most people break it? No. Not if the deal is fair - e.g. reading the book on multiple readers in your family, etc

Agreed.

shaggy
The idea is that a significant part of the price for physical books today are for things that no longer exist with ebooks, but the music companies and book publishers are not wanting to change.

I think the publishers ARE changing, at least for some genres. I was looking for a few romance books online and EVERYONE of the books I was looking for was in ebook form and at a reasonable price. Publishers may be scared and that's why the ebooks are available online, but I consider that a good thing. With more people doing more things online and on their computers and laptops and other devices, it has to follow that the publishers must also move their e-wares online.

AnemicOak
Some publishers (Hatchette Book Groups Orbit line for example) are cutting a few bucks off of pbook list prices on their ebooks. For example Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series books are $6.99 list as MMPB's, but $4.99 list as ebooks. Jennifer Rardin's Jaz Parks books are $12.99 list as Trade PB's, but $8.99 list as ebooks. Some other publishers are starting to try lower list on ebooks too, it's a start if nothing else (it's the biggies like Penguin that are the most guilty on pricing issues).

I agree. Price matters. If I can get a price discount online for a pbook that's not closed/infested, then I'll buy the ebook. Let's say the pbook is $20 but the ebook is $12, then I'll buy the ebook, but if the ebook is at $15 or more, then i'll head over to the darknet.

So yes, I can get that ebook for free at the darknet, but if the price is reasonable and the format is, again, not closed/infested, then consumers will buy them. After all, I'm looking for quality as well as content. I trust the publisher to give me quality content. This proves a positive experience for me such that I will come back AGAIN AND AGAIN to the publisher's website or designated e-tail stores to buy more ebooks. The publisher wins, the author wins, and the consumer wins.