Dilemma

[nekokami]

Someone wanting to start a "writer's publisher" would need to get some of the best editors to come on board. I know quite a few writers who are very happy with their working relationships with their editors and would stay with them wherever they went... or stay with them at the traditional publishers, if that's where they stayed.

[vivaldirules]

Considering the results of this poll, maybe we would be more honest with ourselves if the new Mobile Read tagline were something like: Mobile Read - Come here to learn how to read your pirated ebooks on the fly!

[mrkai]

Throw that into the mix as well then.

Really, my thing here is about looking at how these emerging markets take off and exploiting them as opposed to shying away from them and becoming marginalized.

Look at digital music.

That APPLE is the leader in this space at at least 3 glances seems completely nuts, let alone first glance. But if you look at the history of the market, you see the failings of the music and CE industry before apple.

Its funny. A tech company actually came up with a product that actually, for awhile, had the 'digerati' buying CDs again instead of pulling music off napster and instead of the music industry looking at this data and scooping them up, they utterly crushed them...

and I'm not talking about Napster and the file-sharing.

Michael Richardson of mp3.com fame saw a problem. People were not buying cds...they were illegally downloading music.

He also noticed that people were buying cds and ripping them to play on an emerging class of portable players, like the nomad and the rio and such.

Michael asked the *right question* for the market and the music companies (at the time) which was this:

"How do you get people to buy Cds instead of downloading them?"

He came up with an idea that was brilliant...but ultimately flawed...and was a two-pronged attack. People liked to rip cds, but in those days, re-encoding them into mp3 was a bit pokey.

He devised a service that basically killed two birds with one stone. One was a service where in you signed up, inserted a cd that you owned into your computer which ws scanned, and were given instant access to the music on it in mp3 format. No need to rip, it was already done for you, saving precious time and cycles. Just download them.

The other tho, attacked the music sales problem. mp3.com partnered with resellers that if you bought the cd from them, they would transmit this info to mp3.com. You could then download the music right then and start listening before your cd turned up in the mail a few days later.

The record industry had a FIT. The model was good. It served customers that either had physical product in hand, or that were confirmed to have purchased, and as such, owned the cd in question.

No one could argue this. What they COULD argue tho, was that mp3.com did not have redistribution rights. It was "fair use" for the owner of the CD to rip it themselves but a copyright violation for a 3rd party to distro ripped music. This won them the case but opened up a can of worms that they did not foresee or expect...

Instead of taking this proven winning strategy for SALES (mp3.com was making a nice bit of change off this deal for the service and a small piece off the B&M sales tie-in) of CDs while satisifying the needs of the emerging DAP market and controlling it...what did they do?

They became obsessed with stamping out "file sharing"...killed, then bought Napster ("the value was in the Napster 'brand'"...as opposed to what Napster provided. Morons. Worms fill the gap...in spades.) and produced products that no one wanted in the form of Musicnet and Napster 2.0.

So some "fruit company" in California that wasn't at all interested in preserving their old business model in music (Sony by this time had absorbed much of Sony Pictures nee Columbia execs into its CE ranks...suckers so became hamstringed by the content people's interests crippling CE products that people actually wanted to buy...a problem that plagues them to this day) but embracing a new one, had the foresight to buy a piece of MP3 player software from a small-to-midsized software company and made it as the jukebox for their new DAP thing called an "iPod".

And what THAT thing did was allow you to easily convert your CDs and get them into the player. They THEN had the nerve and good sense to play up this value-added feature ('Rip. Mix. Burn.) and the wisdom to get *musicians*...you know, the people customers and fans identify with, to back it up.

The publishing biz could really, REALLY benefit by looking at how this all went down and why it worked.

It didn't start with DRM...it started with market acceptance and penetration of a "walkman alternative" so that there would be a market for the damned content

Sorry about the tangent.

But yeah, ok, authors and top-tier editors.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Considering the results of this poll, maybe we would be more honest with ourselves if the new Mobile Read tagline were something like: Mobile Read - Come here to learn how to read your pirated ebooks on the fly!

I'm not sure how serious you were about this comment. It may just be cynicism caused by frustration. I can certainly relate to that. However, I do think it needs addressing, if for no other reason than that Google users see things out of context.

I really don't think that characterizes the community or its participants very accurately. Sure, there are some rather loud participants in some of the threads who at least appear to lean toward that characterization (though not necessarily, once context is taken into account), but I'm confident that the overwhelming majority do not. And while many of them remain silent because most DRM- and copyright-related threads become exceedingly distasteful in rather short order, they take the time and effort to at least pose a contrary view. That effort can be gut-wrenching, at times, and those who make the effort should be applauded, even if we don't agree with every aspect of their views.

I'm confident that the MobileRead site and its community overwhelming do not advocate pirating e-books or violating the rights of writers or those to whom they've assigned rights. There is no "us" and "them" in this issue, no matter how many misguided posters want to convince people of the contrary. Not all writers agree on these issues, nor do all publishers, nor do all e-book users. In fact, there are vast differences of opinion just within the ranks of editors that work for the large publishing houses.

Polls here only measure a self-selecting pool of participants. Many will ignore the entire thread simply because they know how it will go--how it's been going for at least a decade, at least. One can't be too quick to color an entire community over something like that, just as one can't be too quick to judge an entire person over an off-hand comment.

[mrkai]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Considering the results of this poll, maybe we would be more honest with ourselves if the new Mobile Read tagline were something like: Mobile Read - Come here to learn how to read your pirated ebooks on the fly!

There certainly doesn't seem to be any content in this regard here that I have seen.

[vivaldirules]

I'm quite sure the intent of the forum is to stay legal and ethical. I'm only pointing out that the poll results reveal that two-thirds of those who took it are apparently comfortable with the idea of downloading pirated ebooks. That would suggest that some (many?) who come here do so at least in part to learn how to use Sony Readers, Amazon Kindles, their mobile phones, etc. to convert and read their pirated ebooks on these devices. From the comments in this and other threads, I think the word above is many and not some.

[DMcCunney]

Your poll does not include "None of the above".

I love the Urth of the New Sun series, and have it in hardcover, autographed by Wolfe. If I didn't have it, I'd happily buy the paper editions. I have more stuff in electronic format now than I have time to read, so I don't get upset if a particular work isn't available electronically.

Moral questions aside, I don't care for Darknet editions. They would require more work than I wish to perform to put into a format I would want to read electronically.
______
Dennis

[mrkai]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I'm only pointing out that the poll results reveal that two-thirds of those who took it are apparently comfortable with the idea of downloading pirated ebooks.

I was referring to nekokami's poll i believe.

The poll attached to this thread however was very cynical and was flawed and the creator admitted it as such.

There are only "negative answers" amongst the questions asked. Look at the questions again. The participants are asked to "pick an evil"...there are no "good" options to weigh in on.

Any conclusions you draw from such a poll would be confirmation bias. Note that my response was "No Go" as I stated in an earlier response.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by mrkai

There are only "negative answers" amongst the questions asked. Look at the questions again. The participants are asked to "pick an evil"...there are no "good" options to weigh in on.

While option 1 may not be a "good" option, I don't think I'd characterize it as an evil.

[mrkai]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I'm only pointing out that the poll results reveal that two-thirds of those who took it are apparently comfortable with the idea of downloading pirated ebooks.

The majority of the respondents stated that their choice would be for the author to be remunerated by a direct purchase on their part, or an indirect royalty via a book borrowed from the library.

You see? You are browbeating *customers* here...you do realize this, right?

-K

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by mrkai

You see? You are browbeating *customers* here...you do realize this, right?

I think your bias is showing. How is vivaldirules "browbeating" anyone? It was a single, simple statement, and a factual one, at that. Two of the choices, answered by 29 respondents, as of this writing, selected an answer that included downloading e-books from the darknet. That pretty much translates to "comfortable with the idea of downloading pirated ebooks".

While I don't agree with the conclusion being drawn, I certainly wouldn't characterize pointing it out as "browbeating".

[astra]

Originally Posted by mrkai

I was referring to nekokami's poll i believe.

The poll attached to this thread however was very cynical and was flawed and the creator admitted it as such.

There are only "negative answers" amongst the questions asked. Look at the questions again. The participants are asked to "pick an evil"...there are no "good" options to weigh in on.

Any conclusions you draw from such a poll would be confirmation bias. Note that my response was "No Go" as I stated in an earlier response.

What type of positive answer would you suggest?

There is only one answer that is not included - read printed book. I said from the beginning, I do not want to read printed book. As someone said,

I am not to go to 56K modem from 20M broadband

If I don't want to read a printed book but would like to stay 100% legal and ethical, I have to give up. Forget about the book and wait until someone publish a legal ebook. If you read poll options carefully, you will have notice that it is the very first option of the poll. How more positive can it be?
You lost me.

[mrkai]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

I think your bias is showing. How is vivaldirules "browbeating" anyone? It was a single, simple statement, and a factual one, at that. Two of the choices, answered by 29 respondents, as of this writing, selected an answer that included downloading e-books from the darknet. That pretty much translates to "comfortable with the idea of downloading pirated ebooks".

While I don't agree with the conclusion being drawn, I certainly wouldn't characterize pointing it out as "browbeating".

Whatever.

All of the moralizing is beyond tiring at this point.

"I want an option that gets the author paid and the product i want. I am not willing to rip off the author, so I will buy a copy of the book" only equates to, as he put it "Mobile Read - Come here to learn how to read your pirated ebooks on the fly!" and "That would suggest that some (many?) who come here do so at least in part to learn how to use Sony Readers, Amazon Kindles, their mobile phones, etc. to convert and read their pirated ebooks on these devices."

To me, me being Kai, the use of the words "pirate/pirated" has a sh*tty connotation that these PARTICULAR PEOPLE specifically, and the general membership here don't deserve, because they aren't stealing from the authors or the publishers.

Pirates buy NOTHING. They pay for NOTHING. They do not give a damn if anyone gets paid or not. It's what they do; it's how they roll.

And before ANYONE rolls a conclusion from the above, my Sony reader has PD books and political documents on it (like the constitution), fanfiction and exactly ONE paid for book (sigh...connect) which is "I Am America (And So Can You)" and NOTHING ELSE commercial.

Like someone else said...it must be wonderful to have such a fully developed unwaivering sense of right and wrong. I envy those that know everything about everything and how all cases are clear.

And ANOTHER thing. I think, for the benefit of people that do NOT live in the US or UK or wherever, the whole "legality" vein is disrespectful to people that don't live in either of these two places. As people have pointed out time and time again, laws are different in different countries and many of these discussions seem to take US and UK law as some sort of moral high ground...and that's not right either.

Anyone that would make a choice, a personal choice on a personal level to do what it takes to put money in the pocket of the author of a book should not be treated in the cavalier way many folks like vivaldirules does.

Given the options before them, they don't HAVE to do this. They choose to. they shouldn't browbeaten (yeah i said it again) for making a moral choice that puts money in the pockets of authors they support.

[mrkai]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

What type of positive answer would you suggest?

All these damned polls and threads I was thinking about Steve's poll which I had just looked at when replying to yours.

I did the same thing before; i had clicked the link in nekokami's sig and was talking about THAT one on THIS thread.

[astra]

Originally Posted by mrkai

All these damned polls and threads I was thinking about Steve's poll which I had just looked at when replying to yours.

I did the same thing before; i had clicked the link in nekokami's sig and was talking about THAT one on THIS thread.

OK