Piracy Experiment

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Retail quality is said of an ebook that is not just put together by fans or pirates but actually purchased then made available online. It is by definition the best quality version available. With table of content, complete text and nice formatting.

I think you are wrong here. Purchased ebooks can be of very poor quality, with lots of OCR errors and a formatting that would make you cry. Fan-made ebooks can be of very good quality, throroughly proofread, with additional content (maps, illustrations), etc. You are probably assuming that a purchased ebook has the same "quality" as the printed book, but this is often not true.

It can get more dramatic when we come to public-domain works. In our library you can find proofread well-formatted versions of many books, with a much better quality than a purchased ebook, which is often a straight conversion of the Project Gutenberg version. It is even possible to find printed books that contain the same errors as the PG version, and with a terrible formatting.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by astra

Many so called pirates, a.k.a. lammers are here

Fortunately or unfortunately one doesn't need to be an expert in anything to be able to avail oneself of the liberated reading material out there.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Thanks for the link. I hadn't realised that they had been messed about quite so much. It makes me even more surprised that there isn't a British English version anywhere in the torrents.

Maybe there is, but all the collectors just keep pushing out the American ones instead.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by wannabee

Great, just sent a report to my managers arguing against DRM on our entire range of ebooks about to be released and found this thread less than 24 hours later. I know anyone can circumvent DRM if they want to but my argument was the majority of readers are honest.

The majority of readers don't care one way or the other. It is convenience that is most important to them. Take that away and you really shouldn't be surprised if they look elsewhere.

Originally Posted by wannabee

Another point. I accept that pirates pass on pirated material but if it was your hard earned money that bought that ebook or Adobe program how quick will you break that DRM and pass it on for free?

You'd be surprised how many will. I've also seen them posted with DRM still intact.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by abookreader

I really don't know what all the squabbling is about "Retail" but the fact that it has to be justified is not true. This is my copy of the Clan of the Cave Bear bought from Amazon on October 7, 2010 for $1.59 - put in Calibre and now living as a Mobi file. I'll post my receipt if you insist. As you can see, not justified.

The only difference I can see with yours and the one I looked at is there is a line under the chapter number. It would be interesting to compare the number of spelling mistakes in the fan-made version against the number in the retail version, but it's not something I would be interested in reading.

[jessicalynn]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

(I have never read specifically about the music industry's experience with this issue. But as I understand it, ten years ago Napster was used mostly by kids in high school and college, not 30-year-olds. But I suspect that those people, now in their 30s, continue to use the darknet for their music because they became accustomed to doing so back then.)

My conclusion is that it is imperative for the publishers to ensure that their eBooks are high quality. The ball is in their court.

I was in high school during the whole napster thing. However, now that I'm older and itunes exists, why would I pirate music now that I 1)know better and 2) can get it easily, legally, and virus free? I don't really know many people my age that still pirate music.

[jerrywojo]

Originally Posted by TGS

Fortunately or unfortunately one doesn't need to be an expert in anything to be able to avail oneself of the liberated reading material out there.

I'll also add that anyone tapping torrents or usenet is essentially wasting their time. And the quantity of available titles is abysmal....5000 books yea right.

The vast majority of folks haven't a clue on how to obtain any sort material off the internet. Although easy for some of "us" for most it can be impossible for most. And those clueless few who wade in well....

One thing I have found during my "experiments" are the seemingly endless supply of out of print vintage titles still under copyright. So essentially in order to read these you either....

A) Hope your local library system has it

B) Find it via the used book market

C) Collectible book market $$$$


or D) for Darknet.

I use A and B for most if not all of reading needs. Used C when I was collecting pulp. And only use D when all else fails.

D usually comes into play for me when I'm unable to find Book One of a series,etc.

The darknet can be enticing. However used sparingly and wisely it can be a good source. And sometimes the only source for out of print and rare titles unavailable elsewhere.

just sayin,

[Anthem]

Oops.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

You have something you like, you want to share it. You benefit from others sharing their stuff with you, so you share your stuff with them. As simple as that. Money has nothing to do with it.

1. There's a book you'd like to read or some music you'd like to listen to, but you don't want to pay anyone who actually worked to produce it. So you take it.

Unless the item is genuinely not available, money has almost everything to do with it. Pirates set up elaborate justifications for their stealing - like that the publishers are really stealing from the authors, or that copyright is broken. But they know that stealing is bad and are simply looking for some way to pretend that what they're doing is somehow virtuous because they're sticking it to the man. What they're really doing, of course, is sticking it to the author or musician.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CrayWolf

Sounds like the books you found were scanned and OCR'd from print versions of the book, and nobody bothered to edit them. (Not surpising - editing OCR text is a lot of work.)

I'm surprised there aren't more pirate releases of official ePub and Mobi books, frankly. Seems a lot easier.

Actually, it sounds like a poor conversion from a PDF copy. Probably the PDF was gotten at a library and then poorly converted.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

The Female Body Inspectors?

What's the TSA got to do with this?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Really ? then you won't have any trouble finding, hmm ... say the complete set of 5 books by Jean M. Auel, retail quality of course, called the Earth Children's series (The clan of the cave bear, The mammoth hunters, The valley of horses etc ...) in epub of course. If 99% of the stuff is out there, then this one should be easy considering it's very popular.
So do you take my challenge ? PM me the results if you wish (or write them here if it's not against the rules )

No need, I can get it at the library for free, strip the DRM and send it out if I wanted to. No problem at all.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by wannabee

I know anyone can circumvent DRM if they want to but my argument was the majority of readers are honest.

Another point. I accept that pirates pass on pirated material but if it was your hard earned money that bought that ebook or Adobe program how quick will you break that DRM and pass it on for free?

The question isn't "How hard can I make if for dishonest people to copy my ebook without paying?", because the answer is "You can't make it hard at all".

The question is "How easy can I make it for my paying customers to get and read my ebook?" to which the answer is "A lot easier without DRM!"

Really. There's no point in worrying about the ebooks appearing in torrents and pirate web sites. That's going to happen. The only thing that you should be worrying about is how good an experience you can make it for your paying customers. Well formatted, well proofed, multiple format (at least Kindle/Mobipocket and ePub) and DRM-free is the way to make customers happy.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Well I can assure you that what you found is NOT Retail quality
Retail quality is said of an ebook that is not just put together by fans or pirates but actually purchased then made available online. It is by definition the best quality version available. With table of content, complete text and nice formatting.
So I stand by what I said: Pirated Retail quality ebooks do exist but they are a small minority.
As for low or bad quality copies out there, they are no match to the Retail one can purchase on official sites thus I don't consider it worth worrying about for publishers or raving about for pirates.

Let's be honest here. Some scan/OCR eBooks can be very good. And some can be very poor. And then we have the in-between types. Also, I've seen some retail eBooks very poor. In fact, I downloaded one from the library earlier today that I would think was a poor ePub conversion from a poorly formatted scan/OCR if I didn't know where it came from. So retail is not an indicator of quality. It should be, but it's not.

[rcuadro]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Really ? then you won't have any trouble finding, hmm ... say the complete set of 5 books by Jean M. Auel, retail quality of course, called the Earth Children's series (The clan of the cave bear, The mammoth hunters, The valley of horses etc ...) in epub of course. If 99% of the stuff is out there, then this one should be easy considering it's very popular.
So do you take my challenge ? PM me the results if you wish (or write them here if it's not against the rules )

Not in ePub but I found them in PDF... though I am going to remain mute as to their location