If Piracy Were an Issue, Media Companies Would Change

[xg4bx]

give people a solid product at a fair price and they'll buy it. thats the way its always been and the way it always will be.

treating people like criminal scum is a self-fulfilling prophecy. the more you restrict or overcharge your customers the more they'll look for workarounds.

[MikeB1972]

I've always thought that if they allow ereaders to share books with other ereaders, but only via bluetooth, then that would pretty much solve everyones problem.

You can still share books with close friends and family that you know, but not with everyone on facebook.

Library lending could be done the same way as well, so you have to physically go into the library (like you always had to with pbooks).

My library is only about 50 yards from me and I still can't be bothered going there to see if they happen to have a book I want, easier to order it online, although with ebook lending the process is about the same effort as buying the book so more people will do it (I can see why publishers are worried about libraries in a digital world)

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

give people a solid product at a fair price and they'll buy it. thats the way its always been and the way it always will be.

treating people like criminal scum is a self-fulfilling prophecy. the more you restrict or overcharge your customers the more they'll look for workarounds.

True words.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Er, you and I kniow that we aren't talking about husbands and wives sharing books or a someone lending a book to a co worker.

Are you saying I can easily & legally share an ebook with a co-worker?

I can easily share them with my spouse--because I don't do DRM--but according to the site TOS, that's not permitted either.

If these things are supposed to be allowed, why don't the sites selling ebooks say that OF COURSE you can share your ebooks with immediate family members and perhaps a few other people, rather than saying I "may not distribute them to other people using email, floppy, or any other method" or "This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient."

I am not buying extra copies for my spouse to read.

We would be talking about sharing ebooks with college buddies, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, listservs-in short , sharing ebooks the way we now share blog posts, jokes, emails, etc.

YOU would perhaps be talking about "posting the ebook on a blog for all readers." I was talking about "sharing a book with my close friends, like I have always done with print books." DRM impedes this.

Please indicate the DRM method that allows sharing with a small but amorphous group of people without threat of legal repercussion.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Spindlegirl, you misunderstand. Its not about what you would do ( It never was) . Its about how most unsophisticated consumers would share files. See my post directly above.

Stonetools, she did not misunderstand your viewpoint. She (and people like her) are being treated as "collateral damage" in your war against piracy. They are required to put up with anything you deem necessary to protect the "property" (actually a monopoly) involved, even though they are the very people you serve.

In any other non-monopoly business, that model would go broke in weeks.

[CyGuy]

Sharing a book with a family member (or even a close friend) comes at the discretion of the purchaser, NOT the seller/publisher/agent/author. If the purchaser was to start selling copies or uploading the files to the Internet then there is a valid complaint.

This whole pay-per-read is just so much nonsense.

If one member of a family purchases an ebook why in the world would they purchase copy 2 and copy 3 in order to loan it to another family member to read? That is simply illogical, it just does not add up. How can something so simple and so obvious be lost on so many? Has common sense gone the way of the Dodo? Are we destined to be a country of the corp, by the corp, and for the corp? Seriously, where did everyone go?

[Bittybye]

I do share with my mom, her Kindle in on my account, which as far as I know is perfectly legal. I've even let my friend borrow my Kobo to read a short story. And my aunt was visiting me and allowed me to borrow her Nook to read a book that at the time was geo-restricted from Canada. Not piracy but I'm sure publishers would want to punish me for that.

I just want to know why they aren't going after used book stores? They don't get paid for the books sold there. And everyone knows those dastardly used book store owners are making a profit (something that from what I understand most pirate sites don't) off the backs of the poor publishers.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

I just want to know why they aren't going after used book stores? They don't get paid for the books sold there. And everyone knows those dastardly used book store owners are making a profit (something that from what I understand most pirate sites don't) off the backs of the poor publishers.

Megaupload made 12 mio US in a year from advertising (if I remember correctly), Pirate bay presumably makes a lot more than that. Their owners are living the lives of bankers with big bonuses, not the lives of second hand bookstore owners. Piracy is big business, time to wake up and smell the coffee. We are not talking about some poor souls who run the website on an old PC from their mothers' basements with a mission to selflessly spread the love. And every time you visit such a site you are supporting those leeches and not the authors.

It is ridiculous to compare used book stores to those websites. As you can tell with cars, the value of second hand items enhanced the value of the new one. And besides, the authors already have been paid for that single copy.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

This whole pay-per-read is just so much nonsense.

If one member of a family purchases an ebook why in the world would they purchase copy 2 and copy 3 in order to loan it to another family member to read? That is simply illogical, it just does not add up. How can something so simple and so obvious be lost on so many? Has common sense gone the way of the Dodo? Are we destined to be a country of the corp, by the corp, and for the corp? Seriously, where did everyone go?

And yet even a small company like Smashwords (13 employees) states such in their TOS. I confirmed it with them in writing. If another family member wants to read, they must purchase their own copy or borrow your device. This is in exchange for DRM-free and reasonable pricing on their offerings.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Fbone

And yet even a small company like Smashwords (13 employees) states such in their TOS. I confirmed it with them in writing. If another family member wants to read, they must purchase their own copy or borrow your device. This is in exchange for DRM-free and reasonable pricing on their offerings.

There's one small publisher I know whose ebooks on Smashwords cost considarably less. Newest book is 7.99 USD on Smashwords and 21.99 USD in print. Another is 5 USD vs. 21.99 USD.

At that reasonable price it's a pleasure to buy a second copy for someone else (and support the small publisher and the authors - and Smashwords, too).

Plus it's totally hassle free - no geo restriction, no DRM, no nothing.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by Fbone

And yet even a small company like Smashwords (13 employees) states such in their TOS. I confirmed it with them in writing. If another family member wants to read, they must purchase their own copy or borrow your device. This is in exchange for DRM-free and reasonable pricing on their offerings.

nothing against smashwords but we live in the real world here.

don't watch a dvd with a friend, they're stealing it and should buy their own copy. its not licensed for public broadcast. don't cook them a meal that used a recipe you got in a cookbook either, thats stealing the work of the author and the right thing to do is tell them to buy the book and cook it themselves.

"hey man, this metallica cd is awesome!"

"cool. take off your headphones and put it on the stereo so we can both listen."

"sorry dude, thats stealing. this cd is licensed for my use only so you'll have to buy your own or wait until i'm done to listen."

*gets punched*



how far are we willing to go with this? i may come off like a flippant ass but i'm merely trying to follow the line of thought out to its logical conclusion.

theres terms of service and then theres the real world. i dare say 99.99% of folks live in the real world and think that buying a 2nd copy of an easily copyable medium for the person sitting next to them on the couch is idiotic.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

I just want to know why they aren't going after used book stores? They don't get paid for the books sold there. And everyone knows those dastardly used book store owners are making a profit (something that from what I understand most pirate sites don't) off the backs of the poor publishers.

They tried long ago and there are many legal precedents that used bookstores can continue to do business no matter what the publishers say.

Greg Weeks

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There's a graph here showing US recorded music sales from 1973 to 2009.

http://static6.businessinsider.com/i...c-industry.jpg

Sales tend to go up and down coinciding with economic recession, as you would probably guess, and while there was actually a very small dip in 1997that coincides with Napster, the total for that year still excedes the previous high peak in the mid-70s. There was then quite a sharp spike in sales for the next few years, before the current recession hit and sales slumped again.

The graph is only one data point in an complicated economy...but it sure looks like piracy may be having an effect on music sales. Looking at the previous dip, the high point for music sales was in 1978; there was a steep 4-year fall, and sales hit their lowest point in 1982. There was a plateau for about a year and sales begain going up again in 1983. So 4 year drop, 1 year plateau, gradual climb up again.

Contrast that to the more recent decline - sales were at their peak in 1999 and basically fell for the next 10 years. There is what probably looked like it would be a plateau in 2003...but then music sales just continued to fall. This 10 year fall doesn't really look anything like the shorter, less deep 4 year fall of the early 80's.

I should also point out that the recession of 90-91 doesn't seem to have had any effect on music sales.

As I mentioned above, it's hard to really pin a cause/effect relationship on a graph like this. But the graph doesn't really suggest that we are just in a down cycle like 78-82 (although that may have some effect); nor does it support a purely recessionary theory (due to the 90-91 recession being missed, among other things). It's really hard to avoid the conclusion that piracy has likely contributed to at least some of the decline we've seen since 1999, even though there are almost certainly several other factors that will have contributed to the decline, one of was probably the economy.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It's really hard to avoid the conclusion that piracy has likely contributed to at least some of the decline we've seen since 1999, even though there are almost certainly several other factors that will have contributed to the decline, one of was probably the economy.

Another major factor in the decline might be other media that gets consumed. Not that piracy is no factor (and none in these other areas, too), but there's not only movies, music and books.

People buy a lot of apps, games for different kinds of devices, ringtones (are they in that graph as well?), videos for their mobiles/smartphones and things like that.

Also there's a rather fixed amount everyone can spend. And with everyday costs steeply rising (like costs for rent, energy, food, commuting and the like), that's another factor.

I won't say piracy didn't make a change at all, but I don't think that all of the decline is due to illegal downloading or copying music.

[KingOfMyWorld]

i may of missed another person making this point, or they may not have made it in this thread, but the graph could also be seen another way. When I was a kid you had to buy an entire CD for $15 - $20 even if you only wanted one or two songs off the thing. Now I can get those one or two songs for only S0.99 to $1.19 and skip the other songs, that has to hurt the income to the RIAA and labels.

As for piracy problem I can see why it's rampant because many may feel like not waiting, I'm of the group that believes that blu and digital prices are too high to warrant my replacing old DVD's and yes even some old VHS's of movies(at least so long as the VCR still lives). Until the video players wear out or the movies die I'm sticking to old formats. I also can't get behind an ebook that costs more than a paperback since I have no real rights to it.