ebook piracy numbers

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by carld

Yes, you're illegally acquiring something that you have no right to. That's theft.

Theft is an extremely loaded word and a legally defined offense.

The record industry, the movie industry and the software industry use the word a lot, but nobody that these industries have sued have been convicted of theft. It's called Copyright Infringement.

Let's use the right words.

[sabredog]

The most common complaint for new ebook owners in Australia is the lack of ebooks available for them to purchase. Amazon is singled out the most due to the release of the international Kindle 2 over a year ago.

Those new ereader owners are looking for best sellers and ebook replacements of their favourite books. When the "not available in your country" or "cannot process payment" is displayed with alarming frequency at Amazon, Fictionwise or Diesel, then discouragement followed by annoyance sets in.

The more savvy of the ereader owners begin to look elsewhere and the other less savvy owners go back to dead tree books. Why? Because it is easier!

[Xanthe]

If the person would never buy the book in the first place, then it's not a lost sale - whether you want to call it piracy, theft, or copyright infringement. The label is immaterial since neither the publisher nor the author was going to receive any money for that book. For them to call it a lost sale is a fallacy.

Arguing about whether it is theft or copyright infringement is pointless, because it's not a matter of ethics for most people. If you are like me, and think that whatever you purchase becomes yours to do with as you please, then if people want to share their purchase with their 5,000 closest friends, more power to them. I don't see it as being much different than a library buying a copy of a book and 5,000 people reading that copy for free. No argument is made that those people should be forced to buy their own copy.

I believe that most of us are quite willing to pay what we consider a fair price for an ebook - taking into consideration that there are no printing, marketing or distribution costs to speak of with ebooks. Unfortunately, the major publishers think that we readers are stupid and charge anywhere from more than the cost of a paperback up to the full hardcover price for an ebook. And considering that the customer has to invest money first in a device to read the ebook - whether it's a dedicated ereader or a computer or a smart phone or whatever - asking them to pay the same price as a for a paper book is ridiculous. As long as the pricing schemes are out of whack with the value of the item received, people are going to share.

[carld]

Edit: reread my post an realized it sounded hostile when I didn't mean it to be. I think I'll just let this discussion go and move on to other less volatile topics.

[sassanik]

Worldwalker, thank you for your reasonable and helpful answer! I was wondering if there were any numbers because an author was talking about having over 4,000 copies of a book downloaded through a pirate site and it made me wonder.

The geo-restriction thing from Amazon and other ebook sellers is a silly thing. I suppose the easiest way to fix that would be to have a general international law about copyright and its term limits.

Piracy is a very touchy issue. As one of the younger generation that was around when mp3's first became widely available through sources like napster I can see the "its not really stealing" side of things and understand where they come from.

I do buy and pay for my mp3's these days, though I must say I don't buy very many of them!

I feel that authors work very hard on their books and deserve to get paid for their creative time and energy, the same as music artists do.

Anyway thank you for the good answers!

Amy

[Lastblade]

I wear an eye patch when I read my ebooks.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Lastblade

I wear an eye patch when I read my ebooks.

[June]

Worldwalker's post fits logic and reasoning. That having been said, I haven't even checked out darknet books, other than that when I google an ebook to find a place to buy it, it seems most hits are from other sources than bookstores. I have to say that it gets frustrating when I can't buy a book I want because of various restrictions. So far I've stayed away from darknet, because I want to support the authors and also follow law&regulations - but it seems more and more geographical etc restrictions are popping up to make it more and more difficult for "law abiding people" to get ebooks they want.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

According to the publishers, everyone who downloads a 3,000-book torrent would have bought every single one of those 3,000 books at full retail price if they hadn't gotten them off the darknet. Because, y'know, people routinely spend $45,000 a year for books -- even people who only make $20,000 a year.- - -

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

While I fully agree with you carld, it's a lost cause here. I've learned trying to convince many people here of what you are saying merely resulted in heated arguments that degenerated in the other parties resorting to hateful insults directed at me when I kept punching holes in their arguments. Unless people are ethical enough to understand the difference between right and wrong, honesty and stealing, they will just rationalize their actions with lame arguments, suchas there is no loss of a sale if you duplicate something you wouldn't have bought in the first place. It still is stealing but people will believe what is convenient for them to believe. At this point I'm bowing out.

Since that appears to be directed at me, I'd like to make a few points:

First of all, I don't believe I've ever used "hateful insults" in a disagreement, not least because you've never successfully punched holes in my arguments.

Second, I consider myself a very ethical person. I understand the difference between right and wrong, honesty and stealing, etc. I have no unethical actions to rationalize. Every ebook I own, every song, every other piece of content, was either legally free or bought and paid for. I register my shareware. I contribute to calibre. The fact that I disagree with the idea that a particular action constitutes a lost sale when there is no evidence that absent that action, a sale would have occurred -- and even when, as in the case of that hypothetical 13-year-old warez d00d, there is fairly compelling evidence there would be no sale -- does not mean that I do, or ever have, download illicit books, or, well ... anything.

Yes, I mentioned visiting such a site. I did so strictly for research -- specifically, to read the listing of titles indexed in a hopefully typical (randomly selected among the fantasy/sf offerings) collection of illicitly copied ebooks, so that I could have some background for a post I was writing on MobileRead. I didn't download anything -- just read the listing of books contained in that particular torrent. So you are accusing me of something I have not even contemplated doing.

But, back to the theft angle ...

You are, in all probability, sitting in a chair right now. If I entered your house and took your chair away, that would be theft, right? It's easy to identify: there's an empty spot where your chair belongs. If you were sitting in it at the time, you'd have abruptly hit the floor. But what if I, instead, zapped your chair with my Ultra-Duplotron Ray, which caused an identical chair to appear in the Duplotron Regeneration Chamber back in my secret mad scientist lab? Did I just steal your chair? How could I have, when your chair is still right where it was? You're neither hovering in mid-air nor sitting on the floor.

So obviously I didn't steal your chair, seeing as you'd still be sitting in it, wondering what that brief octarine shimmer around it was all about.

But I've also got a chair that I didn't pay for. Is it possible to have a thief without having a victim of theft?

What I stole there was not in fact a chair. You still have your chair, so it wasn't stolen. What I stole was a sale-of-a-chair from the chair factory. Whether that counts as theft is a much squirmier can of worms than simply yanking your chair out from under you. With my Ultra-Duplotron Ray, I got a chair identical to yours without paying for it. The factory isn't out any wood, or any glue, or even those little metal things they screw into the ends of the legs. But now I don't have to buy a chair, because I Ultra-Duplicated yours.

But, for me to have stolen a sale-of-a-chair from the chair factory, that sale would have to have existed. You can't steal something that doesn't exist in the first place! In the case of the chair, that would mean that if I hadn't duplicated your chair, I would have necessarily bought a chair from the chair factory (through however many layers of resellers). But what if I bought a used chair at a yard sale? Sat on the sofa instead? Built a chair of my own? Rented a chair from one of those rent-to-own ripoff places? Maybe I've spent all my money developing the Ultra-Duplotron technology, and I couldn't afford any chairs. Those are all alternative situations in which the sale-of-a-chair that I may (or may not) have stolen would not exist at all.

So there's no surefire way to determine whether I stole a sale-of-a-chair or not.

And that's the situation we're in with ebooks. When it come to the actual data file, we can be certain that it exists, but the necessary aspect of theft, that of depriving another person of their possession, is lacking. The file, like our notional chair, is still right where it was. When it comes to the sale, we know that was taken away, but we're missing another necessary aspect, namely whether it existed in the first place. There was no sale, but we don't know if there ever would have been one; maybe the reader would have gone to PG and downloaded Oliver Twist instead.

This is why trying to deal with non-tangible objects, such as ebooks, with metaphors for tangible objects, just doesn't work. The analogy doesn't fit. They're two different types of things, and trying to make one into the other is doomed from the outset.

So, while there is certainly something wrong going on when someone utilizes something that is offered for a price without forking over the cash, it's not theft. I'm not sure what else it might be called (aside, of course, from copyright infringement) but it's not theft. You've still got your chair and your ebook, and now so do I.

Mind you, I'm not trying to justify the illicit copying of ebooks. Something doesn't have to be called theft to be wrong, you know. Trying to call it what it clearly isn't just muddies the waters.

Oh, and I've derived my income from intellectual property in the past, and probably will do so in the future. I've been involved (on the receiving end) in a copyright infringement situation. I do have a horse in this race, and it's got a big copyright symbol painted on its back.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by sabredog

I think you will find that it DOES push locked out buyers to the darknet once they have exhausted all the means at their disposal to buy an ebook

I think you're being generous. Most folks won't try that hard. For "exhausted all the means at their disposal" substitute "make a reasonable attempt". Myself, before the third or so estore has had the chance to refuse to sell to me, I'm already off to the darknet.

I'm absolutely certain the vast majority of ebook sharing on the darknets is done by hoarders, who likely don't read 1% of what they collect; most of them, in fact, are probably not readers at all.

Those of us who go to the darknet in search of actual reading material are almost certainly the small majority. I've downloaded hundreds of ebooks, most of which has been the electronic equivalent of hauling my shopping basket off to the coffee shop for winnowing -- the vast majority of my haul winds up back on the shelves (i.e., gets deleted).

In fact, I can only think of four darknet downloads I've actually read in the past few years. Harry Potter 7 was one, but I already had my preorder in at Amazon and was just checking out the infamous leaked copy. As to The Lost Symbol -- well, let's just say, I don't reward my dog when it messes on the floor. Why should I treat Dan Brown any differently? The buck and a half he'd made from me for DVC was already far more than he deserved.

The other two were the first books of The Bartemaus Trilogy and Paolini's Eragon series. But I now have a complete set of both sitting on my shelves, so at least in my case, publishers are +6.

[Fbone]

I am more concerned with people's mentality and character than actual numbers.

I hear e-book prices are too expensive and unrealistic therefore it's justifiable to take from the torrents.
I hear of geographical restrictions and so they are "forced" to go to darknet because it is something I have a right to possess.
I hear some go to torrent to look for new material when Google, Amazon et al have 1.8 million e-books available.

So now for those who download illegally I will question their sense of honesty, trustworthiness and character. Perhaps, it is worse than I think it is. How does their conscience work with other of life's choices? And then I feel bad that I feel this way toward others but when I lose a small amount of respect for someone it doesnt usually return.

But it is my feelings and my problem.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by carld

Taking something that doesn't belong to you is stealing.

If I license and download an ebook from Amazon, I have taken something that "doesn't belong to me", since ownership of the IP remains with the copyright holder. Was it theft?

If I borrow my neighbor's lawn mower, I have taken something that doesn't belong to me. Am I a thief?

This morning I discover one of my car's tires had gone flat. I need to change it but don't have a jack. My neighbor's is sitting next to his garage, but he's not home. I take it anyway, without permission, change my tire, then return it to where it was. Was that theft?

I start to class only to discover I don't have a pencil, so I grab one off my roommate's desk. I intend to return it to her after class, but on the way home I lose it. Was that theft?

Theft is the taking of something that belongs to you with the intent of depriving its owner of possession.

In the case of an illegally downloaded ebook, what precisely have I taken? Has anyone, anywhere, been deprived of possession of anything? Who? Of what?

See -- no theft.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I will question their sense of honesty, trustworthiness and character. Perhaps, it is worse than I think it is. How does their conscience work with other of life's choices? And then I feel bad that I feel this way toward others but when I lose a small amount of respect for someone it doesnt usually return.

That's too bad. Is this loss of respect restricted to downloaders of illegal ebooks, or does it extend to any of the hundreds of little ethical flaws to which everyone I can think of (save one guy, but he died two thousand years ago) is subject? The little white lie when your mother asks if you've washed your hands before dinner. A bit of fudging on the timecard when I clock in a couple minutes late. Jaywalking across a street. Etc.

There must be precious few folks in the world for you to respect. After all, you can never tell what despicable perversions lurk in the heart of a jaywalker.

[greencat]

I guess you've taken their ability to earn some cash from you (and possibily others if you are sharing on a torrent site). Although as others have stated you might never have bought the book anyway.

Personally I think we are in the law of unintended consequences territory. A friend of mine never pays for anything entertainment wise because of downloads and freely admits he would pay if he had to. Others feel they are forced to it or use it as a previewing service and are often spending much more than the average on media consumption as a result.

It is hugely prevalent though and it seems daft to criminalise large parts of the population for an activity which they regard as perfectly normal and harmless.

[lord_blackfang]

People are prone to coming up with arbitrary moral codes that make them feel superior to others. Piracy is just another outlet for this.