ebook piracy numbers

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

Now you can buy hundreds of different titles for around $5 at WalMart and people buy them by the shopping cart full because they are cheap enough to be impulse purchases...everyone is happy with this arrangement.

That's me at Smashwords. $2.99 novels are impulse purchases. What I wouldn't buy on dead trees for $7.99 (for reasons of both expense and space) I'll buy as an ebook without even thinking twice. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the royalty rate on MM paperbacks something like 10%? If so, since the Smashwords retailer's commission is something like 20%, Tim Myers made roughly twice as much off me the other night when I bought all of his Lighthouse mysteries at $1.99 each than he would have if I'd bought them all on dead trees. The only reason I don't have every ebook he's written (yet) is I'm intentionally rationing the pleasure of reading them, one series at a time. Having to go back to Smashwords and buy more keeps me from reading all the ebooks in one weekend-long orgy of reading -- and getting nothing else done at all!

I remember the days of $100 laserdiscs, and the tiny handful of wealthy enthusiasts who owned them and their $1000 players. The movie industry didn't make a whole lot of money from them. But now, when movies are impulse buys, well, I just had to buy a new DVD rack because they were starting to pile up on the floor. They're monetizing old TV shows that long ago dropped from even TV Land's rotation, too -- the equivalent of a publisher's backlist -- and if my spending on them is any example, making a nice chunk of change.

Ebooks as luxury items, sold for the price of hardcovers or more, will go the way of the laserdisc.

Ebooks as impulse items, sold for the price of used books or less, will match the success of the DVD.

[BillSmithBooks]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the royalty rate on MM paperbacks something like 10%? If so, since the Smashwords retailer's commission is something like 20%, Tim Myers made roughly twice as much off me the other night when I bought all of his Lighthouse mysteries at $1.99 each than he would have if I'd bought them all on dead trees.

Ebooks as luxury items, sold for the price of hardcovers or more, will go the way of the laserdisc.

Ebooks as impulse items, sold for the price of used books or less, will match the success of the DVD.

10% is considered a GOOD royalty rate for MM paperbacks; many authors are in the 4-6% range...

So yes, one Smashwords sale at $2.99 (about $2.00 author royalty) is equal to about 3-4 paperback sales ($8 retail x 6% rate = .48) for common royalty rates.

Ebooks as non-DRMd impulse items will be huge...for the people who get it.

I believe there is a real opportunity for indie authors and publishers to sneak in and establish themselves while mainstream publishers fight the inevitable with high prices and DRM on the road to getting Napstered.

[delphidb96]

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.

Let's see... I can go to my public library, check out a newly-released 'blockbuster' novel, take it home and read it. And, if I like it, there's nothing stopping me from slapping it down on my printer/copier/scanner and scanning in each page to my computer (fair use after all) before returning the book to my library. And once it's been scanned, I can use my legally-purchased software to turn those scans into either a PDF file or a text document file, which I can then convert to .mobi, .epub, .lrf or even .pdb/.prc. All of these steps are legal to me to do.

Now how have I, according to the law, 'stolen' anything? Yet, if I download said pre-converted ebooks - for free, mind you - I've somehow 'committed a crime'???

Please, explain how doing it myself is 'legal', but letting a friend - or total stranger - do it is 'illegal'. Especially as either method generates no 'income' for either party.

Derek

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

I do not believe any reports I see about piracy = lost sales.

Many people are, by nature, hoarders/collectors and often grab something just because they can, even if they never would have bought the product in the first place.

Yes, some people just download instead of buying...some have the means and just choose to take, whereas others take because buying would be a real hardship for them. I think many downloads are "Hey, I wonder if this is any good," just to try something and sample it, especially if by a lesser known artist or author.

But overall, I believe only a small percentage of unauthorized downloads are lost sales.

And it is my belief that people will often "sample" a product they acquired for free and then, if they become a fan, will go on to support the creator's other products if the those products are accessible (open formats, non-DRMed, no geographic restrictions) and priced fairly.

Be reasonable to your readers and they will support you.

That said, I take huge issue with the people who justify the use of torrents and other means of unauthorized downloads.

Such users may not consider downloads "theft" on the theory that they are not depriving the creator of physical property, but unauthorized downloads are still immoral and unethical. It is not different than, for example, "borrowing" a neighbor's property without permission or lounging on a neighbor's lawn all day while they are gone at work -- "see, I didn't steal from them." No, but you were violating their rights and you acted unethically.

Instead of just taking without permission, why don't the "pirates" look for and support the creators who do "get it" and allow readers to share, who sell their products at a fair price without DRM-crippling?

And then there are all those Baen CDs floating around the internet. Baen is quite specific: Take them! Make copies! Give those copies away to friends, co-workers and family members! Give them as party favors! Set up a table at your local subway station and hand them out to passers-by! Just don't charge people for them.

Now why would Baen take this stance? Because each and every one, no matter what generation-removed-from-the-original-CD copy, is a live marketing tool for the Baen authors, that's why.

And those mega-massive torrent collections? They are the Same Damned Thing! At last count, I've 'discovered' over five hundred new 'fave' authors from individual and torrent-collection darknet files. Five hundred authors whose works I have gone on to buy from B&N and Amazon.

In fact, all this talk of 'piracy' has gotten me to reconsider. I'm going to set up each of my two novels (I'm the publisher, not the author.) for 'free-for-download' for one week.

Derek

[ficbot]

Plus, there are lots of ways to enjoy without paying that are not piracy at all. I have a key to my mother's apartment, and whenever she is out of town, she tells me I am welcome to come over and use the condo gym, watch premium cable on her television (I do not have cable myself) and have myself a little spa day. Yes, okay, SHE has paid for the cable and the swimming pool, so somebody got money for my use. But I am accessing entertainments for free that others have to pay for.

Similarly, nobody in my family has bought any tools for about 60 years because my grandfather is a tool freak and has every took known to man. I wonder how many sales the tool industry lost over the years from relatives of mine who might otherwise have had to buy them?

I use common sense, myself. I won't download a book I did not pay for, unless it is offered for free (i.e. I do not download pirated copies). But in principle, I have no issues with sharing my liberated, purchased books with my mom or sister or whomever because it it was a print book, I would be able to do this no problem (and have in the past) and this is not illegal or immoral. So loaning an ebook, to me, is the same thing. It would be different, I guess, if Mom keeps them forever. But she doesn't, she reads it once and then deletes it. Actually, she calls ME over to delete it since she does not know how to operate her computer with confidence. So to me, this is the same as saying 'here is my paperback copy of the new Nora Roberts, let me know when you are done and I will come over and take it back again.'

[BillSmithBooks]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

And then there are all those Baen CDs floating around the internet. Baen is quite specific: Take them! Make copies! Give those copies away to friends, co-workers and family members! Give them as party favors! Set up a table at your local subway station and hand them out to passers-by! Just don't charge people for them.

Now why would Baen take this stance? Because each and every one, no matter what generation-removed-from-the-original-CD copy, is a live marketing tool for the Baen authors, that's why.

And those mega-massive torrent collections? They are the Same Damned Thing! At last count, I've 'discovered' over five hundred new 'fave' authors from individual and torrent-collection darknet files. Five hundred authors whose works I have gone on to buy from B&N and Amazon.

In fact, all this talk of 'piracy' has gotten me to reconsider. I'm going to set up each of my two novels (I'm the publisher, not the author.) for 'free-for-download' for one week.

Derek

Derek, I think you are making a wise move in offering your books.

Oddly enough, Baen seems to sell a ton of p-books and e-books...as Eric Flint has noted, sales of his books WENT UP after he offered them as free downloads on the Baen Free Library.

I am firmly convinced that freebies prime the well for sales of other books.

My disagreement with the torrents is an issue of ethics:

It is admirable when Baen, Cory Doctorow, the fanfic community, etc. offers their own works freely and says, "Please share!"

It is quite another when a third party copies something that somebody else created without getting the creator's permission and gives it away; that is crossing the ethical and legal line -- to me, it is a violation of the creator's rights.

(IMO, it is up to the authors to learn that freebies actually generate sales and then embrace this approach...the wise ones will thrive.)

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

And then there are all those Baen CDs floating around the internet. Baen is quite specific: Take them! Make copies! Give those copies away to friends, co-workers and family members!

Coincidence... Just this afternoon, I found a site with all (most?) of the Baen CDs available. Picked up the Honorverse CD, though I've paid for the first two novels (ok, first one is in the free library). Do I feel guilty? No, because I do love the way Baen does business and I'll be back.

[Worldwalker]

That would no doubt be Fifth Imperium. Good folks. And there's nothing to feel guilty about -- Baen encourages distribution of those CDs. They sell a lot of books that way.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

there's nothing stopping me from slapping it down on my printer/copier/scanner and scanning in each page to my computer (fair use after all)

Well, there is this:

"This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher."

Every pbook I own contains a statement similar to that, generally on the copyright page.

And fair use under US copyright law generally allows one to copy only a portion of the work (generally understood as up to ten percent or one thousand words, whichever is less). Courts, I believe, generally allow a bit more for educational purposes, a bit less for commercial.

So, yes, slapping a book on your scanner and scanning it in its entirety is illegal.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

Well, there is this:



Every pbook I own contains a statement similar to that, generally on the copyright page.

And fair use under US copyright law generally allows one to copy only a portion of the work (generally understood as up to ten percent or one thousand words, whichever is less). Courts, I believe, generally allow a bit more for educational purposes, a bit less for commercial.

So, yes, slapping a book on your scanner and scanning it in its entirety is illegal.

Except that I could be scanning to Braille... There's no real way for the publisher to know short of putting a spy cam inside my home.

Derek

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

There's no real way for the publisher to know short of putting a spy cam inside my home.

So what's your argument here -- that it's legal, or that you won't get caught?

[malliemcg]

I think this is an interesting and constructive discussion at present. I am currently dealing with some DRM hell - both in the eBook and Movie format. I've had some hardware die on my PC which in getting it up and running again, the DRM prevents me from unlocking this media. The eBook in question is rather old and the online store that it was originally purchased from no longer exists and it can not be reauthorised. The Movies are WB movies and they won't do anything to assist.

Living in Australia I am getting sick of geographic restrictions, especially when I can pay and have the paper version shipped to me for around the same money as the eBook, I don't want to waste the energy or resources in moving a lump of paper half way around the world, I'd like to have it delivered electronically, but oh no, I live in the wrong country, can't have some bits and bytes, but can have the physical, so annoying.

I can certainly sympathise with people who turn to the darknet.

I'm still thinking about things like someone format shifting their paper collection and putting it onto an eReader, and I think morally this has to be fine, after all its the content is what has been paid for, not the medium, and as long as someone keeps the physical copies I can't see a moral reason for them not to grab an ecopy from elsewhere.

This discussion is not about DRM, but if a store and it's authorisation servers ever went off line, I'd believe someone was entitled to head off and replace those copies, I'm tempted to do it myself.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by malliemcg

I'm still thinking about things like someone format shifting their paper collection and putting it onto an eReader, and I think morally this has to be fine, after all its the content is what has been paid for, not the medium, and as long as someone keeps the physical copies I can't see a moral reason for them not to grab an ecopy from elsewhere.

This discussion is not about DRM, but if a store and it's authorisation servers ever went off line, I'd believe someone was entitled to head off and replace those copies, I'm tempted to do it myself.

WeLL, I just went through a bad deal with ereader.com in this regard. Over the years I bought about 400 books from them. Back in April, when I bought my Ipad, I tried downloading a couple of books from them that I use for references. Couldn't do it. I contacted tech support, who offered inane replies and finally sent me a copy of their Terms of Service, under which, of course, I had no rights.

So much for Customer Disservice. Evidently ereader was having problems with publishers, but they told me it was a problem at their ISP. Anyways, out of the 400 books, I was unable to download about 40 of them. Ereader would not refund my money.

I grabbed copies of the books I needed from pirate sources, and felt no moral qualms about doing do. And this incident has made me truly consider any future ebook purchases. I feel fairly safe with Amazon, but do not think I will buy any DRMd stuff from smaller sellers. And, in any case, if I am buying a book I will use for years, and need access to always, it will probably be in paper format. And I think, once I have done that, that I may indeed grab a pirated copy of that book from the net, or scan it in myself.

I have said it many times- if the publishers would treat their customers with respect- and this means making buying ebooks convenient, and pricing them reasonably (way below hardcover price), then they will create a vibrant market. If they insist on clinging to hundred year old business models and pricing ebooks at almost hardcover prices, they will cause piracy to flourish.

And Smashwords is a great resource! I recently bought all of Falk's books about the Chinese internal martial arts from there- at about $5 per copy. He was paid well, and I got a fair price. We need more sellers like this.

[Rich_D]

Well, I recently "pirated" a number of ebooks to replace dtb copies that I purchased - some multiple times as the originals wore out, or that I had in hard copy and in audio. Would I have paid money to replace them with ebooks? No.

I also had to pirate copies of 3 books I lost when fictionwise went nuts and I couldn't redownload the files from them.

Not counting audio, I buy an average of 3 books a year, the rest come from the library. I bought a few more books this year for my nook, but the majority still come from the library.

Even if I pirate a book now, the publishers haven't lost a sale because I wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

I've learned my lesson from the fictionwise fiasco though. Now when I do buy an ebook, I immediately strip the DRM and save a backup copy.

[Worldwalker]

I simply don't buy DRM-restricted ebooks. It's not that I can't strip the DRM ... I just don't want to support that business model with my purchases. Principle, mostly. Since there's no shortage of books I want to read, if I have to skip one book because it's DRM'd and read a different one that's DRM-free, it's no hardship; if anything, it helps trim the to-be-bought list down to an affordable size, and sometimes nudges me towards books that I should read (the Harvard Classics, for instance) rather than whatever random new-release bit of mind candy happens to catch my eye.

I'm still enough of an optimist to hope that in a few years, publishers will see the success of Baen, et. al., and authors will see the advantages of Smashwords, and a wave of sanity will wash over the publishing industry.

I wish some publisher would take up my ebooks-for-pbooks idea: you'd mail in your pbooks (or perhaps turn them in at some big chain bookstore that's a partner in the project) and get a code entitling you to a free ebook of that title. The pbooks would be marked so that they couldn't be turned in again and donated to schools, libraries, city reading programs, military bases, or any charity with a need for books -- there are plenty. The publishers would get a big tax write-off somehow (I'm sure their accountants could do something with the fact that they're swapping a $15-ish ebook for a $2.99 cover used paperback), the charities would get a windfall, the people those charities serve would be helped, and my bookshelves and floor joists would thank me.