E-books drive older women to digital piracy

[Maverynthia]

I'll add my 2 cents.

First, I see people like my mom downloading "free" ebooks because they don't realize that it's pirated. They also don't care that it's pirated. My mom for example refuses to use a credit card on Amazon for a free ebook (I don't blame her). Also, my mom has expressed that she doesn't want to be tied down to it. She wants to be able to sell it back to someone, delete it, etc. JUST LIKE a real book and she doesn't want to pay for something she can't get reimbursed for. She's from the era where buying things second hand was how you survived as well as selling old furniture and such.
So I can see a glimmer of why my mom would be an "ebook pirate". She won't even spend 99 cents on a book because she can't get the money back from it. That's the crux of the issue for her. She also feel entitled to the ebook copy of all the books she's already bought in paperback format. Which is another reason why she would "pirate" ebooks.
Of course once you get into doing something, it's hard to stop. So my mom goes from just getting the ebooks for what she has to marking the other files off in the torrent to download for what she needs/might read etc. To her the problem of it being free in the first place isn't her problem, it's the publisher's problem for not stopping it. "Well if they didn't want it to be free they'd sue these people to stop it." That kind of thinking.

[amward]

Well as an older woman (double 30 plus a bit) I don't download books I know to be pirated. I don't if I think it's "iffy" either. I think authors are entitled to a return for their work. What I won't do is pay outrageous prices for any sort of book.. especially as I don't think authors are getting more, it's just the publishers etc.

[Algiedi]

I'm afraid I don't see how this particular statistic is significant.

We're told that "a group formerly unwilling to infringe copyright are changing their behaviour".

Where are the stats that show that this particular group didn't use to pirate ebooks? Changing their behaviour compared to when? In what amount?

This suspiciously looks like something trying to call upon a bunch of outdated stereotypes to make somewhat of a gratuitous point:
- Women are technologically impaired;
- The older you are, the less you know about teh internetz;
- Only geeky male teenagers pirate;

...therefore anything that appears to deviate from that "norm" has to be significant.

Meh.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Maverynthia

To her the problem of it being free in the first place isn't her problem, it's the publisher's problem for not stopping it. "Well if they didn't want it to be free they'd sue these people to stop it." That kind of thinking.

Sounds reasonable enough to me. Having links to content removed from search engines, and often also the content itself, is very easy to do and could easily be automated. There's a whole new industry of copyright infringement catchers who will do it for you if you can't be bothered.

There are also a lot of writers who don't care that their work is on pirate sites because they see it as free publicity that will reach an audience they would otherwise have no way of reaching.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There are also a lot of writers who don't care that their work is on pirate sites because they see it as free publicity that will reach an audience they would otherwise have no way of reaching.

There's this. If I ever get my book finished, I'm going to ask someone to load it onto some pirate sites (I don't know the ins and outs myself and would just end up giving myself a virus by accident) for the publicity. I've heard of other authors reaching a really wide audience this way.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Joykins

You know, I am a "granny" and I don't see the point in doing that (unless I want it searchable, I guess, but mostly I don't).

I'm not a granny, but I have a phenomenally bad back. On our last vacation (prior to buying an eReader), I had a whole suitcase of nothing but reading material that my poor husband had to lug around for me. (And I read most of it.)

I own all the Harry Potter books but I still haven't read the later ones because they're so darn HEAVY. I would love an ebook version of those books so I don't have to break my back carrying them around with me (I read mostly on the go).

Lots of people have lots of reasons for wanting to convert their existing library to e-form. Searchability is just the tip of that demand.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

And coca cola is not quite the same thing as pepsi.

And copyright infringement is oh so close to violently plundering ships at sea.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

And copyright infringement is oh so close to violently plundering ships at sea.

[sakura-panda]

MP3 piracy and ebook piracy are not the same thing. You can buy a physical CD and have both the CD and MP3 available to you. Just because I never downloaded low quality MP3 files off of some file sharing site -- preferring to create higher quality MP3 copies from my own CDs -- doesn't mean I'd be less likely to do so with books.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

If you wake up one morning and think, "By god, I want me some 'Emma' ebook reading," you go to Google, plug in "Emma Jane Austen ebook", download one of the many free (legal) versions, and go your merry way.

I must be one of the odd ones, because if I woke up one morning wanting a book, I'd go to the Sony Bookstore to look for it. I wouldn't google it. I don't know what I'm getting from some random site (at the very least I risk annoying pop-up ads) and I'll stick to sites that I know.

But I'm over 35, an elderly granny that doesn't know any better

I never got into file sharing -- I was just passing out of school when that was starting up -- so maybe that's why I'm not comfortable with downloading random content off of the internet. I don't search for it and I have to be beaten over the head before I remember it's an option. Even if I google the title of something, I only notice the links to sites I recognize and just assume the rest are scammers trying to lure me in so that they trick me into downloading some processor inhibiting virus.

The Publishers Association recently revealed the number of physical books sold fell by 3 per cent last year, and although consumer e-book sales grew strongly revenues were just £16m, compared to £3.1bn in physical sales.

Have they considered that this is because bookstores are closing and books are getting harder to find? That the people that have stopped buying physical books have not switched to electronic and that they aren't getting *new* buyers to replace them? I know people that read the internet and discussion boards (like MR) on their phones and portable devices rather than reading books. That has nothing to do with piracy.

[voracious71]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

"Older women" over thirty five Excuse, I go to get my cane

Yeah, I know. These young whippersnappers these days, no respect. .

I enjoy reading my pirated ebooks after a rousing game of Bingo, myself.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Algiedi

I'm afraid I don't see how this particular statistic is significant.

We're told that "a group formerly unwilling to infringe copyright are changing their behaviour".

Where are the stats that show that this particular group didn't use to pirate ebooks? Changing their behaviour compared to when? In what amount?

Yeah, I think you're right. It's not that a particular group of people changed their habits, I think it's likely that the key purchasing demographic has changed it's habits (which is to say that tech savvy people and people accustomed to pirating have aged into the demographic).

[queentess]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

Have they considered that this is because bookstores are closing and books are getting harder to find? That the people that have stopped buying physical books have not switched to electronic and that they aren't getting *new* buyers to replace them? I know people that read the internet and discussion boards (like MR) on their phones and portable devices rather than reading books. That has nothing to do with piracy.

Plus the economy has sucked (at least in the U.S.). Several regular book buyers I know have switched over to second hand shops and the library, choosing not to spend $35 on a hardback book or $16 on a trade paperback. Last time I went looking for a brand new paperback in B&N I had a hard time finding anything that wasn't trade sized. Good thing I mostly stick to ebooks

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by queentess

Yeah, I think you're right. It's not that a particular group of people changed their habits, I think it's likely that the key purchasing demographic has changed it's habits (which is to say that tech savvy people and people accustomed to pirating have aged into the demographic).

Yeah, in my case "older" means I have been online for 22 years.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

I must be one of the odd ones, because if I woke up one morning wanting a book, I'd go to the Sony Bookstore to look for it. I wouldn't google it. I don't know what I'm getting from some random site (at the very least I risk annoying pop-up ads) and I'll stick to sites that I know.

Not everyone shops single-source. Not everyone CAN. There's more than a few ebooks out there that are only available through X supplier. Until Inkmesh came along (I only discovered it last month - until then, it did not exist in my world), Google was the only way to find the exclusive titles. And even then, you still want Google for comparative pricing.

For people with ad-block and strong virus software, there's a big old Internet out there - not just the Sony site.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by Joykins

Yeah, in my case "older" means I have been online for 22 years.

I think that the media is just finally realizing that a lot of women "over 35" know their way around a computer just as well as they know when the early bird special starts, and that is throwing them for a loop because it is eroding all their preconceptions about computer literacy in women outside the key marketing demographic.

Hell, I was in the first computer class my high school ever offered; we had to physically phone in to a mainframe at a college in Massachusetts - phone cradle, teletype and all - because no local colleges, or high schools for that matter, had one. Forget about Apples; those were still a gleam in Jobs' eye. I think we were part of the DTSS, and did our programming in Basic.