Cryoburn CD on Fifth Imperium

[jgaiser]

Visiting the Fifth Imperium recently, I noticed that the Cyroburn CD is not linked anymore.

Comment on the sidebar:

Server Date: 2012-07-05 18:48:11

Thanks for all the notes regarding the Cryoburn CD.

Yes, it was removed deliberately and by request.

No, it's not likely coming back.

Yes, I was asked by Toni over at Baen.

No, it was not her idea.

I'm now more than curious about the reasoning. If it wasn't Baen's idea, that leaves the author or her agents.

The original CD (which I do have) has the following statement:

What’s the catch? This disk and its contents may be copied and shared, but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved. That’s it.

Anybody on Ms. Bujold's list heard anything about this? I joined her list a few months ago, but the noise level was *way* to high and dropped it after about a week.

Edit: Yes, that title should be Cryoburn not Cyroburn.

[BeccaPrice]

Lois said once on the Bujold list that she felt Fifth Imperium was a pirate site, and requested that none of her fans link to it, so it was probably removed at her request.

yeah, the signal to noise level gets really high over there - there are certain people who have certain *strong* feelings about things like Dark Beta and Evil Barayar, and some other topics that can go on for *ages* with no new light being shed.

on the other hand, the spoilered conversation about the new book has been very interesting.

[jgaiser]

That's unfortunate. Ms. Bujold *had* to agree to the original release of the CD. The CD says it's shareable and now she's preventing it's sharing. It seems that somebody at Baen really needs to have a talk with Ms. Bujold.

This won't prevent me from continuing to read her novels, but I do find it disappointing.

[AnemicOak]

It's possible she didn't understand the extent to which the CD's are shared (although I don't know the download stats for the 5th Imperium or elsewhere), hard to say.

There are of course other places to find the CD or one can buy an eBook copy of Cryoburn for $6 and get an ISO copy that way.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

I'm now more than curious about the reasoning. If it wasn't Baen's idea, that leaves the author or her agents.

One of the other sites with the CD's has a note from Baen saying it was Ms. Bujold's request.

Hello,

Lois Bujold is requesting that you please take down the Cryoburn CD. Thanks so much.

best wishes,
Laura
--
Laura Haywood-Cory
Associate Editor
Baen Books

http://baencd.freedoors.org/

[Tomsk]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

One of the other sites with the CD's has a note from Baen saying it was Ms. Bujold's request.


http://baencd.freedoors.org/

What would happen if the other authors on the CD requested that it should be shared?

If it's just Bujold who does not want her material shared on the CD, it can easily be removed.

[sabredog]

This is akin to closing to the barn door after the horse has bolted.

[Valhalla]

Originally Posted by Tomsk

What would happen if the other authors on the CD requested that it should be shared?

There are no other authors on the Cryoburn CD. The CD is (almost) the entire Vorkosigan saga. I'm not surprised that she doesn't want it freely available. I read the whole series legally without buying a single book! I'm surprised that she allowed it in the first place.

[DrNefario]

It did seem like giving away the family silver.

My feeling is that all the CDs were intended for private sharing, not mass public distribution (which is why Baen don't offer them for download themselves.) Although I admit I haven't let that trouble me too much. In Bujold's case I already owned everything up to Cryoburn - in some cases more than one copy - but I've also read a lot of Weber and barely bought anything.

I'd be interested to know if there was a major fall in sales, and also how the new one sells when it gets its mass-market release.

It is also notable that they've stopped doing the CDs. Maybe it was a step too far.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

It is also notable that they've stopped doing the CDs. Maybe it was a step too far.

Or the time for them had passed, by their *original* rationale.
The idea was to get hardcover buyers interested in ebooks and, if coming late to the series/author, up-to-date fast so they would buy the new releases.
This worked on the idea that increasing familiarity with the backlist would generate frontlist sales.
But ebooks have proven that there is big money in the backlist so making the backlist too freely available is leaving money on the table now that ebooks are more mainstream.

I've long fretted that as the ebook market matured some of BAEN's more enlightened policies might get squeezed by changes in market dynamics and this may be the first hint of (unwelcome) changes to come.

It'll be interesting to see if they still do promo CDs and if they allow distribution online. The former might still happen; the latter is looking dubious.

[crich70]

Logical or not, I could see this coming back to bite her in the long term. Not to mention that not everyone can get hold of pbook copies of a given book since publishers only print up a given number and most books go out of print sooner or later. It is also as some have said closing the barn door after the horses have gone since there are no doubt 100's of copies that have been downloaded from there and then copies of that download have been shared with even more 100's of people. Plus with how long the Fifth Imperium has had the files up with no one complaining (at least as far as I've heard) I don't think it can be claimed that they were pirate books either. You can't allow 100's of copies over years to be downloaded and then decide that they were all pirate.

[jgaiser]

The CDs have been on The Fifth Imperium with the knowledge and Ok of the folks at Baen. It is not now or ever has been a pirate site. Ms. Bujold is completely within her rights to have it removed, but as has been said upthread, it's a bit late. And again, she had to approved the original distribution CD and the disclaimer that went along. It doesn't say "Share only with close friends and family". Once again, I'm disappointed that she seems to think she can change the rules after the fact.

[DiapDealer]

I'm cool with anyone changing their mind if that's within their legal rights, but I do think the purported claims of "piracy" are more than a little disconcerting. The Fifth Imperium hasn't changed since she originally signed off on the free distribution of the content, so suddenly crying "piracy!"* seems a little bit disingenuous (not to mention intentionally misleading) to me.

*Stipulating that the claims of "Fifth Imperium = Pirate Site" can truly be attributed to Ms. Bujold, of course.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm cool with anyone changing their mind if that's within their legal rights, but I do think the purported claims of "piracy" are more than a little disconcerting. The Fifth Imperium hasn't changed since she originally signed off on the free distribution of the content, so suddenly crying "piracy!"* seems a little bit disingenuous (not to mention intentionally misleading) to me.

*Stipulating that the claims of "Fifth Imperium = Pirate Site" can truly be attributed to Ms. Bujold, of course.

I totally agree.

It could be she plans to go self published or with a more main stream publisher and that's why she wants them removed. This does make me add her books to bottom of my TBR pile though.

[AnemicOak]

I was kind of surprised that there was a CD to begin with as I seem to remember her not being a big fan of the Free Library concept (which the CD's seem to be an extension of in a way) not allowing anything there either (except for a short story), although I see she's allowed the first Miles book to be made available there now.