Harry Potter 6 e-book already being pirated!

[gadgetguru]

MSNBC blog Click has linked to this article...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6409077/

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by gadgetguru

MSNBC blog Click has linked to this article...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6409077/

How could this happen and how does one pirate a book anyway? It starts by deciding not to present an official eBook version of the book, leaving those interested in such a format with no recourse but to do it themselves.

That goes straight into the heart of the whole e-book piracy debate! Do you think Rowling and her publishers could have saved themselves the trouble of dealing with pirates and illegal HP copies if they had not so vehemently spoken out against e-books?

Or, at least, would the aftermath of piracy have been less severe if official e-books had been offered?

[gadgetguru]

ebook availability or not, the book will be pirated. In countries like Russia or even India , they wouldn't care and a pirate version will surface. Maybe it would not surface as quickly. ebooks sales from those countries are miniscule, if any, anyway...

But at least those of us, who want a properly formatted legal copy could get one. And with the DMCA and US copyright laws so strict, most people would just spring $30 than risk jailtime. Currently, law-abiding people who want to carry the book around on their PDA/Laptop/etc have to either OCR the book themselves or download an illegal copy, guess which route most people would take... As far as I know, most people will prefer the legal route if there is a 'painless' way...as Apple's iTunes store has proved... sure P2P is still thriving, but many of those using those networks would probably would not (or does not have the resources to) buy them anyway...

[derekweb]

There will always be pirates.

But, there are a GREAT great many of us that would LOVE to have the OPTION of actually purchasing legitimate stories in e-book format. Heck, to be honest, one of my favorite publishes is BAEN, simply because of their digital library. They keep seeding the market, and their NEW books have included CD ROMS of some of those ebooks in html format from their website. Awesome stuff. And because of it, I've found 3 new authors that I enjoy reading their stories. My wife, has most of their paper books already, but thoroughly enjoys the electronic versions too!

by offering a digital copy, even for a nominal price (3 or 4 dollars is good for a digital), you have the opportunity to "biggie-size" your book purchase. Think about it for a moment and lets use McDonalds' as a business case point.

You purchase a Value Meal from McDonalds. Doesn't matter which one, but for specificity, we'll be going with an Evening Meal. Therefore, you will get, usually, one Sandwich, 1 Medium Fries, and 1 medium drink.

Biggie Size. For about $0.50 more, (at least here in Minnesota, USA) you can upgrade those fries and drink to a HUGE extra helping. The cost of offering this is about $0.05 to $0.10 of raw product, and maybe about $0.05 for the cost of labor involved. (It was actually cheaper than this when I worked at Burger King as an Asst Mgr in 1996. I figure with inflation, this would be approximately correct. Mind you. It could be double the costs I've specified, but you can still see the example). As a result, you still have a net profit on each order that's Biggied' of about $0.35. That is on TOP of the base net profit of the actual meal itself, so you just padded your sale with a LOT OF EXTRA revenue. And of course, one would hope that your customer is also happy with their purchase. It would be a good win-win situation for everyone.

In the case of Rowling's books in ebook format. EVERYONE wants a hardcopy. EVERYONE is going to want some kind of paper format. Period. Their collectables. At least as far as the people _I_ know go, they're collectables. That means you have pretty much 1 guaranteed sale. Now. Let's biggie size this and offer either one of two options: Opt 1 - sell an ebook format on a website such as Mobileread or ereader.com. You just sold extra revenue in a base location that everyone can easily find and download from. Further, you just made a huge profit, because you're not having to store physical books, nor pay for transport or other fees. The only one you'd have to worry about is sharing it with the server folk who ever is hosting for you since they ahve to pay for server space, as well as for setting up the ability to do an electronic transaction securely.

Now. Option 2 - Include a CD with the book in electronic format. Increase the price of the book to accomodate this, and of course, you can put DRM on the file if you include it in Adobe PDF format. /shrug/

Sounds like a win/win situation to me, although I personally don't like DRM. I think Baen has a great idea, and would hope that many many more publishers take a serious look at them. In my opinion, they are a market leader, and between my wife and I, they're also first dibs on our business when looking for books.

[martika]

But, the thing is, Someone knows the page?

[volwrath]

Originally Posted by derekweb

In the case of Rowling's books in ebook format. EVERYONE wants a hardcopy. EVERYONE is going to want some kind of paper format. Period.

I disagree. I would think the vast majority of ebook readers could give a flip about hardcopy or paper format. Why?!? I buy books to read not to collect.

[Colin Dunstan]

Originally Posted by volwrath

I disagree. I would think the vast majority of ebook readers could give a flip about hardcopy or paper format. Why?!? I buy books to read not to collect.

There are probably both types of readers. And I agree with volwrath; e-books aren't so much for to collect because there is no one really you can SHOW them to. Or do you think it is exciting to tell people "hey, look here on my harddisk, all those e-books I've bought and read in the last 10 years!"

On the other hand, someone suggested that Rowling could sell "special editions" of her work, where an e-book could be included on CD-ROM for an extra price. I think this could work. Along, of course, with the option to buy the sole e-book via an Internet e-book seller.

Slate picked up the story here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2086800/

[volwrath]

Good story.The only way to limit piracy is to offer an ebook alternative.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Slate picked up the story here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2086800/

And also on Wired now:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0...tml?tw=rss.TOP

Open eBook Forum executive director Nick Bogaty acknowledged the e-book market is "miniscule" and limited to enthusiasts [mobileread.com]. But he said several big draws -- like Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code -- were now on board. He urged Rowling's publishers to offer book downloads through trusted channels like Amazon.com or Jkrowling.com.

There is an eReader (pdb) version of hp6 posted on ***. It appears to be based on the torrent mentioned in the opening post. However it includes cover art and chapter links.

Originally Posted by Alexander

IF eReader.com had a chance to offer the Potter series, you could count on me... I would immediately buy them. I know it's lame, but I even got used the eReader DRM scheme.

I hope others think the same way and henceforth could prove that official e-books DO diminish e-book piracy.

As posted below, check out *** for a copy of the book in eReader format.

[johnsoax]

Grr, even though I wish they had it in ebook format, please don't post where to find them here. We are all law abiding citizens.

[Dick Tracy]

Any chance the links posted by non-members can be removed so that mobileread doesn't become permanently associated with swashbuckling?

[Alexander Turcic]

Yes, please don't post any more links to places that offer illegal content. I am going to leave my eye on this thread.