MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - E-reads and Curtis Agency Declare War on Piracy

sourcejedi · 09-04-2011, 10:32 AM

I commented (far too much) on the E-Reads blog, but in short I think the critics here are wrong to look at this as a black-and-white issue.

Scenario 1: "naive" user searches on the name of a book, notices "free download" in the first page of results.

Scenario 2: i) "naive" user starts searching on the name of a book; search engine suggests a popular pirate-related keyword. "torrent" is generally excluded - although that's less likely to be understood - I'm guessing "free download" is also excluded in most cases. But I've seen "pdf", and most people will understand what that means.

ii) Naive user deliberately checks out the suggestion. Or just goes with the suggestion, because clearly the computer is trying to be helpful - I've seen at least one person do that, even though the suggestion wasn't particularly what they were looking for.

I'm not saying that automatically turns you into a free-loader. But apart from anything else, (most) authors are going to feel unhappy about that. And that's bad for E-Reads' business (i.e., getting authors to sell ebook rights).

Unauthorized copies are always going to exist. What this sort of effort may be able to do is keep them on the darknet. So called because you have to put some effort into looking for it, rather than seeing it repeatedly advertised as an alternative on commercial websites like google.co.uk.

[Surface detail ebook]
...
5. Surface detail ebook - free download - (1 files)
...
7. Surface Detail Ebook Free Download (pdf,doc,xls,rtf,ppt,pps and etc.)
8. Surface Detail (Book) by Iain M. Banks (2011): Waterstones.com

- Waterstones being the first non-Amazon option that would work for a UK buyer.

(Disclosure: that's the second book I tried. It's a recent book by a popular SF author. I didn't bother trying to anonymise myself to Google either, so it may have "personalised" the rankings based on previous searches).

E-Reads announcements... tend not to include such nuance, as starrigger alluded to. But if I was trying to sell non-DRM ebooks, and I noticed search results like the above, then I'd be very interested in what Muso are doing.

09-04-2011, 10:32 AM	#52
sourcejedi Groupie Posts: 155 Karma: 200000 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Britania Device: Android	I commented (far too much) on the E-Reads blog, but in short I think the critics here are wrong to look at this as a black-and-white issue. Scenario 1: "naive" user searches on the name of a book, notices "free download" in the first page of results. Scenario 2: i) "naive" user starts searching on the name of a book; search engine suggests a popular pirate-related keyword. "torrent" is generally excluded - although that's less likely to be understood - I'm guessing "free download" is also excluded in most cases. But I've seen "pdf", and most people will understand what that means. ii) Naive user deliberately checks out the suggestion. Or just goes with the suggestion, because clearly the computer is trying to be helpful - I've seen at least one person do that, even though the suggestion wasn't particularly what they were looking for. I'm not saying that automatically turns you into a free-loader. But apart from anything else, (most) authors are going to feel unhappy about that. And that's bad for E-Reads' business (i.e., getting authors to sell ebook rights). Unauthorized copies are always going to exist. What this sort of effort may be able to do is keep them on the darknet. So called because you have to put some effort into looking for it, rather than seeing it repeatedly advertised as an alternative on commercial websites like google.co.uk. [Surface detail ebook] ... 5. Surface detail ebook - free download - (1 files) ... 7. Surface Detail Ebook Free Download (pdf,doc,xls,rtf,ppt,pps and etc.) 8. Surface Detail (Book) by Iain M. Banks (2011): Waterstones.com - Waterstones being the first non-Amazon option that would work for a UK buyer. (Disclosure: that's the second book I tried. It's a recent book by a popular SF author. I didn't bother trying to anonymise myself to Google either, so it may have "personalised" the rankings based on previous searches). E-Reads announcements... tend not to include such nuance, as starrigger alluded to. But if I was trying to sell non-DRM ebooks, and I noticed search results like the above, then I'd be very interested in what Muso are doing.