Book 'pirate' goes underground after being named by Terry Goodkind

[hard-boiled pat]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

"Wizard hero Richard Rahl smites wrongdoers with his Sword of Truth. His creator, the bestselling fantasy author Terry Goodkind, turned to Facebook to name and shame a fan who pirated a digital version of his latest novel, The First Confessor.

Goodkind, whose epic Sword of Truth fantasy series has sold 25m copies around the world, according to its publisher Tor, took the unusual move of deciding to self-publish The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus as an ebook exclusive. The book was released earlier this month and quickly shot up Amazon's bestseller list, but despite it being made available in a multitude of formats, for $9.99, pirated editions soon started to appear.

Goodkind was outraged, and decided to name one of the pirates on his Facebook page, posting the perpetrator's details – including a photo – and prompting an onslaught of online fury against him. "So Josh, how about it — no respect for a hard-working author and fellow racing enthusiast? Not even for someone that is emphatically trying to reach out to people that might consider pirating our hard work? Can't be bothered to read and consider our note on piracy in the front of the book?" wrote Goodkind. "How ironic you claim to be a fan of books that uphold truth and honour above all else. We hope the price of fame is worth the cost of your infamy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...terry-goodkind

I'm torn. On one hand I think Goodkind went a tad too far. On the other, I think shame is still a powerful deterrent.

At least he followed his own political principles and solved his own problem rather than merely wringing his hands and whinging about how we need more draconian government intervention to combat piracy.

hahahaha nice! good on ole terry.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Polarizing people serve a valuable social role by challenging "accepted wisdom" groupthink.

Herbert Marcuse?

A corrective may be The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart

Polarization locks people into the thinking of a group whose ideas they started out only mildly favoring.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by plib

I very much doubt that any poster on here is in the top 10%, who own 70% of the wealth in America, let alone the top 1%.

Why's that?

There are undoubtedly average income people, from wealthly countries, who pay US$150 for a book reader, and then, some of them, buy books to put on it when they could get them free from a library. Thus the thread about people who compulsively buy books they can't comfortably afford. But the most plausible explanation for paying good money for entertainment you can mostly get for free is affluence.

Of course, in America, affluent people think themselves middle class. Not too many in the 10 percent, or 1 percent, admit to it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Herbert Marcuse?

A corrective may be The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart

Polarization locks people into the thinking of a group whose ideas they started out only mildly favoring.

Exactly what I had in mind.
People self-segregating into comfortable, self-reinforcing and radicalizing "outlook ghettos" that exclude any ideas that might possibly challenge their world view. Humans are tribal by nature and if all you surround yourself reinforces your starting position, eventually anybody who differs become "other", alien, and by definition, *wrong*.
The whole 1%-99% narrative is built off that: just like the piracy debate, among other "controversies" where people "talk" past each other, slinging arguments from their cast-in-concrete bunkers, using selective "statistics" to simplify complex issues out of all resemblance to reality.
Faced with contradictory data or opinions, the instant emotional response is to go after the messenger and their motivations to delegitimize their position without having to consider it. And its not a new phenomenon by any stretch; it's just more visible in our age of internet "annonimity".

Too much rationalization, not enough rationality. (See above quote-fest.)

Which is one reason I think Goodkind might be on to something; "name and shame" is an emotional attack rather than a coldly legalistic one. Not sure it'll have much of an effect, but when faced with people who instinctively shrug off rational appeals...

Surely there must be *some* way to get through the bunker mentality?

[xg4bx]

i've admitted to my own sailing of the seven seas but this whole thing has made me start to rethink it. i'm not an incredibly social person and i'm far more afraid of being singled out or on the radar/"poop" list of someone whose work that i enjoy than i am of some nebulous laws. the merest whiff of the possibility that something like this could happen is giving me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. goodkind cut through the anonymity that people think the internet affords them and to me thats scarier than anything and more effective than any moralizing. i seriously doubt most people would want a spotlight pointed directly at them.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Then let us call it third party ingratiation as it is showing up to the community here how one is on the side of the establishment and how one is the good guy while those not agreeing with this are the bad guys.




Anyone that has a money gain that is totally disproportionate to their amount of effort as opposed to anyone working hard and making the minimum wage or a reasonable amount above the minimum wage.
I'd like to add that, he who makes a lot of money, good for him. I am not opposing that. I only oppose he who is not even quenched by his huge amount of disproportionate money made, that he has to on top, make sure nobody among the little hard working people can dare and try to get a little more if they are smart enough to get it, as if saying: not only I must have way way more than the average guy, I also must make sure they don't have a little more, not even a tiny bit if they are smart enough to do so.

It's the syndrome of the guy that only enjoys his caviar if he knows the great majority can't afford it. If one day the majority for whatever reason can afford it then it does not taste so good anymore. And that is what is wrong and that is what I stand against.




Depends what you do with it, if you say you wrote it then yes it would be wrong, if you sell it then yes it would be wrong as you'd be making money out of something you never put an effort to create. If you change words or chapters in it, you twist the author's vision without his permission.
But if all you do is read a copy of it, the author is still the author, he's still got the money he made off it and the fame if that's what his ego needs. But if he can't stand that someone does not pay him just cause that someone is smart enough to circumvent or bypass that then it's the caviar syndrome previously mentioned in this post.

Spoken like a true twister of words. If you say it is wrong to alter the book or sell the book or twist the authors vision, you imply that the author has rights. It is wrong to read the book without the authors permission (bypass legitimate channels such as buying or borrowing a purchased copy), and encouraging others to do the same is a small order of magnitude worse.

And copying is often percieved as wrong and shoddy behavior even if no physical theft is involved. Copying someones exam answers for instance.

As to the caviar statement, my opinion is that only someone who wants his caviar without working for it would harbour such a bizarre opinion. If you are that smart, you should be rolling in caviar.

Oh well, keep the Red Flag flying.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by plib

For the vast majority the choices you make in life, other than the choice of your parents, actually have very little to do with whether you are part of the 1% or the 99%. Whether you studied a discipline that is still in demand or work in a growing industry may mean that you still have a job, it doesn't really have an effect on whether you can join that one percent. This article is a little statistics heavy but it has a good historical analysis of what the 1%/99% divide actually means. I very much doubt that any poster on here is in the top 10%, who own 70% of the wealth in America, let alone the top 1%.

Why would you doubt that anyone on this board would be in the top 10%? To be in the top 10% of income earners, you just need to have a household income of around $150,000. That's easily obtainable by an educated double income family, assuming their education is in a marketable skill. After all, this is an income that 1 out of 10 enjoys; that's a lot of people. Median income for physicians (non-specialists) is comfortably above this number; median income for lawyers is slightly below; I know that there are some of both here.

By contrast, to be in the top 1%, you need an annual income of just over $500,000. Much harder to reach through traditional salaried jobs, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few people on MR made that much.

I'm not sure why you think that what you study has no impact on whether you can join the top 1%; there are no guarantees, of course, but there are ways to increase your chances significantly. Median income for specialist physicians is $360,000, for example.

Re: Goodkind - I'm not sure where I heard him vilified...but certainly here, to some extent.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by plib

For the vast majority the choices you make in life, other than the choice of your parents, actually have very little to do with whether you are part of the 1% or the 99%. Whether you studied a discipline that is still in demand or work in a growing industry may mean that you still have a job, it doesn't really have an effect on whether you can join that one percent. This article is a little statistics heavy but it has a good historical analysis of what the 1%/99% divide actually means. I very much doubt that any poster on here is in the top 10%, who own 70% of the wealth in America, let alone the top 1%.

I have clearly been lacking in my research into life's available choices. How exactly does one "choose their parents"?

As for choices having little to do with success, that is possibly among the top half dozen of the most ridiculous claims I have ever heard. You believe that someone who chooses not to obtain a high school education, who chooses not to follow that with a tertiary education, who chooses not to work hard in their chosen career path, who chooses not to save and invest wisely, has the same chance of success as a person makes all of those choices? Nothing in the article that you link to supports this.

Did you form your opinion based on the fleeting status of blue collar lottery winners? I am curious - what do you base this almost comical claim upon? How can you believe that effort is not "usually" rewarded? Why do you feel that a person's life is controlled by nothing but chance? That those who are successful are simply luckier than those who aren't?

My wife and I (I earn well, but she earns more as CEO of her own company) are in the top ten percent of households, but we are not in the US. Being in the top ten percent is not too difficult if you are prepared to plan well and work hard, to delay gratification, to not waste opportunity or resources. If I am to believe you, I might have reached the same status if I had dropped out of university and spent my life surfing and having fun.

Gee, if only I had known.

(Sorry if I seem a little sarcastic, but that is my natural reaction to your very strange claims.)

[WT Sharpe]

Moderator Notice
The tone of this thread has shown that there are obviously differing viewpoints, and no one is going to persuade the other that they are wrong. Please feel free to disagree with a person's opinions, or dispute their facts or data, providing you do so politely. When posting, address your criticisms to those opinions, facts and data rather than the person. Refer to MobileRead's Guidelines, specifically the full text of the very first item.

The MobileRead Moderation Team

Spoiler:

From the Guidelines:

1. Discuss Things Politely

Our members have developed a strong, constructive online community. To help maintain this friendly, supportive atmosphere, we ask that you follow these standards of politeness.

MobileRead is intended to be a family-safe and work-safe website. Please post accordingly.

Do attempt to state your point of view in a way that avoids misunderstanding. Remember that we are an international community and not all members are posting in their first language.

When things get controversial please disagree with the opinion, not the person.

Try to be sensitive to others when you post, and tolerant of others when you read their posts.

A rude comment is still rude, even if you follow it with a smiley, "just kidding" or "I'm only joking" or "This is meant to be humorous."

Deliberately provoking other members is prohibited. Members who post provocative or inflammatory posts will be warned. Persistent offenders may be banned.

Name calling is not permitted, even in the form of a question, e.g. "X's posts make me wonder how much he believes what he's saying, or if he's just a troll."

MobileRead reserves the right to limit discussion that is outside the realm of good taste, or uses foul or hateful language. We won't tolerate any form of hate-speech.

Remember that you can use the "ignore" function to ignore a member whose posts irritate you, but you must not announce in open forum that you have done so.

[scottken]

I think Goodkind did exactly the right thing in "outing" his pirate. Writing is hard work, and that Goodkind can profit from it now is only due to years he spent not profiting from it while he learned his craft.

There was recently a kefuffle at NPR regarding an intern publicly boasting about how she pirates songs. It generated a superb response from David Clowery, which points out how piracy shifts the monetary gain away from the artist and to large corporations, namely the file-share sites that sell advertising based on the content they're (*cough*) "hosting." While the article is about music downloads, it seems equally applicable to books.

It's well worth a read (link to full article below, and short excerpt):

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/...gs-considered/

"I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written. Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to make it “convenient” so you don’t behave unethically. (Besides–is it really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would disagree.)

...
The fundamental shift in principals and morality is about who gets to control and exploit the work of an artist. The accepted norm for hudreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time. ...By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally. We are being asked to continue to let these companies violate the law without being punished or prosecuted. We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.

Who are these companies? They are sites like The Pirate Bay, or Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. They are “legitimate” companies like Google that serve ads to these sites through AdChoices and Doubleclick. They are companies like Grooveshark that operate streaming sites without permission from artists and over the objections of the artist, much less payment of royalties lawfully set by the artist. They are the venture capitalists that raise money for these sites. They are the hardware makers that sell racks of servers to these companies. And so on and so on.

What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the equivalent of looting. Say there is a neighborhood in your local big city. Let’s call it The ‘Net. In this neighborhood there are record stores. Because of some antiquated laws, The ‘Net was never assigned a police force. So in this neighborhood people simply loot all the products from the shelves of the record store. People know it’s wrong, but they do it because they know they will rarely be punished for doing so. What the commercial Free Culture movement (see the “hybrid economy”) is saying is that instead of putting a police force in this neighborhood we should simply change our values and morality to accept this behavior. We should change our morality and ethics to accept looting because it is simply possible to get away with it. And nothing says freedom like getting away with it, right?

But it’s worse than that. It turns out that Verizon, AT&T, Charter etc etc are charging a toll to get into this neighborhood to get the free stuff. Further, companies like Google are selling maps (search results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot. Companies like Megavideo are charging for a high speed looting service (premium accounts for faster downloads). Google is also selling ads in this neighborhood and sharing the revenue with everyone except the people who make the stuff being looted. Further, in order to loot you need to have a $1,000 dollar laptop, a $500 dollar iPhone or $400 Samsumg tablet. It turns out the supposedly “free” stuff really isn’t free. In fact it’s an expensive way to get “free” music. (Like most claimed “disruptive innovations”it turns out expensive subsidies exist elsewhere.) Companies are actually making money from this looting activity. These companies only make money if you change your principles and morality! And none of that money goes to the artists!"

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by scottken

But it’s worse than that. It turns out that Verizon, AT&T, Charter etc etc are charging a toll to get into this neighborhood to get the free stuff. Further, companies like Google are selling maps (search results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot. Companies like Megavideo are charging for a high speed looting service (premium accounts for faster downloads). Google is also selling ads in this neighborhood and sharing the revenue with everyone except the people who make the stuff being looted. Further, in order to loot you need to have a $1,000 dollar laptop, a $500 dollar iPhone or $400 Samsumg tablet. It turns out the supposedly “free” stuff really isn’t free. In fact it’s an expensive way to get “free” music. (Like most claimed “disruptive innovations”it turns out expensive subsidies exist elsewhere.) Companies are actually making money from this looting activity. These companies only make money if you change your principles and morality! And none of that money goes to the artists!"

Interesting... I'm paying AT&T for broadband and I've paid good money for my desktop, laptop, smartphone, etc and somehow I manage to find uses for them other than downloading free stuff. Am I using them wrong?

[scottken]

Originally Posted by cjr72

Interesting... I'm paying AT&T for broadband and I've paid good money for my desktop, laptop, smartphone, etc and somehow I manage to find uses for them other than downloading free stuff. Am I using them wrong?

Heh. Of course not. The most interesting point I was trying to highlight with the above quotes is that the "Free Culture" movement fails to note its own hypocrisy in paying regular money to large corporations while depriving individual artists of the royalties they need to support themselves. While musicians can at least tour to earn additional income, writers are primarily dependent on book sales, making piracy of the sort Goodkind outed even more problematic.

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by scottken

Heh. Of course not. The most interesting point I was trying to highlight with the above quotes is that the "Free Culture" movement fails to note its own hypocrisy in paying regular money to large corporations while depriving individual artists of the royalties they need to support themselves. While musicians can at least tour to earn additional income, writers are primarily dependent on book sales, making piracy of the sort Goodkind outed even more problematic.

Well I can't speak for "Free Culture" but I would think the amount of hypocrisy depends on the definition of free that they adhere to. But also I think it's disingenuous to portray it as large corporations vs individual artists. One could easily turn that around to large media companies vs individual software developers.

[scottken]

Originally Posted by cjr72

Well I can't speak for "Free Culture" but I would think the amount of hypocrisy depends on the definition of free that they adhere to. But also I think it's disingenuous to portray it as large corporations vs individual artists. One could easily turn that around to large media companies vs individual software developers.

I'm not portraying it as such, merely noting a spot on blindness on the "pirates", namely that they would be just the sort to say they don't support large corporations, when, in fact, in order to pirate to they do so (as the ads generated on search engines, pirate hosting site, etc., are where their pirating generates revenue).

And this case in point is very much one of an individual artist, as Goodkind released the book himself, with no media-company in the middle.

So the pirate in this generated revenue for tech companies by ripping off an individual. Way to rebel against the system, pirate...err...maybe not.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by scottken

Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally.

And therein lies what makes me antsy about the ethics of piracy: it is doing something solely because you *can*. It is putting might above right. That kind of ethics (or lack thereof) has historically led to serious abuses.

Just because you can blow somebody's brains with a gun doesn't mean you should; just because you can "publish" somebody's creation and freely give it away to a few million of your closest friends doesn't mean it is right to do so.

We should be aspiring to a more ethical culture were people stop to *think* about the effects of their actions and not rely solely on government coercion by force of law to get people to respect each other's rights.

And that last bit seems to be what Goodkind is up to; as a (reported) follower of objectivism, he believes his individual property rights are being infringed and is responding on a direct personal basis.

The guy disintermediating publishers in his most recent release chose to disintermediate the government and took his grievance directly to the pirate. Believe what you will about his beliefs, he is certainly being consistent.