E-Book Piracy: The Publishing Industry's Next Epic Saga?

[kjk]

Still waiting for clarification/links to statement about Baen: "it is not prospering at all and it might not even be around next year". That is a pretty serious claim.

[Happ]

Thank you for point that out. You are right. Copyright laws allow authors to live off their work, but are not a guarantee — thankfully! — that they can live off their work. Actually, copyright laws are geared toward the following situation: if the market makes it possible to make money out of somebody’s work, then no one can make that money without the author’s explicit consent.

Regarding DRM, what we have to discuss is just economics. Whenever people start arguments in this context about how evil copyright is, they are flying away to a distant land.

So, back to basics. Who believes in this forum we can sell non-DRM e-books and not be swallowed by free file-sharing? That many? Great. Now think carefully about strategies to convince publishers and authors of that. And stop arguing about the metaphysics of copyright and DRM and the like. Stop using this debate to further the incoherent agenda about a dreamy digital future in which everything is free and everybody is happy.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Happ

.... Stop using this debate to further the incoherent agenda about a dreamy digital future in which everything is free and everybody is happy.

but...but....but.....your name is....Happ!




P.S. (you know) I agree with what you are saying for the most part.

My focus is always only doing all we can to further the creator's ability to profit from their creative work and get rid of the middleman. Whatever that entails.

[ficbot]

Hasn't iTunes proven that people will pay for things they can easily get for free? Seriously, if the book industry got together on something like iTunes, and there was a) a common format readable on all readers and b) a restructure of the chain on their end to reduce expenses and permit a lower price point c) a simplifying on contracts to give authors a fair share and still permit them a profit and d) bundled in a storefront that was as simple and pleasant to use as iTunes for the end user than why wouldn't people buy there, just as they buy music on iTunes?

[Happ]

Originally Posted by kjk

Still waiting for clarification/links to statement about Baen: "it is not prospering at all and it might not even be around next year". That is a pretty serious claim.

I would like it that more and more small businesses like Baen could thrive. That was, after all, the Internet promise, in the beginning, remember? Authors alone, and small publishers, would get a piece of the pie. This was a dream that died early when the ‘free’ business model killed it. Now unless you have lots of people around to click your ads you make almost no money.

Baen would prove great if its business were so good that everyone started to copycat it. After all, e-book publishers are trying to copycat Kindle which in turn is trying to copycat iTunes. And this all is for a reason: money. These models suck to you and me, but make money. More than Baen. What does this tell you? That Baen’s model has a future and that iTunes’ model doesn’t?

So, my verdict is that Baen has not gone bust yet just because it is publishing trade paperbacks and there is money in this. Without that, Baen would cease to exist. So if e-books become more a more common and trade paperbacks more and more cumbersome, Baen will go bust. Unless it changes its business model.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Hasn't iTunes proven that people will pay for things they can easily get for free? Seriously, if the book industry got together on something like iTunes, and there was a) a common format readable on all readers and b) a restructure of the chain on their end to reduce expenses and permit a lower price point c) a simplifying on contracts to give authors a fair share and still permit them a profit and d) bundled in a storefront that was as simple and pleasant to use as iTunes for the end user than why wouldn't people buy there, just as they buy music on iTunes?

Isn't that Amazon's endgame here?

a) the original iTunes DRM was only usable on iPods...similiar to what Amazon is trying to do with Kindle.
b) forced restructuring of the chain, thru a price war
c) Covey?
d) The device is the storefront.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Hasn't iTunes proven that people will pay for things they can easily get for free?

In a way, yes. And that is the good news.

The bad news is that it proved also that people did not care that much about DRM, as long as they can download it and use it easily.

Another piece of bad news is that people do not mind about the strange obligation to buy only from one almost monopolist store. Hence, Sony; hence, Kindle. Hence, crap.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Happ

So, my verdict is that Baen has not gone bust yet just because it is publishing trade paperbacks and there is money in this. Without that, Baen would cease to exist. So if e-books become more a more common and trade paperbacks more and more cumbersome, Baen will go bust. Unless it changes its business model.

Baen publishes hardbacks, trade paperbacks, mass-market paperbacks and ebooks.

It makes money from all of these, and over the past ten years the proportion from ebooks has been steadily increasing, although still very much a small percentage.

If ebooks become more and more common and trade paperbacks more and more cumbersome, I expect Baen to continue to make money as ebook income increases and paperback income decreases.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by kennyc

My focus is always only doing all we can to further the creator's ability to profit from their creative work and get rid of the middleman. Whatever that entails.

I am with you here.

One caveat, though. Middlepersons sometimes are very important. As a writer I simply do not want to have to waste my time thinking about economics, promotion, distribution and the like. I rather have a middleperson to do that, and in return to be paid to do it. Ditto for the creative process itself. Sometimes the middleperson provides a good service — good copy editors and good readers. So let’s not throw the baby away with the water.

[Happ is for Happenstance, not Happy!]

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Happ

I am with you here.

One caveat, though. Middlepersons sometimes are very important. As a writer I simply do not want to have to waste my time thinking about economics, promotion, distribution and the like. I rather have a middleperson to do that, and in return to be paid to do it. Ditto for the creative process itself. Sometimes the middleperson provides a good service — good copy editors and good readers. So let’s not throw the baby away with the water.
...

No disagreement there, particularly in publicity and distribution.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Hasn't iTunes proven that people will pay for things they can easily get for free?

Yes. The vast majority of people will, given a convenient, cheap way of paying for things available on the darknet will chose to pay. But it does need to be both convenient and cheap.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

Actually, copyright laws are geared toward the following situation: if the market makes it possible to make money out of somebody’s work, then no one can make that money without the author’s explicit consent.

I wouldn't go that far either. I'm sure there are ways of making money from secondary markets around a work, without requiring the copyright holder's permission, and there probably should be.

So, back to basics. Who believes in this forum we can sell non-DRM e-books and not be swallowed by free file-sharing?

I do. Other similar markets have successfully done it. Don't worry about the filesharers. There's nothing you can do to stop them. Make a quality product at a price that people see as providing value for the cost, and you can be successful. You're never going to eliminate filesharing, but it won't kill your business either as long as you do the above. Filesharing becomes a serious threat when you're not doing the above, or when your business model depends on an artificial monopoly so that you don't have to do the above.

Now think carefully about strategies to convince publishers and authors of that.

Convincing artists that they can make money with non-DRMd digital works is one thing. Convincing the publishing industry (or RIAA, MPAA, etc), whose main business comes from the fact that they are the bottleneck between the customer and the product, is going to be a lot harder. "The industry" is not really interested in DRM as a means to protect the artists. They're interested in it from the perspective of locking down control over the distribution channels, as well as eliminating traditional rights that they feel hurts their business (fair use, first sale, etc). The industry doesn't care about filesharing because it hurts the artists livelihood, they care about it because it's a competitor to their business model.

The artificial monopoly that copyright grants gives them the power to abuse their position that a (theoretical) free market would not allow. They will fight very hard to keep that power, and even try to expand it (which is why DRM is only partially about copyright enforcement).

What the large/established members of that industry fear is that consumers and artists will realize that they don't need them to be distributors anymore. When that happens (it's already starting), they lose their power. Without that power, they lose their traditional business model.

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by Happ

So, back to basics. Who believes in this forum we can sell non-DRM e-books and not be swallowed by free file-sharing? That many? Great. Now think carefully about strategies to convince publishers and authors of that.

Alrighty...
Hmmmm...most all of us that read have supported free sharing of paper books for years...
One book gets bought at Christmas and gets passed through the entire family...
Then the book gets loaned to a friend who maybe shares it with his family...
Or, as mentioned above, a library buys it and 1000s read it...

So really, isn't the difference between paper books and ebooks just a matter of scale?
Isn't the original purchaser allowed to share with as many friends and family as he cares to?
(Sure, you could share an ebook and still keep a copy, but for the most part, once it is read, you're done with it).

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Hasn't iTunes proven that people will pay for things they can easily get for free? Seriously, if the book industry got together on something like iTunes, and there was a) a common format readable on all readers and b) a restructure of the chain on their end to reduce expenses and permit a lower price point c) a simplifying on contracts to give authors a fair share and still permit them a profit and d) bundled in a storefront that was as simple and pleasant to use as iTunes for the end user than why wouldn't people buy there, just as they buy music on iTunes?

You're right, but they're not going to want to do (b) and (c) willingly. Look at the music industry. They had to basically be dragged kicking and screaming to the current iTunes market. It was not something they wanted to do, they fought it every step of the way.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

Baen would prove great if its business were so good that everyone started to copycat it. After all, e-book publishers are trying to copycat Kindle which in turn is trying to copycat iTunes.

IMO, the iTunes model is closer to Baen than it is to Amazon/Kindle.