ebook piracy numbers

[ficbot]

There are issues with saying 'just buy the pbook' too though. I live in a very expensive city, real estate costs a fortune and I simply don't have the space to store, in paper, every book I might want. So it's ebook or no boo, basically. They are not equivalent products in my mind at all.

Also, older people like my parents have accessibility issues with ebooks. My stepdad's primary interest in ebooks is that he has arthritis in his hands and finds it difficult to hold and manipulate a paper book. So for him too, it is 'ebook or no book' and they simply are not equivalent products. It's like saying 'there is no fancy cheese shop in your town? Well, just buy a McDonald's cheeseburger if cheese is what you want!' Totally different things.

[Fbone]

I didnt realize there were used book stores still around. How do they cover their lease?

[sassanik]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I didnt realize there were used book stores still around. How do they cover their lease?

Yes there are still used book stores around. There is also Goodwill which can have an interesting variety of books.


To me the more interesting question is how many sales are they losing. The moral issue of "illegal" downloads etc will be debated far into the future.

I think that the publishers and possibly some authors have an unrealistic view of what pirated ebooks actually cost them.

I imagine that they loose very few sales from them, and actually the pirated copies may help generate sales.

So while I think its a problem I do not believe at this point in time that it is a huge one. That may change one day.

Amy

[greypanther]

The local library has been my friend since i retired as I simply can't afford to buy books anymore. When I first heard about ereaders I thought, great, books at an affordable price and no need for bookshelves anymore.

But as usual disappointed again. I'm an aussie and of course most of the authors I would like to read are unavailable to me without jumping through hoops which out of principle i won't do.

So do I feel guilty about getting the occaisional book from the darknet, no I don't and until publishers get their act together I will continue to do it.

Nobody has lost any money from me because I would never have bought their books anyway.

I will add that I do support and buy what I can from Baen Books I like their business model (no DRM or Geo restrictions) and that they offer some books for free. Also SciFi books are difficult to get here in rural Aus.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I used to work in the magazine industry, and interned at one of the biggest magazines in the country. It was the number one 'most read' magazine, and its chief rival used to brag that it was the number one 'most purchased.' By this, they mean that the 'most read' winner gets their number one status from being in doctor's offices and multi-person households where people share. They brag about this sharing and use it as a selling point! And this is from the publishing 'industry!'

Because the primary purpose of a magazine is to sell advertising space. More eyeballs == more advertising money, whether they bought the magazine or not.
Doesn't apply to books, which don't contain adverts, they have to be profitable purely on sales.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by carld

Yes, you're illegally acquiring something that you have no right to. That's theft.

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

While I fully agree with you carld, it's a lost cause here. I've learned trying to convince many people here of what you are saying merely resulted in heated arguments that degenerated in the other parties resorting to hateful insults directed at me when I kept punching holes in their arguments. Unless people are ethical enough to understand the difference between right and wrong, honesty and stealing, they will just rationalize their actions with lame arguments, suchas there is no loss of a sale if you duplicate something you wouldn't have bought in the first place. It still is stealing but people will believe what is convenient for them to believe. At this point I'm bowing out.

And that's all I've got to say to that!

[GhostHawk]

Awwww Kenny I've been sitting here waiting for 3 days to see what you'd have to say.
And all I got was that?

Tsk tsk tsk.

Hardly worth the effort.

Guess I'll have to go steal some books that someone doesn't even know are missing just to make up for the disappointment.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by carld

I disagree. It's certainly copyright infringement. It may not, as a matter of technical law, be defined as theft, but that doesn't really change things, and I'm not going to argue definitions. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is stealing. Just because it's easy to do with ebooks doesn't make it any less wrong.

If I put a paper book under a copier and put all those copies together in a new book, it's not called theft. It's called copyright infringement (as the copyright in about all books say you can't copy from it without permission from the publisher).

What's the difference? Oh, I borrowed that book from a friend, and gave it back to him afterwards.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I didnt realize there were used book stores still around. How do they cover their lease?

There are plenty of used bookstores around, at least in AZ and SoCal. Many also have used videos. AZ has a chain of huge used bookstores called Bookman's (as well organized as a new bookstore) and there are many smaller ones, some of which specialize in specific genres, such as SciFi/Fantasy. I've also been in a few in Southern CA. Many thrift stores also have large numbers of used books. Goodwill has been mentioned. A friend of mine and I have a semiannual thriftstore expedition in Escondido when I visit out her way. The first thrift store we hit, AmVets, has a large used book area; I usually walk out with a short stack. Salvation Army usually has a good selection (although last Spring's visit was disappointing). The Goodwill there is usually a disappointment, bookwise, but one of the Goodwills in Mesa, close to where I live, usually has a large number of used books. The last time I was in Prescott, I passed by a small moldy looking used book store that looked like it might have a few treasures buried within. I'm heading back up there when the weather cools and setting aside some serious browsing time just for that store. A used book store recently opened up within easy walking distance of my house

How do they pay the rent? I don't know but judging from the number of them, they know how. I'm sure their business has received a boost lately as the sick economy has forced people to seek cheaper forms of entertainment.

[Worldwalker]

Driving up the coast of Maine, it seems like you pass a used bookstore every few miles. The ultimate is the Big Chicken Barn; I could spend a whole day in there. If you live anywhere in eastern New England, a trip up Route 1, perhaps with one or more of the used booksellers' associations' store lists in hand, will be worth a day or two. (I'd recommend a weekend trip, one day up and one day back, because some of the best close early). Oh, don't stop at the one right over the bridge -- I forget the name, but it's a freestanding little place on your left with a shabby parking lot and piles of rotting books out front -- the owner demands a browsing fee (and there are some creepy rumors about him).

I miss those trips.

[BexBits]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

If I want to buy a Simon & Schuster book, I have to buy it at Simon & Schuster's set price. If I want to buy a Macmillan book, I have to buy it at Macmillan's set price. If I want to buy a Smashwords book, I have to buy it at Smashwords' set price. If I want to see the sunrise, I have to face east. I just don't see the news here.

The "news" is that this is not how it traditionally worked in book sales.
Retail sellers (not consumers) bought from Simon & Schuster or McMillan and then set their own prices. They could *give* them away if they wanted.

[jgaiser]

Online used books stores I use:

Goodwill Books

Powell's Books

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ficbot

There are issues with saying 'just buy the pbook' too though. I live in a very expensive city, real estate costs a fortune and I simply don't have the space to store, in paper, every book I might want. So it's ebook or no boo, basically. They are not equivalent products in my mind at all.

My fallback is "buy the pbook... used mmpb, from a thrift store or if I can't find it there, Amazon; pay $1 for the book and $4 for shipping; chop the binding, run it through scanner; OCR the text; no corrections if I haven't read it before, slam it into Word, save as RTF & read it on my Sony."

Author made no money. Publisher made no money. Amazon made more money than it deserves for a $.75 shipping fee. I got a poorly-formatted version to read; if I'm going to re-read it, I'll go back & correct the OCR errors & fix the formatting. I'm out about an hour of labor (I can read while the scanner is running & while the OCR is processing; there's bits of touchup here & there but otherwise it runs itself), but it's an hour doing tasks I enjoy, so I don't feel cheated by that.

I'm aware that producing a good-quality, sharable ebook requires a lot more labor than that... but hey, I can't legitimately share this version, so it only has to be checked to my level of error-tolerance. I'm willing to read at fanfiction.net; my error tolerance is pretty high. I'll glance at the first few pages & see if there are annoying common OCR errors I can fix by find & replace, and otherwise let things slide. I don't care if an occasional period is read as a comma, or if I have to deal with 1's instead of I's in a few places.

While this works for me, it doesn't work for everyone, and I'm really failing to see how this is better for the publishing industry & authors than selling me a $5 no-DRM ebook. Nor how just downloading a version from the darknet is worse for them.

[Over]

Most publishers explore imorally the ebook market. Many consumers respond by imorally pirating.

As long as one part thinks the other is taking advantage, this problem won't be solved.

About numbers, I don't have them, but I know ebook piracy is not as widespread as music, video & games. Maybe because reading isn't as popular and fast consumable as hearing music, watching a movie/tv series or playing a videogame. Yet, all these industries are thriving and beating record sales. Even in this recession.

That just means that the industry is getting more and more greedy. Capitalism enforces them to increase profit every year. And their job is to squeeze our money from our pockets, and do everything they can.

For exemplo, in the videogames industry, they are criticizing used game sales and protecting online/multiplayer part with serial numbers that can only be used once (so someone that buy's a second hand game, won't be able to play online, unless they pay an extra for the serial number).

I'm not saying that two wrongs make a right. I'm just stating that a wrong might generate another wrong.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

My fallback is "buy the pbook... used mmpb, from a thrift store or if I can't find it there, Amazon; pay $1 for the book and $4 for shipping; chop the binding, run it through scanner; OCR the text; no corrections if I haven't read it before, slam it into Word, save as RTF & read it on my Sony."

Author made no money. Publisher made no money. Amazon made more money than it deserves for a $.75 shipping fee. I got a poorly-formatted version to read; if I'm going to re-read it, I'll go back & correct the OCR errors & fix the formatting. I'm out about an hour of labor (I can read while the scanner is running & while the OCR is processing; there's bits of touchup here & there but otherwise it runs itself), but it's an hour doing tasks I enjoy, so I don't feel cheated by that.

I'm aware that producing a good-quality, sharable ebook requires a lot more labor than that... but hey, I can't legitimately share this version, so it only has to be checked to my level of error-tolerance. I'm willing to read at fanfiction.net; my error tolerance is pretty high. I'll glance at the first few pages & see if there are annoying common OCR errors I can fix by find & replace, and otherwise let things slide. I don't care if an occasional period is read as a comma, or if I have to deal with 1's instead of I's in a few places.

While this works for me, it doesn't work for everyone, and I'm really failing to see how this is better for the publishing industry & authors than selling me a $5 no-DRM ebook. Nor how just downloading a version from the darknet is worse for them.

That's essentially what I am doing except I'm bypassing the OCR (too many books for the number of books involved; apparently, I'm less tolerant of OCR errors than you are) and just reading the PDFs. I'll also do it to new books. It's ethical for me to do so since the original P-book gets destroyed in the process so I'm merely making a legal media shift.