Massive wave of ebook piracy?

[craig8128]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Though your point seems logical... I've sold ebooks at $2- $3, and they've still ended up in torrent lists. The fact is, actual price doesn't matter... it seems any price at all is enough reason for someone, somewhere, to torrent a book.

I've been a computer geek for several decades now, and while I've never been part of the hacker / cracker culture, I've been exposed to it. And I suspect that the reason you see even your inexpensively priced books in torrents is probably more a matter of "hacker mentality" than because anyone wants to steal your book: someone is getting an egoboost because they're "contributing" a huge archive, or they like having bragging rights about how many books they've "cracked" and uploaded, etc. They all wanna have that "Neo meets Trinity" moment: "oh, you're the one who uploaded 10,000 Science Fiction Classics!"

No, this doesn't make it right.

Craig

[craig8128]

Originally Posted by TGS

I guess a possible response to this, (though not one I necessarily agree with), is that if you went into Waterstones, bought three books, left two of them in the shop and went back a few months later to find they were not there, this would not justify you going and stealing copies of those books from somewhere.

But ... what if Waterstones told you up-front that if you lost any of the books that you purchased, they'd give you another copy for free? (which is, I believe, effectively what Amazon and others promise).

Craig

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

And it's hard to take seriously complaints about "this economy" by people who are using e-book readers (including iPads).

I beg to differ. There is no doubt that iPad is pricey piece of the technology, but it hardly defines an average person who is using e-book reader.

Hell, most of us have TV sets priced higher than iPad, yet you will never hear the argument that $700 widescreen TV set is a luxury. Why, for crying out loud, is $140 Kindle a fashionable item and not a lowly appliance?

[craig8128]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Hell, most of us have TV sets priced higher than iPad, yet you will never hear the argument that $700 widescreen TV set is a luxury. Why, for crying out loud, is $140 Kindle a fashionable item and not a lowly appliance?

I totally agree. It make me wonder if a "Netflix-like" approach to publishing would work? Call it "NetBoox" Ie, $20 / month for "all you can read", where you can check out (say) 4 DRM'ed books at a time, with an option to purchase "permanent" copies of books you especially like.

No, I don't think it would kill ebook piracy, but -- I wonder if it would hit that "sweet spot" of low cost / ease of use / variety that would make piracy too much of a hassle for most people?

Craig

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

The period should also be long enough that the author can get a good price for selling the copyrighted work (meaning that he is selling the rights for a long enough period of time for someone to want to pay a lot of money for it). Having said that, death + 70 years may be too long.

I just wanted to add one tidbit. It's death +70 for works published since 1978.

Before that it's 95 years from date of publication. This is why no further material will hit US public domain before 2019.

[Krystian Galaj]

If you have some time to read a good argument, I find this series of blog posts on digital market economy very good (and relevant to piracy):

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml
(this is the final post, scroll to list below, and read the links to have the whole thing in chronological order)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There is an element of that, though the people who will actually go looking for a $2 ebook to download for free were never going to buy it anyway.

I've never seen the point to this argument, because (1) it cannot be proven--it is simply hearsay, and (2) it is presented as justification, as if it somehow makes it okay to torrent a book.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by craig8128

I totally agree. It make me wonder if a "Netflix-like" approach to publishing would work? Call it "NetBoox" Ie, $20 / month for "all you can read", where you can check out (say) 4 DRM'ed books at a time, with an option to purchase "permanent" copies of books you especially like.

This is off-topic, but something like that already exists. O'Reilly "Safari" service offers you a subscription-based access to any of their books. Based on the plan that you chose, you put "X" books in your "bookshelf", and can read (and search!) them whenever you please. If you want to obtain a PDF version of the chapter, that is limited to "Y" chapters per month.

Truth to be told, O'Reilly publications are all about technology, and the service is more geared toward businesses who want to provide such reference material to their employees.

Would it work for novels? Depends on the collection. Netflix collection of shows offered to Canadians is not so great, so I am still keeping my (expensive as hell) satellite. Should that change in the future, a simple download to PS3 is but a click away...

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Truth to be told, O'Reilly publications are all about technology, and the service is more geared toward businesses who want to provide such reference material to their employees.

Not strictly - for example "Cooking for Geeks" ( http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/ ) is a cookbook, published by O'Reilly and included in the "bookshelf" program, afaik.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

If the only price that publishers could get for new e-books was $4.99, they would stop producing e-books.

Not so. A counter-example: Baen Books. Even new release hardbacks from them are $6 in ebook form. And if you're willing to buy the four new releases in a month, you can get them for $3.75 each. (And get two or more back-catalogue titles thrown in for free.)

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by craig8128

I've been a computer geek for several decades now, and while I've never been part of the hacker / cracker culture, I've been exposed to it. And I suspect that the reason you see even your inexpensively priced books in torrents is probably more a matter of "hacker mentality" than because anyone wants to steal your book: someone is getting an egoboost because they're "contributing" a huge archive, or they like having bragging rights about how many books they've "cracked" and uploaded, etc. They all wanna have that "Neo meets Trinity" moment: "oh, you're the one who uploaded 10,000 Science Fiction Classics!"

That's interesting. So someone bought or borrowed 10,000 books, cracked and uploaded them, just so someone would leave the comment along the lines of "you're the man!".
Now I know what you are going to say: this theoretical egomaniac didn’t spend years doing this, most of them are downloaded and added to the collection. But that just wouldn't fit in with your contribution theory. I mean most people would recognize seeing 9000 of them in other places, and even downloaded most of them, so they just wouldn't care about the new guy who broke the 10,000 files barrier.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Not so. A counter-example: Baen Books. Even new release hardbacks from them are $6 in ebook form. And if you're willing to buy the four new releases in a month, you can get them for $3.75 each. (And get two or more back-catalogue titles thrown in for free.)

True about Baen; I should have said most publishers. (And I don't understand *at all* the economics of their e-book scheme. I.e., "Cryoburn" is out in hardback; you can buy it at Baen for $6, or you can legally download it (and all of the other books in its series) for free from here: http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/2...CD/CryoburnCD/ (as has been previously posted on MR).

I mean, I do understand the economics of giving a way the first couple of books in a series through their Free Library, on the idea that you would be hooked and buy the rest. And, consistent with this, you can get the first two volumes of the Honor Harrington series free at the free library, with the rest costing $6 apiece. Or you can, again legally, go to http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/2...sionofHonorCD/ and simply download *all* of the books in the series.

So I really don't understand how their economic system works...and even if it works for them, it's hard to see how it would work for anyone else.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

So I really don't understand how their economic system works...and even if it works for them, it's hard to see how it would work for anyone else.

Perhaps Baen have not factored greed and total customer disdain into their pricing and distribution scheme?

I mean a new release ebook for $6 with no DRM, geo restrictions and available in any choice of format any time is not going to last is it? At least, that is what the agency 5 gang would have us believe.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Perhaps Baen have not factored greed and total customer disdain into their pricing and distribution scheme?

I mean a new release ebook for $6 with no DRM, geo restrictions and available in any choice of format any time is not going to last is it? At least, that is what the agency 5 gang would have us believe.

No, it is not what they say.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Why copyright and not other forms of property? By this logic, we might as well say that when you die, all of your property goes to the state rather than to your heirs.

Physical property is one thing, but when it comes to Intellectual Property, why is it that authors get life plus many decades, when inventors can only patent their inventions for 17-20 years, non-renewable?

(This is another reason why I don't see copyright laws as equivalent to what's morally fair.)