There's a better way to beat the ebook pirates

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

... What about the rest of the world? ...

It's the periphery of importance :~)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection; the lovers, the dreamers, and meeeee.

Originally Posted by caleb72

Here - have some karma.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by stonetools

People go to pirate sites because its easy and it doesn't cost them anything. Make it hard to get to the pirate sites (IOW, ENFORCE the law) and people will pay for things they want to enjoy.
If you make it easy to pirate or casually share, people will do that a lot. Make it difficult, and they will do it less. Its not that hard, really.

Which type of downloader are we talking about here? File collectors aren't going to suddenly start buying 3,000 ebooks per day just to feed their habit. They will just start collecting something else instead, or more likely just go back to IRC or whatever.

Try-before-you-buy downloaders won't be buying more because they won't know what to buy. They'll just continue buying from the favourite writers they've already discovered and there will be no more openings for new writers.

So that just leaves the freeloaders, people who download as an alternative to paying for stuff. Poverty is the main motivation for those people, so where would they get the money to buy all that stuff? They might buy a few things, things that they really want, but the rest they will either do without or aquire some other way. Any additional sales from them will be more than wiped out by the lack of new sales from the try-before-you-buy crowd anyway.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Which type of downloader are we talking about here? File collectors aren't going to suddenly start buying 3,000 ebooks per day just to feed their habit. They will just start collecting something else instead, or more likely just go back to IRC or whatever.

Try-before-you-buy downloaders won't be buying more because they won't know what to buy. They'll just continue buying from the favourite writers they've already discovered and there will be no more openings for new writers.

So that just leaves the freeloaders, people who download as an alternative to paying for stuff. Poverty is the main motivation for those people, so where would they get the money to buy all that stuff? They might buy a few things, things that they really want, but the rest they will either do without or aquire some other way. Any additional sales from them will be more than wiped out by the lack of new sales from the try-before-you-buy crowd anyway.

Bingo. That's always been my thoughts. Only in industries run by organizations with a permanent stupid complex like the RIAA think they are somehow going to get 80 bazillion dollars if they could somehow stop piracy. That would get only a tiny fraction of what they think they would get.

The dude downloading a torrent of 1,000 books would not be buying 1,000 books if he couldn't torrent them.

[GreenMonkey]

A second thought occurred to me (sorry for repeat post but it didn't belong in my last post).


Netflix streaming (or even netflix + DVD) is the perfect model IMO for getting *some* revenue from people that would otherwise pirate. It's fairly priced and way easier than ripping DVDs.

I'm sure movie companies aren't liking how much money they make (they are certainly selling less DVDs) but I'm sure it has caused a large decline in copyright infringement. Why download 7 seasons of a TV show when you get it on Netflix streaming?

This is an example of pricing correctly and adapting to the real world, where the internet exists, and people want stuff for cheap.

[Bikeridr]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

The dude downloading a torrent of 1,000 books would not be buying 1,000 books if he couldn't torrent them.

And this dude is not going to read the 1.000 books either. Probably not even one single one of them. S/He just pirate for the sake of piracy, and I dare say, the author, publisher and/or (e)bookstore havent either lost *or* gained anything on this piracy.

1.000 books is more than most people (except us bookworms) would read in two lifetimes anyway.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by stonetools

... If you make it easy to pirate or casually share, people will do that a lot. Make it difficult, and they will do it less ...

Why just focus on negativity? Why not take a more balanced approach? Here are some examples of positive aspects. Publishers could look upon sharing as free marketing. Budding authors could take it as a compliment that someone feels their precious book is worth copying. And so on.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Why just focus on negativity? Why not take a more balanced approach? Here are some examples of positive aspects. Publishers could look upon sharing as free marketing. Budding authors could take it as a compliment that someone feels their precious book is worth copying. And so on.

Because that's what he's paid to do.

[Anke Wehner]

I wonder if that stupidity has something to do with salaries high up in the managment chain in big corporations (I'm not even talking about publishers, but the companies that have bought publishing houses).

Not having enough money to buy however many books you want is so far from their reality that someone being on a tight budget for their entertainment does not fit into their brains? Maybw they suppose something analogous to "of course I could pay taxes, but I pay someone to find loopholes so I don't have to" as underlying mentality.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Because that's what he's paid to do.

Who by?

[kennyc]

He won't admit....

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Authors and publishers are interested in a DRM scheme that prevents casual sharers from easily violating an author's copyright: your scheme would do nothing to prevent this. Someone who got their free copy of an ebook forwarded from your relative would just look at the info and say " Wow, Piper originally bought this. Good to know" and just continue reading their free book. .

Do authors and publishers really care about that type of sharing? Real books have been shared like that for hundreds of years without anyone having a fit about it.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by kennyc

He won't admit....

Oh well, I hope he enjoyed his works outing.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Do authors and publishers really care about that type of sharing? Real books have been shared like that for hundreds of years without anyone having a fit about it.

Quite. You could argue that's why books became so popular.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by stonetools

How would your method prevent that? You just attach the file and off it goes to your email distribution list. It would be just as simple as forwarding a blog post or newspaper article-something that's done a jillion times a day on the Internet.

Just as simply done, but not even close to as casually or widely, which you said was the problem that made DRM necessary.

Throughout your thread, you said passing a copy to family members or close friends wasn't the problem. You kept insisting that the need for DRM was to protect against "Large Scale Casual Sharing," wherein the books were casually passed on, via Facebook etc, to dozens, who passed it on to dozens, and ultimately hundreds of people.

So we pointed out a method that would answer your problem without putting a burden on customers; just as was predicted, when you finally respond, it's only to dodge and weave to move the goalposts.

Not surprising, since so many publishers won't even permit a single two-week lending of an ebook in its lifetime.

Next thing we know, you'll be admitting that, beyond "large scale casual sharing," you don't even think I should be free to send my husband or sister one of my 6 allotted simultaneous copies. Or, well, I guess you just did:

Originally Posted by stonetools

In fact, Piper, what you really want to do is to make copies of an ebook you buy and mail it to your family members . Well, that's a violation of the author's intellectual property rights and a federal offense. If the publishers removed DRM, they would just make it easy for you to do that and even (you could tell yourself) give you PERMISSION to violate the author's copyright. Well, you can't really fault the publishers for not making it THAT easy for you.

You're still trying to use copyright to defend DRM that goes far beyond that and puts needless burden on customers.

I can legally send a copy to anyone as long as they use the same device and tell me their serial #. But I can't send it to my husband's or my own Sony without stripping it.

That's not because of copyright, but a restriction imposed by the DRM you defend.

Your position on this and people with different devices is so self-incriminating, I only want to thank you when you lay it out so openly to us. I just hope this puts an end to your accusing us of not offering any alternatives to DRM other than no protection at all.