Piracy vs Bookstores

[Puddytat purr]

Originally Posted by llasram

So that leaves customers, the broad majority of whom do not know how to strip a book of DRM even for already-broken systems. For them any DRM scheme, no matter how trivial, will prevent their lending the book to a friend, re-reading it in future years, or re-selling it – freedoms customers take for granted about p-books.

This is the only drawback I personally can see at the moment - I'm glad it prevents me from loaning books (which I don't do anyway, I've lost quite a few doing that ), but I'm a bit of a gadget freak and I can't see me continuing to be content with my cybook - the thought of what may be available in the next few years Which of course means I won't be able to read them because they'll be linked to another device.

So, is it wrong of me to learn how to strip a DRM and make that book available to any future devices?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Puddytat purr

This is the only drawback I personally can see at the moment - I'm glad it prevents me from loaning books (which I don't do anyway, I've lost quite a few doing that ), but I'm a bit of a gadget freak and I can't see me continuing to be content with my cybook - the thought of what may be available in the next few years Which of course means I won't be able to read them because they'll be linked to another device.

So, is it wrong of me to learn how to strip a DRM and make that book available to any future devices?

One of the reasons I decided personally to standardise on MobiPocket format some time ago was that it's available on a far wider range of devices than any other DRM format. I don't know what device I'll be reading my books on in 5 years time, but I'm pretty confident that, whatever it is, it'll support MobiPocket.

[llasram]

Originally Posted by Puddytat purr

So, is it wrong of me to learn how to strip a DRM and make that book available to any future devices?

Well, depends on what you mean by “wrong” . It’s almost certainly illegal (but IANAL). If you’re an intellectual property realist – meaning you hold that IP is in some sense “real” – then it violates the right of the author to deem exactly how their work be used. I personally use the test “does it deny the author any income they would receive in a p-book–only universe,” which leads me to answer “no, not wrong at all.”

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The only thing that gratifies me out of this thread is that it is providing a clarification of PD and DRM for those who do not know how it works. The rest of it, unfortunately, is all about seeking rationalizations and justification for taking something that wasn't intended for you.

We've had these discussions here before, of course, and probably will for all time. Personally, the rationalizations mystify me... I realize e-books may be "just a bunch of electrons," but that shouldn't mean it's okay to consider them as abstract objects, which are okay to steal because "you're not really stealing anything." They still represent a product, and if they are intended to be sold, anyone who takes one without paying is stealing.

Our societies are based on commonly-accepted understandings, such as the concept of the sanctity of property (you know: Thou Shalt Not Steal?). The fact that you can steal something easily, or that you know you won't get caught, is no justification for stealing it. If you can get it fairly, get it. If you cannot... go without. We're talking about books, not food.

Every time I decide I want a book, I check to see if it's available as an e-book. If not, I check to see if it is available in print. If not, maybe I'll try the few used bookstores I know of. But if I still don't find it, I just won't get it. Maybe I'll call the publisher, and ask them to re-release it. But I'm not going to go and steal it, for two reasons: One, it doesn't get back to the publisher, so they don't know it's in demand; and Two, if the publisher does find out, they will NOT release the book, because of the demonstrated tendency for theft.

As long as there's a "darknet," there will be publishers who will not want to release titles into it. That will not help the publishing industry, nor will it help the consumer. So it's worth while to play "by the rules" and shun the darknets, thereby encouraging e-book publishers to give us more legal books.

Sure, it's not a perfect system. Sure, it means waiting seemingly forever for some books, and maybe literally forever for others. But in this case, it's better than the illegal alternative: A continued stifling of the e-book market thanks to the operation of scofflaws.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by llasram

Hardly scientific, but I downloaded the torrents for a handful of fairly large pirated e-book libraries. All the broken DRM e-book formats are HTML-based, so I extracted just the HTML books (had ‘htm|HTM’ in the filename). From that set I took a random sample of 100 which I individually examined to see if there was any evidence they had been derived from pirating the e-book edition of the work. And the number derived from pirated e-books...

None. Every single one was obviously made via scanning and OCRisg.

Slightly but it is quite an interesting result. I think it is scientific enough. It sounds like a valid statistical test judging from the 'random sampling'. .

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by llasram

Hardly scientific, but I downloaded the torrents for a handful of fairly large pirated e-book libraries. All the broken DRM e-book formats are HTML-based, so I extracted just the HTML books (had ‘htm|HTM’ in the filename). From that set I took a random sample of 100 which I individually examined to see if there was any evidence they had been derived from pirating the e-book edition of the work. And the number derived from pirated e-books...

None. Every single one was obviously made via scanning and OCRisg.

My theory is that pirating books via DRM-stripping the e-book edition is literally too easy. In gift economies people gain status based upon the value of what they contribute and the effort involved in the contribution. There’s no status gained from contributing a DRM-stripped book because it requires no effort or skill. Scanning, OCRing, and proofreading is how one gains status in the e-book piracy community, so that’s how books get pirated.

It may also have something to do with the fact that, until recently, most books didn't have ebook editions and so pirates established a workflow that involved OCRing. Also you can get most pbooks for free (from libraries) to pirate them, whereas, you have to pay to get a DRMed version of an ebook to pirate.

[moz]

In Australia it's legal to format shift, at least for music and video. If it's not already legal for books I suspect it will be once the need is realised. From my point of view, ripping "Matter" by Iain M Banks is no different from ripping "MirrorBall" by Sarah McLachlan. Well, other than being more work.

I hope that the book publishers look at the long, losing battle being fought by the music industry against recorded music, and radio stations, and cassette tapes, and mp3 players, and the internet, and decide not to play that game.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by moz

I hope that the book publishers look at the long, losing battle being fought by the music industry against recorded music, and radio stations, and cassette tapes, and mp3 players, and the internet, and decide not to play that game.

Actually, the industries could have controlled "the game" if they'd wanted to, simply by forcing the middleman--the ISP--to pay a "tax" for transmitted music, much like the "tax" we paid per blank cassette tape to cover their expected losses, and let the ISP pass the cost on to us. In fact, if they did it that way, the added cost per person would have been so small as to be negligible (most of us pay more through inflation every year). This plan would have been so painless as to render the whole MP3 issue a non-starter.

As far as the "long, losing battle" is concerned, think about the fact that the longer illegal file sharing continues, the longer that battle will last. The battle isn't just being fought by them... it's being fought because of consumers storming their walls with illegal content. The sooner publishers are convinced that consumers are willing to legally buy content, the sooner they will stop bothering with unworkable DRM schemes, and concentrate on getting us that content.

[Halk]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The only thing that gratifies me out of this thread is that it is providing a clarification of PD and DRM for those who do not know how it works. The rest of it, unfortunately, is all about seeking rationalizations and justification for taking something that wasn't intended for you.

We've had these discussions here before, of course, and probably will for all time. Personally, the rationalizations mystify me... I realize e-books may be "just a bunch of electrons," but that shouldn't mean it's okay to consider them as abstract objects, which are okay to steal because "you're not really stealing anything." They still represent a product, and if they are intended to be sold, anyone who takes one without paying is stealing.

Our societies are based on commonly-accepted understandings, such as the concept of the sanctity of property (you know: Thou Shalt Not Steal?). The fact that you can steal something easily, or that you know you won't get caught, is no justification for stealing it. If you can get it fairly, get it. If you cannot... go without. We're talking about books, not food.

Every time I decide I want a book, I check to see if it's available as an e-book. If not, I check to see if it is available in print. If not, maybe I'll try the few used bookstores I know of. But if I still don't find it, I just won't get it. Maybe I'll call the publisher, and ask them to re-release it. But I'm not going to go and steal it, for two reasons: One, it doesn't get back to the publisher, so they don't know it's in demand; and Two, if the publisher does find out, they will NOT release the book, because of the demonstrated tendency for theft.

As long as there's a "darknet," there will be publishers who will not want to release titles into it. That will not help the publishing industry, nor will it help the consumer. So it's worth while to play "by the rules" and shun the darknets, thereby encouraging e-book publishers to give us more legal books.

Sure, it's not a perfect system. Sure, it means waiting seemingly forever for some books, and maybe literally forever for others. But in this case, it's better than the illegal alternative: A continued stifling of the e-book market thanks to the operation of scofflaws.

What I've taken from this thread is that people generally run the same way as me. They'll make an effort to pay for it if they can.

Our societies are based on not depriving someone of something. If I have a loaf of bread, and someone steals it, then I no longer have a loaf of bread. It's the same with a service. If I give financial advice, and someone comes to me for financial advice, and then does not pay me... they've deprived me of my time and effort, that works out the same as stealing the loaf of bread. If I produce media and someone does not pay for it, because they can get away with not paying for it... then again, it's like the loaf of bread. If, however, I produce media and sell it, however someone cannot pay for it, but they take it anyway, then they have gained, but I have not lost.

The key difference here is impact. I'm no expert on your works (although I notice you do have a couple of short stories available free, they'll be snagged and if I like em I'll buy the whole lot for what seems to be a ludicrous price of $10). If you were to pass away, and your estate decided not to continue selling your works - i.e. it became unavailable to buy... Let's say I'd purchased book 1 in a series, and I wanted to read book 2... what do I do? In my head it's acceptable to go ahead and get it from the darknet, as I have not deprived someone of something. However, I do accept that by doing that I am participating in a system which would prevent a "glut" of consumers demanding (demand in an economic sense, not in a GIMME IT NOW sense) collecting, and your estate saying "Hmm, there's thousands of people itching to read Mr Jordan's books". If everybody was to say "It's not available, I'll pirate it" then that's not going to happen.

However it doesn't have to work that way. Someone in your estate may happen to notice that your books appear non stop on usenet, or there's hundreds of hits on p2p software and say "Hmm, big interest still around, let's cash in". That has happened in the past, an example I would give would be "Capcom Generations". In the arcade game market Capcom were a leading producer. They made "coin op" games such as 1942, Black Tiger, Street Fighter II. A project called MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator) was released in 1997, with the intention of "preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten." It was not originally intended to be used for people just to play the games. However over time interest snowballed in the project, and indeed many, many people were keen to play the games of their youth. The ROMs (books if you like) contained the information on these games and were not legal to upload or download. However it was considered that these were no longer seen as profitable and companies showed no concern (although very few actually came out and said it was legally ok). However companies later realised that this was a huge untapped market, and began enforcing rights, issuing cease and desist orders to sites distrubuting them, and CapCom in 1998 released a series of compilations of (mainly) arcade games. They followed this up in 2005 with more. Had people not shown interest in obtaining these ROMs illegally then CapCom may not have known a demand for this existed.

Ultimately though you're not wrong, and you've given me a bit of food for thought - which was the intention of the thread. Your point, I believe, is that by participating in piracy of books (even if I'm just receiving and not delivering) then I may impact the future of electronic book availability.

I don't quite know yet if I'm unwilling to give up on books not available on electronic format, but I'll make the concession that if I'm just looking for some reading material, then I'll stick to books legally available electronically. As a result I'll browse ebook stores for books, rather than browse for books and then try to buy them electronically. At the end of the day it's quite true that there's a great many books not available. But equally true that there's far, far more books available electronically that I might like than I could ever hope to read.

[binzer]

I would think that authors would be FOR people pirating their books, assuming the person already owns them in paper form (and assuming that they're not for sale as ebooks legally). If someone already owns them, and wants to get an ebook version because they love the work so much, I think that's a good thing. It's certainly a lot less harmful than people lending out their books (which is actually actively reducing sales), although in both situations word of mouth is likely, and that's a good thing.

[llasram]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The only thing that gratifies me out of this thread is that it is providing a clarification of PD and DRM for those who do not know how it works. The rest of it, unfortunately, is all about seeking rationalizations and justification for taking something that wasn't intended for you.

What do you mean by “wasn’t intended for you”? At least in the US copyright is explicitly recognized by the Constitution as a utilitarian construct. It exists to compensate creators by embedding their information product in the market economy by via legally mandated artificial scarcity. Because it’s a construct there have always been edge cases – it’s just that now technology is creating new edge cases faster than the law or our common-sense can keep up.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

We've had these discussions here before, of course, and probably will for all time. Personally, the rationalizations mystify me... I realize e-books may be "just a bunch of electrons," but that shouldn't mean it's okay to consider them as abstract objects, which are okay to steal because "you're not really stealing anything." They still represent a product, and if they are intended to be sold, anyone who takes one without paying is stealing.

We’re definitely in agreement that e-books being “just a bunch of electrons” doesn’t make it okay to deny authors compensation for their work. But I don’t think all the cases which have come up are equally wrong – or necessarily wrong at all. Consider the following cases, assuming in each that the copyright holder has not given explicit permission:

1. Producing an e-book for personal use from a previously purchased p-book.
2. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of a previously purchased p-book.
3. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of an out-of-print work when used copies are difficult to come by.
4. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of an out-of-print work when used copies are plentiful.
5. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of an in-print work.

Of that list I have difficulty seeing what difficulty you could have with (1). To me at least (2) seems identical to (1) – the impact on the author is identical. I see (3) as somewhat borderline and (4) & (5) as clearly wrong, although (5) as worse than (4).

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Every time I decide I want a book, I check to see if it's available as an e-book. If not, I check to see if it is available in print. If not, maybe I'll try the few used bookstores I know of. But if I still don't find it, I just won't get it. Maybe I'll call the publisher, and ask them to re-release it. But I'm not going to go and steal it, for two reasons: One, it doesn't get back to the publisher, so they don't know it's in demand; and Two, if the publisher does find out, they will NOT release the book, because of the demonstrated tendency for theft.

I don’t get the last line of reasoning there. The fact that – bereft of any other means of reading the book – you received a pirated e-book edition would lead the publisher to conclude that only e-book pirates are interested in that particular book?

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

As long as there's a "darknet," there will be publishers who will not want to release titles into it. That will not help the publishing industry, nor will it help the consumer. So it's worth while to play "by the rules" and shun the darknets, thereby encouraging e-book publishers to give us more legal books.

Sure, it's not a perfect system. Sure, it means waiting seemingly forever for some books, and maybe literally forever for others. But in this case, it's better than the illegal alternative: A continued stifling of the e-book market thanks to the operation of scofflaws.

But if my analysis is correct then legal e-book availability has no impact on pirated e-book availability. The pirates get their kudos from scanning and OCRing p-books. In fact, my conclusion would be that the publishers should reduce piracy by “printing” solely e-books.

[llasram]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It may also have something to do with the fact that, until recently, most books didn't have ebook editions and so pirates established a workflow that involved OCRing. Also you can get most pbooks for free (from libraries) to pirate them, whereas, you have to pay to get a DRMed version of an ebook to pirate.

If the second reason is true it would at least back up my conclusion – that pirated e-books aren’t coming from legal e-books.

For the first, that’s one of the reasons I called my little experiment “hardly scientific.” I should perhaps do it again and this time also check against e-book availability, including only pirated HTML editions of books for which e-book editions are available.

BUT I also have a feeling that pirated editions of such books will be less common and less frequently distributed. So to check that I should be monitoring e-book pirate hangouts and comparing posted books with legal e-book availability, and see if I can get any sort of download statistics from darknet e-book servers and cross compare those with e-book availability. And then...

So it spirals out-of-hand pretty quickly.

[Dave Berk]

Deleted .

[moz]

Steve,

I'd like to move to some extent into the philosophical question more than the practical one. Rather than argue about whether we're obliged to feed lawyers, why not work out what we want, then how we can get it? I assume you'd like to be paid for your writing? And I'd like to pay you for it. So, generalising, you'd like to see authors paid, and I'd like to see readers pay authors. I suspect both of us are willing to give a cut to some kind of distribution and rating people. Is that right?

What I see now is that the service layer gets almost all the money, especially from people like me. For new material, I buy from bookshops for the most part, which means most of the money goes to the bookshop. For material that's not sold new, I either buy second hand books (I just paid $US25 for ~15 hardcover SF) in which case the second hand dealer gets the money, or I use the darknet and my ISP gets the money.

So, from the point of view of rewarding the authors, how do the two mechanisms above differ? As far as I can tell neither will reward the author at all. Well, except for the warm glow of knowing that someone loves them. Which doesn't pay the rent.

There's an opportunity there for the copyright holder to make a profit by selling the electronic editions for next to nothing (even $1/book) instead of actually nothing (what they get now). Amusingly, the author could probably in many cases simply resell the darknet edition with a comment from the author.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Actually, the industries could have controlled "the game" if they'd wanted to, simply by forcing the middleman--the ISP--to pay a "tax" for transmitted music

They actually succeeded in doing that with radio, but as I'm sure you're aware it does not work very well. Even the US government was forced to admit that eventually. The major problem from a content producer point of view is that without very strong centralised monitoring (which requires command and control), the tax is distributed unfairly. Either way, most of the money goes to the middlemen. The chances of you personally getting any money at all are vanishingly remote, and the chances of someone like me (a small, semi-amateur in a far-away country) getting anything are zero. My choice is between having my work used free by anyone and used with the payment going to support people in the USA who I strongly disagree with. Small wonder that I choose free (well, strictly, it's begware).

As far as the "long, losing battle" is concerned, think about the fact that the longer illegal file sharing continues, the longer that battle will last.

Actually, the longer people like you keep paying them to do it, and resisting every alternative, the longer the battle will go on. You'll note the absence of software makers from that fight, for instance, as well as copyright holders from outside the USA. My personal efforts go in two directions - asking people for money, and being a member of a professional association who can influence the major violators in the direction of paying me (with photos that's the AIPP and the bought media respectively.

[Halk]

Originally Posted by moz

For material that's not sold new, I either buy second hand books (I just paid $US25 for ~15 hardcover SF) in which case the second hand dealer gets the money, or I use the darknet and my ISP gets the money.

So, from the point of view of rewarding the authors, how do the two mechanisms above differ? As far as I can tell neither will reward the author at all. Well, except for the warm glow of knowing that someone loves them. Which doesn't pay the rent.

The ability to sell a paper book second hand increases the value of the product when it's new, hence a higher price can be charged, allowing more for the author. But I suspect the difference is almost nothing.