Is it worth taking down pirate ebooks from the public web?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

they're not offering to actually check for unauthorized copies that involve opening files to see what's inside them.

Wouldn't work anyway if people put passwords on their zips.

[Quexos]

No. It would make the web boring. take movies and music from it too and it makes it dreary, take naked women off the net while you're at it and it becomes ... that's it, I'm cancelling my ISP subscription.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Quexos

No. It would make the web boring. take movies and music from it too and it makes it dreary, take naked women off the net while you're at it and it becomes ... that's it, I'm cancelling my ISP subscription.

Gotta have the 'clothing impaired' females hmm.lol.

[ebusinesstutor]

I don't think any software can totally stop piracy. But maybe it can stop where the top searches in Google for an ebook brings up the pirate sites first.

I did a search for a book and of the top 3 results, two were pirated versions and some people may download them without knowing they aren't supposed to be free. If we make people go to pirate sites to download instead of finding them in the top Google results, I think that would be beneficial.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Wouldn't work anyway if people put passwords on their zips.

That is, unless passwords were bypassed, which is simple to do.

[dbeman]

In the retail world store owners, managers and loss prevention coordinators know that they are never going to completely eliminate theft; and therefore their goal is to create a system that makes it as difficult as possible to steal. This won't stop the professional thieves, but it will cut down on those who are prone to committing "crimes of opportunity."

For example, if I put a $20 bill on a park bench with a post-it note asking the would be reader to "please don't take" I would be a fool to expect that the money will still be there in an hour's time. There are, however, several precautions I can take to lessen the likelihood that the money will be stolen. I could hide it under the bench, ask someone to watch it for me, or set it underneath a rattlesnake. Neither of these methods is foolproof, but it does provide a deterrent for the ordinary passerby.

Such is true for digital piracy as well. There is an underground network of private online communities whose sole purpose is to share pirated files. You are never going to stop this group from doing what they do. You're never even going to find them.

However I suppose you could deter the "casual" file thieves by making material difficult to find, the problem is that once something has hit the bit torrent community you'll be playing a game of virtual whack-a-mole, and you'll eventually ask yourself if the payoff continues to be worth the effort.

[mr ploppy]

I've probably said this hundreds of times already, but the people who never buy anything don't really matter. If they don't download your book they will just download someone else's book instead. They might give it a good review somewhere, but that's all you will ever get from them, and you won't even get that if you stop them from downloading it.

The only ones who matter are the ones who download pirate copies as a way of discovering new writers, and the ones who will buy a retail copy ONLY if they can't find a free pirate copy anywhere. Getting pirate copies delisted will increase your income from the latter group, but will also cut off any potential income from the former. As well as any residual income as a result of a positive review from the people who never buy anything.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

I did a search for a book and of the top 3 results, two were pirated versions and some people may download them without knowing they aren't supposed to be free. If we make people go to pirate sites to download instead of finding them in the top Google results, I think that would be beneficial.

I'm a stalwart defender of complete data freedom on the internet but I can't help but agree entirely with this statement. There's a difference between someone wanting to read news not approved of by his government and copyright infringement. Piracy isn't freedom of speech, period.

It's tricky though, not like it's google's fault that random people are committing piracy on public sites. They're not trying to help the pirates, they just want people to find what they search for, their software has no idea if something is legal/moral/ethical/etc or not. Thus, it's hardly fair to expect them to monitor the entire internet for whatever new types of piracy crop up. Even if they were to analyze every single bit that passes through their system they would still fail, since the pirates would just adapt.

Get's even worse if you consider crowd sourcing. Karma-like system work great on closed systems, but they're horrible for open ones (and one for google would have to be open). Just imagine how many homophobes would downvote helpful sites for those people into oblivion. Or how racists would make anything by colored people vanish from google in an instant.

Really not sure how it should, or could, be done.

[OtterBooks]

well it certainly feels worth it when I take them down from the web BADDACHING I KID

[xg4bx]

i'd like to know how romance publishers stay in business. most pirate sites are filled to the brim with romance and even sellers on amazon will sell you bags-full for pennies. they're more prevailent than anything, with urban fantasy running a close second. you've gotta work to find horror, science fiction or indie stuff.

textbooks/technical manuals are also very common.

i don't know how many people actually check out pirate sites. they're really not this one-stop clearinghouse that you would think. they're mostly filled with mainstream bestsellers that there are so many copies floating around that people throw them away and the aforementioned romance/urban fantasy. if you're a self published or small press author you're not being hurt by piracy.

99% of what i like to read won't ever appear on any pirate site, its simply not worth the risk/reward for someone to even bother posting it....if they even know about it in the 1st place.

uploaders telling downloaders "hey if you like it buy a legit copy or at least post a review" is also more common than you would think.

[mr ploppy]

If only Google had something like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/dmca.html

Then this whole problem of pirate sites being ranked higher in searches than retail sites wouldn't exist.

[Todd Young]

I just don't get why people upload the files in the first place. If it's a file sharing site, what is the incentive to upload something that you know is copyright. What do you get out of it?

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Todd Young

I just don't get why people upload the files in the first place. If it's a file sharing site, what is the incentive to upload something that you know is copyright. What do you get out of it?

People on here complain about not being able to share their ebooks the way they can do with paper books. Well uploading it is basically the same as leaving your old books on a shelf in the lobby for anyone to pick up.

They aren't getting anything out of it as far as I know, except the satisfaction of sharing the book with others who might enjoy it as well.

Just because it's there, doesn't mean that everyone is downloading it to read.

Right now I have a very narrow interest in certain books, if a book isn't in the genre of what I'm interested in reading, I'm not going to bother to buy it or download it.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Todd Young

I just don't get why people upload the files in the first place. If it's a file sharing site, what is the incentive to upload something that you know is copyright. What do you get out of it?

The pleasure of bringing good books to people who don't have them? The same reason people upload books here at Mobileread, only without the benefit of karma points as a reward. Sort of. Some upload sites have karma points, or something like them, and forums where regular uploaders get thanked for their efforts.

Like cfrizz said... it's like leaving a book on a shelf in the lobby, one that can get picked up over and over again.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by Todd Young

I just don't get why people upload the files in the first place. If it's a file sharing site, what is the incentive to upload something that you know is copyright. What do you get out of it?

i think people look at it like it not really being any different than burning a cd for a friend. you know theres copyright involved but nobody sweats it. the satisfaction of helping someone out is its own reward.

i'm not an uploader but if someone was desperate to read a book that wasnt available in their country and i was able to help them out, i'm sure that would be a good feeling.

the older i get the more, i don't know, "liberal" i've become when it comes to stuff like copyright. its just information. its just words and ideas and i don't think one should be kept from information by arbitrary lines on a globe.

yes people deserve to be paid for their work. but i would hope most authors get into it for the love of the craft with financial rewards for their hobby being secondary.