Brian Keene on piracy

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No you're not. Let's be perfectly clear...

No, you and I will stop here. There's clearly no point in discussing this with you, as you continue to act like I'm attacking you personally.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Brian Keene doesn't want fans; he wants customers. That's a reasonable goal for an author to have, but he should perhaps consider that there are almost always easier ways to make money.

I'm sure he knows that; we all do. That doesn't negate his right to pursue it, nor does it give others right to sabotage his efforts.

[pilotbob]

I'm not 100% sure what is being discussed here. This guy put something on the internet for free... and it is getting passed around?

Then he removed it? You do know you can't really remove stuff from the internet? Pretty much everything is cached and proxied. So, he is going to have a hard time ensuring that it is removed from all those cached locations and I'm not sure calling people that access those caches pirates is quite fair.

Now, if someone took those posts, and complied them and uploaded them somewhere else, that probably is piracy.

If you put something up on the internet that you don't protect in some way it is pretty much public at that point anyway.

BOb

[no.guru]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'm not 100% sure what is being discussed here. This guy put something on the internet for free... and it is getting passed around?

Then he removed it? You do know you can't really remove stuff from the internet? Pretty much everything is cached and proxied. ...
BOb

That's what I'm thinking. First day on the internet, Brian?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I'm trying to persuade, in order to prevent "reading for entertainment" from going the way of tap-dancing and vaudeville (which I have come to understand isn't much of a stretch).

It already went that way years ago if you mean in terms of it being a minority interest, but that was nothing to do with piracy.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

It wasn't a matter of preserving it; it was a matter of redistributing it without permission, by someone who should have known that would cost him sales, but clearly didn't care (or didn't care enough to actually think about their actions, as he suggested in his comments).

The existence of an ebook version won't hurt sales of the speculator-only hardback edition. That is the point that writers who deliberately restrict their audience in this way fail to see. The markets are entirely different. Speculators want something that will increase in value so they can make a profit from it. Ebooks are for people who just want to read the story and can't afford/justify the cost of the speculator edition.

If he refuses to take money from the people who just want the ebook, he really has nothing to sulk about if they download it anyway. The days when readers would just do without because the writer doesn't want them to read it are long gone and they are never coming back.

[Lazybones]

I long for the day where my books are popular enough to appear on pirate sites.

That's not a support of piracy; I don't support it. But it's a reality of the publishing world and the Internet and it's not going away, restrictive Congressional schemes notwithstanding.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I'm trying to persuade, in order to prevent "reading for entertainment" from going the way of tap-dancing and vaudeville (which I have come to understand isn't much of a stretch).

So you want to prevent "reading for entertainment" from being a fad that materializes suddenly but then is gone in the course of a single generation?

[CommonReader]

Losing some stuff due to theft is a normal cost of business for every retailer. Whining about it by complaining about man's wickedness seems to be slightly immature. It is even less comprehensible here where an author apparently tried to drum up interest for a collectors' edition p-book by releasing the text for free on the internet. What did he expect? That once released this text would disappear from the internet?

[richrock]

I struggled to understand this guy's point of view. In fact, it took me a few attempts to post a reply about this.

I really think is attitude to fandom is all skewed, much like his business model.

I've really tried to write a reply that outlined my confusion - but I just don't fully understand what this guy is getting at. He wanted to monetise a work that was initially free, and whinging about fans copying said free work? I just don't get it.

Best of luck to him. This post he wrote put me right off ever trying his works.

Now for the

[JeremyR]

I'm not familiar with this author, but one that I am (indeed is a favorite of mine), Lawrence Watt-Evans did something similar several times.

Basically what he would do, is write a few chapters, and if fans donated money to him, he'd write more, eventually finishing the novel.

At which point if he finds a publisher (Wildside press has put out a hardcover for the last two, but no paperback publishers were interested), he removes it from online then sends everyone who donated over a certain amount a copy.

http://www.ethshar.com/TheFinalCalling0.html

And eventually they appear in e-book form at Fictionwise.

I guess to a certain extent, he got his money for putting it up on the web upfront, so anything extra he gets later is really a bonus. But it seems both very fan friendly and author friendly.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I was there when he first started serialising it, and there was no mention of it being removed when it was finished back then. Though he did warn that it would be gone a couple of months before the last episode went online, and said that anyone who was interested should either read it now or save it for later. It was basically advertising that brought people to his website each week looking for a new episode.

But it's not really about his legal right to remove it, or even his moral obligation not to, it's about his apparent surprise that one of his fans would want to preserve it in its original form after it was gone.

I get that there is more money to be made from hardbacks for the speculator market than there is for mass-market releases for readers, which will be why writers like that like to restrict how many people are allowed to read their work. But these days, it really shouldn't come as any surprise when the readers don't play along with that and make their own mass-market edition. It's pretty much inevitable.

authors like keene speak with a forked tongue on stuff like this.

on one hand "oh these dirty pirates are limiting my income". but on the other hand they intentionally kneecap themselves by releasing 30 copies of a book which will inevitably end up in the hands of speculators who are only looking to flip it for 3x the price (a dime of which keene won't see either).

don't cry to me when you're limiting your profits yourself from day 1.

i have said book in its pirate form. i also own almost everything the man has ever written in hardcopy and i've handed him cash money for his autograph at cons. this public display made me lose a lot of respect for him.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'm not 100% sure what is being discussed here. This guy put something on the internet for free... and it is getting passed around?

Then he removed it? You do know you can't really remove stuff from the internet? Pretty much everything is cached and proxied. So, he is going to have a hard time ensuring that it is removed from all those cached locations and I'm not sure calling people that access those caches pirates is quite fair.

If, however, he posted it on his web site with a stipulation that it must not be reposted elsewhere, then to repost it is copyright infringement, pure and simple, regardless of whether or not it was free. Many people have things available for download on their web sites, which it's not legal to repost anywhere else.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If, however, he posted it on his web site with a stipulation that it must not be reposted elsewhere, then to repost it is copyright infringement,

http://www.briankeene.com/?p=90

"It is being presented as a free, semi-weekly online serial. It is a thank-you to my readers, all of whom continue to purchase my books during these hard economic times."

"Posting excerpts or chapters elsewhere is not allowed, without my explicit permission. Failure to abide by this will result in me sending Ob over to your house to eat your face."

This is where he announces it will be coming out in book form, still no mention of it being removed from his website. This announcement came betweeen chapters 49 and 50.

http://www.briankeene.com/?p=3731

This is where he announces it will be removed, a week before the last episode was posted:

http://www.briankeene.com/?p=9607

"After next week’s finale is posted, I’ll keep Deluge up on the website for a few weeks so everybody has a chance to finish reading it. Then it will come down in preparation for publication. It will come out as a signed, limited edition hardcover"



http://www.briankeene.com/?tag=deluge

[HarryT]

Thanks for that. It seems pretty clear that reposting it is not permitted.

[no.guru]

He was giving it away until he wasn't.