Is ebook piracy on the rise?

[cstross]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Really? So, when I donate a book to a library and they put it into circulation, are they still paying a fee on it?
BOb

At least in the UK, yes: they pay a fee (Public Lending Right) based on the number of times a given title is loaned out. This goes to an organization, PLR, that disburses the collected funds to authors. You have to register as an author and tell them the ISBNs of your elligible titles, but once a year they send you a nice cheque

[cstross]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Yes, out of print books are a separate matter entirely. I'm of the opinion that if a book falls out of print for some specified period of time (e.g. 5 years, though I'd actually prefer a shorter period) it should automatically first revert rights completely to the author (if living), then go into the public domain if it still remains out of print.

That's very problematic.

If your proposal was adopted in law, unscrupulous publishers would have an active incentive to time-bomb their reversion clause boilerplate. Because? If a book goes into the public domain, the publisher can then roll the presses without paying the author a penny. And they're the folks who are in the best position to profit from a book's initial sales and then keep it out of print for five years. (Then re-issue it and make roughly double their initial profit, at the expense of the author.)

[garygibsonsf]

Unless I've managed to miss it, nobody really seems to be talking about the actual relationship between free downloading of books and its effect of sales; ie, is there any evidence that downloading of ebooks is negatively affecting the purchase of the paper variety?

Since the whole point of any discussion about copyright infringement (not bloody 'piracy') is whether or not an author is losing out on income from downloads of their work, doesn't it make sense to talk about whether or not that's actually the case? The first Harry Potter book was published in mid-1997, shortly after the internet as we know it now first started to enter the general public consciousness. According to some of the arguments concerning copyright infringement, J.K. Rowling should be a pauper living on soup by candlelight since, presumably, nobody would bother buying any of her books over the last decade if they could download them free online instead. Similarly, nobody would bother going to the cinemas to see the related films because ... etc.

Yet despite this, and despite the fact every one of her books hits the 'net about as fast as you can say 'Microsoft Windows sucks', her personal wealth is in the reported region of three hundred million British pounds.

But let's not concern ourselves with the authors who are startlingly rich; let's look at the facts as regards authors who aren't so much in the public mind. Tor are giving away free books. Is this resulting in lower sales for those authors? In the majority of cases, apparently not. I haven't yet heard of anyone saying their sales suddenly dropped. Many authors, including Cory Doctorow, who is highly and vocally critical of anti-'piracy' laws, report a boost in sales as the result of putting a creative commons license on certain of their work. Apparently this is also the case for other authors who don't have nearly as high a profile as Doctorow (editor of the Boing Boing website).

Surely the focus over the legality of c.i. should be not on technical or moral questions but rather on: who wins, who loses? If the evidence supplied by those supposedly most at risk from c.i. is that they are in fact benefiting from free downloads of their work, then what exactly is the point of arguing? When an entire publishing company (Baen.com) puts a large part of their work online for free and claims to benefit from it, where is the threat many see as implicit in downloading?

If we were really concerned with getting money to people who work creatively, we would need to close down every secondhand bookshop; threaten every charity shop that sells secondhand paperbacks with legal action; exhort schools to prevent children lending each other cd's and books in the playground. I'd say close down the libraries too, except that in the UK and some other places you actually do get something back if you're an author. If pirated ebooks were a real threat, publishers and booksellers in the UK and US would be calling for a ban on electronic reader devices instead of re-gearing their websites to sell content to them.

Follow the money. Who benefits? The public, the authors, or the publishers? Or do all of them have something to gain?

PS: I've had a look at some of those pirated OCR'd texts floating about the darknet, and believe me, they're no threat to anyone. They're not proofread, they're badly formatted, and sometimes barely legible. Nobody except a very few dedicated souls are going to actually read them. Most people will wait until they can get something properly formatted, proofread and legal they can download for a reasonable fee (if the publishers charge a sane price).

My conclusion: there is no threat.

[stepanok]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Seems to me that computer games might just possibly be accounting for some of those computer sales....

Seems to me that people download a zillion of cumputer games as well..............

[sassanik]

I think that where the MP3 industry has gone wrong is in the pricing. My uncle gets pissed that I have "illegal" copies of music on my machine. My argument is that I don't buy music. I happily bought music online and PAID money when I could get it through allofmp3.com (which has been shut down) because I felt they charged a reasonable price. MP3 music is over priced IMO. Especially when I can go down to my library and check out the CD and burn it onto my computer.

I rarely buy CD's, I can think of 3 that I have bought in the last 5 years, and only because I love those artists. I feel that unless the companies come down in price, I think .20 to .30 a song is a reasonable price that I would be willing to pay. I will go to my library and check out CD's.

The digital copy right thing on ebooks is silly I think. If people really want to change the format they will. They would be better served to spend the money on other things.

I don't think that ebook piracy is necassarily on the rise, rather that more ebooks are available, therefore there are more available from "pirated" websites. 2 out of 100 books is not that much of a difference than 20 out of 1000, they are still a smaller percentage out of the books that available as a whole.

Amy

[HarryT]

Tell me, Sassinak - what do you do for a living? Do you give away your work for free, or do you actually expect the people who consume whatever it is that you produce to PAY you for it?

[stepanok]

Dear Harry
I just hope you share the same ethusiasm for other wordly causes a bit more important than preventing bloody music downloading. As far as what makes this word not a perfect place to be i think this type of "criminal" (!) acctivity is not in the top 123.443

[BlackVoid]

Ebooks should be at least half the price of the paper version. If DRM is used maybe 1/4th. Anything else is legalized robbery.
In the music and book industry, the author gets less than 10% of the sales. In this day and age, publishers are not needed and they know it. They will go the way of the dinosaurs. Already many authors and musicians publish their work online for a fair price. They earn more money with the same sales even at a much lower price.

My company is making computer games and in our business the situation is much better. We get 50% of the revenue, the publisher the other 50%. Still, when I see my game on pirate networks, I am HAPPY. I would not think of going after the up or downloaders. Lost revenue is not significant, but it is good marketing. I will actually put my next game out on Bittorrent myself.

RIAA style campaigns are not fair. Publishers have more lobby power than regular people, that is why we see insane copyright laws, especially in the US.

The answer to piracy is fair pricing both towards the customer and the author and not legal action. Stealing a book or software is not the same as stealing a car or killing people, because most of the time there is no loss for the other side.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Tell me, Sassinak - what do you do for a living? Do you give away your work for free, or do you actually expect the people who consume whatever it is that you produce to PAY you for it?

He said he's okay with a reasonable price. So am I.

Especially on the music side there is something wrong. While many artists are always close to poverty, a few get millions maybe even billions for their stuff. I mean pay people to make them do stuff for a living is one thing, being billions rich over the sales is another.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

Unless I've managed to miss it, nobody really seems to be talking about the actual relationship between free downloading of books and its effect of sales; ie, is there any evidence that downloading of ebooks is negatively affecting the purchase of the paper variety?

Problem is, there is simply no reliable data on the issue. With only anecdotal evidence, there's little to be settled here. Only if (when?) ISPs have the ability to track actual traffic contents will we ever really know the "pirate" numbers, and can then infer actual relationships with legitimately-purchased material.

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

According to some of the arguments concerning copyright infringement, J.K. Rowling should be a pauper living on soup by candlelight since, presumably, nobody would bother buying any of her books over the last decade if they could download them free online instead. Similarly, nobody would bother going to the cinemas to see the related films because ... etc.

Yet despite this, and despite the fact every one of her books hits the 'net about as fast as you can say 'Microsoft Windows sucks', her personal wealth is in the reported region of three hundred million British pounds.

Which effectively illustrates the point that anecdotal data is largely worthless here.

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

Surely the focus over the legality of c.i. should be not on technical or moral questions but rather on: who wins, who loses?

Exactly: Remove the moral ambiguities and quantum physics, and reduce it to simple, understandable "fairness" issues.

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

My conclusion: there is no threat.

OCR'd texts may be bad now... but scanners, PC hardware and OCR software are improving day be day, and at some point, those OCR'd texts will be pretty close to verbatim what's on the printed page. Best not to wait until then to take steps... act now, while there is still time to get the public on-board with a quality product.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by sassanik

I think that where the MP3 industry has gone wrong is in the pricing. My uncle gets pissed that I have "illegal" copies of music on my machine. My argument is that I don't buy music. I happily bought music online and PAID money when I could get it through allofmp3.com (which has been shut down) because I felt they charged a reasonable price. MP3 music is over priced IMO. Especially when I can go down to my library and check out the CD and burn it onto my computer.

So... your argument is that, since you believe it costs too much in your opinion, you just take it. Do you also take steaks from your local grocer, because you believe beef is priced too high? And if not... why not?

Most people on this planet would agree that you have no right to take something of someone else's just because you believe it is too expensive... and especially something that you do not need to ensure your survival on a daily basis. If it's too expensive, you should simply not buy it... that is a message that will encourage the music industry to lower prices, or to improve their product to an extent that you feel it is worth the price. Theft does not impart that message... it merely encourages the industry to spend more money on theft deterrent devices, and charging more for their product to make up the loss. So stealing will only drive their prices higher in the long run, until they can produce no more, and there's nothing to steal.

Quite a lot of the public is wrestling with the very idea that, essentially, e-books (and e-music) are essentially worthless unreal things, and therefore should be free for the taking. I think we as a race should be above such antisocial concepts as "I take it because I can," and able to understand the worth of something that isn't held in your hand. This thinking needs to be changed, or the music and literature industries have no chance for a future.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

So... your argument is that, since you believe it costs too much in your opinion, you just take it. Do you also take steaks from your local grocer, because you believe beef is priced too high? And if not... why not?

... or ... if you buy a 2nd class train/plane ticket and then find out that there are many/some/a few 1st class seats free, do you change seat and go to 1st class? Do you think it should be allowed? Would it be fair? (I'm talking only of changing seat, not of benefitting from 1st class meals or whatever).

[slayda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Tell me, Sassinak - what do you do for a living? Do you give away your work for free, or do you actually expect the people who consume whatever it is that you produce to PAY you for it?

Yes Harry, I do give away some work for free. I'm an engineer. What makes my work valuable is basically my mind. My mind doesn't get turned off simply because I'm not on the clock. Much of my better ideas even come during those"off times". In addition I and most people who make their "wages" with their minds end up putting in added hours actually in their work place for no extra pay.

The main difference between these "wage earners" and the "self employed creative artist" is that we do have a more or less guaranteed periodic paycheck which you may not have. This is a nice "financial safety net" that the totally self employed don't have. However, just as you have the possibility of going broke (a much higher probability than I do) you also have the possibility of hitting the big time and getting rich, e.g. Harry Potter et al (again much higher probability than I do even though that probability is also much lower than the probability of going broke.)

People choose their path toward financial rewards. Some choose stability while others choose possibilities. I am content with my choices.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Problem is, there is simply no reliable data on the issue. With only anecdotal evidence, there's little to be settled here. Only if (when?) ISPs have the ability to track actual traffic contents will we ever really know the "pirate" numbers, and can then infer actual relationships with legitimately-purchased material.

Steve, to me, this is quibbling over the problem. Tracking the actual traffic content will prove what? A ratio of unauthorized downloads to authorized downloads? (Assuming that there are authorized downloads for certain works.) It won't prove that the downloads are actual lost sales, as there would be no way to show that said downloader would have bought the download anyway. If, most likely, you see a steady upswell in unauthorized downloads as other sales increase, is this not consistent with overall popularity, not a separate issue?

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

OCR'd texts may be bad now... but scanners, PC hardware and OCR software are improving day be day, and at some point, those OCR'd texts will be pretty close to verbatim what's on the printed page. Best not to wait until then to take steps... act now, while there is still time to get the public on-board with a quality product.

And the only people who can act now are the publishers and the authors. Particularlly the publishers, and they aren't doing anything constructive.

If you want a doomsday scenario, imagine a club of proofreaders, who swap carefully proofread books with each other. If the membership was 100, if you entered with a carefully proofread book, you'd get 100 carefully proofread books back. The more members, the more books. And this wouldn't ever have to be done on the internet. It could be done sneakernet. Likely, no!, but a scary possibility to publishers anyway.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by axel77

He said he's okay with a reasonable price. So am I.

The questions are: What is a reasonable price? Who determines it? What factors are included? What weight is each given? Does the market agree? etc.

We each place different values on what our labor is worth. Look at artwork as an example. A Jackson Pollack painting sells for millions of dollars. How many of us have said that we, too, can toss paint on a canvas. While I wouldn't pay $10 for a Jackson Pollack or Andy Warhol painting (except to turn around and sell it ), many people will gladly pay millions.

Just because you won't pay $1 for someone's music doesn't mean the price is unreasonable in the marketplace; it is only unreasonable to you. That it is unreasonable to you does not justify piracy of the product.