Is ebook piracy on the rise?

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But the point is that you have the right to set the price of that manuscript. You have the absolute and exclusive right; nobody else. You can say "you have to pay me $100 if you want to read my book" and all anyone else can do is decide whether or not to pay it. They don't have the right to say "it's not worth $100 so I'm just going to take it anyway". That's the whole point of copyright. Yes, you may well write a lousy book which nobody wants to pay for - that's something the market will decide for itself - but the right to determine the price of your work is vested by the law in you, as the author, not in the reader.

Isn't the market speaking when piracy is on the rise? When something is really really good most people I know, including myself, will buy the actual content. Anyone whose relevancy is completely washed out by piracy probably doesn't produce good enough work.

I own all my favorite books/movies/albums. You never asked what the difference was between what I do eventually own and what I do not. In any given collection of books the vast majority of them will not be very good. The cream rises to the top.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by jakewastaken

Isn't the market speaking when piracy is on the rise? When something is really really good most people I know, including myself, will buy the actual content. Anyone whose relevancy is completely washed out by piracy probably doesn't produce good enough work.

Not necessarily... good work is often pirated, when people decide it is not worth the cost... or when people simply decide they do not like some aspect of purchasing it (DRM, dislike of the publisher, they don't take Visa online, the author doesn't like cats, etc).

[JSWolf]

Part of the reason for eBook piracy is pricing. We are being charged for something physical which doesn't exist. We are being charged for printing it, biding it, warehousing, shipping, and what not associated with pBooks. That is why eBooks can be rather expensive. So instead of paying for all that, some just decide to get it for free. Now if we had prices that too into account just what it took to make an eBook, I think piracy would drop some.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Part of the reason for eBook piracy is pricing. We are being charged for something physical which doesn't exist. We are being charged for printing it, biding it, warehousing, shipping, and what not associated with pBooks. That is why eBooks can be rather expensive. So instead of paying for all that, some just decide to get it for free. Now if we had prices that too into account just what it took to make an eBook, I think piracy would drop some.

I know it's wrong to download an eBook you didn't pay for. But, is anyone losing out if you downloaded an eBook you never would have paid for? If you never were able to download, you'd never have purchased. I know technically this is still illegal. But it's not costing anyone anything.

Are we talking about costing people money when someone steals or are we talking about stealing regardless of income or not?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jakewastaken

I own all my favorite books/movies/albums. You never asked what the difference was between what I do eventually own and what I do not.

I didn't ask because, as you may recall, you explicitly stated that you'd never bought an e-Book, I believe? .

[nekokami]

So does advertising-supported media fit the "club goods" scheme, or the "public goods" scheme? Because I'm still seeing a place for advertising-supported media. And yes, I know people can find ways to strip out ads, but if they aren't too obnoxious (by being relevant and by appearing in natural breaks in the media), I think the vast majority won't bother. But I don't know how much advertising revenue there is out there, especially if the only stuff being advertised is also supported by ads... seems like a giant pyramid scheme to me.

Scott McCloud has a very interesting article on this subject, viewed through the eyes of graphic novel writers/artists, here: http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/i...st-5-full.html

What's especially cool is that the content is delivered as a web comic. It's entertaining and informative, and I encourage everyone to take a look. He discusses the "middlemen" problem, the distinction between physical and digital media, the issues of advertising, and the possibilities offered by micropayments. Highly recommended.

Part 2 has a particularly cogent exploration of "piracy." http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/i...st-6-full.html

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Part of the reason for eBook piracy is pricing. We are being charged for something physical which doesn't exist. We are being charged for printing it, biding it, warehousing, shipping, and what not associated with pBooks. That is why eBooks can be rather expensive. So instead of paying for all that, some just decide to get it for free. Now if we had prices that too into account just what it took to make an eBook, I think piracy would drop some.

It might help. (Though I'll point out that a company has a right to distribute their operating costs as they see fit... and that you are guessing at their distribution of costs, which may not be entirely accurate.)

But the fact remains that not being satisfied with the price is not a good enough justification for piracy... it is a good enough reason for abstinence, and for making sure the publisher understands why you abstain. Added piracy will only contribute to the cost, as publishers try to compensate for their losses.

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I didn't ask because, as you may recall, you explicitly stated that you'd never bought an e-Book, I believe? .

Yes, I do remember. I'm talking about paper books, which I think was pretty clear by everything else I said.

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

But the fact remains that not being satisfied with the price is not a good enough justification for piracy... it is a good enough reason for abstinence, and for making sure the publisher understands why you abstain. Added piracy will only contribute to the cost, as publishers try to compensate for their losses.

And with physical goods this abstinence happens. Goods which are consumed with use or for which your physical presence is required. But with goods which "like" to be copied, such as in plays in Shakespeare's time, sheet music in Mozart's time, cassette tapes in the 80's, and now with the advent of digital media almost any arbitrary unit of culture or rather, any idea or story, we see the opposite. Piracy happens. Keep raising the prices or try to restrict use, and more piracy happens. Clearly treating digital copies of music, movies, and books as traditional tangible goods doesn't work very well.

So while you are on your little moral crusade telling strangers on the internet what they should and should not do (did you seriously use the term "flogging pirates" in another thread?), the copying goes on unimpeded. While the RIAA and MPAA come down with strong-arm and rather questionable tactics, the copying goes on unimpeded. Taking down Kazaa and Napster only led to more advanced protocols like bittorrent. I'm not condoning or condemning it, merely stating a fact. I think this bell curve ranging from "people who will not pay" to "people who always pay" has been there since forever, it is just that the internet makes it so very, very visible.

And yet with all that rampant copying, I don't exactly see movie/music execs and stars living a life of squalor (how much did Dark Knight make again in the opening weekend? It was available as a pirate copy within 38 hours, and the movie industry claimed a victory there). In fact, I can see more types of movies beyond the basic summer blockbuster pulp with greater ease than ever before in history (oh, and for pay I mean). In music, The iTunes store is a smashing success. Experiments by indie music artists ranging from once-obscure acts like "Arcade Fire" (propelled by piracy) to superstars like "Radiohead" (selling direct and making tons of money despite piracy) show that people are prepared to invest time, money, and attention into products that they deem good. I'm not entirely sure how this is in the world of books but I do expect it to be less - the sad truth is books aren't as popular, but I am sure there is still money to be made. Amazon is selling like crazy. Artists like Doctorow and Stross (I'm sure there are non-SF examples, but I am a SF junkie) gave some of their work away, which resulted in more attention (a valuable commodity in today's world), and ultimately, more sales.

But in this global economy you are going to have to make it very easy to get at the content (which I think translates in part into format-interoperability, one-click buying and installing, and no DRM for digital media) - in fact content publishers should take a lesson from piracy here, and you are going to have to make it cheap. Let the volume that a global audience can provide prevail over hiking the prices up once again to combat hysterical not to mention hypothetical piracy-related loss projections.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But the point is that you have the right to set the price of that manuscript. You have the absolute and exclusive right; nobody else. You can say "you have to pay me $100 if you want to read my book" and all anyone else can do is decide whether or not to pay it. They don't have the right to say "it's not worth $100 so I'm just going to take it anyway". That's the whole point of copyright. Yes, you may well write a lousy book which nobody wants to pay for - that's something the market will decide for itself - but the right to determine the price of your work is vested by the law in you, as the author, not in the reader.

Harry, in one sense I agree and in another sense I don't. In the rest of the world of exchange of labor for money, each trade is a one of. I trade one day of programming for $320. The person/organisation that buys my one day of labor can use the results forever, in whatever manner they want, even if they post it on the web for anybody to use. I got my $320 dollars. I get no residuals, no matter if the purchaser makes $50 million dollars off of my day's labor.

However, under the copyright laws, if I work one day making a limerick, if I sell it to a publisher for a book for $320, I can expect to get royalties from it, for as long as people want to buy the book. My kids would get the royalties later, probably my grandkids would as well. If my limerick is real, real, popular, it might rack up a million dollars in sales over that time, of which I and my heirs and assigns get a cut.

I have the right to price my labor in both cases. I get the same up-front money in both cases. I have been "paid" in both cases. How come the limerick keeps paying and paying and my programming doesn't. Why is one class of labor so superior to another class of labor. Yet many people insist most strongly that to bring up this point is to attack the foundation of civilization. I understand the law involved, but I am talking about the morality involved.

[jakewastaken]

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book

Not only is that book directly relevent, but I think everyone should have a look at what the author has to say about piracy of his own material.

"Why would an author give away a book for free? Obviously it makes a lot of sense given the arguments in this particular book, but it’s true for all authors that piracy isn’t a threat, it’s an opportunity.

There are millions of books on amazon.com, and on average each will sell around 500 copies a year. The average American is reading just one book a year, and that number is falling. The problem (to quote Tim O’Reilly) isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity. Authors are lucky to be in a business where electronic copies aren’t considered substitutes for physical copies by most people who like reading books (for now at least).

By treating the electronic version of a book as information rather than property, and circulating it as widely as possible, many authors such as Paulo Coelho and Cory Doctorow actually end up selling more copies of the physical version. Pirate copies of The Pirate’s Dilemma are out there online anyway, and they don’t seem to have harmed sales. My guess is they are helping. To be honest, I was flattered that the book got pirated in the first place. "

[pdurrant]

You actually have the same copyright over both items.

In the programming case, you have sold your entire intellectual property rights in the work you do that day to the company you're working for, for a flat fee.

In the limerick case you describe, you've sold limited publication rights, probably with reversion clauses so you get the publication rights back again.

But perhaps you worked for a greetings card company, and created the limerick in one day working for them, as a work for hire, and again, you've sold your entire intellectual property rights for the day's wage.

It all depends on the contract under which you do the work.

regards,

Paul

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Harry, in one sense I agree and in another sense I don't. In the rest of the world of exchange of labor for money, each trade is a one of. I trade one day of programming for $320. The person/organisation that buys my one day of labor can use the results forever, in whatever manner they want, even if they post it on the web for anybody to use. I got my $320 dollars. I get no residuals, no matter if the purchaser makes $50 million dollars off of my day's labor.

However, under the copyright laws, if I work one day making a limerick, if I sell it to a publisher for a book for $320, I can expect to get royalties from it, for as long as people want to buy the book. My kids would get the royalties later, probably my grandkids would as well. If my limerick is real, real, popular, it might rack up a million dollars in sales over that time, of which I and my heirs and assigns get a cut.

I have the right to price my labor in both cases. I get the same up-front money in both cases. I have been "paid" in both cases. How come the limerick keeps paying and paying and my programming doesn't. Why is one class of labor so superior to another class of labor. Yet many people insist most strongly that to bring up this point is to attack the foundation of civilization. I understand the law involved, but I am talking about the morality involved.

[nekokami]

Authors are lucky to be in a business where electronic copies aren’t considered substitutes for physical copies by most people who like reading books (for now at least).

But how long will this situation last? I think we're on the cusp of ebooks starting to become a reasonable substitute for mass-market paperbacks, at least. I'm not sure even Cory Doctorow will be as willing to give them away when that happens.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

That culture has always been about the stories we tell each other, no matter the medium they are told in.

One thing I agree, we have always telling stories each other. But I do disagree to that the medium doesn't matter.

We verbally tell stories each other every day, hardly anyone would want a payment. "Hey do you want to know what happened here yesterday? That cost 'ya 50 cents!"... Some stories lived on for generation only by verbal reproduction (fables) and a lot of "knowledge" is inside a given group of humans in a rather implicit kind.

However it takes considerable amount work to transform this implicit stories, emotions, and also ideas you picked up into a cohorent text. Into a nice book. Thats a work you don't do when you just tell somebody a story you drink a coffee with...

The idea of copyright is IMHO to grant rights explicity at this point of "transition". Transition from implicit casual stories, dreams, thoughts into an explicit nicely worked out script. In both worlds (one is implicit verbal, group knowledge versus the other written texts) a story can live quite freely on and on, without considerable effort. In one people just interact, in the other you can just copy (now in the digital age with zero costs). The problem is still the transition of one world into another. And this is the point copyright comes into the place. The one who makes the work to transit a story, is the one who gets the copyright on the written side of things...

And yes creative work is "bricolage". That is you take a lot of stuff and rearrange it a new way, and maybe add a few percent of really original things. The key of beeing seen as ingenious is to keep your sources secret (I think this comes from Einstein). Okay this is so. But still this bricolage *is* work, and its a kind of transition of information and it still is not happening from itself if there isn't any incentive. I don't see why anybody should not be granted a copyright just some parts of what he rearrenged where public knowledge before.

Its like saying, you don't own this house, you took the bricks from our common stone pit where we all take our bricks for building a house...

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You actually have the same copyright over both items.

In the programming case, you have sold your entire intellectual property rights in the work you do that day to the company you're working for, for a flat fee.

In the limerick case you describe, you've sold limited publication rights, probably with reversion clauses so you get the publication rights back again.

But perhaps you worked for a greetings card company, and created the limerick in one day working for them, as a work for hire, and again, you've sold your entire intellectual property rights for the day's wage.

It all depends on the contract under which you do the work.

regards,

Paul

Let me rephrase my quibble. There is a small class of people who are able to use copyright to their advantage. They are busy telling the rest of us (who can't) that the entire creative world will come to an end if they don't get to keep all their special privileges (and their heirs and assigns). I'm sorry, I don't buy it. In some sections of I.P. yes, others no. If you cut it back to what patent has, I doubt if you'd lose much at all. Remember, copyright is a balancing act between the needs of the public for free access to creative products and the encouragement of new I.P. creation. It's not a social welfare program for a creative class, unto the n'th generation...