Is ebook piracy on the rise?

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by Format C:

I don't know why, but if I try to answer at the opening question after page 30, I feel I'm off topic....



I talk about Italy, and the answer is yes, definitely.
Here the publishers don't publish ebooks at all. They don't want to, and they also prevent the authors to do it themselves.

So there aren't legal copirighted ebook in italian.

But I have seen a list of tens of thousands of books, scanned, OCRed, proofed, and neatly formatted.
I tried the first Stieg Larsson title (don't know the english nor the original title), and I downloaded a zip file with a RTF, a MS word, a pdf, a lit and a txt version of the text. There were also a HTML with comments and critics about the book, the authors biography, and jpgs with covers and inside illustrations.

Far more than I got with the printed version.
And even more than I get from legal libraries.

So we are in a market where the legal items are completely absent, and the illegal ones (made by teenagers crews, as far as I understand) are not only present in huge numbers, but also of great quality and with a good added value (that's the point: added value).
How can the publisher compete with that?
Will he distribute a better product with more added value trying to give more appeal to the legal items or sue the boys and girls trying to cut them off the market?

Crews are growing, in size and in number.
And in time more and more series of books are being "published".
But I wonder how many of them are actually being read.



BTW: I downloaded the Stieg Larsson book, but I didn't read it (I read the p-book I got for my birthday instead). Am I a thief?
That's another thing: what about those pepole who download tons of files and don't use them? Are they criminals or just crazy? I know dozen of them...

Hey look at that, someone else who has actually seen a pirated book community. It amazes me how much time and dedication these people put into making free copies available to everyone.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Actually, they should. Sponsors should be smart enough to know that quality books will be read more, and their ad will be seen by a wider audience.

I know what you're suggesting: The latest T&A gore-fest garbage will get all the sponsors. But there are plenty of sponsors that will only sponsor quality material.

So you are taking the current system and do a big search&replace of 'publisher' by 'sponsor'?

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Format C:

A World Wide Entity, who's in charge to catalog every single content piece, be it a book, a movie, a intracelebral experience...
Consumers get those via sharing, by download, by mail, by buying hardcopies (paying a higher price) in the shops...
They pay for it with a fee, that can be a on time in life fee, a recurring one, a tax, whatever.

Whenever he access a content, a user agree to give a feedback on it (or to make the present receiver give a feedback). That feedback consist in a rating.
The Entity in charge just collect the feedbacks from the users. And compensate the authors according to the number of users and the rating obtained.

If you've got a high quality file freely available (and if you've got at least one legal content, you've paid for everything), you won't be interested in piracy.
And if you really like a work, you will give high rating to compensate the author and make him/her produce more.

If the system have a upper limit on the income for the single content, there's enough money for every author.

a) Who give this entity money?
b) In which way does this differ from the communistic model, of a goverment instition picking people who are to write stuff...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by axel77

So you are taking the current system and do a big search&replace of 'publisher' by 'sponsor'?

In some cases, yes... I think an individual author could find themselves a sponsor or patron to pay their way, instead of working through a publisher. Obviously, this only works if you do not need any of the many services a publisher can supply to an author, such as proofing, distribution, marketing, etc, etc...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by axel77

a) Who give this entity money?
b) In which way does this differ from the communistic model, of a goverment instition picking people who are to write stuff...

Not only that, but using a vote-based system to "grade" authors is ripe for manipulation through aggressive paid marketing, benefiting those with the deepest pockets the most...

[jakewastaken]

I'm looking over some of the archived threads related to piracy and it seems this conversation always pops up and a standstill is reached wherein one person feels they can actually change another person's mind and that other person doesn't give a shit what that previous crusader says.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=17189&page=9

Direct quote from this thread from over a year ago:

Is there any point at all to copyright violation threads? The same things are said, over and over and over, and people don't change their minds. The worldviews don't overlap enough to permit significant conversation. Even when conversation stays polite, it's pretty much mired at the "I don't understand how anyone can think that" level.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

That's the way many publishers used to work with writers' stables: You were commissioned to write a book, you wrote for them, you got paid.

[...]

Publishers could do this now... but they use the royalty system to allow them to pay a smaller fee to the writer up front, and allow the rest to be dictated by actual sales. IOW, they're taking much of their risk out of the equation. Get publishers to accept the risk, and you're cool.

Right, but that would shift the problem to the publishers. If there is no copyright and anyone could reproduce and sell written works... why would a publisher pay someone to write a book, if after it is written every other publisher can sell the same book?

For public-domain books, anyone can publish them, fine... but no one payed to get them written (or at least they got quite a few years of "exclusive rights").

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by jakewastaken

Hey look at that, someone else who has actually seen a pirated book community. It amazes me how much time and dedication these people put into making free copies available to everyone.

That's how Project Gutenberg got to over 25,000 Public domain e-books. Nobody got any money for their work, either (including me!).....

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

"All the money in the world," and "whatever he's clever enough to get" (my exact words), are not the same thing. I certainly did not say I wanted all the money in the world, and that statement does not even imply that I do.



So, in fact, you are dictating how much I have a right to earn, and deciding that I am greedy. Even without my putting a single dollar figure down.

Any worker has a right to earn what he can on his work. Any consumer (you) has the right to walk away from a sale, if you believe it is too much. You personally do not have the right to tell someone else what they are entitled to earn... period. You personally cannot dictate to someone you don't know what they "deserve"... period.

"Greed" is in the eye of the beholder, whether it is triggered at 100 billion, 1 million, $2.50... or some imaginary, arbitrary figure that you want to use to label me greedy and justify not paying for something I'm selling.

I pay everything I buy.
And I'm not justifying anything. Not even piracy or theft or robbery.

I just put a simple question: what's the maximum amount to be considered "fair" for a single book to make.
Maybe I didn't understand what you wrote, but I'm sure you don't said something like "the maximum is somewhere, but I don't know where". What you wrote sounded more like "there's no maximum".
Or, "if somebody is clever enough to get all the money in the world [which is the physical limit, or the actual "infinite"], he deserves it".
That's how I read it.

So please be patient and say whether you believe there's a limit to the money anyone can make for a single book or not.

I'm not putting a limit myself.
I'm not saying in any way how much you deserve. I'm just asking you how much YOU think you deserve.
And I won't never judge that amount. I wont never say if it's too much, or too little. I will never call you "greedy" wherever that limit is.

What I call "greed" is to not have a limit. To never say "that's enough for me. Now let somebody else have his share". To ever want some more, whatever one's got. To have an insatiable desire for wealth.

From my point of view, that and piracy are two faces of the same coin.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by axel77

a) Who give this entity money?
b) In which way does this differ from the communistic model, of a goverment instition picking people who are to write stuff...

a) readers
b) readers decide who write and who don't. And everybody can try.

For the full details, google around. You'll find it in full legalese.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Not only that, but using a vote-based system to "grade" authors is ripe for manipulation through aggressive paid marketing, benefiting those with the deepest pockets the most...

There can be protection for it, either.
And I'm just giving an idea, not a full implementation of it.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Format C:

a) readers
b) readers decide who write and who don't. And everybody can try.

For the full details, google around. You'll find it in full legalese.

How about you googling for us what you want to sell us?

at least in the description above i don't see where the readers actually pay... so i am anything but convinced.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Format C:

There can be protection for it, either.
And I'm just giving an idea, not a full implementation of it.

As antagonist: Well I give the idea for just doing protection to copy stuff you not pay for. Well just giving the idea not the full implmenetation

Too be specific I don't see this anti voting fraud protections any more or less effective than anti-copy protections....

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Just anecdotal. Or, do you think people uploading books to the darknet are going to the book store and buying copies.

As others have said, yes, actually I think most people who have scanned and uploaded books have done so with their own copies. I suspect many wanted to have an ebook version of something they had in print, and having done the work of scan, OCR, correct & format, felt that if they shared the file the work would somehow feel more worthwhile. But that's just me-- I have an optimistic view of humanity.

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The cost of the book is irrelevant to the ethical discussion.

I think the cost of the book is relevant, because authors get a higher cut for each of those higher-priced books.

Originally Posted by tompe

Why do you ignore that in for example the US it does not work this way. Is your opinion that all US libraries should close since they lend books without paying the author?

US libraries pay the author when they buy the book. Only once, it is true, but they do pay, and each library pays for each copy of the book, which amounts to more purchased copies and hence more money for the author (and the publisher-- there are people at the publisher who do valuable work). I'd prefer to see a system of payments to authors per book loaned, as in the UK, but the authors I know of are still quite happy if they get a good review in Library Journal or similar-- library sales are not a small part of the market.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by jakewastaken

I'm looking over some of the archived threads related to piracy and it seems this conversation always pops up and a standstill is reached wherein one person feels they can actually change another person's mind and that other person doesn't give a shit what that previous crusader says.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=17189&page=9

Direct quote from this thread from over a year ago:

Is there any point at all to copyright violation threads? The same things are said, over and over and over, and people don't change their minds. The worldviews don't overlap enough to permit significant conversation. Even when conversation stays polite, it's pretty much mired at the "I don't understand how anyone can think that" level.

Welcome to MobileRead!

Seriously: Yes, we keep again and again... because we just know there's a live cell or two in there somewhere, and we keep hoping and praying someday it will actually twitch.

I do honestly believe, as do others here, that the problem is not insurmountable. I've also come to realize that larger forces than us are likely to decide this issue one way or the other. I suppose we discuss these things only in the hope that, when the issue is finally decided, one of us will be the one who can say "I told you so."