eBook piracy, how common is it?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

My (admittedly snarky) point was, wouldn’t it be great if we all lived in a world in which we all shared our skills freely, with little or no need for personal monetary reward.

yeah, but that's just silly.

Unfortunately, reality tells us otherwise – and to a large extent, artists, like the rest of us, need and appreciate being paid for their services.

I think that is focusing on the wrong thing. I would bet that a lot of people who engage in "piracy" (Arrr!) do it because of problems with the middlemen (RIAA, Publishers, etc), not because they have any desire to keep the artists from being paid. I think both consumers and artists are suffering under the current model. Unfortunately, the ones with the most power and money (middlemen), are the ones that don't want the current model to change.

I've seen very few people actually argue that artists should not be paid, and more often than not it isn't the individual artist who is arguing for stronger and more draconian copyright laws, but that's where the focus in these arguments usually ends up. The problem I see is that the middlemen are taking advantage of both sides. They're the ones that are clinging to old business models and keeping prices high, as well as using the inflated threat of "piracy" to push for stronger anti-consumer laws (DMCA, copyright extensions, etc). They've managed to screw over both consumers and artists, while turning the argument into consumers vs artists, all the while sitting back and taking money from both ends.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Because he's an ex-author and blindly defends copyright law from the industries point of view with absolutely no interest what so ever for consumer rights.

Obviously theft has nothing to do with it, but it's language that the industry uses as a scare tactic and to sway opinion. He's just parroting their propaganda.

If you're expecting an unbiased discussion about copyright from Harry, you're wasting your time.

I don't agree with Harry 100%, but I do very much value his opinion and understand why he feels the way he does. I also respect the fact that he is a good enough author to have made a living for years doing that. As far as biased, I guess most of us are.

[Good Old Neon]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

yeah, but that's just silly.



I think that is focusing on the wrong thing. I would bet that a lot of people who engage in "piracy" (Arrr!) do it because of problems with the middlemen (RIAA, Publishers, etc), not because they have any desire to keep the artists from being paid. I think both consumers and artists are suffering under the current model. Unfortunately, the ones with the most power and money (middlemen), are the ones that don't want the current model to change.

I've seen very few people actually argue that artists should not be paid, and more often than not it isn't the individual artist who is arguing for stronger and more draconian copyright laws, but that's where the focus in these arguments usually ends up. The problem I see is that the middlemen are taking advantage of both sides. They're the ones that are clinging to old business models and keeping prices high, as well as using the inflated threat of "piracy" to push for stronger anti-consumer laws (DMCA, copyright extensions, etc). They've managed to screw over both consumers and artists, while turning the argument into consumers vs artists, all the while sitting back and taking money from both ends.

Something tells me that the average 13+ year olds decision to circumvent paying for music has very little to nothing to do with any philosophical differences they may have with the RIAA - or anyone else for that matter.

They download free movies and music because it’s easy and its free.

But again, even if were to do away with the middleman, and artists sell music, books, etc, directly to the public, that does very little to stop or lessen the flow of copyrighted materials.

[DuneSoldier]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

Something tells me that the average 13+ year olds decision to circumvent paying for music has very little to nothing to do with any philosophical differences they may have with the RIAA - or anyone else for that matter.

They download free movies and music because it’s easy and its free.

But again, even if were to do away with the middleman, and artists sell music, books, etc, directly to the public, that does very little to stop or lessen the flow of copyrighted materials.

Some people will always violate copyright. What can be done to minimize it without punishing law abiding customers as well? For example, one of the things that has stopped me from buying new books has been DRM. I have a Sony Reader, so I'm stuck with either the LRX format or the epub format with Adobe's DRM. If I choose to switch to say a Kindle in a couple years, I'm screwed.

So far I simply have been reading public domain works, and works released for free under creative commons. I'm also planning on buying books from Baen in the future since they don't have DRM.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by DuneSoldier

So far I simply have been reading public domain works, and works released for free under creative commons. I'm also planning on buying books from Baen in the future since they don't have DRM.

Between the Baen Free Library and the Baen CDs there's about 200 free books out there already from Baen.

[DuneSoldier]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Between the Baen Free Library and the Baen CDs there's about 200 free books out there already from Baen.

Yeah, I'm planning on buying the Bolo books and the Deeds of Paks- based on the books released in the free library. I'm also planning on grabbing the first-light chronicles (I think that was it). But I've got plenty to read from free giveaways by Tor, this site, Baen and Feedbooks.

But if I can't get the book that I want without DRM, then I'm not going to read the book. Unless it's something I've been waiting for then I'll by the paperback when it comes out.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by DuneSoldier

But if I can't get the book that I want without DRM, then I'm not going to read the book. Unless it's something I've been waiting for then I'll by the paperback when it comes out.

Me too.
If only there was some convenient way of making a publisher understand that ebook sales are small because of DRM worries.
Publishers call readers thieves if we break the DRM in order to shift formats (e.g. if we buy new devices). But they aren't exactly honest and open either. They advertise ebooks for sale, when a very restrictive licence is all that it offered.
Meanwhile, I'm buying most of my contemporay literature in treeware format. They probably misread that as a preference for paper.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Please see earlier in the thread. UK libraries, under a system called the "Public Lending Right" pay authors 5.98p (roughly 10c) every time one of their books is checked out of the library, up to a maximum paymant of £6,600 per year (about $10,000) per author. ie the author does get compensated when a book is checked out of the library.

I must say i'm very much annoyed by your disingenuousness here. When you brought this up earlier, Moejoe said this in response to your suggestion that authors got a "substantial" part of their income from these library lending payments:

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Of the 32,000 plus who were eligible for payments from the PLR, the vast majority made between £1-99, with only 352 reaching the £5-6,000 limit. Of course those 352 are already multi-million dollar sellers for the most part and the money would be a drop in the ocean for them. It might buy JK Rowling a clue about the digital age, but not much more. If you're seriously arguing that £1-99 makes a difference in a writer's income per year, then I really don't know what to say. Even at the threshold of >£500 which is the next biggest tally, the actual benefit of the payment is negligible, and probably wouldn't bring most authors up to the national minimum-living wage.

Now, whether this is factually correct is something I do not know, but since you chose to ignore this entirely, preferring to respond to the most uncontroversial part of his reply, it would seem that whether this is factual or not matters little to you.

Why is that, exactly? If it were incorrect I'm sure someone could've bothered to correct him, but since nobody did, I'm guessing there's some truth to it, meaning that those PLR payments are mostly meaningless (looking at patricia's anecdotal support as well). Except for that one payment to that American guy, which you present as a paradigm case, but who really is an outlier, and who also (conveniently) is paid a nice and round (and big) dollar (rather than the smaller GBP) amount for the sake of (your) argument.
As such, I'd like to request you stop using this argument, as it doesn't seem to hold water. Considering only those known by the PLR get money, and that for the overwhelming majority of that subset of authors the actual amount paid out is negligible, it does not seem to be a valid argument for your suggestion that using a library is "wholly different" from downloading a book and subsequently deleting it (or whatever).

Disclaimer: I'm assuming library payment schemes in other countries are at best on a par with the british system, and usually worse (for the authors).

[Greg Anos]

E-books are the luckiest of I.P. products. They are the hardest to convert to digital, requiring huge amounts of human labor to do well. So writers have the most "natural" protection against infringement. Which helps them a little, not much.

The underlying problem is how do you stop unlawful infringing. The blunt (and depressing) fact is basically nothing can be done. The most aggresive defender of his own copyrights nearly went broke doing it, and 1. had to waive the tin cup to reach trail completion and 2. Had to sue the hosting company because the actual infringer didn't have enough assets to pay for the suit. What to do you do when thing get passed around hand-to-hand instead of via the internet? Won't happen? It used to happen all the time 50 years ago in the analog world. Pass the record back and forth, recording along the way. Today, you might swap SD chips via e-mail requests. Unless you abolish digital technology, you will never be able to stop I.P. infringment.

This is the dragon. it isn't going away. - RSE

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

E-books are the luckiest of I.P. products. They are the hardest to convert to digital, requiring huge amounts of human labor to do well. So writers have the most "natural" protection against infringement. Which helps them a little, not much.

Authors are in the worst position. TV show creators have first run commercial revenue, musicians have live concerts, movies are better on 50' screens. Authors can't exactly go on reading tours to make money...

[megacoupe]

I highly doubt the accuracy of this poll. It only reflects the habits of the mobileread community. I think the reality is that more eBooks are pirated than purchased. This is just going by the availability of eBooks I've seen; I'm quite good at finding things online, when motivated, but the ease with which one can find eBooks is amazing.

I remember my twelve-year-old cousin asking me how it is that her friends can just go online and find any song they want, without paying. I explained to her that it was illegal and she proceeded to ask all of her friends how they got their music. All of them, without exception, showed her how they use p2p programs to find whatever songs they like. When she mentioned the illegality of this practice, they were confused: they thought this was how everyone got their music (which in a sense is true: everyone they knew were getting their music this way).

This example brings home the point that many companies are starting to realize now: you have to make the purchasing and use of your product brain-dead simple so that it will be the first way people think of for acquiring what they're selling. It must be the easiest way possible to get the product and the product must be easy to use as well. That's the only way to steal sales back from the pirates.

[cerement]

There's also the whole aspect of alienating your own customers. Sony's rootkit certainly didn't do them any favors. And even EA is having to back off on its stance on SecuROM (when your own customers willingly and eagerly pirate your game just to tell you how much they hate you).

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Stringer

Yeah, but I think we can define the fan-fiction as something based on another work of art. Most often tv-series. Thus the fans writing it would be the ones that liked the original art. That is different to taking some random subject like outer space aliens and starting to write about them.

As far as I understand it, using characters and settings from other people's work is copyright infringement. The fan fiction communities are usually very much aware of this and there is a tendency, especially among older writers to try to keep a low profile, for instance by only publishing stories in paper 'zines'. I've just had someone decline having a link put up on my link list web page, for this reason.

There is a growing awareness of fan fiction on the 'publishing' end, and, it seems, also a tacit acceptance of it. Perhaps they are realising that after all, it keeps a fan base - potential customers! - alive for much longer. The only reason I've bought all four seasons of Starsky & Hutch is because of fan fiction. And several other shows.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Or you listen to a song on the radio and don't purchase, immediately, the track from Itunes?

I read (or heard) somewhere that they plan to encrypt the (digital) tv signal here, so you can't record it. Like the Brits, we pay a hefty sum every month to just be able to watch tv and listen to the radio. And that's just for the basic package (if you want more (non-standard) channels, you have to pay more). Every tv and radio station has to pay a certain amount of money for the right to play music and TV shows (which have to be bought in the first place).

So, what they would love you to do is to buy your series if you missed the show on TV.

Originally Posted by DuneSoldier

Some people will always violate copyright. What can be done to minimize it without punishing law abiding customers as well? For example, one of the things that has stopped me from buying new books has been DRM. I have a Sony Reader, so I'm stuck with either the LRX format or the epub format with Adobe's DRM. If I choose to switch to say a Kindle in a couple years, I'm screwed.

I will buy DRM'd books, but will de-DRM them as soon as I get them. It might be illegal, but I refuse to be stuck to one device...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sonist

In other words, if you charge $10000 for an electronic copy of the Harry Potter collection, you'll likely end up with very few paying customers. If you charge $0.01 for the same, you'll likely end up with very few "pirates." So, the main goal should be, to find the price point where your profits are maximized. It's really as simple as that!

DRM is much, much less important than price, because while it may deter some from "pirating," it will also deter some from buying.

So, the moral is: IT'S THE PRICE, STUPID!!! (and the desirability of the product, of course

But the fundamental point is that it is YOUR RIGHT, as the author, to decide that you wish to charge $10,000 for your work, just as it is the right of the consumer to decide whether or not it's worth that amount to them. The consumer does NOT have the right, either legally or morally, to say "it's not worth that much to me, so I'm just going to take it without paying for it".