eBook piracy, how common is it?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Similarly for people living in South America.. While amazon book prices are fairly low these days for me as a European, I suspect they're still a tad high for most students living there..

That's a very good point.

It's a shame prices for ebooks don't reflect the cost to people of purchasing them - so those in poor countries are continually disadvantaged.

How about a model where I buy a book at European prices, and part of that money goes into a pot to subsidise the purchases of customers in developing countries?

I'd get a buzz out of knowing some of my money was helping someone out, promoting ebooks globally, and making the system fairer.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

If writing a book is just another job; maybe they could enter the public domain once the author has been sufficiently recompensed?

Simply, for the average author, all the money in the world is not sufficient.



Try to ask somebody "how much is enough?" or "when will you say 'stop I don't deserve any more money'?"

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

That's a very good point.

It's a shame prices for ebooks don't reflect the cost to people of purchasing them - so those in poor countries are continually disadvantaged.

How about a model where I buy a book at European prices, and part of that money goes into a pot to subsidise the purchases of customers in developing countries?

I'd get a buzz out of knowing some of my money was helping someone out, promoting ebooks globally, and making the system fairer.

That's where Creative Commons becomes such a good idea. License your work under CC and anybody can download freely. It kills the ridiculous notion of geographical and economic limitation. Wouldn't it be wonderful, as a writer, to know that from Texas to Timbuktu anybody could read your work (language permitting)? Potentially your words can now reach an audience unimaginable to writers in the past.

[Sweetpea]

I never understood why some books would not be available at certain geographical locations... Don't we live in a world-wide economy?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I never understood why some books would not be available at certain geographical locations... Don't we live in a world-wide economy?

I think (and I'm not entirely clued up on this) there are different rights sold to different territories. So you might see a printing of a book in the US and UK, but then, and probably because of markets, the same text won't be available in Africa or Australia (except on the gray market). With digital this barrier is taken down, at least it can be if you use Creative Commons licensing.

[deltop]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I never understood why some books would not be available at certain geographical locations... Don't we live in a world-wide economy?

This is one of the things that annoys me about drm. Large multi-national corporations are the first in-line to make good use of this world-wide economy by minimizing their manufacturing and distibution costs. But when it comes to the consumer we have to put with with artificial restrictions such as drm to prevent us importing and using products. Again ebooks from amazon and dvd's/blu-rays region coding being good examples.

[deltop]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

LMAO. As does every single one of your flacid analogies in this thread. Oh, and a computer science degree is not a technical qualification. I was wondering more are you a trained MCP or MCSA, or something along those lines. You know, the ones that you get when you're an IT professional.

I know this is off topic and I don't want to inflame the thread further. But in Good Old Neon's defense IT "certifications" can in no way be compared to an actual Computer Science degree. All they prove is that you have a minimal knowledge of the subject and can tick the right boxes on an exam sheet. They look pretty on a cv but that's about it. Plenty of people in IT have them (and plenty more don't) but it's just for passing the interview stage or for keeping a customer who doesn't know any better happy.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I never understood why some books would not be available at certain geographical locations... Don't we live in a world-wide economy?

Simply a matter of publishing contracts. Very often, a publisher only has the rights to distribute a book in a certain country. Many books, for example, have different publishers in the UK and US, to give a specific example.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

Perhaps DRM schemes and other similar measures publishers and labels resort to wouldn’t be so damn draconian if people did not steal their copyrighted materials? The fact is, protections exist precisely because people feel as though they can simply take what they do not own, have not paid for - security measures exist as a direct result of piracy.

I place less blame on the publishers and labels, and more on the end “I’ll take whatever I damn well please” user.

DRM doesn't matter. The people who will take eBooks and share them on the net already know how to strip the DRM or have a source of DRM stripped eBooks. So in that case, only the people trying to do things right are getting hurt.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Stringer

I should have put only two choices:
1) no piracy
2) piracy (including when it is legal on Your country but not elsewhere, assuming you know the concept of right and wrong)

That is what interest me most.

"legal" and "right" are not synonyms.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by LazyScot

If I was your employer and declined to pay you for a day's work you have done, have I taken anything away from you?

If I was your employee and demanded to be paid again and again for 98 years after my death for the same work I did once, how would you call me?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Totally agree. It is pure sophistry to try to pretend that taking away an author's income is anything other than theft, regardless of what the law might choose to call it.

Yes, and to pretend to be paid millions of times for the same work is another form of theft.

So, as I said in other threads, we're not talking about "right" or "wrong", there's no such things in the world, we're just talking about money: the one with the biggest gun takes all. And in the end, he's always "right".

Like it always have been.

"pirates", "criminals", "terrorists" is just how winners call losers.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I think (and I'm not entirely clued up on this) there are different rights sold to different territories. So you might see a printing of a book in the US and UK, but then, and probably because of markets, the same text won't be available in Africa or Australia (except on the gray market). With digital this barrier is taken down, at least it can be if you use Creative Commons licensing.

I know how it works, but that doesn't mean I can understand it... I personally find it stupid to limit your potentional market. But then, I never understood anything about economy and skipped it at school whenever I could

And, naturally, what goes about geographically limited sales, also goes about format limited sales. Hard covers are generally published before the mass market paperbacks. Which I can understand. It generally takes a year before paperbacks arrive. And here's what baffles me again, why stop at paperbacks? Why not also publish an ebook version when the mass market paperbacks start?

I know, I am thinking way too simplistic, but why make it all more complicated than necessary?

[HarryT]

If I was your employee and demanded to be paid again and again for 98 years after my death for the same work I did once, how would you call me?

That's really not a terribly appropriate analogy.

When writing a book, you're not paid at all during the time that you're writing it. Your payment for it slowly trickles in in dribs and drabs over the next however many years.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's really not a terribly appropriate analogy.

When writing a book, you're not paid at all during the time that you're writing it. Your payment for it slowly trickles in in dribs and drabs over the next however many years.

He does have a point... Why should that money keep trickling in when you're dead?