eBook piracy, how common is it?

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by gouzos

I really believe you are stuck in the details. The essence of the matter seems to me to be simple. The publishing industry always made money (as did the music industry) even though there were plenty of ways of sharing.

In fact at some point they realized that harm was not done in the larger scheme of things. It just shifted the equilibrium a bit while at the same time keeping the industry alive.

To me, this is the essence of the matter. Harping on filesharing and viewing it as lost income misses the forest for the trees. When content providers focus more on the DRM arms race than on the quality and accessibility of their product, they actively alienate people from their brand. The people seeking out your work on P2P networks like your work. They want it. Quit slapping their hands and focus on getting products in front of them that they're willing to pay for. And hell, ask for money; every artist should have a website with both a store and a tip jar.

[astra]

Here is another reason why.....it is common!?

Sea Dragon Heir by Storm Constantine

On amazon I can buy the book starting with second hand for £3.42 or brand new for £6.29 including shipping.

Now look at this atrocity:
at least £15
Now. Please, don't tell me to call them and maybe it is a mistake and maybe they will reduce the price and maybe...it is vendor's problem. If someone wants to stay in business they gotta move their asses in order to meet customer's demand. (I absolutely don't care who is to be blamed Fictionwise (I doubt) or publisher). Not my problem. It applies to any business model. Let's say if I don't/cannot fix costumer's IT problem, they don't care whether I have a headache today or not, they go to a new service provider. Why book selling should be any different?
Again, please please don't tell me about taking bread from writer's table, because if I buy a second hand book, the writer will not get a dime.

P.S. I am not even talking about the whole series Magravandias.
The first book is available as [Secure eReader (recommended)/Microsoft Reader]
The second and third as: [Secure Mobipocket/eReader (recommended)]

Means if I am a honest customer I am stuck between 2 absolutely incompatible platforms/ DRM protections (Mobipocket and Microsoft) or I must resort to yet a third DRM scheme and ebook reader that I have supports it.

After that you are surprised that ebook piracy exists?

[RobbieClarken]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Then your logic is inconsistent. The library BUYS EVERY COPY and DOES NOT MAKE NEW COPIES. Copying an ebook DOESN'T BUY EVERY COPY and MAKES NEW COPIES.

Again, if when you lent or copied your ebook YOU LOST YOUR COPY, then I would be fine with it, because it would be EXACTLY LIKE A PHYSICAL BOOK.

I've pointed this distinction out to you three times now and you seem to just ignore it or make flawed counter-arguments.

In a way, reading a book is making a copy of it in your brain. Currently it is a highly imperfect copy (except for people with photographic memory perhaps). With developments in neuroprosthetics and/or nootropics it could someday become a perfect copy.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

A better idea might be an online licensing system, where each ebook file has a unique code that only works with one device. Transfer a code to a different device, and the code no longer works. Oh wait, we already have that... it's DRM. Only thing is, currently we have no centralized service for transferring. But it could be done; Amazon does this themselves when you get a replacement Kindle. The files have to be redownloaded with the new PID.

DRM does not do this--DRM is a one-time lock of content to a device. Consumers don't have the ability to exchange their purchases, and doing so with anything like current DRM would either be impossible (depending on the coding involved) or insanely technical.

It might be a technical impossibility: since file transfers are not instantaneous, there'd always be some time when a book (song, vid) would be registered to two different devices, and someone would figure out how to maximize that time to create two copies. However, I suspect that it'd mostly prevent extra copies, especially if it had to be done for each copy, and other transfers were simple.

But you're right; ebook publishers have not gone down a path that makes ownership transfer a feature.

Yep. Amazon doesn't even have a "send my book to my spouse's Kindle and remove it from mine" option.

But while it may also be true that they are using this as a "power grab", it doesn't change the fact that that's the fundamental difference between libaries and ebooks. If there were a way to treat ebooks the same way, publishers would not be happy (they weren't initially happy with libraries either) but it might be something they could live with if it eliminated piracy.

There might be a way, but they're certainly doing absolutely nothing towards developing software for it. It might involve something as complicated as "plug both devices into the network at once, and let the program transfer content"--but nobody's working on that, or even considering it.

Ebook & other digital entertainment content publishers have decided to claim they have the right to insist on "one purchase, one user," rather than "one purchase, one copy."

And because of that ridiculous claim, they're facing casual piracy by people who believe that "give away a copy" is not as wrong as "you can never share or give away what you bought."

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by gouzos

Don't you see that this logic is only superficial and pointless? It's is just another indication of being stuck in the past?

No, I don't. It's a real distinction.

Originally Posted by gouzos

So If I told you that I made a huge site-databank where everyone could dump the ebooks they have read erasing them from their device and everyone could pick them up as long as they contribute as well, would that be OK?

I think that would be better, and would be something publishers could get behind if it meant no more piracy.

Originally Posted by gouzos

In fact at some point they realized that harm was not done in the larger scheme of things. It just shifted the equilibrium a bit while at the same time keeping the industry alive.

No, the music industry adjusted by drastically lowering prices for individual songs, and making songs easy and painless to buy. This made it so many people were more willing to pay for music than to go through the hoops of illegally downloading it. And even then, it took them time to get rid of DRM.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by taosaur

To me, this is the essence of the matter. Harping on filesharing and viewing it as lost income misses the forest for the trees. When content providers focus more on the DRM arms race than on the quality and accessibility of their product, they actively alienate people from their brand. The people seeking out your work on P2P networks like your work. They want it. Quit slapping their hands and focus on getting products in front of them that they're willing to pay for.

Sorry, but that's a ridulous argument. It's like say "Stop punishing car thieves - the fact that they steal your cars mean that they like them. Why don't you stop developing security systems and concentrate on making cheaper cars so that people will buy them rather than steal them?"

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry, but that's a ridulous argument. It's like say "Stop punishing car thieves - the fact that they steal your cars mean that they like them. Why don't you stop developing security systems and concentrate on making cheaper cars so that people will buy them rather than steal them?"

If your car is stolen you don't have it any more.
If they can just make their own copy of your car for themselves - why would you need a security device to stop them stealing it?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

If your car is stolen you don't have it any more.

I wasn't referring to that aspect of it (which I entirely agree with, BTW). I was referring to taosaur's comment that p2p downloads show that someone likes your product, so you should stop trying to protect it and concentrate on making it cheaper. That argument could equally be applied to cars as to music tracks, and I'm afraid that I think it's rather silly .

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry, but that's a ridulous argument. It's like say "Stop punishing car thieves - the fact that they steal your cars mean that they like them. Why don't you stop developing security systems and concentrate on making cheaper cars so that people will buy them rather than steal them?"

There's a problem with your analogy. Developing security systems actually makes the cars harder to steal, while DRM doesn't make the ebooks less accessible on the darknet. No sense in going into details, as that's been explained time and again in multiple threads in the past. The bottom line is - if the book has been written, you can get it for free, so only quality of the ebook, ease of getting it, and morals influence which of the available versions will be popular. If the benefits of getting the commercial version ( quality, ease of use, feeling of doing the right thing ) outweigh the fact that additional money needs to be paid for it, then the commerical books will sell. Otherwise they won't. DRM as it is now is not a protection measure, it's just an ornament, a conversation topic.

So I think what taosaur was saying is, concentrate on how it really works, and not on the smoke screen.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I wasn't referring to that aspect of it (which I entirely agree with, BTW). I was referring to taosaur's comment that p2p downloads show that someone likes your product, so you should stop trying to protect it and concentrate on making it cheaper. That argument could equally be applied to cars as to music tracks, and I'm afraid that I think it's rather silly .

It was the approach Pitt the Younger took to deal with smuggling when he was Prime Minister.

http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/pitt/taxpitt.htm
"It was estimated that smuggling exceeded 20% of imports and accounted for half all tea in Britain, creating an obvious loss of revenue. High duties made smuggling profitable, so Pitt decided to reduce duties to make the temptation no longer adequate to the risk. Tea duties, averaging 119%, were reduced to 25%. Duties also were reduced on wines, spirits and tobacco. By 1789, quantity of tea passing through Customs had doubled and in one year (1784-5) the Exchequer got an extra £200,000. By 1792, government revenue had increased by £3 m as a result of legal increased consumption."

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

[SNIP]
I may have to try doing this: putting together a flash drive full of ebooks from Fictionwise that I'm done reading, deleting them from my hard drive, and selling them on eBay. Of course, I'd still have *access* to them on FW, but if I didn't actually re-download them, I wouldn't be making a copy I have no right to.

However, I suspect that many ebook publishers would not agree that this was reasonable, and believe that they have only licensed their books for use by one person--the purchaser--and that no additional transfers of the purchase are allowed. The RIAA's lawsuits used language that indicate they believe that proof of actual illegal copying is not necessary; availability of copying alone should be enough to prosecute. And since there's no way to prove "I didn't keep a copy somewhere," they would claim that of course any data that was transferred, was illegally copied.
[SNIP]

Perhaps many eBook publishers would not agree that this was reasonable. A better approach might be to sell the entire Fictionwise account to the other party. Once they change the password, that would remove your ability to re-download the ebooks. What it wouldn't do is remove your ability to read saved copies of any multi-format (e.g. DRM-free) books you had purchased on that account.

Nevertheless, any reasonable publisher or retailer should be willing to let you sell the entire account and all the books you've bought with it to some other person. That comes close enough to the "transfer all copies" that is needed to match up with the physical world.

A really enlightened publisher will go farther than that! The good folks at Baen have previously approved the following examples:

• Split a single Webscriptions account into two accounts due to a divorce. Both new accounts included all content purchased on the original account.
• Said that children who leave home (presumably at the age of legal majority) may freely take with them copies of all content purchased up to the time they left -- even though this brings into existance "un-paid-for" copies of those eBooks.

In both cases their analysis was that they'd prefer to keep a fan (and get their future purchases) rather than pissing off a loyal customer by trying to insist on payment for new copies of older works.

I note, however, that the folks in question had no legal right to these particular solutions. This is an example of excellent foresight and sound business practice on the part of the publisher, not a "this must be the legal approach" from a copyright PoV.

Xenophon

[EowynCarter]

No, the music industry adjusted by drastically lowering prices for individual songs, and making songs easy and painless to buy. This made it so many people were more willing to pay for music than to go through the hoops of illegally downloading it. And even then, it took them time to get rid of DRM.

Yeah. I never bought music online until the fnac finnaly offered us a decent alternative (ok prices, drm-free mp3)

[Patricia]

Baen are seriously going up in my estimation.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Baen are seriously going up in my estimation.

mine too. if only they would publish mysteries !!

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Baen are seriously going up in my estimation.

In mine also.