E-Book Piracy: The Publishing Industry's Next Epic Saga?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Quite a few, actually. Around here a lot of the big stores (grocery stores, hardware stores, etc) are going to the "self checkout" model. You walk up to a machine, scan your own products, and then pay via an ATM type interface. There is no human working the register, and usually no security staff standing by the door checking bags. The whole things is based on the "honor system".

And do these stores have no ceiling-mounted cameras monitoring customers, no product detectors at the exit, and no locks on the doors? At the end of the day, when all the workers go home, does the store leave its doors unlocked? If someone is caught stealing from them, do you expect they will be happily allowed back in?

Or is there a security system in place that is so unobtrusive that you just don't notice it?

Has the store raised prices in order to compensate for part of the loss... the rest of the losses being deducted from their taxes at end of year?

Often there's a "big picture" that customers don't see. Just because a store seems looser and friendlier, doesn't mean they are allowing people to steal them blind. It usually means they have you looking in one place... while they're watching you from another.

[Happ]

I am with you Steve!

[DawnFalcon]

Steve: They're doing away with the equivalent of DRM and putting other measures into place, exactly as Impulse is doing for games. There is no consumer tolerance for DRM: It's a dead letter sooner or later, and the later it happens the more the industry will lose to the darknet in the meantime. Their choice.

And no, the shops haven't raised their prices. They're saving money on the measures, because it lets them pass more people through the payment end of the store more quickly (higher customer satisfaction, which is directly tied to repeat custom) and dedicate less staff to checkouts (major, major saving!). Yes, more stuff is nicked. But the overall rates of theft are already low, and don't start to compare with the savings.

This is simply good business sense. Again, why do you want to drag the online book industry through the entire thing again, from start to end? Let's skip the bit with the pain where people turn to the darknets, allready!

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Sharing is a purely subsidiary function of literature, something a lot of people do not do with their books, and would not miss. That's not to say that sharing shouldn't be desired, but that it, along with other subsidiary functions (like resale, something else a lot of people don't do and wouldn't miss)

I'm trying really hard not to react to this with snide comments about income levels and the privileges of wealth.

Book-sharing is an essential part of my local literary community. At my income level, and my friends', if we were limited to reading what we bought new full-price, we'd give up on reading altogether.

That's only indirectly related to discovering authors whose early works are no longer in print through sharing or secondhand purchases; several of my friends keep loaning libraries of books that aren't currently available in bookstores.

The idea that every purchased book will be read by one person, and then destroyed when that person is done with it, is ridiculous, whether that book is paper or electronic. *That* is the destruction of "book culture" that Kaufman should be ranting about, not the format.

Until publishers acknowledge the importance of secondhand books--whether that's shared or sold--and establish a legal, simple way to allow people to transfer control or ownership of their ebooks, ebook "piracy" will continue to thrive.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I don't think that argument is true. The form (particularly in this case) dictates the potential simply because of the ease of making a perfect copy with little effort. And it's really that that the industry is attempting to control with DRM or lawsuits against so called piracy.

Exactly. And when people do not understand this I know there is no use in arguing anymore.

Now, one can argue that most people will pay even if they can just copy it easily. But the industry does not believe this. You have to persuade them of this. And you will surely fail if you do not see that the easiness of digital copy makes all the damn difference in the world.

[DawnFalcon]

And you can turn that around as well, Elfwreck. You can offer discount vouchers to people who recommend books directly to people on a site, then people buy the recommendations. Or you can lower the price of directly recommended books.

People don't necessarily want to give up access to their books, but making it convenient for people to get onboard with what their friends are reading and recommending...

It's about increasing the amount of sales, even at slimmer margins, to get people purchasing on your site. Once you've got them registered and paying, you're already ahead of the game on attracting even more customers...it's *cheap* compared to conventional advertising.

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm trying really hard not to react to this with snide comments about income levels and the privileges of wealth.

Book-sharing is an essential part of my local literary community. At my income level, and my friends', if we were limited to reading what we bought new full-price, we'd give up on reading altogether.

That's only indirectly related to discovering authors whose early works are no longer in print through sharing or secondhand purchases; several of my friends keep loaning libraries of books that aren't currently available in bookstores.

The idea that every purchased book will be read by one person, and then destroyed when that person is done with it, is ridiculous, whether that book is paper or electronic. *That* is the destruction of "book culture" that Kaufman should be ranting about, not the format.

Until publishers acknowledge the importance of secondhand books--whether that's shared or sold--and establish a legal, simple way to allow people to transfer control or ownership of their ebooks, ebook "piracy" will continue to thrive.

Well said....I agree completely....

[Happ]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Until publishers acknowledge the importance of secondhand books--whether that's shared or sold--and establish a legal, simple way to allow people to transfer control or ownership of their ebooks, ebook "piracy" will continue to thrive.

Until you show publishers how that is not going to wreck their business completely you will not have their attention. And you will not be even nearer that if you do not see the economic difference between lending p-books and lending e-books.

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by Happ

And you will not be even nearer that if you do not see the economic difference between lending p-books and lending e-books.

Could you explain that difference? As I don't see it...

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

I do not believe in unbreakable DRM. Nor does the industry.

Those who do believe in it only do so because they don't understand it. In the industries case, the primary purpose of DRM is not to prevent piracy. That's why they don't care that there's no such thing as unbreakable DRM. There's a reason it's called "Digital Rights Management" and not "Digital Copy Protection". What they want to do is control your rights, not prevent anyone from copying the content.

Alas, no one believes in unbreakable physical locks on doors. And still we use them.

There is a fundamental difference. Physical locks on doors do you no good when you're trying to prevent the home owner from breaking in to their own house. That's what piracy is. Door locks are useless in that scenario.

Rent a house to somebody. Find the biggest/strongest lock you can and put it on the front door. Now give the renter a copy of the key so that they can get into the house when they need to. That lock on the front door is going to do absolutely nothing to stop the renter from selling all of your furniture.

DRM is the lock on that front door and the furniture is your data. Pirates don't copy your data by breaking the lock, they use the key that you gave them and walk right out the front door with it. That's why there can never be such a thing as unbreakable DRM.

The industry just wants a DRM solution that most people would not bother to break although it is possible to break.

Most people never have to bother to break it. It only takes one person to break it, and dishonest people will be able to get your content. What DRM does do is allow you to restrict the rights of honest people, which is what the industry is really interested in.

The funny thing about it was that iTunes started to abolish DRM because those who pirate can break it anyway and most people seems to be willing to pay even if they can get the same for free on the darkweb. For me this is the point that should be pressed: sell it to people, make it easy to pay, and sell it cheap, abolish geographic barriers, and do that for a couple of years to see the result.

Supposedly iTunes never wanted DRM in the first place, but I agree with you on the rest.

[DawnFalcon]

Happ -

I don't need to show them anything. I'm just sitting around and watching the train wreck. I'm hoping, honestly, that the book companies with a clue are going to be able to make up market share online far quicker, and be able to grow, faster than the old book companies - who'll see more and more people going to the darknets for their works

It's darwinian.

(Incidentally, apparently and unsurprisingly the number of people sharing TSR book torrents soared after Wizards pulled the legal PDF's...)


Shappy - Pfft. It enabled them to lock people into iTunes for the critical early years.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Has the store raised prices in order to compensate for part of the loss... the rest of the losses being deducted from their taxes at end of year?

Actually, the opposite. As I said, the reduction in costs outweigh the additional loss. If anything, that would allow them to reduce prices, which would further increase their value to paying customers.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by kjk

...

Digital media has the possibility to share, exactly like physical media. It is not impossible. It just doesn't have the will. Its a completely different situation.

No. It's inherently different, that's why we are dealing with all these issues. It's not a matter of will, it's a matter of inherent differences. It's much the same issue as the music industry just went through and we're re-hashing it in the book publishing world.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Until publishers acknowledge the importance of secondhand books

I'm sure the publishers are well aware of the significance of secondhand books, but they view them as competing with their revenue and want to eliminate them.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I'm sure the publishers are well aware of the significance of secondhand books, but they view them as competing with their revenue and want to eliminate them.

If not for those pesky laws...

(There's so much whining about this in games as well. It's fricking unreal. Legal rights, people!)

There's nothing "inherently different", or rather nothing inherently limiting. The medium is not the message (and never was), and indeed the only significance is the legal land-grabs being made because of the medium. You can do new things in a digital medium, certainly, but many of those are going to be locked out until this all gets sorted some years down the line, and after the "people go to the darknet" stage.

Oh, and new and not entirely unrelated sig.