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

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Bob T

Only if you are making extra, (illegal), copies....
I want to loan my copy or sell it after I'm done with it....
Two completely different things...

And I agree completely but that is built on a foundation of trust, morality and doing the right thing, which personally I don't believe will ever happen.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Will it? It's certainly a threat to the Publishing industry. I'm not so sure it's really a threat to the authors, it may even be beneficial for them. Certainly promotion and distribution become a lot cheaper and easier. That sucks for the middlemen, but is pretty good for the authors.

Yes, I believe so. As I've said before in other threads. If the "good" writers can't make a living at it (because they sell one or two copies and they are "shared" with the world) they they have to spend their time doing something else to make a living and the world of literature loses because of it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Because they don't equate due to the inherent difference. You can only share a pbook with one person. That is untrue of an ebook as discussed above. It's inherently different, so the inherent rights are different, and yes those rights have to be different in order to "protect" the system which creates the product containing those rights.

They're not talking about taking away our right to share with millions, they don't want us to be able to share eBooks with ANYBODY. If I can share a pBook with 1 person at a time, why can't I share an eBook with 1 person at a time? If I can exercise my one time right of first sale for a pBook, why can't I sell an eBook once? Technical ways of doing that already exist, but Publishers have taken it upon themselves to decide that we're not allowed to use them.

It's not that they're denying us new capabilities that eBooks allow, it's that they're also trying to take away old ones that we've always had.

You can't reasonable expect to have the same rights for different products.

It's not a different product. The product is not the pieces of paper, it's the story. It's not the digital 1s and 0s, it's the same story.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Happ

Could you expand on this, please?

What's there to expand on?

The best way to beat the darknets is to offer cheap, accessible versions of your books. Wizards of the Coast turned round one day and pulled all their PDF's from the net. Unsurprisingly, they're both not now making money off them and more people are seeding and leeching torrents of their works.

And tough, Happ, I have a legal right to sell an ebook on. How publishers deal with that is their problem, but they have to provide the means or I can sue them. Their choice, again.

The music industry gave up on controls, and are doing better...but they'd be years ahead and making even more if they hadn't permanently alienated a large chunk of a generation as paying customers, and held back their own sales for years before they did give up the control. Why do other industries need to follow the same path? Skip the control freak stage and get on with making money, already!

And no, kenny, not the same rights but a whole bunch more. If I want to change the font to one I like, darn straight I should be able to do that. For a print book that'd be costly..for an ebook, not so.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Will it? It's certainly a threat to the Publishing industry. I'm not so sure it's really a threat to the authors, it may even be beneficial for them. Certainly promotion and distribution become a lot cheaper and easier. That sucks for the middlemen, but is pretty good for the authors.

That is an illusion. You will need shelf space, exposure. Having a website is not going to do it. You have to go Amazon ou iTunes or somewhere where people find you. Selling the odd e-book on your own website will probably not be enough to pay for the website alone, especially if you do know how or want to do it yourself. And on top of that you have to sell them cheap and also to give some for free. It just doesn’t work. If it did work, you would see lots of authors living from e-books and music sold on their own websites. What you can have, of course, is amateurs: people with some other day job that then are able to make say 100 dollars per month. Do you want all authors to be amateurs?

[Bob T]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And I agree completely but that is built on a foundation of trust, morality and doing the right thing, which personally I don't believe will ever happen.

Well Kenny, I'm one of those crazy folks that think people are fundamentally good...
I can copy any DVD I own...I could make copies for all my friends for about $0.25 each, or rip and just put it out on the web....but I don't.

If ebooks were DRM free, I would still only loan out the books I buy to the same people I loan out my pbooks...
I wouldn't post them up on the net and I wouldn't get them off the net.
Plus, I would probably buy more than I do now...

That's just me I guess....
I've enjoyed this little discussion...I have things to do, but I'll be checking back in...

Later,

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Bob T

Only if you are making extra, (illegal), copies....
I want to loan my copy or sell it after I'm done with it....
Two completely different things...

Exactly. Something used to be legal. A new media comes along that makes it easier to do illegal things. Nobody is saying that we should now have the right to do the new illegal things. What we're complaining about is that they are also taking away the rights to do what used to be legal.

That is not due to inherent differences, that is a power grab.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

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...

Oh, please. Go to a library... you know, the institute just waiting to share with everyone? ...and stop trying to label me an elitist Orwellian snob.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It is not possible to duplicate the media/format/rights a consumer has with regard to pbooks in the ebook world due to the inherent differences in the format.

Of course it is. You don't think it's possible to create a DRM system that allows for temporary license transfers (sharing) and permanent ones (resale)? Technology to allow that is already trivial.

They choose to prevent it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

I see, sorry. I do not believe that is ever going to happen. It would be a technical nightmare to make a system in which you could only sell one copy of a given e-book instead of a million.

Tell that to Barnes and Nobles. The technical solutions are pretty straight forward. DRM could certainly support that, if they wanted it to.

[Elfwreck]

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.

If that were the case, the B&N sharing option wouldn't have limits, and publishers wouldn't be able to opt out of it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And I agree completely but that is built on a foundation of trust, morality and doing the right thing, which personally I don't believe will ever happen.

So the answer is to treat all of your customers as criminals. Let's see how far that philosophy gets them.

You are never going to force everyone to do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that none of them will. The answer is not to take away everyone's existing rights in order to stop the "thieves".

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yes, I believe so. As I've said before in other threads. If the "good" writers can't make a living at it (because they sell one or two copies and they are "shared" with the world) they they have to spend their time doing something else to make a living and the world of literature loses because of it.

That's quite a big assumption you're making. Has there ever been anything to suggest that piracy will become the dominant form of content distribution? It's highly questionable whether it even hurts sales.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

So the answer is to treat all of your customers as criminals. Let's see how far that philosophy gets them.

You are never going to force everyone to do the right thing, but that doesn't mean that none of them will. The answer is not to take away everyone's existing rights in order to stop the "thieves".

Give it up, man.

The people who have the mindset that the customers are the enemy are not going to be convinced by someone otherwise on a web forum. It's self-evident to you, to me and to many others what's going to happen.

Never mind that we've talked about physical retail adopting trust models, or illustrated how the music industry's grasping for control has alienated many would-be customers, even now they've at least partly got their act together (although for myself, I'll need them to stop trying to change laws in their favour).

Unfortunately, it's not evident to others and the trainwreck is already in progress. At some point you have to stand back, let it happen and then salvage from the wreckage. It's harsh on the companies crushed it in, but all too many are already beyond saving.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Happ

You will need shelf space

For what?

, exposure. Having a website is not going to do it. You have to go Amazon ou iTunes or somewhere where people find you.

That's pretty easy. You also forgot places like Facebook, or whatever similar services take over in the future. Exposure on a global internet is relatively easy. That's one of the things the internet does.

Selling the odd e-book on your own website will probably not be enough to pay for the website alone

How much do you think a website costs? Many people have them without even using them for a business. The cost is insignificant.

It just doesn’t work. If it did work, you would see lots of authors living from e-books and music sold on their own websites.

Of course it works, this is actually what the industry really fears.