Confessions of a Book Pirate

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by tnronin

I have not read the ENTIRE thread but this post is a good one IMHO. You sound like the type of author who understands the reality of the technology. I will not INTENTIONALLY download a pirated book. Nor I am a not going to buy a book for the same price of a paperback/hardback which is in electronic format. That is simple, no if ands, or buts. Until the publishers get it thru their thick skulls, just as you evidently have, there will be the piracy. Certainly there are people that will do it regardless of the price. Heck you could charge .99 and there will still be pirates. In my mind the issue is the cost of what you actually get. I read stories of people that have lost many books from Amazon when they decided to not carry the book anymore. I would be one angry person if that happened to me. Which is why I use the Sony ereader. If I pay a premium for a product I expect use from it. It would be nice if someone came up with a method of allowing someone to "loan" a book. And they may have done so, I'm still new to this stuff.

Anyway, good thread. The above is just my two cents, I hope I have not offended anyone, that was not my intent. It seems that there may be people reading this that will base some business decisions (pricing) based upon the responses here. I want to and will pay for the work of the authors, BUT I will not pay the same price for something that is not tangible.

If you buy from indie authors from Amazon, or backlist authors or even some small publishers we have the option of turning off DRM--which means you aren't going to lose your copy. It can be readily converted to other forms. If you buy from Smashwords, you get all the forms. But yes, it won't stop pirating, no matter how well we try to give readers what they ask for.

It should be noted that I'm with Randolph LaLonde on this--the money I make and it is small--does matter. It means something that I do or don't buy. The number of sales does direct my future. Were there no sales, I would not have put out the second book. Or the third. I'm working on a second in the series of Executive Lunch. Why? It is selling the best by far. Pirated copies not only wouldn't tell me that, pirated copies hurt the feedback system and the monetary one.

As for pricing, I don't disagree. I only buy ebooks when they are priced in an affordable range that is less than the paperback copy. Not because it isn't tangible, but because I know it costs me less to produce. The reason I don't offer printed copies is the effort and return have not shown it would be worth it to me. So they are different beasts.

[nekokami]

Just a general reminder-- let's keep this civil. Disagree with ideas, not people, and try to avoid inflammatory language (like "that's stupid!")

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Moejoe, there are very good examples of similar situations in the physical world. Someone creates a perfect rose and gets a patent for it. You take a seed, grow it, then clone it and give away the seeds by the thousands. Then you return one seed to the original grower. That seed you return is, of course, as perfect a copy of the original as any digital copy of a book is.

Although I agree that this is closer to the issue of distribution of digital content, I find the idea of patented living organisms very troubling. Who owns my DNA? I recognize that there can be valuable enhancements to existing organisms via breeding or other means (though I'm not a fan of genetic modification of organisms grown in the larger ecology), and for those enhancements to take place, there needs to be compensation for the effort. But saying anyone can "own" the genetic sequencing they've put together from found organisms seems very disturbing to me. I find it particularly problematic when businesses who hold these patents sue individual farmers if modified seeds blow across to their property.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I can walk into an art gallery and make a copy of an artwork for my own private use

Actually, many (possibly most) art galleries do not allow this. Permission to photograph artwork is controlled by either the gallery or (in some cases) the original artist. One can even buy an original painting without gaining the right to make additional copies, which may be sold separately. (I don't know if I agree with this practice or not, but it is common.)

Originally Posted by Guns4Hire

Pirates have friends and pirates make recommendations. There is revenue there, not just loss. Food for thought maybe.

Quite possible. I don't think I'd want to claim a net gain, but since there are no verifiable figures on loss, it seems premature to be talking about gain.

Originally Posted by Pardoz

A huge percentage(from what I've seen, a commanding majority, at least in fiction) of what's out there is scanned copies of books that simply aren't available in electronic form, and a good percentage of those aren't available new in any format, paper or digital - The Real Caterpillar comments on this in the interview linked above.

Yes, and when one has gone to the effort of scanning an out-of-print text, proofing, formatting, etc., it seems natural to want to share it with others. This is why I can't universally condemn uploaders. I think there's a tremendous difference between this kind of effort (or even keeping files of this type available by hosting on IRC or in torrents) and uploading a book that is already available electronically for a reasonable price. (And there's a lot of ground between these two acts, as well.) I don't think this issue is black and white.

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

And yet, two weeks ago an Indie author posted that she found her book posted on a pirate site.

That really does seem absurd, and insupportable.

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

What about the other 99+% of the people out there? They don't get royalties for their work. How do they take care of their kids?

They aren't relying on royalties to begin with, they are paid for their work as it is done. Authors and other creative individuals who work on a publishing and royalties system share the risk with the publishers that their efforts will be rewarded in the long run. They often put their families at risk while doing so. If we wanted to treat authors like carpenters, with no royalties, we should probably pay them by the hour for the work they complete. Some publishers work this way, but most do not.

Our contemporary notions of "intellectual property" are all based on a system that treats intellectual work separately from physical work. We assume that if one wants to earn a living from intellectual work, one must take on the risk that the work will be valued, and attempt to collect payments after making the idea public.

Then again, there is the problem that ideas are transmitted and multiplied much more easily than physical goods. Even before digital copying became possible, an idea could be shared with one person or with a room full of people for about the same effort. Ideas are also much more difficult to trace than physical goods. If I tell you about a method I use to bake bread, and then you modify it to meet your own needs, and pass it along to someone else, how much of what you pass on is your own, and how much is my idea?

This is one of the principle reasons I favor short copyright and patent terms. After a period of time an idea seeps into popular culture, and it becomes impossible for a new artist to say where they got the idea. Realistically, I'm not sure we can reasonably expect copyright or patent lengths of longer than one generation, e.g. 20 years.

[calvin-c]

Sigh, this always seems to happen to an interesting thread when I sleep-it gets too long for me to spend the time needed to catch up. There are lots of interesting ideas in just the 1st 4 pages that I'd like to respond to, like MoeJoe's paradox.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

If you're popular enough to be pirated then piracy doesn't affect you.

The fallacy in this is that whether you're popular or not, piracy *does* affect you-the only questions are how much & whether the net result is negative or positive. (I've noted before, if not here then in other threads, that there is the same statistical link between piracy & sales as there is between advertising & sales-but others have pointed out that piracy/free distribution is also a form of advertising. IMO nobody really knows the net effect-but nobody can deny that there is an effect. Not knowing the size of the effect is different from not knowing that there is an effect.)

Moejoe, I had an additional thought-perhaps, in your paradox, you meant to say "no detrimental effect"? In my opinion that's still unproven, but it's not as definitely false as your original statement.

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by Randolphlalonde

You don't seem to understand that you're talking about taking away a livelihood.

That point aside, I don't enjoy parasites. Not the physical kind, intellectual kind, or digital kind, especially when you make your argument anonymously. I'm plainly stating my opinion using my very public name, while you declare some kind of misguided self entitlement from behind a nickname and a profile pic of someone else.

If you're not willing to pay fairly for my work, then move on. I invite you to ignore me, as I do with any other potential thief.

I hope your barrier to understanding falls away before you find yourself being sued or behind bars.

Good luck.

Personal attacks already?

I'll be generous and assume that you didn't understand what Moejoe's point was: regardless of the moralities associated with it, thinking that the business model that was the rule in the physical world can, in the long run, carry over to the digital world is at best misguided.

Let's see how to sum it up: It can't and it won't! Period.

The reason is that the former is a world where "scarcity" has a meaning, whereas it has none in the later, no matter how much some people will scream it has. Since the former model is based on scarcity, it doesn't carry over.
I expect the argument that if you can't earn money writing, you'll stop doing it, and so there won't be any more books from you. That's true, but "no more books from one author" doesn't equate with "no more books". Far from it, especially since I expect at least some authors will figure out what must be done to make a living writing. and new authors are born everyday.
So in the overall scheme of things, there is no scarcity on books, nor is there any, of course, in their copying over the internet.

Out of the top of my head, I'd say that an independant author, like you seem to be, should build a name for themselves and see and rely on a subscription based model. Of course, in no way does it mean that's the only possibility. It probably isn't and I'm very confident some clever people will eventually devise a better one. But one thing is for sure, it won't be based on scarcity.

Aren't you glad to live in interesting times?

[asjogren]

Randolph LaLonde & BearMountainBooks -

I posted earlier that I like the SmashWords model.

What I want IN ADDITION is the option to rent. Rent at 25% of purchase price. I don't need a collection of eBooks that I have no legal right to share nor to sell. I seldom reread books.

With rental the seller MUST have DRM. And for rental for up to 2 weeks - I don't care. In 2 weeks I am unlikely to change software or hardware. With purchase I DO CARE about DRM - and I don't want it.

Yes, I know this is moot with respect to SmashWords.com, but, rental and purchase models work well together with video. Why not eBooks? Why not subscription models too?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Trenien

Personal attacks already?

..

The only personal attacks I've seen above have come from MoeJoe.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by asjogren

Randolph LaLonde & BearMountainBooks -

I posted earlier that I like the SmashWords model.

What I want IN ADDITION is the option to rent. Rent at 25% of purchase price. I don't need a collection of eBooks that I have no legal right to share nor to sell. I seldom reread books.

With rental the seller MUST have DRM. And for rental for up to 2 weeks - I don't care. In 2 weeks I am unlikely to change software or hardware. With purchase I DO CARE about DRM - and I don't want it.

Yes, I know this is moot with respect to SmashWords.com, but, rental and purchase models work well together with video. Why not eBooks? Why not subscription models too?

It's possible that it would work--but I charge very little for my work NOW. Rental wouldn't get much cheaper. I charge under 2 dollars for each of the books. That's a far cry from 9.99. So as an author, I'm not much interested in a subscription or rental. My pricing model is to start low and get books into the 5 dollar range over time. Perhaps if the cost of the book were higher (for rental or read) it would make sense.

Here's where I see the problem for the author though--magazines (online or not) are basically subscriptions and very, very few make it. Baen's Universe is one example of a magazine deciding to go away (at least for a while because the current subscription model wasn't working--and this for a very well respected company.) If that model doesn't work for a magazine, I'm not sure it would work or pay the bills for very many authors.

I am also on www.Anthologybuilder.com -- again, you pay for what you read. It nets me almost no income over 2 years. We are talking pennies per copy sold--not much incentive to work to get my product on there (that won't stop me as it cost nothing to put it there, but...it doesn't work financially.)

All that said, it's possible that such a model would work and work well for large selling authors--but for midlist and nolist authors...how do we get to that stage where we can offer multiple ways to buy our products?

It is true that many readers resent the fact that they cannot "resell" a product as they did in the past. Of course, many authors resent that we can't protect the number of copies (pirating). So both have to come to a middle ground to find out what will sell.

For me, low prices seem to be working. Like any author, I have to grow my audience FIRST--before I can worry about multiple ways to sell the book. And in my case, as I said, subscription or rental probably isn't something I'd consider at this point unless it could be a growth revenue stream and from watching newspapers, magazines...I don't have a lot of trust that it would work out for me in my situation.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

The average amount of times a paper book is read without payment is 6 times.

Where does that number come from?

I don't disagree; I just want to know what studies have been done about how many times books are read per payment, because it seems a lot of the "oh noes piracy!!!" complaints are based on the premise that most books are read once, and then discarded/destroyed, rather than handed off, so there's no need to come up with a simple & legal way to transfer ownership of ebooks.

[asjogren]

BearMountainBooks,

I agree with you. At $2.00 there is no need for rental. And rental may work poorly for low volume Indie books.

As a potential customer, I am resistant at $5.00 - unless I will use it as reference. Or, I really, really want it.

SmashWords is growing faster than their ability to add resources. Usually a good problem for a business - especially in a recession. Once their inventory quadruples and their capacity matches load, I could envision an offshoot subscription based model:
$5.00 a month, download any book in any DRM format that expires in no more than 2 weeks(customer chooses period), max 7 books out on rental.

If SmashWords was successful, it could bring a needed shake up of the publishing industry. And give a significant advantage to independent authors.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Where does that number come from?

5-6 readers per physical book has been the accepted industry rule of thumb for years (long before ebooks came along). Not sure where the figure originated or if it's based on anything more than a WAG, though.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by kennyc

The only personal attacks I've seen above have come from MoeJoe.

I've seen attacks from multiple parties. Sometimes they are in response to what are perceived as attacks, but that's really not an excuse.

This is always an inflammatory topic. Please try to keep things civil. If necessary, bow out of the thread. There is little new to be said on the topic in any case, so taking offense at what someone else has posted seems pretty pointless.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by asjogren

BearMountainBooks,

I agree with you. At $2.00 there is no need for rental. And rental may work poorly for low volume Indie books.

As a potential customer, I am resistant at $5.00 - unless I will use it as reference. Or, I really, really want it.

SmashWords is growing faster than their ability to add resources. Usually a good problem for a business - especially in a recession. Once their inventory quadruples and their capacity matches load, I could envision an offshoot subscription based model:
$5.00 a month, download any book in any DRM format that expires in no more than 2 weeks(customer chooses period), max 7 books out on rental.

If SmashWords was successful, it could bring a needed shake up of the publishing industry. And give a significant advantage to independent authors.

10 dollars per month... Isn't that pretty much the going rate for movie rentals? I'm not a move watcher so I really don't know. At 7 books per month, that isn't even a dollar per book, which is a pretty low price for an author to make any income...but mostly I wanted to yank your chain.

As for revolution? Amazon already did that by allowing indie authors and backlist authors to publish. NO ONE has offered that in a meaningful way (with enough of a customer base) before. Smashwords is also revolutionary, but it's going to take an audience--be it through B&N, Sony or other sales to get selling power, pricing power and...subscription power.

I'm for all of these things and doing my level best to take advantage of the opportunities.

[Demented]

I've been wondering about the semantic wording of the copy right laws. Technically it's perfectly legal for me to copy a DRM'd(or non-drm'd) work that I own and put it in as many places as I want on my computers or storage devices. So copying a copyrighted work isn't illegal, it is distributing the work that is illegal. Reading a copyrighted work that I don't own can't be illegal because we're allowed to do that every time we walk into a book store or using a friends copy of the work. So how can downloading a copyrighted file and reading it be 'illegal'. Shouldn't the act of distributing the file be the only illegal action?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I've seen attacks from multiple parties. Sometimes they are in response to what are perceived as attacks, but that's really not an excuse.

This is always an inflammatory topic. Please try to keep things civil. If necessary, bow out of the thread. There is little new to be said on the topic in any case, so taking offense at what someone else has posted seems pretty pointless.

I know, I just wish we could discuss this without the emotions. Certainly there is not one answer, it is way too complex.

[troymc]

I know, I just wish we could discuss this without the emotions. Certainly there is not one answer, it is way too complex.

I agree. It's difficult to find the middle-ground in such a polarized discussion. Even if the polarization is based on a false dichotomy.

I really like smashbooks and fully support BearMountainBooks & Randolphlalonde. I think they're way may very well be the way of the future. But like many others who are on the margins of an issue, they (inadvertently?) sign themselves up for one side of a polarized debate.

Most of the backlash against copyright is *not* against small, indie authors making a living; but against huge, megacorp publishers. These publishers are twisting a govt granted incentive (copyright) into a financial instrument to further their own profit margins. So why are BearMountainBooks & Randolphlalonde (and others) seemingly carrying the torch for the publishers?

This happens all the time in highly polarized discussions. Start a discussion about fuel efficient vehicles, and mention restricting Hummers and other large SUVs, and invariably some working-class farmer will jump up & scream about you taking away his farm truck. The argument is definitely *not* about restricting farmers -- it's focused on restricting urban cowboys & soccer moms -- but when the argument is polarized, the feeling is that you have to be on one side or the other. And, those on the margins end up being pushed towards or willingly moving to one pole or the other even if it doesn't really represent their true position.


troymc