Downloaded books cost how much?

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Adobe's DRM has been broken somehow. I saw a file on the net that was from an original PDF DRM copy and the DRM was broken. But I have never seen eReader or MobiPocket DRM broken.

Ya, there was a big flap over the Russian programmer a number of years back who came to the U.S. for a conference and was detained over his breaking of Adobe DRM.

[tribble]

Well, any DRM can be "broken". Worst case is, you photograph all pages and OCR them

The hardest to break are probably private/public key encrypted files with current encryption algorithms. But as DRM with film content, there is always the problem, when the content is decrypted to be viewed. There you would need hardware which leaves you no way to grab the content during that time.

And i personally do not really care, if i break the law, when i read a downloaded book on en ereader, which i have bought as a paperbook version. This is just pointing out, how ridiculous laws can be.

Have you ever thought about a musicion, who just wants their music in vynil? If they are good and people like them ... well, but you are right, it is their right to do as they please.

But on the other hand, what if in a democracy, the majority would vote for a law, that forces all authors to publish their books for free? That would be even more ridiculous laws. Well, i am overdoing it, right?

So if you think the artistic right should be inpenetrable, what, if JKR would want us to read the book only with blue light in a cellar? Ok, i am getting carried away here.

I think that the fear of ebooks and piracy of content is soo great, and soo unrealistic. Otherwise, Microsoft would be broke. But the market for ebooks is too small at the moment to have any impact on the publishers. But over time it will grow, and hopefully they will start with better decisions than the music industry.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

(Ooh! Yuh got me!)

Maybe not, but marketing and advertising will put an "OK" book ghost-written for Dr. Phil on the NYT bestseller list.

And, unfortunately, will still not make an "OK" book a "great" book.

But you do bring up a good point: Just because a book is on the NYT best seller list doesn't mean that I'm going to like it. Just because a publisher thinks it good doesn't mean that the book is good.

This is both a benefit and a curse with eBooks. Anyone can publish a good book that the publishers think is bad (I'll point out Scott Siegler's Earthcore as an example) - but on the other hand, anyone can publish a bad book.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Anyone can publish a good book that the publishers think is bad (I'll point out Scott Siegler's Earthcore as an example) - but on the other hand, anyone can publish a bad book.

E-book: The Great Equalizer.

That's okay. This world has seen other equalizing technologies, and has learned how to survive with them. So, too, with e-books.

[wgrimm]

[QUOTE=Cthulhu;84207]rlauzon: said:


The unit cost of an ebook is zero only after a "book" is produced. There are advertising costs, research costs, editorial costs. Any labour that goes into producing something that comes from a publisher needs to be compensated........


And the REST of the story is that these costs should be no more than for a plain old ordinary book. So, where is our discount for printing and transportation costs, and all of the handling costs associated with paper books?

E-boooks are convenient, but I am not going to pay more for one than for a paper-based book. Nor am I going to buy the same content twice. Example- Last year I shelled out almost $70 for Singh's 'Mac OSX Internals.' A month later I found a pdf version- $49. The publisher should give me that for free, but they would not. And it's DRM'd.

IMHO, book piracy- like music piracy- exists. But the way to deal with it is not to piss off the people who are actually buying your product. And publishers are pissing off buyers of books and e-books.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by tribble

Well, any DRM can be "broken". Worst case is, you photograph all pages and OCR them

And i personally do not really care, if i break the law, when i read a downloaded book on en ereader, which i have bought as a paperbook version. This is just pointing out, how ridiculous laws can be....


I am not 100% sure, so correct me if I am wrong, but this is not illegal. If you buy a copyrighted title, I believe you are also able to convert that title to another format for personal use.

[wgrimm]

[QUOTE=BooksForABuck;85016]
On the notion that publishers add no value, let me suggest that the quality of the edited material publishers generate is significantly higher than the quality of the input we receive. Publisher value comes from: (1) wading through the slush pile to pick works that meet our quality standards; (2) working with the author to edit the works to an even higher quality level; ..........

I'll agree that wading through publishers' slush files is worth money. But I seriously question the amount of time that publishers work with authors to edit their works to an even higher quality. And I also question the amount of proofreading that publishers do today.

A year or so ago on vacation, I bought one of Tony Hillerman's paperback novels. The spelling errors, even in today's world of computerized spell checkers, I could deal with. But when a paragraph was repeated about halfway through the book, and some of the prose was simply awful, I trash-canned it.

And this example is by no means isolated.

[tribble]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

I am not 100% sure, so correct me if I am wrong, but this is not illegal. If you buy a copyrighted title, I believe you are also able to convert that title to another format for personal use.

Not in my country. If you have to break DRM it is illegal. But you could make a photocopy for personal use.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Lauzon,

One has only to read these forums to see how many dishonest people there are around, who have no qualms about reading illegally-downloaded versions of "Harry Potter", for example. It is clear that DRM is critically important - without DRM these dishonest people will carry on illegally downloading books rather than buying them. Book publishers exist for one reason, and one reason alone - to make a profit; they are not charities. No DRM means no profit and hence no books.

Open formats are worthless - DRM is the only way to go if you want to see more commercially-published eBooks. I am astonished that you fail to see this self-evident truth! Long live DRM!

....

Does piracy really cost us as much as publishers claim? Everyone is quick to pint out that there are pirated materials out there, but few question whether or not a pirate download is actually costing a publisher money. If the downloader would not have bought the book/cd/movie, then that download hasn't cost anyone a dime.

Piracy can even help publishers; I know of many people who have downloaded a pirated album, liked what they heard, and then went on to buy cd's by that musician. Same thing happens in a library- those cheapskates <G> read the CONTENT without paying for it!!!! Then many go out and buy other works by that author. So what's different in the library scenario?

I get so tired of hearing whining about piracy. M$ had a crappy windowed OS with nowhere near market share- until this OS was pirated in great numbers and put the company on top of market share. Piracy is out there- deal with it. And realize that sometimes, it may help sales, and that the risk of having your material pirated is greatly reduced if it is reasonably priced. And also that every pirated download does NOT mean a lost sale- the sale is only lost if a customer that would otherwise have BOUGHT your product does not buy.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by tribble

Not in my country. If you have to break DRM it is illegal. But you could make a photocopy for personal use.

And could you then OCR the photocopy for personal e-book use?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

And could you then OCR the photocopy for personal e-book use?

Under UK copyright law it's illegal to scan or photocopy a book that you've bought, even for personal use. One of those laws that's impossible to enforce, of course, but that is the law!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

....

Does piracy really cost us as much as publishers claim? Everyone is quick to pint out that there are pirated materials out there, but few question whether or not a pirate download is actually costing a publisher money. If the downloader would not have bought the book/cd/movie, then that download hasn't cost anyone a dime.

But sooner or later the item is going to end up in the hands of someone who would otherwise have bought the product. That's inevitable. There's also the fundamental fact that it's just plain wrong to download musc, books, movies, or whatever, that you haven't paid for. Leaving the law aside, it's just plain morally wrong. Surely you agree with that, don't you?

So what's different in the library scenario?

Two things, at least:

• If 1000 libraries have a book available for loan, that's 1000 book sales for the author. If 1000 people download a book from the internet, that's ZERO sales for the author.
• In the UK at least, there's a pot of government money which gets distributed each year to authors, on the basis of the number of loans of their books from libraries, nationally. It's not a vast payout, but if you're a reasonably popular author, you get a few thousand $ from it, which isn't to be sneezed at.

I get so tired of hearing whining about piracy. M$ had a crappy windowed OS with nowhere near market share- until this OS was pirated in great numbers and put the company on top of market share.

No, the reason Microsoft succeeded was because IBM licenced their o/s for the IBM PC, which sold in vast numbers to businesses. Before that, Microsoft's primary business had been selling ROM BASIC for personal computers.

Piracy is out there- deal with it. And realize that sometimes, it may help sales, and that the risk of having your material pirated is greatly reduced if it is reasonably priced. And also that every pirated download does NOT mean a lost sale- the sale is only lost if a customer that would otherwise have BOUGHT your product does not buy.

Sorry, but the fact that it happens doesn't make it "right" or "acceptable". Using someone else's intellectual property without paying for it is just plain WRONG. Perhaps you'd feel differently if that's how you made your living.

[UncleDuke]

i think books are cheap

as a % of what we make they are dirt cheap

ebook is just the latest form

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by UncleDuke

i think books are cheap

as a % of what we make they are dirt cheap

Well, sure... but if, like a lot of people, 90% or more of your income is going directly to bills (and hopefully savings), you often have to consider even the cheapest of purchases against money needed to, say, feed yourself.

I've passed up on books and other entertainment, simply because of cost, many times, and I probably will in the future. The cheaper they are, though, the easier it is to buy.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

IMHO, book piracy- like music piracy- exists. But the way to deal with it is not to piss off the people who are actually buying your product. And publishers are pissing off buyers of books and e-books.

It seems that the publishing industry is not learning from the music industry's mistakes.