Open Source culture to blame for e-book piracy!

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by Harmon

The purpose of DRM is not to deal with pirates. Pirates break DRM for breakfast. They laugh at DRM.

Yeah right. Next you'll try to tell us that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

Whoops, a fellow Chicagoan...probably shouldn't have gone there

[Dumas]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

What happens if your readers get a virus? Are you liable, since you received money?

Looks like you have enumerated one reason "to buy" from the author rather than seek an infringing work. I'm not really sure about readers getting a virus, but it could be possible depending on the ebook format. I think the greater reason for seeking a work from an authorized source would be that it is complete and correctly formatted.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I agree, pirate sites COULD make great advertisements. But only for unknown, struggling artists. Then again, usually pirate sites will not carry the most obscure authors, but rather those that are selling quite well.

This is an interesting assertion. You suggest that infringement ("Piracy") is a good method for promoting unknown/obscure (unread/unheard) authors/artists. Since the authors/artists are unread/unheard, does it seem to you that their potential economic loss is negligible and therefore infringement is good?

You claim that infringing sites don't carry obscure/unread/unheard works, but rather those that are popular and that are already selling quite well. Since the authors/artists are popular and already selling quite well, does it seem to you that their potential economic loss is greater and therefore infringement is bad?

How can popular authors/artists possibly be selling well in the face of massive, online infringement? Who are these people that are buying what they could have for "free"? What are they buying?

Originally Posted by HansTWN

But it does make sense to give your early works away for free, to build up a readership, a reputation.

If it makes sense for an author to give away their early works for "free", then why doesn't it make sense for them to give away all their works in digital form for "free" as some authors already do?

In conclusion, I think a better word instead of readership/reputation for what authors really seek is a relationship with their readers. Authors that are able to develop this don't have just readers, but ardent fans and a promotional base for past and future works.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Dumas

You suggest that infringement ("Piracy") is a good method for promoting unknown/obscure (unread/unheard) authors/artists. Since the authors/artists are unread/unheard, does it seem to you that their potential economic loss is negligible and therefore infringement is good?

That exactly what I was saying, for an unknown author who cannot yet expect anyone to buy his books since they have never heard of him.

Originally Posted by Dumas

You claim that infringing sites don't carry obscure/unread/unheard works, but rather those that are popular and that are already selling quite well. Since the authors/artists are popular and already selling quite well, does it seem to you that their potential economic loss is greater and therefore infringement is bad?

Correct, in the first case no damages are involved. In the second case, the situation is different. And I have always maintained that it is to the copyright holder alone to decide if the files can be legally distributed by the darknet. In my example the author would be happy to have files downloaded as often as possible, since he can hope to profit from it by being able to make money on future books.

Originally Posted by Dumas

How can popular authors/artists possibly be selling well in the face of massive, online infringement? Who are these people that are buying what they could have for "free"? What are they buying?

I have always maintained that a majority of users are honest and are willing to buy rather than download from the darknet. I have also never subscribed to the formula "one download = one lost booksale". You are putting words in my mouth. Most darknet users are downloading "just because they can" and would never buy the book in question, anyway. It still is wrong, but there are no real damages. Just some warped ethics. But when people who are usually paying for books make up excuses to go to the darknet, that is when the system begins to unravel. And some people here argue that NOBODY should EVER AGAIN pay for any download.

Originally Posted by Dumas

If it makes sense for an author to give away their early works for "free", then why doesn't it make sense for them to give away all their works in digital form for "free" as some authors already do?

In conclusion, I think a better word instead of readership/reputation for what authors really seek is a relationship with their readers. Authors that are able to develop this don't have just readers, but ardent fans and a promotional base for past and future works.

That is understandable and noble. But authors have to eat, too. They have bills to pay. Of course, if an author feels he is rich enough and wants to give everything away for free, fine. It should be entirely up to him or her, that is all I am saying.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by kennyc

If I create something it is my right to do with as I please.

You're making an argument on the basis of natural law and directly equating intellectual and real property. Fair enough, I'm sure there are many who would agree with you. I think this is overly simplistic.

Natural law is not solely concerned with the rights of the individual and the situation with regard to intellectual property is far more complex. The fundamental problem here is the relationship between the welfare of the individual and the welfare of the society in which he or she participates. Society benefits from the free flow of ideas, but it has long been recognised that the maintenance of this flow requires the imposition of certain restrictions. Society may be immediately enriched by the liberation of all current IP, but that would be at the expense of its future wealth, as further innovation would be locked away or simply stifled.

The Statute of Anne was the foundation of copyright, and also defined its fundamental purpose, "for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books". Copyright and other IP law is part of the contract between an individual and society rather than an inherent right. Society benefits by encouraging the spread of ideas under conditions in which the author is rewarded, and the author benefits by receiving a greater reward than would have applied if he had not communicated his ideas.

The nature of ideas is also such that it is very difficult to assert categorical ownership. They do not spring into being de novo, but are the result of a copious interaction. If I plough a field, plant seeds and harvest a crop, then all the labour involved in the crop's production is mine and I can justly claim complete ownership of it (even here I am sidestepping the issue of land ownership). If a child spends years being taught by others at school and university (a process which is massively subsidised in developed economies), becomes an engineer and then develops a new way of building a bridge, is that idea truly his? Would he have produced it without others to teach him to read and write and calculate? Would he have produced it without learning about other ways of building bridges? No. He deserves to be rewarded for his idea in the form of a patent, but the idea is not truly his, it is a result of his interaction with the rich wealth of ideas that society has built up over time.

Who invented photography? It's estimated that there are around 20 people who have laid claim to that distinction. The truth is that photography was an almost inevitable emergence from the ideas present in Western society in the 1830s. Famously, the scientist William Herschel was able to develop the process himself simply on being informed that it was possible. It would be absurd to suggest that one person could lay claim to ownership of the idea of fixing a projected image on paper. There were plenty of patents granted, but they concerned evolution of the techniques required to render the process commercially useful.

The closest physical analogy for copyright infringement is fare dodging rather than theft. The train will stop at my station whether I board it or not, and it will stop there whether or not I pay my fare. But if I find it useful and don't pay the fare, then sooner or later the train company will look at their books and decide that it's not worth stopping at my station, meaning I'll have to walk. I may gain some immediate benefit from evading the fare, but ultimately I'll be far poorer.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Dumas

How can popular authors/artists possibly be selling well in the face of massive, online infringement?

Because, with the advent of the global market, (with the internet as the medium that allows for instantaneous information-sharing, about new products as well as other things) authors and artists have enjoyed being able to market their product to an enormous amount of potential customers. 1 million downloads is all well and good, but considering there are at least 1.5 billion people relatively affluent enough to buy your books after they've heard of them, this becomes far less problematic a figure. (This is even more true for contemporary "music" than for books, as there is less of a language barrier there.)
This is not a trivial change, and if it comes with the cost of "increased piracy" (Whatever real-world effects that has), that's a shame, but it's something they'll have to learn to live with/work around.
When the railroad etc. came around local monopolies had a huge problem because competitors could now be farther away, so they couldn't be monopolies any more. I'm sure that caused them to complain bitterly to politicians as well, but should it bother us? There are 500 million different professions and business models to try out, why does it matter (why is it a "bad thing"?) that 5 or 10, or even 10.000, are no longer viable?

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

That is understandable and noble. But authors have to eat, too. They have bills to pay. Of course, if an author feels he is rich enough and wants to give everything away for free, fine. It should be entirely up to him or her, that is all I am saying.

Was it ever proved conclusively that unauthorized copying of author's works has a negative effect on the amount of money he makes? Or is it just a myth?

Some likely points (most of them summaries of earlier discussions on MobileRead, none of them really proven):

1. There's little correlation between the amount of copies found on the Net, and the amount of money lost by author, because almost all people doing the copying are collectors, who don't have time to read, count their collections in thousands of volumes, would never buy the book, and author's name is just a bunch of letters to them. What's important to the authors are people who would browse those collections, available on the Net, looking for books to read.

2. Competition between various works is high on the digital market, each book competes with a high number of freebies legally available, and public domain books (some of the greatest mystery stories are in public domain, some of the first SF/F. It's not just classics anymore). People are more likely to get a book by the author whose style they know and like, so authors need to become known to compete with freebies. In fact, that's why many authors give away short stories for free.

3. Unauthorized reading of books has two aspects. One, a book is read, no money is paid, it's a net loss for the author. Two, a book is read, possibly author becomes known and liked to the person who read it, it's more likely this person will look for more books by the author.

Now, which aspect wins (positive: more people know author and buy next books, or negative: some books are read without paying) depends on many factors: the language the works are published in, distribution of digital rights causing aritficial geographic restrictions on book availability, the way in which books are sold, formats they are sold in, availability of previous and next volumes in series.

To analyze those factors more in-depth:

4. Unauthorized copying will always be around in the digital age. New books can be scanned from paper books, all DRMs can be broken, the only reason that some haven't been is that no one really tried. It's been shown, I think beyond doubt, that even with lots of restrictions and high penalties collections of thousands of ebooks can be and would be distributed and shared by means of flash cards sent by snail mail.

5. Let's assume that once a book has been written, it will be available both through legal and illegal channels. It's crucial that legal access to the book and the whole experience of reading it should be more convenient through legal channel. Which one wins the comparison is decided by following factors:

1. Amount of money that needs to be paid (illegal/free wins, of course),
2. The ease of process of paying the money (illegal/free wins again),
3. The availability of the book in your country (usually illegal/free wins, ie. more volumes of the book series are available illegaly worldwide than legally),
4. The availability of book in language you want to read it in (currently when it comes to ebooks, illegal/free wins in many languages),
5. The availability of the book in the format you can easily read in, or ease of conversion to format you can read in (illegal/free again wins),
6. The standarization of the process of obtaining the book (macdonaldisation) (here free loses in that the initial learning curve of obtaining illegal books is a bit steeper than the legal ways - but once a person learned, it's as easy as legal ways),
7. The feeling of being if possession of ebook (free wins hand down, as many publishers will only "licence" you the legal book, and then shut their servers down, depriving you of access to the work you bought),
8. The ability to read excerpt from author's work to decide if you like it (illegal/free wins, though many authors/stores provide excerpts and whole volumes for free as well)
9. Moral high ground (legal obviously wins in most democratic countries).

Non-factors:

• legal penalties for getting ebooks illegally? There are none I know of, laws are rarely dangerous for people getting ebooks to read, aren't enforced even on digital collectors, and digital collectors interest us only in the aspect of providing the illegal ways of getting ebooks - which they do well.
• reading/comparing reviews - people can do it on Amazon or Fantastic Fiction and then go to legal of illegal channel to get the book.

So about the only reason people would choose to buy legal books is a moral one (do not steal). I suppose it's lucky that this is still the only angle new and Internet-illiterate readers come from.

Why the damn big publishing companies can't throw all their precious digital rights over all countries to one big basket and pick them back from it, so all digital rights to a book series, in all countries, belongs to a single company? They're doing that for new books, but majority of the books read is still years old. They're squabbling over peanuts, and losing time and business...at least the geographical restrictions issue would be gone.

Why the ebook reader devices/programs manufacturers can't agree on one format to read them all, without any need for conversion? They almost did with ePub, and now they're insisting on bringing in their custom DRM that gets them nothing but losses.

Why can't they get rid of DRM altogether? This would eliminate the danger of some server being turned off and your books being denied to you.

Why can't they put more effort into editing those legal ebooks so they look nicer than "pirated" releases, which usually are proofread many times by many people and it's easy (at least for me) to find a free edition with less errors than in many legally available ebooks?

Why can't big publishers expand into more countries? Start selling ebooks in languages other than english? Illegal ones are already there, and the only companies I see trying to sell ebooks in other languages are newly-formed ones.

If they did that, unauthorized copying would probably be much more profitable for authors than it is now.

A side-note about ethics and copyright

So about the only reason people would choose to buy legal books is a moral one (do not steal).

Society's ethics and morality bend with time, adapt to the Things That Work. Feelings are transformed into words, discussions, rationalization of reality. Distinction between theft and unauthorized copying, debated in many topics, becomes bigger and more meaningful to more people as years pass, its moral meaning changes.

Thomas Babbington Macaulay stated in a speech in UK parliament in 1841:

I am so sensible, Sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.

Sources:
http://baens-universe.com/articles/McCauley_copyright
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

Please notice how it was envisioned by Macaulay 170 years ago that the law and morality will render themselves a public enemy, and how his words reflect today's affairs.

And he was talking about extension (tiny by today's standards) of term of copyright - which I didn't even mention up to now. Because what he predicted came to pass, and how long the copyright stays becomes more and more irrelevant, as the copyright is on the way of becoming a dead law, never taken into account in ethics, useful only in big legal battles. Publishers and authors can't afford to build their business on the model of copyright and legality anymore.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Harmon

The purpose of DRM is not to deal with pirates. Pirates break DRM for breakfast. They laugh at DRM.
.

While this is basically true, I do think the publishing industry is still under the impression that DRM is protecting their (and by extension the author's) rights, but certainly it impinges to some extent on consumer rights.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Was it ever proved conclusively that unauthorized copying of author's works has a negative effect on the amount of money he makes? Or is it just a myth?
..

There is no need to "prove" it. It's obvious. We do not have a world or system in place to provide for all the citizens need (food, shelter, clothing). The ability to profit from one's creations is required in a capitalistic society.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj
Was it ever proved conclusively that unauthorized copying of author's works has a negative effect on the amount of money he makes? Or is it just a myth?


So if I take your car and then prove that your health has improved (you walk more or ride a bike) and you have more money (no gas, no taxes, etc.) that means you believe I should go free and keep the car?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj
Was it ever proved conclusively that unauthorized copying of author's works has a negative effect on the amount of money he makes? Or is it just a myth?


So if I take your car and then prove that your health has improved (you walk more or ride a bike) and you have more money (no gas, no taxes, etc.) that means you believe I should go free and keep the car?

Take his ciggys too!

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Take his ciggys too!

Hasn't the governments been trying to do that for years, with anti-smoking laws?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Hasn't the governments been trying to do that for years, with anti-smoking laws?

Well you know it's the Governments Number One Job to protect us from ourselves. Next is mandatory exercising!

[Greg Anos]

here's to author's right....(Throws another can of Gasoline on the fire)...


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Marvel...&asset=&ccode=

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

here's to author's right....(Throws another can of Gasoline on the fire)...


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Marvel...&asset=&ccode=

I just saw that Ralph and was about to post the link. Thanks!

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

Yeah right. Next you'll try to tell us that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

Whoops, a fellow Chicagoan...probably shouldn't have gone there

I do not share the opinion of the mainstream media that their readers should not have guns.