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

[barnacle]

The big snag with any copy protection system is that sooner or later, the material has to be displayed/heard/viewed in some form. In the case of audio or video, Vista and later MS operating systems go to extreme lengths in the hardware to ensure that you can't access the raw data - but if you can accept a reduced resolution then you can still resample and redistribute the audio or video.

Worst case with an ebook is sitting the reader face-down on a scanner and OCRing the output... whatever you do, you *can't* keep the data hidden if you want someone to be able to use it at all.

The biggest enforcement issue is that you *can't* put a hidden fingerprint in a raw text stream - or rather, you *can*, but you can't guarantee that it will remain there. And even a simple conversion from ascii to e.g. word to e.g. html and back will kill any such fingerprint.

And that means that you can't prove the source of a copy - at best, you *might* be able to prove who posted it, if he doesn't know what he's doing.

And if you can't enforce a law, what's the point having it?

[neilmarr]

I just can't understand why we try, Barnacle. The surest way to get some burglar to bust down the door is to put a lock on it. I've a lot to lose as a small publisher, but I firmly believe that the best defence is trust. Folks are less likely to take advantage of an ever-open door and an honest welcome. Neil

[barnacle]

Well, putting a lock on something not only engenders the idea that what is behind it is of value, but of the thought of breaking the lock...

You wouldn't accept a house which you weren't allowed to change the paint on the walls or the arrangement of the furniture, or a TV you couldn't tune to the channel of your choice - why accept an eBook you can't guarantee the future of?

Your approach is both welcome and appreciated. But somehow, I can't see it catching on!

(I've always wondered why rights-holders have assumed that the people who pirate the material would have bought it anyway... and why a music player with capacity for ten thousand tracks at a dollar each is ever likely to be filled with paid-for music - here's a fifty buck device with stuff on it worth a hundred grand?)

Neil

[neilmarr]

Maybe I'm a cockeyed optimist, Barnacle. Maybe just a realist. We'll see as time goes on. Cheers. Neil

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by barnacle

Well, putting a lock on something not only engenders the idea that what is behind it is of value, but of the thought of breaking the lock...

So do you leave all your doors unlocked?

I honestly don't see what the relevance is of whether or not someone would have bought it. The excuse "I wouldn't have bought it" surely doesn't make it acceptable to take it without paying for it?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I honestly don't see what the relevance is of whether or not someone would have bought it. The excuse "I wouldn't have bought it" surely doesn't make it acceptable to take it without paying for it?

It is an answer to the argument that it is a lost sale. And since you copy something nothing is lost if you would not have bought it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

It is an answer to the argument that it is a lost sale. And since you copy something nothing is lost if you would not have bought it.

That is a morally bankrupt argument. It's like saying that nothing is lost if you sneak into the cinema without paying, or nothing is lost if you get on a train without a ticket. In all these activities, you are taking advantage of the fact that the content or service has been created for people who do pay.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is a morally bankrupt argument. It's like saying that nothing is lost if you sneak into the cinema without paying, or nothing is lost if you get on a train without a ticket. In all these activities, you are taking advantage of the fact that the content or service has been created for people who do pay.

and the costs will increase to those that do pay. Just like with shoplifting, etc.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is a morally bankrupt argument. It's like saying that nothing is lost if you sneak into the cinema without paying, or nothing is lost if you get on a train without a ticket. In all these activities, you are taking advantage of the fact that the content or service has been created for people who do pay.

While that's true. The fact is that a pirated copy is not equal to a lost sale. I'm not justifying pirating in any way, but the publishing/music/software industry are quick to suck out figures that pirating has cost the economy $x billions of dollars in lost sales. That's not true. The vast majority of pirates would never buy the content they are pirating in any case so no revenue is lost as such.

A moral/ethical cost is a whole different ballgame.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Crusader

....

A moral/ethical cost is a whole different ballgame.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by Crusader

The vast majority of pirates would never buy the content they are pirating in any case so no revenue is lost as such.

That's easily said, but just as impossible to prove as the industry's assertion of the opposite. In the end, it's just one unsupported assertion against another.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is a morally bankrupt argument. It's like saying that nothing is lost if you sneak into the cinema without paying, or nothing is lost if you get on a train without a ticket. In all these activities, you are taking advantage of the fact that the content or service has been created for people who do pay.

Could you explain why it is morally corrupt. Are you using a consequence ethics as a model? Or what theory are you using as a foundation to come to the conclusion that it is morally corrupt and how did you arrive at that conclusion?

Your examples are not equivalent since the cause problems less enjoyment for paying customers.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

and the costs will increase to those that do pay. Just like with shoplifting, etc.

If I copy a file from a friend a file I would never have bought how is the cost increased for those who pay? I do not see it since I am not causing any extra cost for the company selling the product.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

That's easily said, but just as impossible to prove as the industry's assertion of the opposite. In the end, it's just one unsupported assertion against another.

That's true, but it would be a bit difficult to proof. Doubtful that many people would fess up to being a pirate.

What I can say is that amongst my group of friends their are a couple of 'pirates' and they simply can't understand why I'm paying for ebooks when I could as easily pirate it. They definitely won't pay for something they can pirate.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by tompe

Could you explain why it is morally corrupt. Are you using a consequence ethics as a model? Or what theory are you using as a foundation to come to the conclusion that it is morally corrupt and how did you arrive at that conclusion?

Your examples are not equivalent since the cause problems less enjoyment for paying customers.

It's often considered immoral for one person to do something that would be problematic if everyone did it.

If *everyone* torrented ebooks instead of buying them (or if only one person purchased the book, and all other readers got free copies), obviously, that's bad for the author & the support staff that made the book possible to distribute.

The issue of, "is it moral to get something for free, that other people are required to pay for," is hard to separate from the other issue of "how will the author get paid enough to keep producing books?" If enough people buy it, the author will get paid enough. While the evidence supports the claim that enough people *will* buy it, if it's made cheap & convenient enough, that has nothing to do with the morality of acquiring a free version of what other people expect to pay for.

Obviously, some free versions are moral. The author's friends & family might get free ebooks. The publisher might release countless copies free for download for a few weeks. And nobody questions the morality of acquiring the Baen CD ebooks for free, even though Baen offers those for sale on their site, and many people pay for them.

The issue is, how immoral is it to get a free copy w/o consent of the copyright owner? That usually gets very tangled in the financial discussions.

I'm in the chaos-theory camp that believes that a certain amount of inefficiency and rules-breakage is necessary to any economic & social system; the only way to guarantee *no* unauthorized free copies is total draconian control of people's reading habits, and that's a cure worse than the disease. That doesn't make the free copies "moral" as much as "philosophically necessary," which is an entirely different direction of argument.