Piracy vs Bookstores

[spirits]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I am very disappointed to read this thread. People must make these decisions for themselves, of course, but personally I would hope that anyone who wishes to make eBooks a success would indicate that fact by going out and buying them from those publishers who are producing them.

Illegally downloading them sends all the wrong signals to publishers and only confirms the frequently-encountered view that DRM is required because there are so many people who break the law.

Well, your disappointment really wouldn't change the world. For publishers, it's really a matter of acknowledging the reality and take the most beneficial action. I'm personally not attached to this type of moral standards. Law often have ill effect for the society if you dig deeper into it.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Okay, going down the line:

Originally Posted by llasram

What do you mean by “wasn’t intended for you”?

That's easy: It means a product which the author intended to be sold for money, but which you obtained for free. That's my definition of wrong.

Originally Posted by llasram

At least in the US copyright is explicitly recognized by the Constitution as a utilitarian construct. It exists to compensate creators by embedding their information product in the market economy by via legally mandated artificial scarcity. Because it’s a construct there have always been edge cases – it’s just that now technology is creating new edge cases faster than the law or our common-sense can keep up.

Saying "It's not stealing because the law hasn't gotten round to calling it stealing" doesn't mean it's right. This is false justification for such actions.

Originally Posted by llasram

1. Producing an e-book for personal use from a previously purchased p-book.
2. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of a previously purchased p-book.
3. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of an out-of-print work when used copies are difficult to come by.
4. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of an out-of-print work when used copies are plentiful.
5. Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of an in-print work.

I don't have an issue with (1), assuming the e-book is made by the owner of the p-book, and it stays in their hands.

With (2), if the author agreed that the owner of a P-book was entitled to a free copy of the e-book, okay. However, that's not always the case. If you're expected to pay for it, you have to pay for it. No one expects that if they buy a hardback, they'll get a free paperback. The exact same issues apply.

(3), (4) and (5) are simply false justifications of the taking of a book, scarce in print form or not, and not paying for it. Unless that book is in public domain, or the legal producer of the e-book is willingly giving it away, not paying for it is wrong.

Originally Posted by llasram

I don’t get the last line of reasoning there. The fact that – bereft of any other means of reading the book – you received a pirated e-book edition would lead the publisher to conclude that only e-book pirates are interested in that particular book?

No... it leads publishers to believe that they cannot make a profit from that book, because it has been pirated, and they will subsequently not release it. (This is not necessarily true, in fact, but true or not, it is the perception on the publisher's part.)

Originally Posted by llasram

But if my analysis is correct then legal e-book availability has no impact on pirated e-book availability. The pirates get their kudos from scanning and OCRing p-books. In fact, my conclusion would be that the publishers should reduce piracy by “printing” solely e-books.

If they made e-books available in preferred formats and selling models, then yes, they'd be better off... they would not be pirated, because the legit copies were out there. There would still be theft, I'm sure, but a great deal of the "kudos"-based piracy would be reduced or removed.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by binzer

I would think that authors would be FOR people pirating their books, assuming the person already owns them in paper form (and assuming that they're not for sale as ebooks legally). If someone already owns them, and wants to get an ebook version because they love the work so much, I think that's a good thing. It's certainly a lot less harmful than people lending out their books (which is actually actively reducing sales), although in both situations word of mouth is likely, and that's a good thing.

This might fit the world of printed authors, and serve as promotion of their printed works.

However, you should be aware that a lot of authors out there today are only selling in e-book formats, me included. So piracy of my works doesn't serve as promotion for my print books... there aren't any.

Besides... I'm not going to condone someone stealing an apple, then telling all his buddies, "Hey, you should buy Farmer Jones' apples, they're great!"

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Halk

The key difference here is impact. I'm no expert on your works (although I notice you do have a couple of short stories available free, they'll be snagged and if I like em I'll buy the whole lot for what seems to be a ludicrous price of $10). If you were to pass away, and your estate decided not to continue selling your works - i.e. it became unavailable to buy... Let's say I'd purchased book 1 in a series, and I wanted to read book 2... what do I do? In my head it's acceptable to go ahead and get it from the darknet, as I have not deprived someone of something. However, I do accept that by doing that I am participating in a system which would prevent a "glut" of consumers demanding (demand in an economic sense, not in a GIMME IT NOW sense) collecting, and your estate saying "Hmm, there's thousands of people itching to read Mr Jordan's books". If everybody was to say "It's not available, I'll pirate it" then that's not going to happen.

I hate to say it, but you're still just rationalizing stealing: "He wouldn't give it to me, and I wanted it, so I took it." No, we're not talking about a physical object you've deprived the owner of, but we are talking about an intellectual property, which is still protected by law.

You might consider that there may be a reason the owner does not want to release a book that you might not be privy to (maybe they're planning on turning it into a movie, and by pirating it, you just ruined the surprise ending. Bad boy!). Or maybe there is an emotional attachment with the work, and the owner does not want it released because they consider it a personal work. Either way, in a moral society, you can beg, and you can borrow... but you still can't steal.

[spooky69]

When I am downloading a copyrighted book, movie, comic, album, etc. (and I get plenty of all of these) I do consider it some form of stealing and certainly rather illicit. It was pointed out that stealing a piece of digital media is a little than doing some analogous stealing of a physical or digital commodity of any preciousness. The upside of the the whole piracy thing is that it usually vastly increases the availability of media, and there's probably some saturation point where the increased exposure of a piece of media will coincide with a certain amount of legal purchases (though probably resulting in fewer overall sales than we've seen in the traditional market system, at least in the short term). I certainly think that piracy is bound to take money out of the pockets of some artists/creators, though there's also some amount of room for those people and their publishing entities to capitalize on digital distribution and strike a profitable balance.
Of course, there will always be people who will steal/pirate stuff as long as it's easily available and there aren't serious consequences for doing so. If you're going to pirate, you have to live with the fact that you're going to be screwing some people whose work you've enjoyed unless you make an effort to seek out and purchase their media or mail them a nice, big check.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by moz

Steve,

I'd like to move to some extent into the philosophical question more than the practical one. Rather than argue about whether we're obliged to feed lawyers, why not work out what we want, then how we can get it? I assume you'd like to be paid for your writing? And I'd like to pay you for it. So, generalising, you'd like to see authors paid, and I'd like to see readers pay authors. I suspect both of us are willing to give a cut to some kind of distribution and rating people. Is that right?

Well, assuming you actually used those people, then, sure.

Originally Posted by moz

What I see now is that the service layer gets almost all the money, especially from people like me. For new material, I buy from bookshops for the most part, which means most of the money goes to the bookshop. For material that's not sold new, I either buy second hand books (I just paid $US25 for ~15 hardcover SF) in which case the second hand dealer gets the money, or I use the darknet and my ISP gets the money.

So, from the point of view of rewarding the authors, how do the two mechanisms above differ? As far as I can tell neither will reward the author at all. Well, except for the warm glow of knowing that someone loves them. Which doesn't pay the rent.

There's an opportunity there for the copyright holder to make a profit by selling the electronic editions for next to nothing (even $1/book) instead of actually nothing (what they get now). Amusingly, the author could probably in many cases simply resell the darknet edition with a comment from the author.

Selling e-books does have the potential of getting more money for the original author, depending on how they set things up, instead of losing it to the second-hand market. I'm all for that, and I suspect the e-book market may eventually shut down the last of the used bookstores (sorry, used bookstore owners).

Originally Posted by moz

They actually succeeded in doing that with radio, but as I'm sure you're aware it does not work very well.

Actually, it does work well (if the system did not work, there would be no music radio). Exposure through radio promotes sales of albums, concerts, and other merchandise. Radio stations pay the royalties, making the music producers happy, and allowing them to continue playing music on radio. Commercial entities support the stations by buying commercial time. It's a system that has continued, basically unaltered, for over 70 years. Margins might be tight, but that system is still chugging along just fine.

Originally Posted by moz

The major problem from a content producer point of view is that without very strong centralised monitoring (which requires command and control), the tax is distributed unfairly. Either way, most of the money goes to the middlemen.

Well, that's what middlemen are for: They get paid to do your dirty work. If you don't like it... you do their jobs and keep the money. (This is why I run my own website, get 100% of my profits, and the only person who gets a cut is my ISP, for letting me stay online. Don't worry, there was no reason you would know that.) In most cases, the "middlemen" can be minimized or removed, if you're willing to do the scut-work they generally handle for you.

Originally Posted by moz

Actually, the longer people like you keep paying them to do it, and resisting every alternative, the longer the battle will go on.

As I said, I don't pay middlemen (other than my ISP). I'm actively trying to change the system with my sales model, or at least help to develop alternatives. It's a choice we can all make.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by spooky69

The upside of the the whole piracy thing is that it usually vastly increases the availability of media, and there's probably some saturation point where the increased exposure of a piece of media will coincide with a certain amount of legal purchases (though probably resulting in fewer overall sales than we've seen in the traditional market system, at least in the short term).

See my apple analogy above. The problem is, you can't depend on the rest of those guys to all go out and buy an apple, especially if they've just been shown how easy it is to steal one, so you can't build a business model on that.

Now, if you use the free apple to entice people to your farm, where they will see other fruits that they will buy (translation: Want and can't steal)... you've got a system. In fact, you have the system used by commercial television and radio, giving you free programs in the hopes that you'll go out tomorrow and buy the soap they advertised during your favorite show.

For e-book publishers, this may mean giving an e-book away in order to get the consumer to buy others... giving an e-book away in order to get you to buy the print book... or giving an e-book away in return to a paid subscription for some other service (a blog, say). These are fair and equitable deals with measurable results. Better than hoping the pirates send some legitimate buyers to your door (and not just more pirates).

[moz]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Well, that's what middlemen are for: They get paid to do your dirty work. If you don't like it... you do their jobs and keep the money.

Unfortunately with radio that isn't one of the choices. Small artists/small labels just have to accept that they don't get paid by the middlemen when their music is played on radio.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This is why I run my own website, get 100% of my profits, and the only person who gets a cut is my ISP, for letting me stay online.

Which I support. I also buy music direct from artists for the same reasons. I'm also buying magazine subscriptions online where I can, and pushing the editors to take on a better business model, but for now mostly they are in "try something simple to see if it works" mode rather than adding too much overhead.

[JSWolf]

If you have an LP, you are NOT entitled to download a CD RIP of that LP. But you are entitles to convert that LP into digital form. if you've purchased eBook in eReader format in the past to read on your PDA and now you have a 505 or a Gen3 or other eink device that will not read eReader, I don't see any issue with format shifting it to be able to still read the content on your current device. But just because you have the pBook, you still do not have the right to download a digital copy. However, you do have the right to format shift the pBook yourself.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I hate to say it, but you're still just rationalizing stealing: "He wouldn't give it to me, and I wanted it, so I took it." No, we're not talking about a physical object you've deprived the owner of, but we are talking about an intellectual property, which is still protected by law.

It is still not stealing. Things have not changed since you last was told that. Why keep repeating your original misunderstanding?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

It is still not stealing. Things have not changed since you last was told that. Why keep repeating your original misunderstanding?

You can use whatever clever wordplay you like, but taking something with a cost attached to it, and not paying for it, is...? (Class, now, let's not see the same hands...)

What, exactly, is your understanding of the phrase "protected by law"?

[moz]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

You can use whatever clever wordplay you like, but taking something with a cost attached to it, and not paying for it, is...?

Context dependent. If you said "in the USA taking a physical good that is for sale without paying is stealing" you would be correct. But watching a television in the UK when the license fee has not been paid is not stealing. Both are "taking" as you're trying to define it.

[moz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you have an LP, you are NOT entitled to download a CD RIP of that LP.

In the US that may be true. In Australia your statement is at best a misunderstanding. The law here is that if you own a license for the content you are permitted to possess it in whatever format you choose. You can't steal a second copy, but you're also not required to pay iTunes if you want the mp3, you can get it by whatever means, including downloading it.

[Puddytat purr]

Originally Posted by llasram

1: Producing an e-book for personal use from a previously purchased p-book.

I don't know how to do that without personally typing it in - now while I'm a damn fast typist, it would still take me a few days to type up a 300 page novel...I have a LOT of novels! So I would be left with choice number 2:

Originally Posted by llasram

2: Receiving without paying for an e-book edition of a previously purchased p-book.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I don't have an issue with (1), assuming the e-book is made by the owner of the p-book, and it stays in their hands.

With (2), if the author agreed that the owner of a P-book was entitled to a free copy of the e-book, okay. However, that's not always the case. If you're expected to pay for it, you have to pay for it. No one expects that if they buy a hardback, they'll get a free paperback. The exact same issues apply.

Are you going to ask the author if it's ok to personally rip a copy of one of your pbooks? What's the difference between doing it yourself or getting it from someone else who knows what they're doing?

[moz]

Originally Posted by Puddytat purr

I don't know how to do that without personally typing it in - now while I'm a damn fast typist, it would still take me a few days to type up a 300 page novel.

There's a wiki page!
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Digi...ooks_to_Ebooks

I've added "typing it all in" since you reminded me that that is an option.