ebook piracy numbers

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by ficbot

This implies an actual free market where people have real choices. Not so in the collusion world of agency prices, for many titles.

Now you're starting to sound like my nephew, who sits in front of his grandmother's computer a dozen hours or more a week downloading music justifying himself with constant mumblings about perceived price gougings by the music labels.

My answer to him and to you is the same: we always have choices. His problem is that he insists on listening to the expensive stuff while complaining about how expensive the expensive stuff is. There are much cheaper musical alternatives out there (myself, I'm a classical guy, and I rarely pay more than $2-$3 for a CD). If you don't like the price gouging of the major labels, then don't listen to major label music.

Ditto with ebooks: ya don't like the prices the Big Six wanna charge, then don't read their stuff. There are all kinds of alternatives out there, from cheap, indie authors at places like Feedbooks and Smashwords, to more public domain stuff over at Gutenberg and Google Books (all absolutely free) than you could read in a half dozen lifetimes.

If you insist you gotta have all the latest NYT bestsellers, then stop complaining about the prices. Or buy the pbook. Used. Or check it out of your local library. Or borrow it from a friend. You see? Alternatives.

Originally Posted by ficbot

Here is a wild though for YOU, Nathanael---don't assume that everyone is coming from the same place of privilege as you are

My place is no more privileged than yours. The only difference between you and me is I choose not to read the expensive stuff while you insist on it. If you don't like the game the Big Six are playing, then don't play in it. They're not the only game in town. Even for underprivileged Americans.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

You said ebook prices are cheaper than pbooks. I merely demonstrated that they aren't.

Not really. You just pointed to one expensive ebook. FWIW, I've done some quick math (which may or may not be accurate; I invite correction). Average prices for Amazon's top 20 NYT Bestseller titles for the week of Aug. 1 in each of the following categories:

Hardcover Fiction: $14.91.
Hardcover Nonfiction: $14.96.
Trade PB Fiction: $9.14.
Massmarket PB Fiction: $8.60.
Massmarket PB Nonfiction: $9.59.

Amazon's top 100 ebook bestsellers (minus the two newspaper subscriptions), average price: $8.75.

Smashword's top 100 titles, average price: $0.71.

I'm not seeing where ebooks are more expensive than pbooks, even at Amazon.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

However, due to the publishers' cartel and the price fixing, it doesn't matter; there is no competition, and nowhere I can buy those books cheaper.

"Those" books being Bix Six titles, presumably. Strikes me as a bit like complaining that the only place you can buy Sears tires is at Sears. If you don't like that Sears has a monopoly on Sears tires, then go buy Goodyear instead.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Not paying the cartel fixed prices means not buying that book.

Bingo! I guarantee you'll be much happier.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

price-fixing is hurting the ebook market

What price fixing, and how (be specific) is it hurting the ebook market?

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

as a reader I want to see a thriving market of affordable ebooks

Define "affordable". The same folk who think nothing about plopping down $20 for a hardcover suddenly think $9 for an ebook is price gouging. How's that work?

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

cartels ... are also bad things.

Then get over your addiction to cartel books. Don't buy 'em. There's plenty of other stuff out there as good as or better. And most of that is free.

[ficbot]

Re-read the initial post, Nathanael. This thread is not about whether it's legal or moral to pirate ebooks, it's about "how many people who download pirated ebooks actually read them and how many would have bought them in different circumstances." That last part is the key for me: there does seem to be MANY people who would have bought them in different circumstances, and that is all some of us are trying to point out to you.

For example, as I said on more than one occasion, I do pay for my book purchases. I don't download from the darknet. And if I feel a book is too expensive, I don't buy it, or I buy something else. But that doesn't mean I am---or should be---happy with the status quo, as a book-lover, and as someone who *would have bought* but for XYZ. It is not so simple to say 'if you don't like the prices, don't buy' when there are other factors at work here such as people who *can't* buy because the publishers don't allow them to but would have bought absent this restriction. This is the kind of thing people like me are advocating for.

The question was not on the legality or morality of it. It was about whether people are downloading from other sources who would have otherwise bought.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by sassanik

Does anyone know of any articles that have ebook piracy numbers in them? As it refers to lost sales?

I question how many sales are lost through piracy. I am not saying that there are not lost sales. I simply question how many people who download pirated ebooks actually read them and how many would have bought them in different circumstances.

I know there are disks out there with 1,000 ebooks on them. Seriously how many people are going to read everyone of those books?

I know that ebook piracy on ebooks like Harry Potter result in lost sales, but that is more of a publisher issue since the book is not available in ebook format.

I suspect that DRM'd ebooks are more likely to be pirated, and ebooks that are expensive. With the smaller publishing houses that focus on ebook sales and are not DRM'd having fewer pirated copies.

1,000 ebooks is a very small number. Just one account I know of on Mediafire server contains over 400,000 different pirated ebooks, all available for instant download, and all this can be downloaded in less than a month without even purchasing any download privilege on Mediafire.

2-3 years ago overwhelming majority of pirated ebooks was scanned from paper, now, I don't know.

I see it's another of neverending series of threads about copyright violation/piracy. Rather than writing the same thing for the n-th time, I'll just ->link<- to my summary of why copyright doesn't make sense at all (and should be abolished) in one of the previous threads.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

It is mind rape. You are taking pleasure from someone's thoughts without their consent.

I've quit worrying about it. As a person who derives income from creative endeavors, I try to pull my economic weight when it comes to OTHER people's creative endeavors. Sometimes it's theft and sometimes it isn't. And sometimes it is impossible to know for certain which it is.

On the whole, if you follow your conscience and common sense, you won't screw anyone too badly. But people who brag about piracy aren't people I want much to do with.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Forget DRM, geographic restrictions is the worst. It is simply not necessary.

I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, at present, it is necessary.

"International rights" tend not to exist for books. An author writes a book, gets lucky, and gets published. When the rights are sold to a publisher, they don't normally buy all rights, everywhere. (Among other things, authors and agents don't like to sell all rights, everywhere, to a single buyer.) So a US publisher may have the rights to sell a title in the US. If the book gets foreign interest, it may have a different publisher in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, etc. Those publishers bought the rights to offer the book in their respective territories. The US publisher may issue an ebook, but may not have the right to sell it abroad, so a purchaser outside the US may discover the website won't accept their order, because the site knows where they are based on their IP address and the publisher doesn't have the rights to sell the book there.

The customer must then play games to get around the restriction, like using a proxy server that makes their location appear to be different that it actually is, or work through an agent where the book can be sold, or resort to the darknet.

It's a very real problem, but it isn't going away any time soon, and it can't. There are too many people with a legitimate monetary interest, and any proposed solution will gore someone's ox.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by mikij

However, the georestriction and the fact that many of the contemporary authors are not available in form of eBooks MIGHT push some towards the pirates. However, I suppose the pirates don't do a professional proofreading (if at all) and they cannot be interesting to readers.

It depends upon the pirates. Some are just doing scan and OCR on a paper copy, and issuing the result. The quality will vary depending upon the source, the scanner, and the OCR.

Some actually do edit and proofread. There are immaculate ebook versions of all the Harry Potter books on the darknet, for example, which were obviously labors of love for those who produced them. There were no ebook editions (because J. K. Rowling refuses to license any), so they created them, but they loved the books and wanted to do it right.

Oddly, some of the worst ebook versions I've seen have been conversions of existing electronic files. In the early days of Project Gutenberg, people would scan and OCR public domain books, but editing and proofreading was at best inconsistent. Once Distributed Proofreaders got into operation and became the PG source, things got a lot better, but early stuff from before DP was still up on PG. (Ask MR member HarryT about the fun he's had proofing the works of Charles Dickens against his print editions to produce his ebook versions, because the PG source material was so bad. At this point, I think Harry's releases may be the definitive ebook versions.)
______
Dennis

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

Not really. You just pointed to one expensive ebook. FWIW, I've done some quick math (which may or may not be accurate; I invite correction). Average prices for Amazon's top 20 NYT Bestseller titles for the week of Aug. 1 in each of the following categories:

Hardcover Fiction: $14.91.
Hardcover Nonfiction: $14.96.
Trade PB Fiction: $9.14.
Massmarket PB Fiction: $8.60.
Massmarket PB Nonfiction: $9.59.

Amazon's top 100 ebook bestsellers (minus the two newspaper subscriptions), average price: $8.75.

Smashword's top 100 titles, average price: $0.71.

I'm not seeing where ebooks are more expensive than pbooks, even at Amazon.

If you could be so kind, please provide a link to Amazon's bestseller lists sorted by format, because I'm having a devil of a time trying to get the thing to admit MM paperbacks exist at all.

And what does Smashwords have to do with it? We're talking about prices on the same item here, not unrelated items. That's like saying that beef is cheaper than potatoes because a McDonald's burger costs less than a La Snootiere baked potato.

"Those" books being Bix Six titles, presumably. Strikes me as a bit like complaining that the only place you can buy Sears tires is at Sears. If you don't like that Sears has a monopoly on Sears tires, then go buy Goodyear instead.

Sears tires are, by and large, the same as Goodyear tires. They both do the same job, they're comparable across equal specs, and there's no effective difference when you've got them on your car (and the odds are they're made in the same factory by the same workers). Joe Schmoe's magnum opus of unedited, unproofread, grammatically illiterate text is, however, not the same as Lord of the Rings, except perhaps by word count. If you're buying words as commodities, I can set you up with a nice random number generator to produce as many as you like. However, if you're buying books, you're buying specific books, not just some random mass of words, and it would be better for the readers (that would be us) if the sellers of those books were permitted to compete in a free market. Why do you hate capitalism?

Bingo! I guarantee you'll be much happier.

What has given you the idea that I am unhappy? Does a discussion of economics and the publishing market become a deep emotional issue for you? To me, it's just a discussion of economics and the publishing market.

What price fixing, and how (be specific) is it hurting the ebook market?

As you well know, I'm speaking of the Agency 5 cartel.

As for how it hurts the market ... sorry, this might be a bit awkwardly explained, as I'm used to discussing economic issues with fellow capitalists and advocates of the free market, and one of the base premises is that competition is a good thing, and the driving force in setting an economically appropriate price. I don't deal with socialists or monopolists much, so I'm likely to leave out some important basics. Anyway, when you have a free market, the whole supply and demand thing is active, and competition drives price and quality. This rewards the most efficient producers and the ones most responsive to the consumers' needs, and eliminates the inefficient and, basically, the deadwood. This results in (theoretically, at least!) the best products at the best prices.

Consider the former telco monopoly in the US. Anyone who thinks the service and pricing situation is bad today doesn't remember the days when your only option in telephones was desk or wall and black or tan (and you rented, not owned, them), when a 3-minute call to a town 10 miles away was about $5 in today's dollars, and when long-distance calls were for birthdays, Mother's Day, and emergencies. Now, thanks to the breakup of the monopoly, you can buy your phone service from multiple providers, you can go into a store and choose from numerous phones with features that no Western Electric phone ever dreamed of, you can talk anywhere in the US for an hour or more at a price that used to buy you three minutes within 20 miles ... and it's because of competition. You have suppliers of all of the elements of the system, from telephones to fiber and satellite links, and you have retailers who sell those at whatever price they feel they can make a profit at (or as a loss leader to make a profit in some other area), and they're all competing for customers, and now competing with cellular, VoIP, etc. Someone from 50 years ago would be flabbergasted.

The price-fixing cartel has prohibited competition. If you want to buy an ebook they manufacture, you have to buy it at their set price no matter who you buy it from. Pbooks don't work that way. While B&N might have a sale on trade paperbacks this week, or Borders might have one of those 40% off coupons, or Fred's Bookshop might have a permanent 10% off all mystery novels, they can't do that with ebooks. There's no competition allowed. Therefore, the free market can't affect the prices, because there is no free market. Books are not fungible.

Define "affordable". The same folk who think nothing about plopping down $20 for a hardcover suddenly think $9 for an ebook is price gouging. How's that work?

Dunno, you'll have to ask someone who thinks that. As I haven't seen any posting here, you might have to do some looking.

I think twice (if not more) about plopping down $8 for a mass market paperback; therefore, I think $10 or $15 for a book that has less utility, which I cannot resell when I'm done, donate to the charity rummage sale, or even pass on to my mother-in-law, is excessive. I don't like paying more and getting less. (so I don't)

Then get over your addiction to cartel books. Don't buy 'em. There's plenty of other stuff out there as good as or better. And most of that is free.

Please read my post again and point out to me where I said I had an "addiction" to cartel books? All I can find, in any of my posts on the subject, is where I've said that I buy from Baen, from Smashwords, from other independents, from authors directly, and of course gather classics from the PD sites.

I suppose back in the days of the Bell System monopoly, you'd have said "get over your addiction to the telepone; write a letter." Thankfully, that way of looking at things didn't prevail. I don't miss those days in the slightest. (though I do have a bluetooth-enabled replica 302 handset, and matching ringtone, for my mobile)

[ann15554]

If I uploaded to darknet every ebook I purchase I'd have a great backup

[BillSmithBooks]

One of the things that I feel negates the "I had no choice but to do an 'unauthorized download'" argument is the used book market.

Many -- if not most -- books are available used through Amazon, Abebooks and other sites at very reasonable prices. There really is very little excuse to download...

Plus, those books can often be resold for close to what your originally paid for them.

And I feel that the used market is one reason why publishers are really missing the boat -- used sales generate no revenue for the publisher or author, whereas selling ebooks, even at steeply reduced prices, does generate revenue for the creators.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

And I feel that the used market is one reason why publishers are really missing the boat -- used sales generate no revenue for the publisher or author, whereas selling ebooks, even at steeply reduced prices, does generate revenue for the creators.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Give that man a cigar....

I buy boatloads of used books. My favorite bookstore places used books next to new books on the bookshelf. I *always* buy the used book. No income for either publisher or author. My gain, their loss. If I could get the ebook at the same or equivalent price as the used, I would buy the ebook.

[vaughnmr]

I was buying only used books and an occasional new pb or hb, but when I bought my Kindle, I actually started buying new ebooks. And reading a whole lot more.

The agency 5 changed all that for me. I won't buy anything from them, on principle. Back to the used bookstore.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

If you could be so kind, please provide a link to Amazon's bestseller lists sorted by format, because I'm having a devil of a time trying to get the thing to admit MM paperbacks exist at all.

Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Books/b/ref=sv...F8&node=549028

The various categories are listed down the left-hand side.

For the Kindle top 100, from the Amazon home page point to Digital Downloads, select Kindle Store, and the top 100 paid and free are on the right side.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

We're talking about prices on the same item here, not unrelated items.

We are not. Not unless you're claiming the apples of the HarperCollins catalog are the same as the oranges of Simon & Schuster's. In which case I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to toss in the tangerines of Smashwords. Nothing I've ever read there comes remotely close to the stench of anything Dan Brown ever cranked out. But now we're talking taste, not economics.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

if you're buying books, you're buying specific books

Sometimes, yes. More often I just walk into a bookstore and browse. I may have a certain genre in mind, perhaps even an author, but rarely a specific title. That may just be me, but I doubt it. But if you want to talk specific books, then let's pick for the sake of argument this week's top five NYT hardcover fiction bestsellers:

1. The Rembrandt Affair, published by Putnam Adult (Penguin).
2. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, published by Knopf (Random House)
3. The Help, published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (Penguin)
4. Fly Away Home, published by Atria (Simon & Schuster)
5. Private, published by Little, Brown and Company (Hatchette)

Now, if I want to buy specifically The Rembrandt Affair, can I get it from Simon & Schuster? HarperCollins? Random House? Hatchette? Macmillan? No more than I can buy any of their titles from Penguin. If you want to talk specific items, then it's tautalogical to claim that, as even Amazon admitted, Macmillan has a monopoly on its own titles.

Look, bottom line is you're trying to convince me we're entering some brave, new Orellian world where all our reading decisions are controlled by some sinister publishing mafia. Sorry, I just don't buy it (pun intended).

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

What has given you the idea that I am unhappy?

Could be because when I hear you lamenting this alleged price-fixing publishing cartel, I don't hear a smile in your voice. Or do I just need to clean out my ears?

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I'm used to discussing economic issues with fellow capitalists and advocates of the free market

And you assume I'm not, why? Because I don't believe in your publishing cartel?

And, BTW, you are aware that the inevitable outcome of unrestrained capitalism is monopolization, right? Which is why even Americans don't believe in unrestrained capitalism. As to this price-fixing publishing cartel, if it exists, well, welcome to the free market.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

The price-fixing cartel has prohibited competition. If you want to buy an ebook they manufacture, you have to buy it at their set price

If I want to buy a Simon & Schuster book, I have to buy it at Simon & Schuster's set price. If I want to buy a Macmillan book, I have to buy it at Macmillan's set price. If I want to buy a Smashwords book, I have to buy it at Smashwords' set price. If I want to see the sunrise, I have to face east. I just don't see the news here.

AFAICS, it just goes without saying that if I want to buy a specific title I can only get it from a specific publisher; Simon & Schuster doesn't publish Macmillan's catalog.

But last I checked, even in the world of pbooks, all the major houses charge pretty much the same prices to the retail chains, e.g., about $13 for a hardcover. The difference is, most customers are OK with paying $20=$25 retail for that hardcover, which gives retailers some room to compete with each other on price.

All I see here is Amazon shooting itself in the foot, by setting its customers' expectations artificially (and unsustainably) low. Now that its customers are accustomed to paying $9.99 for an ebook, it's discovering it can't get the wholesale price it needs to sustain that price point. Sounds like Amazon tried to wedge itself in between its customers and the publishers, and got itself stuck. I say, bully for the publishers. Amazon played the bluff, the publishers didn't blink, and now Amazon's left holding shizz for cards.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Pbooks don't work that way.

For the reason I noted above: in the pbook world, retailers haven't set customers' pricing expectations unsustainably low, which leaves the retailers room to compete on price. Amazon slit its own throat on this one.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Books are not fungible.

Assuming for the moment I agreed with that, all you're saying is each publisher has a monopoly on its own titles. If books are not fungible, then you can't go comparing the apples of Macmillan with the oranges of Penguin. Or at least if you can, then I still don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to toss Smashwords citrii into the salad.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I think twice (if not more) about plopping down $8 for a mass market paperback; therefore, I think $10 or $15 for a[n e]book ... is excessive.

Now hold on. We have to talk specific titles here, right? Here are the top ten mass market fiction titles with their paperback and ebook prices (PB/EB):

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: $7.99/$7.14
2. Nine Dragons: ---/$14.99 (Amazon doesn't list a paperback price)
3. The Girl Who Played with Fire: $7.99/$7.99
4. Charlie St. Cloud: $10.20/$6.29
5. Smashcut: $9.99/$12.99
6. The Lucky One: $7.99/$9.99
7. Knock-out: $9.99/$8.99
8. The Defector: $9.99/$8.99
9. The Neighbor: $7.99/$5.99
10. Finger-Lickin' Fifteen: $8.99/$8.99

Average: $9.01/$8.34

In only one case does the ebook price reach up into your $10-$15 range, and in only two cases is the ebook more than the pbook (and that's even comparing against MM PB; I could just as easily have compared against trade or hardcover).

Look, if you don't like $12.99 for an ebook then buy the paperback. Or are formats non-fungible as well? If you don't like the PB price, then pick it up used. Or borrow it from a friend. Or read it at the library. Options. Options. Options.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Please read my post again and point out to me where I said I had an "addiction" to cartel books?

You talk as if the Big Six are the only game in town, as if somehow the ebook market stands or falls by them. There are plenty of other ballparks to play in, and if you don't like baseball, then go play soccer. There are so many ebook options, I just can't see where what the Big Six are doing (even up to and including price collusion) is of much significance at all.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Ding! Ding! Ding! Give that man a cigar....

I buy boatloads of used books. My favorite bookstore places used books next to new books on the bookshelf. I *always* buy the used book. No income for either publisher or author. My gain, their loss. If I could get the ebook at the same or equivalent price as the used, I would buy the ebook.

Same here. (and let's not even get into what happened when my favorite SF specialist store had an anniversary sale, with all used paperbacks 50 cents...except that I was there when the doors opened, and I brought my own box) I happily pay two or three dollars for a used pbook. I'd much rather buy an ebook. The pbook collection has become a threat to the floor joists.

That's what the publishers don't get. I keep bringing up the example of laserdiscs versus DVDs. Laserdiscs were, market-wise, a flop; DVD sales can surpass box-office revenue, even when they're sold dirt cheap. Seriously, you can buy a whole movie that cost many millions of dollars to make cheaper than you can buy a lot of ebooks (including, quite possibly, the one the movie was based on). If a publisher can't make a profit selling something that cost a few thousand dollars to produce for a fraction of the price of something that not only cost millions of dollars to produce, but has to be made into DVDs, packed into boxes, and shipped to stores, then they're doing it wrong.

A $2 or $3 ebook is an impulse buy. As one look at my Smashwords account tells me, I'm impulsive.

[Worldwalker]

@Nathanael,

(long replies on a netbook are getting to be a real pain, so I'm going to hit a few high points; more of a reply when I either dig out the real keyboard for this thing, or at least have some more sleep)

Thanks for the link; I spent entirely too long poking at all the wrong things trying to find it.

Normally, one doesn't buy a pbook directly from the publisher. One buys it from a retailer, who can set whatever price they choose for it. If they want to sell all NYT bestsellers for 20% off cover, for instance, they're free to do so. So the buyer has multiple options for where to buy that book, and those retailers can compete on price. With the "agency model" that is no longer true.

Why is $10 for an ebook "unsustainably" low when a pbook can be sold for $8 (or less), despite the cost of goods sold being so much higher? Why is it necessary for a publisher to make profits an order of magnitude higher on an ebook than on a pbook for it to be sustainable?

I'd ramble on some more but most of me hurts (an issue with the inflexibility of furniture and Honda Civics) and, as I whined, I'm on the netbook. Maybe after I've had sleep and ibuprofen.