eBook piracy, how common is it?

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by wodin

This is a somewhat misleading statistic. One would need to know how many of those 26% would not have acquired the books at all if they would have to pay for them.

You can't lose a sale that you would not have had in any case! I suspect that it is a good deal more than half of them.

I second the Man of Science :-)

Many of those who lurk on p2p are basically "pack-rats." They download stuff, just so they can pack it on their hard drive, and then look at it again. But they would NOT have paid money for the product, since they are not really interested in it.

Now, some of these "pack-rats" may discover something they like among their acquisitions, and then become a paying customer for other titles/songs by the same author.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

Please provide evidence in which authors, or a single author, have/has banded together in an attempt to have their works removed from libraries. Writers are typically the most vocal PROPONENTS of libraries.

I totally agreed with you, until I saw this post at Goodreads. I'm copy/pasting so y'all don't have to join the Cozy Mystery group to read it:

"That is really sad that they had none of the books you were looking for at your library. Unfortunately, I got a rather curt response from a cozy mystery author not too long ago when I complimented her on how many people were on the waiting list to read her book at our library. She indicated that after having published her last book, even though it was very popular, the sales were down and there was question as to whether the series would continue. This was in large part to people borrowing from the library, buying used from ebay, amazon and the like, and no money going to the author or the publisher for the books. She said that these venues for borrowing and buying books really hurt the book industry and if it keeps up there will most likley be many series that stop altogether because publishing simply isn't economical anymore and there is then no incentive for authors to continue with their series..."

It's a good thing the poster did not include the author's name in her post. I thoroughly disagree with her premise about libraries hurting her sales. For a timely example, I just now took advantage of my Diesel e-books credit from submitting a Bundle to purchase Maggie Sefton's "Knit One, Kill Two"; which I originally checked out of the library and now wish to own the whole series. Maybe not everyone is as much of a book-horder as I am; but I think this author that was quoted has her pants in a knot over the wrong thing. What's hurting HER sales in particular is her attitude.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Not sure of how the latin goes but the translation is something like..."He who is silent is taken to consent". Another way of saying if you disagree with something you should speak up, otherwise how is anyone to know?

Forgive me for not noticing sooner that page 51 of a 62 page thread was asking questions of people who commented at page 3. "Silence = assent" is reasonable within half a dozen posts of someone's comments; saying it two weeks later is ridiculous.

I do not agree that "filesharing is wrong." I agree that some files should not be shared by p2p networks, and which files those are depend on the exact circumstances involved.

In the circumstance you described--single author, reasonable price, no DRM, etc.--you left out an option: perhaps the author thinks publicity is more important than piracy, and isn't interested in stopping filesharing. Perhaps he has consciously decided to allow a certain amount of filesharing, on the theory that, if people had money, they'd buy from him, and if they don't, he'd rather they read his stuff for free. Maybe he believes they're more likely to buy his next book. Maybe he's a philanthropist who thinks it's okay for some free copies to float around. Maybe he's a fanatic who's more interested in getting his message out than getting paid, but recognizes the importance of getting paid in order to spread more message.

Describing a single situation where filesharing is obviously unethical doesn't continue that judgment to the next situation.

Firstly, how much money is made from a work is not the deciding factor in whether one has the moral right to take that work without fair recompense.

Agreed. However, note that books borrowed from a (U.S.) library are also "taken without fair fair recompense"--the ideas go from the author to the reader without payment. The idea that the author deserves payment for every single reader has never been the way books worked, and it is that notion that filesharing challenges, not the notion that prices are too high for people to pay for them.

Secondly, I did say your assertion that file sharing will lead to more sales is most likely correct. That is not the point though.

But it does counter the largest claim for the reasons for DRM and the dislike of piracy. If it doesn't cost the author anything, the objections start sounding less like morality and more like selfish control issues.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Agreed. However, note that books borrowed from a (U.S.) library are also "taken without fair fair recompense"--the ideas go from the author to the reader without payment. The idea that the author deserves payment for every single reader has never been the way books worked, and it is that notion that filesharing challenges, not the notion that prices are too high for people to pay for them.

Entirely correct. If we DID have to pay each time we checked out a book, the library and authors would be receiving numerous complaints from at least THIS patron. Alot of books are crap; when I check a book out, sometimes I read only 10 pages or so before discerning that it is crap. So what should happen in this instance? Should the writer have to pay ME for wasting my time?

According to the ALA, there are 123,129 libraries in the US- that's 123,129 potential sales for an author.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

@Moejoe -- but physical products take up space! One of the big attractions of eBooks for me is that they don't.

Xenophon

They do take up hard drive space, space on your reader and space on your backup media.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

They do take up hard drive space, space on your reader and space on your backup media.

Yes, of course. But my total collection of ebooks is much smaller than my music collection, or my photos, or the applications I use, or my OS, or lots of other things I keep on my computers. eBooks take up 50x less space than music on my hard drives (for example).

More to the point, however, physical space is what I'm short on. Hard-drive and backup space are cheap by comparison to adding more volume here in meat-space.

Xenophon