Book piracy: Less DRM, more data

[jgaiser]

An interesting interview with Brian O'Leary, founder of Magellan Media Partners, a publishing consulting group.

Book piracy: Less DRM, more data

[whitearrow]

Wow, logic and common sense. A rare combination in piracy discussions with publishing people.

[queentess]

I think what leads to rampant piracy is not meeting emergent demands. The publishing industry should be working as hard as we can to develop new and innovative business models that meet the needs of readers.

I think piracy has become more acute with ebooks, not because ebooks are easily pirated but because ebooks are easily visible. So, for example, if I'm living in South Africa and I speak English, but I want to read Nora Roberts, and Nora Roberts is only published in North America, I might have to wait through a four-year cycle to get her latest book. That lead time made sense when it was about ink on paper. But if it's an ebook, as a reader, I want to read it today — I love Nora Roberts, and I'd pay for her latest book, but I can't get it here because there's no service that will sell me an ebook in South Africa. That's when piracy starts to occur. Readers say: "I would have paid for it, but they wouldn't give it to me. They frustrated my demand."

Summed up: pretty much everything we say on these forums

[Sydney's Mom]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting!

[MerLock]

Publishers should also focus on the quality of the ebooks they are selling if they want to stop pirating. I hear some illegal versions are better than the retail.

I purchased the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson in epub format from Sony. The 2nd and 3rd book in that series is horribly formatted. The picture images for the section and chapter headings are out of scale. They took a low resolution image and enlarged it, which then shows a lot of pixelation. The way they formatted the image causes a page break after it so the Chapter 1 heading takes up one full page instead of taking the top part of the page with the text underneath.

If it costs as much as a paperback book, I would expect it to be formatted just as well if not better.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by queentess

Summed up: pretty much everything we say on these forums

gee do you think someone is actually starting to listen to us?

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by queentess

Summed up: pretty much everything we say on these forums

No kidding. DRM doesn't work. Never does. Just pisses off legitimate buyers.

I almost never, ever buy a DRM'd book. I'm more likely to buy a paperback or hardcover and download a pirate e-book of it for my wife's Kindle or my Nook. I want to support authors. Fantasy and sci-fi authors especially who sell a lot less than the big, popular authors. But I'm not buying a DRM infected, restricted, non-resellable book for full MSRP of the p-book.

[screwballl]

I can understand why some international pirating for books that may not be available in your region but otherwise most pirates want something useful like music and games and programs... books make people have to actually read and potentially learn something...

NOTE: IF I do remove any DRM (which is rare) it stays within my possession and is never released, transmitted, relayed or otherwise leaving my possession.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

gee do you think someone is actually starting to listen to us?

We can only hope. This forum is a great example of why DRM is an annoyance for the "good guys" and poses absolutely no effective deterrent for the 'bad guys".

[wvcherrybomb]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Very interesting. Thanks for posting!

It does seem someone is finally acknowledging the reality of the situation.

[ProfCrash]

The problem with the Nora Roberts example is that the particular example has little to do with DRM and more to do with geographic restrictions.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

The problem with the Nora Roberts example is that the particular example has little to do with DRM and more to do with geographic restrictions.

Yes, that was an answer speaking more to why people pirate, not specifically DRM.

Here's another geo-restriction comment from the article:

The other thing, too, is you've got to look at where the downloads occur. If it's a North American title and the downloads occurred in Romania, I'm not that worried about it if I'm a publisher. It actually, if anything, says to me I should be moving my English language rights and my translation rights faster.

In theory, a publisher could use the data about piracy to target specific books for specific markets to make sure ebooks are made available in the places they're wanted. It's an interesting perspective.

[ProfCrash]

Good point.

I know that many people on this board who are having problems with geo restrictions are frustrated because they know they can order the DTB from Amazon and have it mailed to them for an arm and a leg. We also know that there were actually pirated versions of books available before e-readers becam ebig but they were harder to get.

The tracking of pirated books is an interesting concept though.

[screwballl]

agreed queen, if anything the "located pirating" should help move to those regions for more sales, not put tighter restrictions for the legitimate users.

[amoroso]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

gee do you think someone is actually starting to listen to us?

Maybe, if enough customers vote with their wallets.