No, David Pogue, Ebook Piracy Is Not a Given

adamengst writes "David Pogue recently wrote a widely read blog post in which he explains that piracy is the reason he doesn't make his books available in PDF format. But in this article, TidBITS publisher Adam Engst disagrees strongly with Pogue's opinion, using sales numbers from the Take Control series of ebooks (150,000+ copies sold since 2004 with virtually no copying) as proof that making electronic versions not only doesn't necessarily lead to piracy, it may be the best way of preventing illicit sharing."

Comments

Not a big market for piracy surely

[lobiusmoop]

I cant help but wonder if the lack of ebook piracy is more down to the fact that old fashioned paper books are still much more prevalent that eboook readers, and can be had for a reasonable cost. I'd say the day ebook readers go the way of the iPod, piracy will explode.

Re:Not a big market for piracy surely

[Kjella]

Well, I can't speak for anyone but myself but paper books are very abuse-friendly, I throw it in my backpack when my stop approaches, I can read them at the beach in direct sunlight and drop it in the sand without issue, it's no big deal if I forget it somewhere, it's not attractive to steal, it doesn't use batteries, it's a throwaway so scratches don't matter and so on. As far as environmentalism is concerned it's a drop in the bucket compared to the junk mail / free newspapers I get which go directly into the trash. I can think of some conditions where it could make sense, but they mostly involve using my large monitor rather than an ebook reader. The few conditions where I'd prefer an electronic version (because of e.g. bulk of a paper book) I'd rather have an audiobook than a tablet, it doesn't get smaller than a mp3 player + ear plugs. I think you're seeing more the opposite, people don't have ebook readers because they don't make sense.

PSP eBook Reader

[GottliebPins]

I have a PSP and thanks to all of the rediculous DRM to prevent people from enjoying various media on the device of their choosing I have no choice but to pirate eBooks that I already paid for to remove the DRM so I can read them on the PSP. I found that hacking PDF's is impossible, but eBooks are easy to remove the DRM then convert to PDF so I can read them on my PSP. Because of their rediculous paranoia it actually encourages people to pirate to avoid all of the lame restrictions. Same with iTunes. I looked all over for a song and could only find it on iTunes. So I had to buy it there, then burn it to cd, then rip it back to mp3 so I could play it on my PSP. DRM is stupid. It just encourages people to download it without paying.

Paper book piracy is also rampant

[WallyDrinkBeer]

There are these "libraries" where people file-share paper copies of books. FOR FREE!!!!
David better not release paper copies either.

Reality, learn to live with it

[cdrguru]

If it is in digital form, and it is popular, it will be pirated. Period.

If there are eBooks that are not being passed around on P2P sharing networks, it is not because there is any increased respect for eBooks than music or movies. It is because nobody cares about the content.

If I were to publish an eBook on the mating habits of the German Cockroach, I would expect that it would not be heavily pirated. Equally, I would expect a photoeassy on the day in a life of a proctologist would similarly be immune from piracy. However, an eBook of any popularity would immediately be copied and passed around freely regardless of the wishes of the author.

Does eBook mean piracy? No, clearly not. However, anything that is popular is likely to be pirated regardless of any wishes of the author. The author (like Stephen King) can make the content available online free or not, as they choose. However, once it is in digital form the author loses the ability to control the outcome. This much should be obvious to everyone by now.

Re:piracy is a given regardless

[Smidge204]

This is certainly true. However, what most people (especially business execs) rarely understand is that piracy usually indicates an unfulfilled market.

Not everyone steals for the sake of stealing. Some steal because it's the only way to get it, or at least the only way to get it in the form they want. If you find a lot of people pirate your products, then you can probably make legit customers out of most of them by altering your distribution and control methods. Carefully consider your price points too, since the true value of something is what people are willing to pay and not always what you think they should pay.
=Smidge=

Re:piracy is a given regardless

[LaskoVortex]

Some steal because it's the only way to get it, or at least the only way to get it in the form they want.

Corollary: If DRM makes it too hard to steal to get it in the form they need it, then people will seek alternatives to both buying legitimately and stealing, then the companies start to loose their user base. I've phased out Adobe products and Microsoft products for exactly that reason. Both are gradually providing less value to me per dollar and both make it too difficult to get a working copy, so I've moved to OpenOffice, Gimp, and Inkscape. If Apple ever DRMs there OS (and I paid full price for a family pack of 10.5 so I own two more licenses of than I can use), then I'll phase them out too.

Re:Control of work vs being paid for it

[Concerned Onlooker]

I believe the idea is to protect creators for a reasonable period of time during which they can profit solely from their labor. The idea was to offer an incentive for the creation of art, literature, music etc. in the first place, which seems reasonable to me. The problem is that for the last several decades the big dollar content owners (not necessarily creators) have lobbied for and gotten unreasonable extensions to copyright periods. Mickey Mouse should have been in the public domain long ago.