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No, David Pogue, Ebook Piracy Is Not a Given

Posted by timothy on from the not-necessarily dept.

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."

60 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. The best way to prevent eBook piracy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...is making your eBook so crappy no one wants to read it.

    1. Re:The best way to prevent eBook piracy... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...is making your eBook so crappy no one wants to read it. That hasn't stopped people from pirating Fantastic 4, the Dukes of Hazzard or Scary Movie 4. Maybe....

      ...is making your eBook so crappy no one intelligent wants to read it. There. Fixed.
    2. Re:The best way to prevent eBook piracy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      are you's guys calling me stupid er sumthing?

    3. Re:The best way to prevent eBook piracy... by kenj0418 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can explain why otherwise intelligent people might download those movies in five words:
      1) Jessica
      2) Alba
      3) Simpson
      4) Anna
      5) Faris

      This could probably be simplified down to one word, I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

    4. Re:The best way to prevent eBook piracy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Jelbimpais?

  2. Freetard? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Point to note: Mr. David seems to be pissed off with all the Geeks shouting free (without him realizing the difference between beer and speech, of course). He wrote:

    "Oh Mr. Freetard, you work as a programmer, do you? How interesting. So do you perform all your corporate programming duties for free, and earn your keep by selling personally branded mousemats on the side?

    "Didn't think so."
    1. Re:Freetard? by KGIII · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hell, I'm a Microsoft MVP Award Winner for many years in a row and even I'm not daft enough to understand that free, open source, and closed source have their places on the planet. It is sad when there are zealots on either side. So many of the people who know nothing about open source software (to which I also contribute) are as hell bent on being right as those on the opposing side of the fence. I guess the difference between me and, well, most is that I freely admit my sentiments openly and honestly and back them up with factual information.

      Yet, on the other side of this we see people who do stupid crap... They simply can't (or won't) understand that open source means that you are free to do as you wish with it up to, and including, not using it.

      On the other side you have those people who insist that everything must be open source and if it isn't then there's something evil going on with it. There are too many people making judgments based on little evidence.

      To the first folks I say, come on over to my house and you can chill on my lawn, party, spend the weekend, and all of that.

      To the latter I say, just because I let you in my home to have all the free stuff you want (assuming you don't steal it from me) but if I say you can't go into my bedroom then you must accept that it is off limits.

      Where am I going with this? Well, you have someone who obviously has an agenda. He obviously thinks that one can't be paid from their "free" work. The reality is, just with me, that I get paid quite often to work on free, open source, software to improve it or to integrate it with their current setup. He, probably, doesn't and he, probably, isn't smart enough to realize that there is a world beyond proprietary. Take what you can from him, as you seem to be doing, but what you do take from him I would automatically consider suspect given his prior inability to comprehend simplistic realities.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  3. piracy is a given regardless by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well David, you are passing up sales while preventing absolutely nothing.

    Learn to live with it, the pirates always win.

    1. Re:piracy is a given regardless by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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=

    2. Re:piracy is a given regardless by rboatright · · Score: 5, Informative

      Uh, look, the analysis is flawed.

      First, books are an odd special case.

      I can't fit the analysis in a slashdot post... if you haven't read McCauley on Copyright, and if you haven't read Eric Flint's analysis of copyright, piracy and e-books as they effect modern authors, do so.

      Start here:
      Spillage: or, The Way Fair Use Works in Favor of Authors and Publishers http://baens-universe.com/articles/salvos8

      then go here and read _all_ the salvo's columns...
      http://baens-universe.com/authors/Eric_Flint

      Meanwhile, there's been very little said about copyright in the last century that McCauley didn't already address... http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

    3. Re:piracy is a given regardless by LaskoVortex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Just callin' it like I see it.
    4. Re:piracy is a given regardless by WDot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can't agree enough. Why am I not allowed to download German or Japanese MP3s on Itunes just because I'm in the US store? The only way to get it is to pay 5 times its worth by importing the CD, or play some stupid game where I import a foreign iTunes gift card.

      How about anime series and films that just don't get picked up by a licensing company? Just because I watch fansubs doesn't mean I'm not willing to pay for the series--QUITE the opposite in fact. And seriously, I'm sick of anime licensing companies packing DVDs with figures and other collectibles to jack up the price. I pick up a box thinking I found a box set of a series, only to find out that there's only one DVD and a bunch of fluff.

      Putting aside foreign stuff for a second. I want all of the Dexter's Lab episodes and Courage the Cowardly Dog episodes on DVD or mp4. I can't get them in this fashion unless I get some burned bootleg DVD on eBay. Why? The series "Reboot" only offered the first and third seasons on DVD. How does that make ANY sense?

      Or how about old Lucasarts adventure games? They aren't exactly rushing to put them out for digital distribution. Id, Epic, Eidos, Take Two, and other companies are offering their back catalog on steam, yet I have to rummage through garage sales to find Maniac Mansion.

      I pretty much have my pick of music that was made in my country, and even some of the more popular foreign stuff. But I want access to EVERYTHING I'm interested in, not just what business deals and International Copyright Law say I can buy.

      I don't pirate because I'm "sticking it to the man." I pirate because I tell the man "Let me give you money!" and he says "No."

    5. Re:piracy is a given regardless by Znork · · Score: 4, Interesting

      business execs) rarely understand is that piracy usually indicates an unfulfilled market.

      Monopoly pricing always creates an unfulfilled market; revenue is maximized at a pricing point far above the fulfillable market.

      A classic economic example would be this: You have ten customers who would pay 1, 2, 3 .. up to 10 dollars, and a per unit production cost of 2 dollars.

      Set the price at 10 dollars and you get 1 customer paying ten dollars; $10 in revenue. Lower the price, $8 gets you 3 customers, $24 total revenue. $7 gets you $28. Subtract 4 times $2 for unit costs and you get $20 profit. Try $6 price, that gets you $30 income minus 5 times $2, the same $20 profit.

      Turns out $7, with 4 customers would maximize your profit. That leaves the 5 people between $2 (minimum production cost) and $7 unfulfilled. In a free market, competition would force prices down towards $2, maximizing the total wealth in the market. In the monopoly market, the wealth created by fulfilling the market is lost (well, unless the potential customers pirate the material).

    6. Re:piracy is a given regardless by Smidge204 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Here's the problem, though: What's the true cost of digital reproduction and distribution? Now, if we're talking physical goods you certainly have a case. It costs fractions of fractions of a penny's forth of electricity to make a copy of even large data files, and bandwidth cost aren't a huge burden either.

      With software, there is really only a one-time cost of production and maybe long-term support. With music and video there is ONLY the one-time production costs.
      =Smidge=

    7. Re:piracy is a given regardless by Znork · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course, the monopoly pricing example is much simplified and valid only as a model for demonstrating why selling more copies cheaper isn't interesting when you have monopoly rights; more but cheaper still means less total revenue. In the real world you have many other aspects, for example, if you're making a 500% recordable profit you're not spending enough. Most organizations tend to accumulate waste until they make the minimum acceptable profit; see the music industry as a typical example, they can fail to make a profit selling hundreds of thousands of units of something where the costs of producing and distributing it should be less than a nicer used car. Spending money is rarely a problem; only competition enforces productive spending.

      Now, if we're talking physical goods you certainly have a case.

      Well, the application of monopoly pricing models is valid in either case; all goods contain amortized costs, it's mainly a question of how much of the total it is. It's interesting to compare the financials of, for example, the pharmaceutical industry with the auto industry. The more actual competition there is in a segment, the more the costs tend to be producing the actual product. The less competition, the more costs tend to go into marketing and administration.

      With music and video there is ONLY the one-time production costs.

      So the trick becomes letting the production costs be recouped, while still maintaining competitive pressure. Monopoly rights obviously don't work, as they inevitably result in an ever increasing level of waste, to the point where the one-time production cost is fairly minor in the expenditure of the revenue. Full competition may be a bit harsh, altho open source and creative commons et. al, have demonstrated that production costs can be cut to miniscule levels with appropriate measures. Perhaps it would be good enough.

      Personally I tend to advocate freeing up the whole copying thing and simply putting a 'sales tax' on revenue derived of copying (ad's on download sites, on the price of CD-writing kiosks at your supermarket or book printing at your bookstore, etc). Then hand that money to the creators of the copied materials to offset the production cost plus some, perhaps with a ceiling on payouts, handing them forwards down the long tail, to maximize the amount of material financed. Easier to manage, less incentive for piracy, less incentive for draconian legislation and it opens up for a huge host of services that simply cannot be produced due to monopoly rights today (oh, and it would make it vastly simpler for the creators; simply publish your stuff and as people start downloading it, you'll get paid depending on revenue generated by your work. It could even work for open source or other free things). It would also put the actual budget for 'IP' on the public books instead of hiding the costs and pretending that what amounts to privately held taxation rights aren't a cost to the economy.

      Anyways, there are many ways to solve the problem of one-time costs of infinitely reproducible goods. Monopoly rights may, for economic reasons, be the one of the worst and most wasteful ways.

  4. Not a big market for piracy surely by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    1. Re:Not a big market for piracy surely by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Not a big market for piracy surely by Maestro485 · · Score: 2

      There's also the friend factor. I share similar taste in books with a few friends and we're always passing books back and forth. And, as you said, if I don't get every one of them back it's really no big deal.

      One genre I do like having electronic copies of, however, is (surprise) tech books. Since they usually don't need to be read cover to cover and often contain a lot of reference material its usually more convenient, especially since their page count often high and carrying even one can be a pain.

    3. Re:Not a big market for piracy surely by Beijing+Monster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      e-Books are not there yet. Paper is simply better. When eBooks do get into the zone of usability then we have problems. Right now the technology is not friendly, the price point is high compared to paper and there is no good way of making sure the author gets the return he/she should expect. A real big problem is that the culture is wrong. The expectation is that you can go a torrent site and help yourself. Fixing/improving the tech is not the whole answer. You have to change the way people think of intellectual effort and intellectual rights. The way things are going it does not look as though the author is going to be respected or rewarded anytime soon. In fact the dynamic is all going the wrong way. I respect the Baen approach but wonder if it really, really is working. I was given the other day the entire works of Eric Flint the energy behind the Baen experiment. I took the download because I wanted to check out the Sony e-Reader I had just acquired. I did not feel all that guilty because I had every page and CD Flint had ever produced on my bookshelf (bought and paid for). And my own conundrum? A final thought is that I have seen the distortions wrought upon the copyright system by big corporations, and the nasty way they limit fair use of content. In areas other than books I have no real problems in stiffing the major corporations. They stiff the authors/composers/performers, and they stiff me with DRM and regionalization that renders my laptop useless since I source my DVDs from three or four markets. I own legitimate copies from the UK, Australia, US and Europe so why can't I play them on my laptop without getting locked after five plays? Its even worse for a Mac user because the chances of unlocking the player are almost nil. So screw them, culture or no.

    4. Re:Not a big market for piracy surely by Spacejock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My publisher released the first book in my SF series as a free ebook download a week ago, the same day book 4 in the series hit the shops.

      Despite being publicised on some well-known blogs, and despite being available as a completely free, DRM-free, download to anyone worldwide, there are still more copies of the printed book in circulation than there have been downloads of the ebook. (And we're talking multi thousands in both cases.)

      My point is this: if a legit, proofed ebook copy of a bestselling book - right out there in plain sight - will only attract a few thousand downloads, then how much impact is a dodgy hand-scanned knockoff - available only by trawling through the sewers of the internet - going to have on sales of the real thing?

      --
      Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
  5. Required reading IMHO. by Knightman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Macaulay on copyright law: http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

    Eric Flint on making books available online: http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm

    nuff said.

    --
    --- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
    1. Re:Required reading IMHO. by eht · · Score: 4, Informative

      I love directing people here

      http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

      Because I know that people who read these books end up buying more books, maybe not everyone, but enough that they're still running this program with more CD's each year

    2. Re:Required reading IMHO. by Is0m0rph · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Tor as well with their free Ebook mailing list. I read primarily Ebooks and I want to read them in text format on my phone or DS so I don't buy DRM ebooks which leaves me little alternative but to download them. But in Tor's case they've been giving out DRM free ebooks every week for a while. They are usually the first book in a series. When I had a work trip coming up last week and a paper book was more convenient to read on the road I went out and bought several of the second books in the series I had read for free. The science fiction/fantasy publishers like Baen and Tor have a good grip on the situation.

  6. PSP eBook Reader by GottliebPins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. I like dead trees by fyoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It might not be green, but the best reader I've found is the book. Perhaps I'm in the minority. I saw somewhere that there are people in Japan who not only read books on their cell phones, they also write books on their cell phones. Perhaps they're more evolved than me. If I found a book online that looked interesting and was available in dead tree format, I'd buy it in dead tree format, or look for it at bookmooch.com.

    That applies to reference books as well, like Mr. Pogue's. I've got shelves of them. But in the case of reference books, I wouldn't mind a searchable version as well. Hm, perhaps I should pay a visit to thepiratebay.org...

    --
    Loose lips lose spit.
    1. Re:I like dead trees by belmolis · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a bit more complicated than that. The byproducts of pulp production are a problem. Pulp mills vent small particles that are bad for the health and must be removed. They also vent a number of chemicals including some nasty smelling sulfur compounds. This is locally referred to as "the smell of money". The official view here in Canada is that these smell bad but are not toxic, but a lot of people question that. When I lived in central part of the city, I noticed a strong correlation between days when I woke up feeling crummy and days when the pulp mill smell was strong. I made a point of moving uphill to the outskirts where the odor is not as strong. We have three pulp mills and air quality is a major local issue. Levels from air quality monitors at three sites are reported every day on the news.

      Pulp mills also produce really nasty liquid effluent. Even with the current treatment, studies here show that it causes mutation in the genes of the salmon. Some information from Environment Canada is here.

    2. Re:I like dead trees by maxume · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I grew up about 5 or 6 miles from a paper mill. It was pretty much the industrial base of the local community, situated about 2 or 3 miles from the town. We rarely smelled it, but a big part of that was that it was downwind during prevailing weather conditions. My impression was that it also added a great deal of scrubbing and whatnot when I was about 4, so it was much better as I was growing up than it had been.

      People weren't real excited to eat fish that came out of the river it was on, but there were fish in the river.

      It isn't that it is free of effects, it is that the effects are due to production of enormous amounts of paper. The environmental harm contained in 1 book (and thus in the several dozen that most people carry around) is very small.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    3. Re:I like dead trees by shadwstalkr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They aren't more evolved than you, they just have better phones in Japan.

    4. Re:I like dead trees by ikkonoishi · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah thats why I buy all my books printed on baby seal leather with ink made from ground endangered butterfly wings.

  8. Paper book piracy is also rampant by WallyDrinkBeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Paper book piracy is also rampant by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Last time I checked, library books were a limited supply. You can only lend a book out to one person at a time, and only for a certain amount of time. If libraries gave away unlimited free copies, I'm sure more people would have a problem with them cutting into sales.

  9. Reality, learn to live with it by cdrguru · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Reality, learn to live with it by kernowyon · · Score: 3, Funny

      If I were to publish an eBook on the mating habits of the German Cockroach...
      Insect pr0n? I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.....
      I expect it beats David Pogue's ebooks anyway!
      --
      Awful UID - but I have been here ages...
    2. Re:Reality, learn to live with it by cavtroop · · Score: 2, Funny

      Equally, I would expect a photoeassy on the day in a life of a proctologist would similarly be immune from piracy.

      You, sir, must be new to this internet thingy.

    3. Re:Reality, learn to live with it by jonaskoelker · · Score: 2, Funny

      Equally, I would expect a photoeassy on the day in a life of a proctologist would similarly be immune from piracy. I think it was preemptively pirated under the name hello.jpg.
    4. Re:Reality, learn to live with it by WolfWalker545 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But how many of the people who get a pirated copy would have paid for a reasonably priced copy if it was available? My wife's book is available on one of the Baen free CD's at baencd.thefifthimperium.com, and has been for a while, but the royalty statement she got today still has Webscriptions royalties... There have actually been cases where people tried to upload Baen ebooks to pirate sites and were shot down by the pirates because they feel that Baen, by charging a reasonable fee, is doing it right, and that pirating their stuff is like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. It's when publishers try to charge more for an electronic copy than they charge for a print copy that piracy is considered ethical by some of the piracy groups. Since my wife is an author, I get the dead-tree versions of all Baen books free. But I still buy some books through Webscriptions for the convenience, and to make sure my friends get paid for their work (of course, some just email it to me, just like they can request electronic copies of my wife's work). I don't understand how any business can survive by treating their customers like thieves - if the customers aren't already, a sizable percentage will either decide they may as well be thieves, or just walk away and refuse to deal with that business again (it's been a LONG while since I bought an album from a major label, for example).

    5. Re:Reality, learn to live with it by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Funny

      It is because nobody cares about the content. If you're an author and you can't write something more popular than Fecal Incontinence - Diagnosis and Treatment - C. Ratto, G. Dogglietto (Springer, 2007) WW.pdf (a random pdf from hfrarg), it's time to consider a new line of work. ;) Hey, I read that. It was The Shit. Totally Bad Ass.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  10. Free made a buyer out of me... by Kernel+Corndog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I didn't read any of the articles linked but I can say from person experience that, even though Practical Common Lisp is available for free on-line (HTML, PDF) I still bought my copy. It is worth every penny. Had it not been available on-line, it probably would've taken me even longer to convince myself to buy it.

  11. oh, really ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "due to the way his technology sensibilities have been honed by years of being a Mac user. "

    stopped reading right there :-P

  12. PDF = Promotes by Piranhaa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I didn't RTFA... but i know as a fact that people would rather read a hard copy book rather than on a screen. I, myself, have downloaded many ebooks (and had some sent to me from friends), read them and bought them after if they were actually good. It's sad to see that some authors (and other corporations) that 'piracy' always leads to lost revenue.. Even if someone would never have purchased the product before. When will they learn?

  13. Check that again, Senor Skimpage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pogue was quoting Steven Poole. Those nasty words weren't his own. See Pogue's weblog post and the dimwitted douchebag's weblog post.

    1. Re:Check that again, Senor Skimpage by Sockatume · · Score: 2, Insightful

      RTFA, Poole wasn't talking about piracy. At all. He was talking about how a "pay what you like" business model is only viable for established names, while everyone else has to set a price. Poole doesn't have a problem with eBooks as a concept. Actually, neither is Pogue for about 95% of his article.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  14. Re:That may be true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    When you consider the average American moves every 7 years
    That explains the weight problems in the States! DAILY exercise people, daily!
  15. Little Brother by davidpfarrell · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm guessing Cory Doctorow might have something to say in regards to Pogue's sentiments.

    The link is to the main page for Cory's "Little Brother" which is hitting its 4th week on the bestseller list.

    And there is a link to download the eBook right there on the page.

    --
    Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
  16. Paper books can't be pirated by ass... by Rakishi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've seen some lovely torrents filled with thousands of OCRed versions of paper books. All you need I'm assuming is an auto-feed scanner, some nice paper cutting equipment and decent OCR software.

    In other words if your book is popular it will be pirated without too much difficult no matter what format it's in. If it's not popular than likely no one will care enough to pirate it no matter what format it's in. On the other hand if I can't easily get an non-pirated copy of you book then well the pirated version will be tempting simply because its more convenient.

  17. Converting is not pirating by breem42 · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    Changing a document (or an audio or video track) to another format is not pirating, even if you circumvent copy protection in the process. If you were to copy the item and then sell it, or make it available via internet that would be copyright infringement.

    --
    If the answer is war, you are asking the wrong question
  18. Real-World research has proven Mr. Pogue wrong... by Marful · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Baen Publishing (Baen.com) has been offering most of their books FOR FREE on their website for years.

    Here is what Eric Flint has to say about ebooks and piracy:

    Baen Books is now making available â" for free â" a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online â" no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )

    Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.

    The first is what you might call a "matter of principle." This all started as a byproduct of an online "virtual brawl" I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.

    There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!

    Alles in ordnung!

    I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

    1. Online piracy â" while it is definitely illegal and immoral â" is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

    2. Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc.

    3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market â" especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people â" is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

    In the course of this debate, I mentioned it to my publisher Jim Baen. He more or less virtually snorted and expressed the opinion that if one of his authors â" how about you, Eric? â" were willing to put up a book for free online that the resulting publicity would more than offset any losses the author might suffer.

    The minute he made the proposal, I realized he was right. After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And â" hey, whaddaya know? â" over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!

    And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

    Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, t

  19. Foiled my plan by wildem · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I love reading great books and some are either way overpriced or the hold on them in the library is 50 plus long. If a book is on the shelf and I can physically pick it up , guess what , I'll read it in store for free. What's his answer to that ?? Turn down the lights in the book store to stop me from reading the damn book.

    Write a good book, price it well and people will support you so that you won't have to pander to the copyright zealots.

  20. Serious flaw in his thinking by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do we really need to point out the obvious -- that perhaps David Pogue's books are more popular than whatever this guy is talking about?

    I don't get too many people copying photos from my site, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of Ansel Adams' photos scattered around the net in violation of copyright.

    If David Pogue doesn't want to risk a loss in sales because of piracy of ebooks, then at least he has simply decided not to make an ebook available, rather than jump on the pro-DRM bandwagon. He has to put food on the table and it's his reasonable right to make such a decision.

    Of course, as many of the comments here already confirm, I'm sure this forum will simply end up twisting this into some sort of anti-Pogue, anti-DRM argument, making him out to be the same as the RIAA. I mean, look at WallyBeerDrinker and his knee-jerk comment about libraries (which I would normally agree with, BTW), or d34thm0nk3y.

  21. Dadiv pogue already replied to these criticisms by sentientbrendan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Check out his article, which I found to be pretty intelligent.

    http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/readers-have-their-say-in-the-e-publishing-debate/#more-475

    I have to say that his argument is fairly well reasoned.

  22. "unbreakable copy protection"? by urcreepyneighbor · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From the article:

    Actually, authors like me are lucky; our work is, at this point, pretty much protected with unbreakable copy protection. That is, our bound and published books can't be duplicated infinitely and distributed by the millions online. Speaking as someone that has personally scanned well over a hundred books (I have no life... seriously... sadly), all I can say is: never underestimate the length a person with OCD will go.

    Never. :)

    The only form of "unbreakable copy protection" (in the sense used by the author of the article) is security thru obscurity. Ha!
    --
    "The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
  23. Control of work vs being paid for it by syousef · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The problem I have with copyright and IP law in general is much less to do with compensating the creator (Why a creator should be compensated every time their work is used, when the work is only done once is a whole other issue). My main issue is that it gives someone the artificial right to control something they've created. If a plumber does a job for you he doesn't then get to tell you how the pipes may be used, or dictate when you can shower or use the toilet. (Perhaps I shouldn't give plumbers ideas). Why should a an author or other media creator, or inventor have this level of control? IP law lets the creator deny innovative use of his or her creation outright, or charge through the nose for it. The trouble is we've grown up being taught that this control is a right and all our laws are based on it. Not just for original works but also derived works. It's so wasteful it's insane.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Control of work vs being paid for it by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    2. Re:Control of work vs being paid for it by pintpusher · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A better analogy is an architect/builder or a design/build construction firm. The design/build team "creates" a house, or in the case of a tract development, "creates" many copies of the essentially the same house. They then sell these houses. The people who buy these houses can do whatever the hell they want with them, including, if they want, any of the following:

      * sell the house
      * modify the house
      * give the house away for free
      * take measurements of the house and build, sell or give away a duplicate.

      and probably some more...

      All this can be done without any recourse by the design/build team that "created" the house. Once the house is sold to the first buyer, all bets are off.

      Now, I don't suggest that this is necessarily a great analogy (and the plumbing one isn't either, IMO), but I think it shows the problem with IP. The reason this analogy fails is because the cost of "creating" the initial house is fully recouped in the first sale. In the case of IP, generally that is not possible. If it takes an author a year of full-time work to write a novel, it is hardly reasonable to expect the first copy to sell for $30, $50, $75K to compensate that author for a year's labor.

      In the past, this was no big deal because only a few could actually afford to typeset, print, bind, and distribute books in the first place. And in that situation, copyright works, more or less. When the cost to distribute copies falls through the floor, as it has, then there needs to be another way to compensate authors for their labor.

      I certainly don't have a solution to this problem, but I think that since the reality is that most people prefer to read paper books over electronic ones, at the moment, the right solution is something like what Baen has done. DRM just won't cut it. You have to rely on the fact that people really prefer paper, and that people are generally reasonably honest.

      And the cost per copy needs to be commensurate as well. While I think it's great that some authors get stinking rich, it's much more reasonable, and probably better for society, for authors to make a modest, but comfortable living from their continued efforts. That means that they need to earn a decent living for continuing to produce works. With the ease of modern distribution, and the potentially huge audiences now available, it doesn't make sense to sell a few copies at really high prices. That only encourages piracy. Much better, I think, is to sell the copies very inexpensively, gambling that you will sell lots of them and get a reasonable income come it. This could also offset the softening of demand that is inevitable because of dead-tree book pricing these days.

      I think all this has been said before...

      --
      man, I feel like mold.
  24. Two Things Not mentioned by Pogue or this article by cmacb · · Score: 4, Informative

    are the significant differences between fiction books and technical references. In the threads here someone mentions cheap paperbacks, being dropped at the beach, not worth stealing etc. All true for casual fiction. But much of this does not apply to what is mostly a reference book on some hardware/software.

    For such reference materials there are two sides to this story:

    A particularly good reference work that is about a particularly popular and long lasting subject would of course be worth getting in electronic form for free, especially if the 500-page tomb costs $50 and up retail (as such books often do). But I've bought my share of these and have (or had) bookshelves full of such reference works that I could often get my employer to buy, or claim as a deduction while consulting etc.

    On the other hand, I've bought quite a few of these reference book and ended up not using them a single time. I could just as well wait until I had a question on a particular subject and taken pen and paper into the nearest Barnes and Noble and written down the answer. I bought these books "just in case" as I'm sure many people do when they get a new OS or new kind of gadget that they think they might need some help with. Would Pogue or authors like him be willing to give refund for unused copies of his book? I rather doubt it.

    I think if Pogue as more of a humorist than anything else, his books pretend to be reference works, but like his NYTimes articles are generally more like stand-up routines, long on wit, short on actual information. He is probably a special case, and as such, might not want to be held up to a true usefulness test.

    Light reading, not worth stealing? Sure print it in cheap paperback and let people drop it at the beach.

    Hard info, repeated reference material? Might do better as a paid subscription service online. People would pay to get the info they need and the more that service proved useful the more they would try and us it. Furthermore, in this form, the more likely it would be that you could support the content with ads rather than subscriptions. That's the direction the world is going for technical info, which means that Pogue should milk his job at NYT for all it is worth. More people are using tools on the web now and expecting to find answers on the web as well, either included with the tool, or for free elsewhere. We aren't abandoning books to save the rain forests, we are abandoning them to use something better and more convenient. Just as I'd rather be typing this than writing it out in long-hand with a fountain pen, I'd rather solve my next puzzling OS X conundrum by doing a Google search than thumbing through fifty dusty books on my bookshelf. In the not too distant future, you will sell your "books" online, or not at all.

  25. What just happened? by fishthegeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I followed the links after RTFA and ended up on Doctorows website, Started reading the blurb on his book "Little Brother", downloaded the palm ebook and purchased the audio book. I can't tell if I'm really interested in the book or if I just fell for the most frakin clever slashvertisement of all time.

    --
    load "$",8,1
  26. Ebooks not pirated? by Auldclootie · · Score: 3, Informative

    A quick scan through the popular torrent sites will enable you to download up to 50,000 books in a dozen or so torrents. Even allowing for the quick scan through to delete the rubbish - that is still a decent sized library. SCRIBD/Baen/Gutenberg et al prove there is a market for ebooks. My own uploads to SCRIBD have had more tha 80,000 views in the last few weeks and they are nothing special... All these - 'smell and feel of a book' people are just Luddites. I love my dead tree library too - but its not portable. My Hanlin book reader holds several thousand books on a 2gb SD card - it is DRM free, lightweight, comfortable to read anywhere - including in direct sunlight, reads a multitude of formats and has adjustable font sizes. It turns 9,000 pages before a charge is needed and can be left on indefinitely - it uses no power to leave the display on for weeks as the screen is e-ink/paper. It runs on Wolf Linux and is the only practical way for someone like me who like reading (but is always traveling) to get a print fix... E-books are the future - like it or not - and sooner the better - especially for the text book industry which is well overdue for euthanasia...

  27. PDF is the way to go by Orion+Blastar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    because it is cheaper to create a PDF and sell that, than print out a lot of paperback or hardcopy books.

    The #1 reason why people pirate a book is cost, but a PDF book is relatively cheap next to a paper book, and Lulu.com knows that and helps people self publish ebooks in PDF format for really cheap, cheaper than a paper publisher would charge.

    I am a big Traveller fan, and Far Future and Marc Miller are putting Traveller V5 in PDF format and selling the CD. Actually they have T5 in PDF format on the Citizens of the Imperium forums only available to people like me who paid for T5 in advance and let us become beta testers for the new gaming system and allow us to give feedback on the new T5 changes. Oddly enough, the T5 PDF files, while not copy protected or even watermarked, never found their way to file sharing networks unlike a lot of old RPG and Gaming materials already have. Most Traveller fans don't want Traveller to die out, so they refuse to pirate the PDF files for T5 and Mongoose Traveller, despite a lot of the Classic Traveller, etc stuff already been scanned and put on file sharing networks already.

    In some cases, piracy of the Classic Traveller materials got enough people interested in the new T5 materials to buy them, and some even buy the Classic Traveller CD set from Far Future to support Traveller and make sure that it survives to the new settings and new T5 system.

    Besides Google has Google Books that has a lot of books available online for free and while you cannot read a whole book you can search through it enough to find what you need so that you don't have to buy the book. Even if their are partial previews, they allow enough info to learn what you need and you can search through the book, chapter by chapter, and in theory read the whole book for free. I don't really see a difference between reading a book for free in Google Books or downloading it from a file sharing network for free before actually buying the book later to have a hard copy and see if you like the book enough to buy it. In a library or book store you can read the whole book for free anyway. Then decide to buy it or not, based on how you like it.

    In that way Piracy actually helps people decide what they want to buy, provided they like it enough to buy it after previewing it. I myself have bought books for $20 to $55 or more, then finding out later that the book was useless or I didn't like it, but I was stuck with it and out of money and had to buy a different book that was better. Reviews really don't help, as people are paid to shill for a book and write a good review even if the book is horrible. Besides the person who liked the book and wrote a review, might not like the same things that I or anyone else likes to see in a book.

    --
    Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
  28. Re:Two Things Not mentioned by Pogue or this artic by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Informative

    Might do better as a paid subscription service online.

    Which is exactly what Pogue does with his books. They're on Safari. While not perfect - the site's a bit slow and clunky and it's really too expensive to justify ($40 / month for unlimited access, $20 / month for access limited to, I believe, 10 books) it is a useful reference site for computer related stuff.

    It is more how I use his, and others, reference books. It's pretty rare that I want to read a reference book cover to cover and it's rare that any given computer reference book is really valuable for more than a year or two. If O'Reilly cut their subscription prices down a bit and sped up and cleaned up the site a bit, it would really be a great model for authors like Mr. Pogue, assuming he gets some sort of cut on the subscriptions.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  29. My own book by BigBadBus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have written my own book, and I too worry about piracy. There is no guarantee that once the ebook is emailed or sent out on CD, it won't be distributed illegally, cutting down on the profits. How can you stop a pdf file from being distributed illegally? You can't. Of course, if you were to go the "traditional" route, and have a book bound, that would eat into your profits, but would deter pirates; who would want to spend ages at a scanner or a photocopier copying a whole bound book? Or, you could go even more traditional, and do what I didn't do, which is get your book published by a publishing house. But the money you get out of them unless you are an established author is pitiful; based on what another author receives, its about 6%. The publishing house takes most of the money. No, the odds are stacked against ebook authors, and even more highly stacked against self-publishers. The fact that magazines, google books etc. won't even look at your book unless you have an ISBN (which are sold at extortionate prices and in blocks of 10!) doesn't help.

    --
    My web domain.