Slashdot Mirror
What Can I Do About Book Pirates?
peterwayner writes "Six of the top ten links on a Google search for one of my books point to a pirate site when I type in 'wayner data compression textbook.' Others search strings actually locate pages that are selling legit copies including digital editions for the Kindle. I've started looking around for suggestions. Any thoughts from the Slashdot crowd? The free copies aren't boosting sales for my books. Do I (1) get another job, (2) sue people, or (3) invent some magic spell? Is society going to be able to support people who synthesize knowledge or will we need to rely on the Wikipedia for everything? I'm open to suggestions."
I do this with my book Free for All . It's a great success if you measure success by the number of people who read my work. But it's contributed zero to my income since I released it in electronic form. No one asks if they can buy printed versions.
There is a slight way to measure the effect. Used versions trade on Amazon and they've stayed at roughly the same price.
BTW, I've read the electronic version on a Palm and it's very easy to read. This may have been a viable strategy during the TRS-80 years, but not during the iPhone years. I wouldn't be surprised if the iPhone has better resolution than some of the sketchy laser printers I've seen.
Here's a textbook on Data Compression, Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms that's five years old.
It's freely available online, from the author. And here comes the shocking bit: It's fun to read.
he is still expecting to get money for something that is already rendered obsolete
Actually, I'm not. I just wish that anyone who still showed an interest in my book would be shown directly to a place where they could actually pay for it. And I wish that they wouldn't be tempted with all of the Torrent sites.
I know the book is ten years old. I'm not surprised that someone may have written a better book. I would just like the book to be treated fairly.
In the end, my needs are inconsequential. The problem is that the better authors who write the newer books are going to be affected even more by piracy. And then they're going to do something else. So you can blame my book all you want, but we're all going to be hurt when the better books disappear.