Heads up to Harlequin authors. An anonymous source forwarded me a link (which I am so not going to republish because why should they get traffic?) to a site illegally offering free eBook copies of Harlequin novels. The site has multiple listings of a month’s worth of books in one file, and fields requests for books by title.
If you’d like to email me, I can send you the link so you can look for your book there. If an author finds that her book is being offered illegally, she needs to report the individual title to Harlequin.
The original email came from an author’s loop and the author of the original message suggests a rather sharp and brilliant method for tracking potential piracy: create a Google:Alert for the title of your book, and for your name or pseudonym. Google will email you daily, or as frequently as you wish, any search results that match your alert terms. Unfortunately, I do not know who wrote the original email that I received, but whoever you are – that’s a damn smart idea for any author published in eBook format, so mad props to you.
And good luck to any Harlequin author who finds her pirated eBook offered illegally.
UPDATE: RWA National just sent out a members-only alert about the issue.
I always have big issues with “secure†formtas, and if it all comes down to that, I am afraid I will never buy ebooks again. I read ebooks for convenience, not to have a fight with the software every time I try to open my purchased ebook, or figure out how many more times can I open the book, or about the license, etc.
This is exactly why I only recently started buying iTunes music again. They stopped the crappy DRM junk. If it does not have a + next to it. I don’t buy.
I am also the same way with eBooks I might read a DRM’d eBook but no review.
I will not support or promote someone’s paranoia or locking a reader into a single format.
If a person who takes an item(like a book) that was for sale, without paying, should not be referred to as a thief, then what? It seems to me that objecting to a label like that is adding insult to injury, suggesting that not only does this person not want to pay money, but they don’t even want to have to face disapproval. Come on. If someone wants to be not lumped in with people who do things that are illegal, then they have the choice of not breaking those laws. I’m not getting where people see a grey area in this.
As another note, as far as I can tell, it isn’t completely easy for one to go about sharing a legally purchased e-book. When you purchase an e-book from Harlequin or many of those other places, the file is DRM protected, which basically means it bonds itself to your computer. If you were to send the file as it is to someone else, they wouldn’t be able to read its contents because the file would be able to tell the difference between their computer and yours.
As far as I know, most of the formats that legal e-books are offered in aren’t easy to rid of their DRM…
I can only assume that a large portion of the books online are scanned page by page. These people much have too much time on their hands. X)
Downloading pirated books is stealing, plain and simple.
If you are that poor, there are libraries. Or you can visit a UBS. I’m a big supporter of both, but there’s a huge difference between libraries and used bookstores, which may have a few copies of said item, and an internet site that allows downloads to hundreds of users, and for a fee.
Giving a book to a friend to read is sharing. Taking it off an internet pirate site, like thousands of others, is stealing.
It grieves me to see talented authors like Leslie Kelly who have to get together their resume, after 10 years in this business, because of economics. I’m with her. Feed the teenager!
I’ve personally mailed, out of my own pocket, books of mine to readers who write to me and say they love my work but they are “economically challenged” and charged no cost. I do it because I love this genre, and if a reader can’t find my books or she’s on a limited budget, I want to work with them. I’ll go out of my way to find a UBS that carries my books, or a library, or finally mail it to them.
I work very hard to create the books I write, and I also work a demanding day job because romance writing alone won’t pay the bills. Seeing my work on this site pissed me off to no end.
I’ll be damned if I support anyone downloading books on a pirated site. If you’re so interested in my books, or other Harlequin authors, visit a site like paperback swap.com. It’s a wonderful trading internet spot, for free, and you can get a book legitimately, and not risk the wrath of Harlequin’s legal department.
I hope Harlequin is able to nail their butts to the wall, but like someone else said, they’ll vanish and reappear somewhere else.
I went to the site and read a few of the books. I haven’t read Harlequin since high school, and certainly wouldn’t purchase any of the books now. I think it’s erroneous to assume that the people who are downloading the free ebooks would have purchased the books had they not been otherwise available on the site. They’re not really losing a whole lot of money here.
“I went to the site and read a few of the books. I haven’t read Harlequin since high school, and certainly wouldn’t purchase any of the books now. I think it’s erroneous to assume that the people who are downloading the free ebooks would have purchased the books had they not been otherwise available on the site. They’re not really losing a whole lot of money here.”
Uhhhh, the point is they are stealing! It doesn’t matter if the book is 1 cent, that belongs to the author. Like Nora said, it does end up being alot of money.
Think of the sites like a library then. Everyone who is interested can read thousands of books for free. SOMEONE bought the original book in order to be able to post it, so basically they’re acting like a librarian and sharing with the rest. It’s not stealing if the buy a book and let their friends read it too.
“Uhhhh, the point is they are stealing! It doesn’t matter if the book is 1 cent, that belongs to the author. Like Nora said, it does end up being alot of money.”
My point is they you’re using some really fuzzy math. If the 10 people who downloaded a book would never have purchased the book had downloading never been invented, the author has lost nothing.
Think of the sites like a library then. Everyone who is interested can read thousands of books for free. SOMEONE bought the original book in order to be able to post it, so basically they’re acting like a librarian and sharing with the rest. It’s not stealing if the buy a book and let their friends read it too
Except a library only gives one copy to one person at a time. Pirate sites give 1 copy to thousands of people at one time. Not even comparable.
—SOMEONE bought the original book in order to be able to post it, so basically they’re acting like a librarian and sharing with the rest. It’s not stealing if the buy a book and let their friends read it too.—
A single paperback library book, or one distributed through a UBS can be read by how many people before it falls apart and has to be re-purchased. 10? 20? Maybe even push it and say it lands in the hands of 50 people before it falls apart (I’d like to see any paperback book that could hold up to 50 readings.)
How does that possibly compare to someone plunking down 4 bucks and then sharing that book with 2000 of their “closest friends” on the internet?
And how should I feel about those 2000 readers while I’m pocketing the 24 cents I made on the one and only sale?
PS: It’s not just Harlequin books. It affects everyone.
—My point is they you’re using some really fuzzy math. If the 10 people who downloaded a book would never have purchased the book had downloading never been invented, the author has lost nothing.—
Sorry, I find your math fuzzy. Just because you would never be interested in reading “those Harlequin books” under any circumstances, that does not mean other readers wouldn’t.
Let’s split the difference and say half wouldn’t. Or even 1/3. When you’re looking in the tens of thousands of copies like somebody like Nora is, that’s still a whole lot of lost sales.
This is disheartening, especially since I have so many of Ms. Kelly’s books on my bookshelf.
According to a study commissioned in Canada in 2005, the average annual salary of a writer is LESS THAN $9000. That’s below the poverty line.
So, what about the people who are “sharing” books that aren’t even released yet?
Almost forgot…
Libraries that lend out ebooks lend one copy to one reader at a time and only give you a specific window in which to read them. After, in the case of my library, 3 weeks, the file expires and “removes” itself from your computer.
Libraries do NOT let their tens or hundreds of thousands of users download an ebook and keep it indefinitely.
The thing is: if a library buys a book and then lends it out, that book, for a certain amount of time, is no longer on the library shelves. Only one person can read it. With a digital copy for that to apply, I’d have to physically give someone my PDA or my computer.
Now when these sites open up access to a file, it doesn’t mean when someone downloads that file, it disappears from my computer and goes into theirs. When they download it, it creates two copies and the author does NOT get paid for the second copy.
It’s the exact same thing as if I lend a book to a friend and she returns it OR I make a copy of the entire book and give it to her.
It’s stealing and it’s cheating the author of hard-earned wages.
For those who don’t think piracy is theft, I offer Title 17 of the US Code for your reading pleasure:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
I particularly recommend “Chapter 5. Copyright Infringement and Remedies” in which it states (in part):
“(c) Statutory Damages. —
(1) Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.
(2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.”
Theft of copyright can be very expensive for the perpetrator.
Needless to say, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I am merely a librarian, who knows where to find info on the Copyright Law.
(security word: boy55—Gee, do I get that many????)
I can see both sides of this debate.
1. Making money off unauthorised copies of someone’s work is wrong.
2. On the other hand, a ll the music I have bought in the last decade has been as a direct result of downloading one or more tracks first (I do not keep music I have no intention of purchasing).The only book I’ve downloaded for free off the Internet was the last Harry Potter (mainly to confirm that I wouldn’t pay good money for it).
4. Libraries exist to provide free access to books. Unfortunately, especially where I live, their selection is extremely limited, and their acquisitions dept seemingly doesn’t give a shit about listening to their patrons’ suggestions (for example, the city centre library in Canberra, Australia, has 5 books by Nora Roberts on their shelves (including the J.D. Robbs – they don’t seem interested in acquiring more).
5. Publishers charge way too much for e-books. Why on earth should I pay as much as a dead tree edition? Nora mentions $1.20 in royalties. Double that for production costs, and I can’t see why an e-book costs more than $US5. Add to that the annoyance of DRM, which means I can’t transfer my copy of the book to whatever device I want to read it on (and DRM doesn’t stop piracy, as we know).
6. A lot of people download pirated copies for the same reason I do music – to have a free preview; to have an e-version of a hardcopy they already own; an authorised copy costs a ridiculous amount of money and can’t be transferred between devices.
7. A lot of other people take the piss and download way more than they should (ie. they have no intention of purchasing a “hard copy” of whatever it is they’ve obtained)
8. Readily-available books certainly benefit by word-of-mouth.
9. Publishers have been crap at making their books readily available electronically. Not only are there the cost and DRM problems, but also the fact there can be significant delays in releasing an e-version, where one exists.
What’s the solution? Make e-books a reasonable cost and without the annoying DRM (which generally means you must have a certain device or OS to read the book). Most people prefer to do things legally where they can, and support the artists whose work they consume (or else there wouldn’t be much art going on!) Of course, you’ll never get rid of the something-for-nothing crowd, but if the real stuff is more readily available, those morons would become by far the minority.
Maybe someone could start up an online “lending-library”? You have a subscription for the site, and a $5 credit allows you to read 5 or so books online. Once you’ve “activated” the book you want to read, you have 30 days to read it. Obviously, there could be different “prices” for different books (more popular books should probably require more credit to read). There should probably be some e-commerce tie-in so that subscribers could buy the books they wanted permanently (with perhaps the lending credit subtracted from the price).
And would any mainstream publishers go for that kind of scheme? Probably not, given their level of interest in providing online reading at reasonable cost – the only publisher I can think of who tries is Baen. Maybe one day more will see the obvious benefits.
economic52 – very apt.
This ignores pretty much ALL of the nuances of what I said, like the conflation between swapping and piracy (conflation! drink up!), the occasional upside to people getting their mitts on free copies (illicit or not), and my belief that artists have the right to determine how their work is used.
Topics like these (plagiarism, abortion, race relations, socialized healthcare) tend to bring out the HOLY SHIT IT’S BLACK AND WHITE in all of us, I think. I just don’t think it’s that simple, and I was seeing a lot of “OMG PIRACY BAD!” rhetoric that was making me uncomfortable, so I thought I’d throw out some opinions that acknowledge a lot more grey. If I didn’t have easy and ready access to free music and videos, I can think of any number of artists who wouldn’t have gotten my money. (In the past year alone: Belle and Sebastian, Stephen Colbert, Rogue Wave, Band of Horses, Broken Social Scene, Annuals and Mythbusters are some of the people whose products I’ve purchased because I fell in love with what I’d downloaded or viewed for free on the Internet.)
I’m not disagreeing that the website that’s mass-distributing the e-books is engaging in piracy and shouldn’t be shut down, by the way. It sounds like they are, and they should have their asses kicked. And I’m not arguing that at least a good proportion of the people taking advantage of the pirated e-books are evil bastards as defined by Scalzi. Authors who want to pursue this to the fullest extent, including litigation: Go for it. It’s your right.
I’m trying to introduce some grey into the mix.
And to me, certain sorts of file-sharing and downloading on the internet are distinguishable from plagiarism because dude, when I download a Muse song, I’m not attempting to re-label it as Candy’s Awesometastic Band What Sounds Kind of Like Radiohead (if Radiohead Rocked Out Really Hard) and profit from it. I’m checking it out to see if the music is to my taste, and whether I like them enough to buy their CD or to keep their music kicking around for listening to maybe once or twice a year or to delete from my hard disk entirely. This behavior is different from large-scale copying and re-selling, which is much closer, ethically, to plagiarism.
Speaking of Radiohead: their experiment with In Rainbows (offer the MP3s with no DRM, no strings attached and allow the fans to pay as much or as little they wanted—including absolutely nothing) has netted them quite a bit of money. I paid US$5 to download the whole album. From what I’ve read, the vast majority paid at least something for the MP3s, with the average price paid being about £4. (Those of you who are going to point out that this is different from piracy or file-sharing because Radiohead made a conscious choice to offer their work in this format: Yes, I know. I still think the behavior of their fans illustrates what Scalzi and O’Reilly talk about.)
More thoughts after reading all the comments:
I’m seeing some strands of thought that, again, touch on extremes.
1. It’s OK to download and read the illicit free copies of books because shit, I wouldn’t have paid for that anyway.
2. It’s not OK to download and read the illicit free copies of books because you’re depriving the author of the money she would’ve earned if the readers had bought legal copies.
These two scenarios ignore, of course, the people who read the illicit copy and who, if they like it enough, will buy an actual copy if they can afford it—who are the people Scalzi and O’Reilly are talking about, and who, they argue, make up the majority of people who engage in small- to medium-scale downloading and swapping.
Trix and whey in particular have it bang on the money, in my opinion. Whey did a great job in pointing out that there’s a difference between the act of engaging in piracy itself vs. reacting to the issue. Trix is right, too, about cumbersome DRM being a huge incentive for people to download illicit copies. I was extremely excited about iTunes when it first came out and bought a few albums’ worth of songs—and then I found how cumbersome and unmanageable the DRM made the files. I gave up on it in short order and have gone back to downloading DRM-free music from various sources (most of them kosher, a few of them not-so-kosher) and ripping CDs I’ve borrowed from friends and the library.
I’m generally uninterested in reading eBooks (I don’t have a proper device, and don’t have the money for one), and the various observations by various commenters about the unwieldiness of the DRM makes me even less interested.
Electronic files are tricky, aren’t they? I mean, borrowing a paper copy of a book from the library or a buddy is one thing, but it’s not strictly analogous to swapping files with a friend, is it? I don’t have a complete and perfect copy of, say, A Primate’s Memoir kicking around my bookshelves (which reminds me: I need to buy a keeper copy of that book some time, because holy crap I love it), but I do have copies of pretty much all the music I’ve borrowed that I’ve decided is worth listening to more than once.
As someone who has downloaded files (both music and e-book) from the internet, illegally, all I can say is: if there weren’t for those copies, I never would have bought some CDs, or even heard for some bands that I absolutely adore now.
Here is also a thing that happened to me recently: I bought an e-book from Samhain, which was in fact a part two of an ongoing story arc. I read it, and was thrilled! But, what about part one? Where is it? At first I thought I overlooked it somewhere, so I went back to Samhain and checked again. Nothing. So I’m thinking: “Maybe they published part two before part one accidentally, who knows? Maybe it’s going to be released soon.â€
Then I start searching that list, and nothing.
Dude.
This is where I’m starting to get pissed. I wanna know what happened before the events in book two, but where is the book one? Aha! E-bay. (But I gotta say I loathe E-bay.)
To cut this long and boring story of mine short, there was no book one, not even on E-bay. One of my friends suggests searching for a sharing site; I go there and download that book in maybe 20 minutes. Before that, I spent app. a week and a half on that book search, in libraries, online stores and the publisher’s site.
I will totally buy that book if it ever comes out published, because I read it already, and can say I consider myself a fan. But if the author in question came to me, and told me I am a thief… I’d say good riddance to you, too. Not because I think there’s nothing wrong with illegal copies and file sharing, but because I consider what I did as reading an advanced copy of the book I plan to buy when/if it ever comes out.
Sorry about being boring.
P.S. The author doesn’t have that first book mentioned at all on her site. Like it never existed… Creepy.
I hate to wander into the lion’s den and yank on his tail but I have to point out that this isn’t a remotely new problem. In fact drawing attention to the situation can only make it worse. It took me two seconds on Google to find a newsgroup with ebooks for download. The link in question will mirror fifty more just like it. The genie is well out of the bottle.
There will always be people out there who download this stuff en-mass and then strain their eyes to read it but the majority of readers (IMO) want a book in their hands. That gives the publishing industry an advantage the music industry will never have again. The lost revenue from readers who would have bought the book if a pirated copy wasn’t available just can’t compare to an industry selling sound.
Not making light of the situation just putting it in context.
Many pirated reads (again, IMO) are people who don’t want to pay money until they know what their getting. Everybody knows what it’s like to read the back blurb, hope for the best get burned with a stinker. This leads to two problems. One: they read a bit, realize it’s shit or not their style and move on. Two: They read a bit, realize it’s great and get sucked in to the last page. Both equal no revenue for the author though there is always option three: They read it, realize it’s awesome and go buy a copy.
Another reason for pirating copies is simple economics. As people have less and less money for non-essential things they can’t go out and buy the latest Nora. I think the majority of readers honestly want to do the right thing but when there is no money they have to go a different route. And before someone jumps on me shouting LIBRARY!!!- I don’t think the average person sees moral distinction between the two.
The main thing the publishing industry can do is make the problem work for them in some way. Harlequin has made use of freely offered e-books (presumably) to showcase unknown authors or ones who need to find a new audience. A publishers version of top 40 radio: Entice people with a good read and send them to their local Borders for more of the same.
A better idea is to make the fist chapter/s of all their new releases freely available in one file. Hell, advertise it in the back flap of every new book. I can’t think of a more devious and useful selling tool. New writers and proven sellers all given just enough space to grab your attention and leave you hanging for more.
So, if someone will probably buy the book later, it’s okay.
If someone wouldn’t have bought the book anyway (in direct opposition to justification first) it’s okay.
If they’re in a financial crunch but want the book, it’s okay.
If they want to be sure they’ll like the book first, it’s okay.
If they consider the piracy site their library, it’s okay.
If someone thinks the publishers charge too much for a book, it’s okay.
If someone considers it a kind of promotion for the book/author, it’s okay.
Illegally downloading a book, uploading a book, using or supporting a piracy site is okay because (see above list). For these reasons, and others I may not have listed, it’s okay not to compensate the author, and all the other people who put time and effort into producing the book, for the work.
It’s okay to do something wrong because—see above list.
Those who use and support piracy sites don’t want writers to object. It’s illegal, but it’s not black and white because—see above list—and writers shouldn’t say, hey, wait a minute. That’s stealing. Because it’s offensive to those who indulge.
This goes back to that sense of entitlement again. I’m entitled to do this because. To which I’ll continue to respond: It’s stealing. It’s costing me and my colleagues.
Amazing to think that people who are downloading books or music illegally are frequently huge fans who spend a great deal of money and that maybe marketing to them may be more desirable for someone wanting to stay in business in the long run than otherwise indulging in name calling or implying they are thieves.
I think there is a huge difference between someone selling something illegally and someone simply sharing/finding a file to download but I’ve been around for a while.
I find I am more interested in the “if and/or why” the customer can not buy the product at a reasonable price in the form they are downloading it as off these sites than immediately yelling at them for ripping me off.
If you want to make a distinction between swapping and pirating, let’s make it easy.
If you are willing to truly swap electronic files by deleting your copy when you pass it on, then authors will have a lot less problem supporting you. You buy one. Do what you want with it.
But you do not buy an infinite supply.
I am willing to accept a gray area in moving the file between devices in your own possession. As someone who still has a cabinet full of Beta videos, I understand the problem.
But once you decide to pass the book on to a friend, you need to delete all of your copies. Otherwise, it’s the same as putting my book on the Xerox machine, and hitting the button. There is nothing morally ambiguous about that.
And as for pirating books as a way to generate future sales, and comparisons to the music industry?
We are not like the music industry.
There is no way for an author to make up lost sales income by touring, or playing small venues for rent and groceries. You are not going to pay to see us writing at your local tavern. We can’t do a has-beens-of-romance tour. We will not make this back on t-shirt sales.
Some of us have books that are only in print for a few months. If you don’t buy it then, you aren’t going to get a chance later. So any pirating that occurs in that brief time we are on sale is not going to increase sales for that book next year, when you have the money. When it’s off the shelf, we get no more royalties for it. Buying it at a UBS does not give us income, and does not add to our sales numbers.
Pirating cuts into sales numbers. And authors with low sales numbers get dropped by their publishers as a bad risk. Sometimes, it only takes one book. Sometimes two. In publishing, a new author is not likely to get a third chance to prove she has an audience.
The new talent that you want to support is going to be hardest hurt, if you are making copies of their books.
The slow ground swell of support from a couple thousand people who will buy us when they ‘have the money’ is not going to help us save a fledgling career, if publishers think we’re tanking. We might not be there, when you are ready to buy. We will have taken a day job, because we can’t afford to live on dreams.
I have nothing particular to add to this discussion; I can see both sides of the argument.
It does remind me though: I went into Borders in the late morning a while ago, found the latest book by an author I liked, grabbed a latte at the in-store Starbucks and started reading. That afternoon, I finished the book, and bought it because I enjoyed it. I wonder if there are others who do a similar thing, but don’t buy the book afterwards?
“I went into Borders in the late morning a while ago, found the latest book by an author I liked, grabbed a latte at the in-store Starbucks and started reading. That afternoon, I finished the book, and bought it because I enjoyed it. I wonder if there are others who do a similar thing, but don’t buy the book afterwards?”
Yes. But Borders doesn’t mind, because they made more money selling you the latte, then they did selling you the book.
But if you didn’t buy, the author would get nothing.
Hate to come in late on this, but here’s my bottom line after reading the article and all the comments.
If you are reading pirated copies of books on these sites, you are not a fan.
A fan is someone who supports the artist, who enjoys the artist’s work and who respects the artist’s right to benefit financially from their work.
Authors have said here that pirated works hurt our bottom line and have given examples, with numbers, on how that works.
Yet some argue and refuse to believe it.
Authors are telling you that sales have dropped in the last few years and that careers are being cut short by that bottom line.
Yet some argue and refuse to believe it.
Authors are telling you in no uncertain terms that there is no excuse for piracy, that it is stealing and we don’t like to be stolen from.
Yet some argue and refuse to believe it.
You’re not a fan.
On the Metallica example—they fought because they knew it was hurting their bottom line. They were losing money. The entire music industry was. I contend that the music industry did not suffer because certain artists fought the piracy, but because the piracy continued and grew.
Piracy is wrong and I want to personally thank the readers who recognize this fact. You are fans. I appreciate the money that you spend to buy my books and/or the books of my fellow writers. I write for you. I hope that my books give you the pleasure and escape you have paid for.
For the rest—you have your own conscience to live with, I suppose. You can justify your actions however you like, but in the end, it is still wrong and when you can’t get as many books as you once could because of this thievery, you’ll know you’re the reason.
Someone up the way mentioned a “sense of entitlement” as being at the root of the piracy – an attitude of “gee, it’s on teh intrawebs 4 free…”
I have an acquaintance who is very techno-savvy. I’ve mentioned, “gee, I’d like that song/book/software program/*insert desire here*” and he says, “I can get that for you for free, just don’t ask.” Don’t ask, don’t tell. That makes me very itchy – itchy enough that I’ve refused his assistance.
There seems to be a prevailing attitude among the eGeneration that if they can find it free on the ‘net, they are entitled to it. Cracking software to download illegally within hours of its release is a holy grail of sorts. Cracking ANYTHING is, when push comes to shove.
Call me old fashioned and hidebound. *waves cane while yelling, “Get outta my yard” at the young hooligans* Or maybe it’s the years I spent in law enforcement where things are pretty much black and white. Trust me, these sites know they are illegal, as do the people who download from them. I have to side with Nora and Christine and all the other authors here.
I don’t care what your justifications are, if it’s illegal, why are you doing it? If no one used these sites, they wouldn’t stay in business – and trust me, it is a business. They don’t do it out of the generous goodness of their hearts.
On the Metallica example—they fought because they knew it was hurting their bottom line. They were losing money. The entire music industry was. I contend that the music industry did not suffer because certain artists fought the piracy, but because the piracy continued and grew.
You know that is a really enticing black and white argument.
Then I know personally that rock artists used to rant and rave about people bootlegging their concerts and taking pictures. You still get patted down going into the things because they do not want you taking pictures for free or recording the event.
The Grateful Dead however always made room front stage for picture takers and hell, they would even let you plug your recorders right into the sound board.
I have no doubt in my mind how much that goodwill and those fans kept them going for years without a top ten single in sight.
Now those same fan bootleg recordings are being used to keep their recording contracts going and the those albums are still selling well.
I am not saying you should ignore or allow all of this to go on. I am just saying I am more impressed by people who end up being smart about their reaction to piracy and managing it.
I don’t care about goodwill toward people who justify stealing from me. It’s ILLEGAL. You are not entitled, and I’m not going to look for ways to make it okay for you.
I make time for my readers. In all sorts of ways, over and above the actual writing. I believe, sincerely, I give back.
Want to take a picture at a signing, get the camera. Want a signed book for a charity event or auction, give me your address. If this sort of thing isn’t enough ‘good will’, I can’t help it.
I’m not going to try to twist an illegal act into a way to promote myself or make those who commit it happy.
Silver, Julie and Christine have said it all very clearly, and addressed many different points in the last three posts.
Those who don’t want to listen and to accept that piracy hurts us, won’t.
“The Grateful Dead however always made room front stage for picture takers and hell, they would even let you plug your recorders right into the sound board.”
What a great thing to do for those loyal fans who bought tickets to a Dead concert!
Oh, wait. You don’t have to buy a ticket to read a book.
Apples and oranges, again. The Dead got money from their fans by selling concert tickets. And if they were not getting radio play (which is another source of royalty income for musicians) they needed a way to get the music out, to create fans. So bootlegs were a source of advertising that sold the music, and the Deadhead experience, which generated tour income…
But the only source of income we authors have is royalties. It is nice to have a large fan base. But the only way we can afford to write is by actually selling a large number of books.
We will give away as much as we can, and direct people to UBS’s or other sources, to get the stories to the readers. For example in the post from “Why I am being insulted”, did you try sending an e-mail to that Samhain author, asking how to get the first book? I bet she’d have helped you find a legal copy, if it was at all possible.
But we are not currently working in an enviroment where we can allow strangers to give entire books away, hoping that the karma will balance out, and we will be able to afford to continue writing.
—There seems to be a prevailing attitude among the eGeneration that if they can find it free on the ‘net, they are entitled to it.—
Silver, as the parent of teenagers, I have to say amen to that. It’s a battle to change that attitude, to keep my kids from doing what I tell them is wrong when “all their friends are doing it.”
Have I found illegally downloaded music on their computers? Oh yeah. But does it stay there once I do? Oh no. I saw that as a right or wrong, black or white thing long before I was personally affected by the book piracy. I just don’t understand how anyone can say it’s not theft and it’s not wrong.
Teddy, that doesn’t mean I don’t see your point—that authors might be shooting themselves in the foot by (loudly) fighting it. People who are used to getting something for nothing will be angry if they can no longer get it. And probably more angry to be called thieves when they don’t even acknowledge they’re doing something wrong. (Or when they make tons of excuses for it.)
But I’ll just have to take that chance. Because what is the alternative? Should I just give in and say, “Yeah, sure, take me again, baby, I’m really happy with the 24 cents I made on the book that 2000 of you have read.” (No, this is not an exaggeration. The book I’m talking about that was scanned & pdf’d cost $4.00. I get 6% royalty. That’s 24 cents.)
This business is hard. I’m one of those struggling midlist authors who’s been dumped because of falling numbers. Not saying the piracy caused that (I am quite sure it didn’t) but it certainly didn’t help.
It also doesn’t help matters when you go to some of these places and see message board posts saying, “Oh, x’s new book is out! I’m dying to read it, can somebody upload it?” And the next day, during the brief 3-4 weeks that the category title is still in stores, 200 people have downloaded it for free. Many with “Oh, I love you love you love you, thanks so much!” messages to the person who put it up there.
This happened to me last month. When people are requesting the title because they’re “dying” for it (in my case, it was the culmination of a 6 book series) you cannot tell me they would never have bought it anyway so I’ve lost nothing.
So, no, I won’t just accept it. I will keep fighting it even if it is as futile as stomping on cockroaches in the dark in a filthy restaurant kitchen. Because the alternative is giving in, and I just don’t do that.
Apples and oranges, again.
I think it is more just a different era and a different medium. But the same lessons can be learned and adapted.
I liked what Radiohead did. They recognized what was happening and set about trying something to address it and please the fans and probably made some new ones.
You can either finger point at the Hydra or get smarter.
The husband just walked in and was reading over my shoulder. Brilliant legal mind that he is, he summed up the apples and oranges very succinctly. “It’s very similar to DVDs. You buy a DVD, it’s pretty much yours to do with as you please. You can loan it to a friend. You can play it in any DVD player and/or computer. BUT YOU CANNOT COPY IT and cannot sell it or give that copy away and you CANNOT charge admission to see it. If it isn’t okay for China to copy and bootleg DVDs, why is okay to upload scans of books or eBooks to the ‘net for free or ‘donation’ downloads?” [I knew there was a reason I married an attorney. :)]
Leslie, I remember the first non-fiction book I sold (small press). I got 10 cents a copy in royalty and actually made $90 one year. If it had been a title that 200 people downloaded for free (a dictionary of military terms for families and new service members isn’t exactly NYT best seller list material), yeah, that’s ONLY $20 bucks – but that’s a ream of paper, or printer ink, or postage…or half a tank of gas. People just don’t seem to get that the amount of money stolen from an author is not the issue, it’s the fact that it is STOLEN in the first place.
I do think downloading things for free that the authors didn’t wish to be downloadable for free is wrong, and stealing.
However, I also think that there need to be new, more direct and useful models for disseminating work in the digital age. One program I like as a reader is the Amazon shorts program. I don’t know how well this treats authors, but I have been THRILLED to pay .69 or whatever by credit card and download a short story by a favorite author. I think that there should be some kind of Print-on-Demand service available where readers could easily pay to purchase paper or digital copies of older books, for instance.
One thing online fans have certainly shown is a willingness to donate to support authors directly, especially authors who are involved online or who give stuff (like daily comics) away for free. Authors in the Early Modern era, if I recall correctly, received just advances – they wrote under a patronage system where a wealthy patron or publisher provided them with a sum of money in exchange for all rights to a book. I think perhaps the internet may eventually support a group of artist/writer/creators who essentially function under some modern form of patronage – their audience funds them directly rather than through buying copies that route money to a publisher that routes money to the author. But why should authors whose work has succeeded under the current system be chided for not wishing to adopt a new system? And why should we assume that any one system for funding artist work will ever work for everyone?
The fact that the current system is problematic does not mean that I am justified in committing actions considered as theft in the current system.
~You can either finger point at the Hydra or get smarter.~
See it just gets me that it would be considered stupid, or not smart, to object to an illegal activity that takes money out of my pocket.
To be expected or encouraged to take this bootlegged lemon and make lemonade for people who are stealing from me.
I have to say I think Christine’s illustrated, a couple of times, why this is NOT like the music industry.
I’m doing more than pointing my finger. I’m reporting it, my publishers are fighting it. Every single time I’m alerted to a piracy site, I’m going to report it.
Ginger, if you like those Amazon shorts, you might want to check out the eHarlequin minis.
For several yeras, Harlequin has published original, very short novellas on their website, offering them as free reads for the site visitors. The author gets paid a flat fee for the project. And I’ve done a few of them, fully knowing I wasn’t going to get any more money than what I was paid up front. I wasn’t doing it for the money, I was doing it for the exposure and the promotional benefits. It was work for hire, and I knew it.
Now they offer most of those formerly free reads as “minis” on their ebooks site, for, like, 80 cents or something. I don’t get paid for it, but you know what, that’s fine. I agreed to that. And I’m proud of those little stories—they’re a nice introduction to my writing, so hopefully anyone who buys one will like what they read and seek out my current books.
The point is, obviously, I agreed to those terms, I sold that product and gave up any rights to it, so I would never complain about it. My work, My decision.
Would I do it for a full-length book? Absolutely not. Again My work, My decision.
Someone else pirating my books and offering them freely to the masses is My work, THEIR decision.
And that’s just wrong.
I’m doing more than pointing my finger. I’m reporting it, my publishers are fighting it. Every single time I’m alerted to a piracy site, I’m going to report it.
Right and that is what most artists in the Music Industry have done let someone else handle it and that is why the RIAA and it’s backlash is a mess.
Hey, I do not download music anymore but I also buy used records now if I even bother. Not one of those artists or labels will ever see a penny of my money with all that draconian legal nonsense that keeps making them look worse and worse.
It’s legal what they are doing but the fallout is on them.
I don’t think anyone is saying pirating isn’t wrong. We’re saying that it exists. Period. Full stop.
The more loudly publishers fight the abuse the worse the beating gets. People are just contrary by nature. If you take away their ba-ba and tell them it’s naughty to throw it at someones head they’ll start throwing chairs.
Publishers have to find ways to at least limit the damage. As has been pointed out many books have a very short shelf life so don’t offer e-book sales until it’s critical shelf time runs out.
There must be a few people out there willing to scan and convert everything by hand but the results are bound to be atrocious. People willing to pirate a copy of the newest whatever with chapters 6 and twelve reversed and 5 pages missing are stealing just because they can not because they care about what they stole. Getting one up on a publisher gives them a twisted sort of satisfaction. I can understand the appeal (although I don’t condone it).
When mp3s first started hitting the internet I would download albums just so music labels couldn’t have my money. They spent years bilking me out of 15 bucks a pop for albums that had one good track (the one heavily promoted on the radio) and nine tracks that made my ears bleed. I was mad and enjoyed the satisfaction of getting my money back even if I had no interest in the album I downloaded. Years later I’ve stopped being so childish and make every effort to support bands I like because I know they can’t survive without me. They deserve my money.
This motivation is the worst sort because there is no defense the publishers can take. People can justify themselves forever and a day by saying they’re taking back what’s theirs and may honestly enjoy seeing dwindling profit margins from the publishers they cheat.
Those motivated by maliciousness are lost causes (until they repent) but there are other motivations that publishers can work with such as people who pirate because they can’t find a copy of the book they want. Some books may be off the shelves and disappeared into the ether in a matter of months. This is lost revenue that they could have pocketed if a copy had been available. Publishers need to tweek their marketing strategy now that people no longer have to settle for the next book out and no longer need to run to the store to snatch up the latest read before it’s gone forever.
Offer a back catalog of books for direct sale from their website. Offer e-book collections with a limited edition signed picture (or something) mailed to them for their patronage. It’s obvious people love free shit.
Offer a limited edition anthology mailed free of charge to e-book customers who buy X number of e-books. It’s the same marketing strategy my local caffeine fix uses to keep me loyal in the form of a handy punch card *buy twelve get one free* Yay!
Publishers unwilling to change the way they do things are going to slowly drown. ‘Though I’ll feel badly because they don’t deserve it they should at least try to swim.
Publishers unwilling to change the way they do things are going to slowly drown.
Actually, Bc, it’s the authors who will drown first, due to falling sales. And then it will be the readers who drown, because they will no longer be able to get their hands on stories by authors who have been shut out of contracts due to poor sales.
This is why I don’t understand the motive you ascribe to book pirates, namely
People can justify themselves forever and a day by saying they’re taking back what’s theirs and may honestly enjoy seeing dwindling profit margins from the publishers they cheat.
Taking their own back? What exactly are they taking back? Why the rage against publishers?? Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know, it’s not as if the price of a mass market book is outrageously out of proportion to the cost of its production (unlike, perhaps, the example of CDs, which you used—once again suggesting what a poor analogy the music industry offers to the issue at hand). A mass market book costs $5.99 – $7.99, less than a meal at most places! Are the people you’re describing simply irritated that they have to pay anything at all? If so, I don’t think there’s much use reasoning with such folks, and I don’t think a signed photo sent upon purchase of an ebook is going to assuage their irrational anger.