News Book piracy

[DaGaffer]

I noticed the book publishing industry has been sticking its head above the parapet to have a moan about digital piracy this weekend, e.g. FT.com / Media - Publishers rush to erect defence against piracy

So, are any of you book nickers or what? Personally, I'm not, and I feel quite strongly about it (you can't really make any of the arguments for books about alternate revenue streams, piss weak as they are for music anyway).

However, its not like the book publishing industry is doing much to help me stay on the straight and narrow, and seem to be making all the mistakes the rest of media has done, and then some; geo-restriction, over-pricing of ebooks, patchy (to say the least) releases (many authors have some of their titles released as eboks but not all). Geo-restriction in particular makes my blood boil; when I can see an author's title available on Amazon.com but not on amazon.co.uk (and yet technically in Ireland I can't buy a UK Kindle, and have to buy a US one!), it just shows how fucked up their model is (NB. I know there are loads of ways around geo-blocking, but when I'm a legit customer, why should I jump through these hoops? Its tailor-made for people to say "fuck it, I tried, but I can get it on a torrent with a couple of clicks").

Thoughts?

 

[Will]

I get almost all my books from Project Gutenberg. The easy availability of out of copyright books must be having an impact on official book sales. If I buy a book it will be DRM free, so either self-published books or Baen sci-fi stuff.

 

[Ormorof]

hmmm lending a book to someone is not illegal (is it?) so interesting to see why would lending an e-book to someone be illegal? (i have some books i have borrowed many years ago and dont think the person i borrowed them off remembers that i have them! and same other way around, i think i have 3-4 copies of some books that ive bought, read, lent out and never got back so bought them again, lent out etc)

 

[Calaen]

It's a total mess, I had gift vouchers for Waterstones from Christmas a couple of books I wanted were not on Amazon so I bought them from Waterstones.

Could I use them on my kindle?? why ofc not!!!! As they are done in a different format, throw in the DRM on top of that and I was slighlty pissed Granted it took me 20 seconds to find a way to remove the DRM and allow myself to convert it for my kindle... but it was a bit shite!

It's just a ball ache, One or two formats would go a long way to helping the situation, make all readers compatible.

They should offer a discount or package deal for people who buy the books and want to purchase the digital aswell for an extra couple of quid most would pick it up, and they'd still make far above what they spent making it digital in the first place. They are making people choose between one or the other, when really the incentive should be there to get people to pick up both for a small charge.

I still purchase the paperbacks, but I do feel a bit ripped off when I have to pay full price for the digital copy as well.

 

[Calaen]

hmmm lending a book to someone is not illegal (is it?) so interesting to see why would lending an e-book to someone be illegal? (i have some books i have borrowed many years ago and dont think the person i borrowed them off remembers that i have them! and same other way around, i think i have 3-4 copies of some books that ive bought, read, lent out and never got back so bought them again, lent out etc)

There was a website that allowed the loaning of ebooks for 14 days or something? It's been taken down after complaints I believe.

 

[inactionman]

Until when I buy a physical book (for however long that is going to be), I also get an electronic copy included (or for a very small additional fee, maybe 50p), I'll get my ebooks by an other means. It's just format shifting as far as I am concerned, I already own the content, but the publisher is refusing to provide it to me in the format I want for a reasonable price, so I'll go elsewhere to get it.

If you read some of the recent articles (here's a good one) on ebooks & publishing, the traditional publishing industry is all but dead anyway, just like the traditional book shop, it just doesn't know it yet. They have learnt none of the lessons from the music/video industry, they don't have the time to adapt and they don't have their clout to hold back innovation.

Authors will shortly start to bypass the publishers en-masse and directly publish through other services, like Amazon, just like they did in the magazine era. Which producted great authors like Asimov, Moorcock and many others.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I was going to post something a bit more ranty, but i'll go with;

Piracy is completely situational and poor customer service/availability is a fair reason for piracy.

Pirating ANYTHING, if you have the means to buy it, is not.

 

[Tom]

Publishers can gtfo tbh. For instance, a book pulled randomly from Amazon's site:

Delivered with Love eBook: Sherry Kyle: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Look at the difference in price between Kindle and tradition - practically none. It costs next to nothing to supply the electronic version so why is it almost the same price as the big bulky paperback version?

Also, DRM inconveniences only legit purchasers, not pirates, so they can fuckoff with that too.

 

[Cyradix]

They really need to do something about the price of ebooks.
Why should I pay the same amount for a digital copy when there is 0 production cost? (well almost 0)

Edit : or what Tom just said while I was typing this

 

[DaGaffer]

Authors will shortly start to bypass the publishers en-masse and directly publish through other services, like Amazon, just like they did in the magazine era. Which producted great authors like Asimov, Moorcock and many others.

Problem with that is that Amazon effectively become another book publisher (and not a particularly good one, from an author or customer pov), just like Apple or Google (potentially). I don't see authors doing particularly well out of the emerging e-publishing models, except for those (just like in music) who are already successful enough to own the value chain themselves.

The one thing publishers do that Amazon or Apple or Google don't is break new authors. Amazon will claim their platform is good for awareness, but it isn't really (the recommendations engine seems to get less relevant the more you use it frankly). Publishers don't necessarily do a great job, but they do a job most authors lack the experience or contacts to do themselves; get reviewed.

You may be right that magazine and episodic type writing makes a comeback (I know Baen are doing it, sort of), but bear in mind that the "golden age" produced some great fiction but most authors couldn't stay in the game because they barely made rent.

 

[Raven]

I would rather have the book. I download books I already own or are freely distributable books. and yeah, as is proven time and again DRM does not work.

I don't see why I should pay double for everything just so that I can have the paper one and an electronic version. I also don't see why electronic versions cost pretty much the same as the real thing. There is virtually zero publication or distribution costs.

With regards to new authors etc. I can see it going down the same route as digital music, where new authors/artists get much more of an audience despite very little capital due to the previously mentioned non existent manufacturing costs. They won't be at the mercy of a publisher. Marketing would be word of mouth as it is with many new or small scale bands.

 

[DaGaffer]

Publishers can gtfo tbh. For instance, a book pulled randomly from Amazon's site:

Delivered with Love eBook: Sherry Kyle: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Look at the difference in price between Kindle and tradition - practically none. It costs next to nothing to supply the electronic version so why is it almost the same price as the big bulky paperback version?

Also, DRM inconveniences only legit purchasers, not pirates, so they can fuckoff with that too.

The true cost of a book has very little to with the physical cost of printing and distribution (there's a good analysis here). The biggest problem at the moment is that UK book sales haven't adjusted down to reflect cost restructuring (they largely have in the US) and ebooks in the UK are subject to VAT, where physical books aren't. The UK book industry is desperately trying to protect the traditional hard-back/trade/papeback model, keeping exclusivity for the hard back in particular, and stuffing ebooks in at the end of the physical cycle (if at all), or pricing it "for early adopters" at the hard back price. They're idiots frankly, especially as its emphatically not working and the last big high street book chain is probably months away from disappearing altogether (Waterstones has already pulled out of Ireland).

 

[Helme]

I've stolen a fair few of my books, mostly because the English version is unavailable in my country - except with a piss poor translation, or because the publisher thinks it's a good idea to delay the eBook 3 months to prevent piracy.

I also tend to use it sometimes like I do with games, as an extended demo. I've avoided quite a few terrible books by downloading it, reading the first chapter and never touching it again because the writing is just bad - something that's unfortunately not that rare in my favourite genre.

That's the reasons I'm doing it, and I know they're all excuses in some way or another(except perhaps, the translation one).

 

[chipper]

something ive not got an interest in, i prefer having a real book in my hands pirating a book tho is something ive never even thought of doing funnily enough

not sure if i would or not if i had a kindle tbh they should just slip a copy of it in with the book like they do with some some dvd's now you get a digital copy to use on ya phone or whatever etc

 

[Rulke]

Pretty much what others have said.

I've downloaded a lot of ebooks (hello 20gb torrent of sci-fi/fantasy books) but they were 99% to have books on the Kindle which I already own physically or simply because they arent available as an ebook for whatever reason.

These days when I want a new book, I'll go look to see if I can buy as an ebook but if it's not available or too expensive (over a tenner as a rule of thumb) i'll pirate it. I have gone back and bought several ebooks retrospectively though, if they become available.

It's much like game piracy - Saying "1 million ebooks pirated" is NOT even remotely 1 million lost sales and a lot (maybe even the majority) that are pirated is simply because they arent available for stupid reasons.

 

[Tom]

there's a good analysis here)

A good analysis from a book publisher? Half the things he mentions in that article aren't that relevant. For instance, I don't buy a computer game based on the design of the box it comes in, I buy it based on critic reviews and online gameplay trailers (which cost nothing). Its the same with books, I buy them based on the author (Iain Banks, Michael Marshall Smith, etc), and the reviews printed on the back. Digital distribution? That sounds hard, emailing or uploading a file to a website. Collecting payments? Wow, that's unbelievably difficult.

Why doesn't Amazon offer a third of a book in "demo" format, so you can read a fair chunk before buying the rest? Plenty of game developers do that and it works a treat. Too many ebook reader formats? Tough, pressure the reader manufacturers to make their software read anything and everything, or they don't get any books at all.

The whole thing stinks of "we've been doing it this way for years and fuck you if you don't like it". It's exactly what the music/film/tv industry have been doing, and look how that turned out.

I can't wait for someone in the book world to create something like Valve's Steam.

 

[Vae]

I've not yet moved over to ebooks but I'm seriously considering doing so.

Mainly due to having not enough room to store the vast amounts of books we already have
It may also make some books easier to read. An example is "The Defence of the Realm - The authorised history of MI5". This book is a tome (technical description meaning it goes thud when you close it!) and as such is too heavy to reasonably carry around or hold in one hand making it difficult to read in bed. Having such a book as an ebook would be much more practical.

However the issues I have are the price (combination of VAT on ebooks, Agency pricing agreements between some publishers and, to a lesser extent, price gouging), DRM and availability of books.

I've a number of PDF's or text files of books that I've had, in some cases for a few years, to read on various phones. In almost all cases I already own the physical book so I don't feel so bad about having a PDF or text version as well. If I get a Kindle or whatever I will probably get more of these files because I don't want to end up repurchasing my book collection in another format.

New books i would be fine with purchasing at a reaonable price (i.e. a little under the cost at which I can purchase the paperback). In no cases should it be more expensive to buy the ebook than the physical book and yet this happens.

Hopefully the OFT will squash the agency pricing model and declare it price-fixing. I also hope the government might see sense about VAT on ebooks vs no VAT on physical books but I think it unlikely.

 

[Raven]

Or something like LastFM with recommendations for authors/books you may like based on other users preferences, maybe giving away the first chapter or something.

 

[Will]

I can't wait for someone in the book world to create something like Valve's Steam.

I had just thought of something more like a social networking setup. Authors set up a profile, blog, put up first chapters with a link to buy (DRM free ofc), even a print on demand service for luddites. Fans could comment, give feedback etc?

Who wants to help make it happen?

 

[Zede]

avoid both problems & listen to your books like i'm doing

Offers - Download Audio Books - Audible.co.uk

I "listen" to a book every few weeks, it's ace !

 

[ECA]

I've pirated maybe 2 books? Both because they were unavailable here, but available in the US.

 

[DaGaffer]

A good analysis from a book publisher? Half the things he mentions in that article aren't that relevant. For instance, I don't buy a computer game based on the design of the box it comes in, I buy it based on critic reviews and online gameplay trailers (which cost nothing).

LOL. Of course that costs something. That's what book marketing is. The books don't magically get reviewed, just like albums and games. There's a whole PR and marketing machine that makes sure that particular book (or game or album) gets reviewed ahead of the other guy. Even as traditional media channels (like mags and newspapers) lose influence, the mechanics of getting the right book reviewed by the right people remains broadly the same.

Its the same with books, I buy them based on the author (Iain Banks, Michael Marshall Smith, etc), and the reviews printed on the back. Digital distribution? That sounds hard, emailing or uploading a file to a website. Collecting payments? Wow, that's unbelievably difficult.

The author who's already well known because of the work the publishing PR people did to break that author in the first place. Even the reviews printed on the back are part of the same PR methodology I describe above.

Digital distribution is harder than it looks, depending on where you sit in the value chain. If you're the distributor (e.g. Amazon) then the infrastructure is substantial (with big up front capital costs), if you're the publisher, you have to encode and test for multiple formats. I do this stuff at the moment (albeit for music not books) and its not trivial.

Why doesn't Amazon offer a third of a book in "demo" format, so you can read a fair chunk before buying the rest? Plenty of game developers do that and it works a treat. Too many ebook reader formats? Tough, pressure the reader manufacturers to make their software read anything and everything, or they don't get any books at all.

They do demo formats. You don't need a third of a book to get the gist. As for ereader formats, that's exactly the kind of battle going on, to the detriment of the user. Its very easy for you to say "sort it out or we won't give you our precious title", and it might work, for a Harry Potter, but for the vast majority of books, the distributor (Amazon, Apple) have all the power, and if Amazon say ".azw or nothing", you do .azw if you want any ebook sales.

The whole thing stinks of "we've been doing it this way for years and fuck you if you don't like it". It's exactly what the music/film/tv industry have been doing, and look how that turned out.

I don't disagree, but its nowhere near as simple as you're making out (the main problem is that different publishers own rights to the same book/author in different territories and that needs sorting), and its not going to be as transformational in price terms as you'd like.

I can't wait for someone in the book world to create something like Valve's Steam.

They have, Kindle. I have to say Kindle/Whispernet works extremely well, when I can actually get the fucking book I want. Steam actually serves the user quite poorly; pricing for new release sucks, especially in Europe, and its dominance means real price competition is a thing of the past.

 

[Raven]

Offtopic.

There is little wrong with steams pricing. I think of the couple of pounds more it costs as a charge for the convenience of having it on release day without having to go into town, and not having to dick about with disks and installations.

 

[Rulke]

Offtopic.

There is little wrong with steams pricing. I think of the couple of pounds more it costs as a charge for the convenience of having it on release day without having to go into town, and not having to dick about with disks and installations.

My steam account agrees with you

 

[ECA]

Tbh just buy stuff when it's on a steam deal rather than ever buying full price unless it's something YOU MUST play on day 1.

 

[DaGaffer]

Offtopic.

There is little wrong with steams pricing. I think of the couple of pounds more it costs as a charge for the convenience of having it on release day without having to go into town, and not having to dick about with disks and installations.

Tbh just buy stuff when it's on a steam deal rather than ever buying full price unless it's something YOU MUST play on day 1.

Amazing. Steam seems to have this uncanny ability to get the very people who are normally at the front of the queue when it comes to criticising media costs to defend them to the hilt. Not only that, but say its OK for Steam to charge a premium for the convienience ! iTunes is exactly as convienient, and yet is constantly accused of overcharging!

ECA, Steam's sale prices are kind of irrelevant; the measure of their competitiveness has to be new release, because that's how retail are evaluated. Right now, Portal 2 costs €45 on Steam. I can't see the UK version of the site from work but I'm guessing £30-ish? (So you can see the euro ripoff straightaway). And for reference, on game.co.uk £28. It boggles my mind how Steam gets away with it tbh.

 

[Chilly]

An e-book still needs to be:

-written
-proof read
-and again, several times
-art work
-PR
-international distribution to local publishers/resellers/ebook vendors

and the rest.

The actual paper and printing costs are probably a fairly small slice of all of that. I agree, there should be a discount, but I doubt it'll be a lot.

 

[Rulke]

Amazing. Steam seems to have this uncanny ability to get the very people who are normally at the front of the queue when it comes to criticising media costs to defend them to the hilt. Not only that, but say its OK for Steam to charge a premium for the convienience ! iTunes is exactly as convienient, and yet is constantly accused of overcharging!

ECA, Steam's sale prices are kind of irrelevant; the measure of their competitiveness has to be new release, because that's how retail are evaluated. Right now, Portal 2 costs €45 on Steam. I can't see the UK version of the site from work but I'm guessing £30-ish? (So you can see the euro ripoff straightaway). And for reference, on game.co.uk £28. It boggles my mind how Steam gets away with it tbh.

Yes but for your premium you get instant access, automatic patching, no hassle with disks/DRM and the best integrated matchmaking and social system I've seen

 

[Zenith.UK]

My steam account agrees with you

SteamCalculator.com - How much is your Steam Account worth?
Yours is about double mine, but I tend to buy during sales and promotions so that's not the actual price I paid.

Like Will, I use Project Gutenberg but I also use Archive.org for searching older books.
Free Books : Download & Streaming : Ebook and Texts Archive : Internet Archive
The written literature I tend to look for is related to family history research. If it's over 75 years old, there's a good chance it's on Archive.org.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Steam prices are a joke, a digital copy of Bulletstorm would set you back more on release on Steam than it did via Amazon and release-day delivery. For that you get a real boxed copy, and not some imaginary bullshit.


Paper >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> e-readers.