'Elitist': angry book pirates hit back after author campaign sinks website

[Ursa major]

I seem to remember (we may have discussed it here) that an author decided to stop writing altogether four or five years ago because her work was being pirated so much. She received a torrent of abuse for ‘denying her (pirating) readers the enjoyment of her work’.

I was thinking of that.

It's bad enough that people who are engaged in stealing refuse to see that they are thieves, but then they demand that others become their slaves.

But as long as "information is free"....

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@Jo Zebedee I'd never heard of "Blasty" before, that sounds at least like a partial solution. Can you comment further?

It's a site that authors sign up to and blasty then searches for stolen content and sends the notices that get them taken down. To be fair, since I signed up I never find my books on a search as downloadable, but they're now charging for the service and I'm not sure my lost sales would justify the cost.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

“reading is becoming one of the most expensive and restrictive hobbies across the globe”

Yeah, about the price of a cup of coffee, or tea if you're British. :/
Global selfishness strikes again as the internet continues to feed the notion that free stuff is a right.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's a site that authors sign up to and blasty then searches for stolen content and sends the notices that get them taken down. To be fair, since I signed up I never find my books on a search as downloadable, but they're now charging for the service and I'm not sure my lost sales would justify the cost.

I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that authors simply have to ride the tide of criminality, since there is no going back on the internet.
The only solution I've been able to devise is small scale. Make relationships with your fans and readers, then they will be far less likely to steal from you.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The other option is to concentrate on physical books, but that involves more expense for publishers of course. I've found that a large proportion of my fans want real books in their hands. Unfortunately if you're with an indie publisher, that involves expense and risk.

 

[Foxbat]

I think what makes it worse is that e-reading can be incredibly cheap. It's often been the case that I've not been sure if a particular writer would appeal to me so I've gone and bought some of his/her work for the kindle on special offer (often as little as 99p). If I like what I read, I've gone on to buy other books by the same author for the RRP and if I didn't like what I'd read, I'd only lost 99p. What kind of miserly quasi self-righteous half wit could possibly have a problem with shelling out that kind of money?

It's beyond me

 

[Ray Pullar]

One of the comments that got to me was the "What if I've lost my copy of the book?" So following that logic if I buy a smart phone and then lose it it's fine to go out a steal a replacement?

Sadly I think this problem is only going to get worse. Taking this site down is like putting a wildfire out using a thimble to carry the water. When I'm googling for information on a book there are always links to torrent downloads and other such that appear on the search page. Any novel that is even vaguely popular will have multiple pirate copies floating around the web.

I'm really not sure what the solution is.

Read Noir by K. W. Jeter for one (unhinged) hardware solution.

 

[tinkerdan]

I have no doubt about piracy. I don't characterize my books as being popular and yet right out of the gate my first book was pirated on a site that has users exchange documents for points(to maintain free acounts)and one user had put a copy of mine in the mix.

Now as a caveat to that, I have to admit I was using smashwords to give away copies and it wouldn't have been too unlikely for that copy to show up from there. However when I made an account and checked that download it turned out to be the Xlibris edition that they would have gotten either from xlibris or a number of on line vendors.

I emailed the admins and had it removed.

Usually that's all it takes--however it is a bit of work to search for all the pirated copies so you can fill out their form to prove it shouldn't be pirated.

I'm not averse to giving books away; however I like to keep track of the number given away and I can do that through SmashWords. Anyone else giving them away willy nilly screws up the count.

However, once more I stress that this is not yet a popular book or author here--still even if they only gave away two copies there is no way to verify that they didn't give away 2000 or hundreds of thousands and maybe that's why I haven't gotten the numbers I was hoping for.

 

[AlexH]

The best combat I heard for this was a year or so ago, where the author pre released a copy onto pirated sites, which held the first couple of chapters and then a link to the main book. That copy flooded the sites.

The makers of Man from Earth (a film) uploaded their latest film to a well-known pirate site a couple of months before the official release. The pirated version had a message from the director at the end, encouraging people to make donations and share the film if they enjoyed it. They made around $50,000 in the first couple of months, so it worked quite well for them (given it was a low budget film). They admitted they're against piracy, but are trying to figure out a way of being proactive rather than reactive.

Perhaps authors could write a similar message at the end of a book. Some authors thank the reader and request a review at the end, which seems to work.

“reading is becoming one of the most expensive and restrictive hobbies across the globe”

Also on that, there's a ridiculous amount of excellent writing that's legally free. Dickens, for a start. And I wonder how many of these people have a local library?

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

What kind of miserly quasi self-righteous half wit could possibly have a problem with shelling out that kind of money?

The kind that gets a thrill from not shelling out any kind of money, unfortunately.

Which leads to the unanswerable question, how many of these pirated copies actually result in lost sales?
If someone of this ilk was unable to get a free copy, would they then go out and buy one? Or is it just the thrill of getting one over 'the man'?

And as for the more law abiding, would they just go the library?

 

[The Judge]

For those who might not have seen the thread about Maggie Stiefvater's attempt to thwart the pirates, and her conclusions regarding the sales she's lost from piracy, it's here Impact of eBook piracy on sales

 

[psikeyhackr]

Writers don't have the right to eat. Let them starve so they can't write anymore.

 

[The Bluestocking]

There's already (sort of) a Spotify-type service for books - specifically comic books. There are subscription services from Marvel, DC etc where you pay a small fee per month (or a discounted fee for an annual subscription) to get access to many decades' worth of comics and new releases to read on your tablet/e-reader/laptop.

I wonder if the same might work for the major publishers (HarperCollins, PRH etc) is they'd have a subscription service at a reasonable fee available to readers worldwide, adjusted for what the local market can support (e.g. they might charge US$10 per month for the USA, 10 Euros per month for Europe, SGD$10 per month for Singapore etc). They could stipulate that it's unlimited access or limited to, say, 4 books per month (and perhaps have tiered fees). This might help curb some of the piracy because one of the issues - especially in developing countries where the currency is weak - is that books can be prohibitively expensive, particularly after conversion from US dollars or Pound Sterling.

And if you're going to make one of the arguments against piracy: "Well, people can just borrow from the library then!", let me point out that many developing/third world countries have few libraries (often only a national library in the capital city and the universities would have research libraries). I come from one of these countries with very few public libraries and what we have is very badly stocked. This results in people having to buy novels, comic books etc for reading... and a book at retail price costs more than a day's meals.

However, due to the ubiquity of basic smartphones and cheap data plans in the same countries (I live in one of them - plenty of cheap smartphones) means people can access the internet and read e-books using free apps. So why won't publishers adapt to this - there's a huge market for e-books quietly waiting across Asia and Africa at the very least. Amazon has not entered most of these markets at all so they are just sitting there untapped. (And in case anyone wants to argue that "well, people there don't read English", I assure you that thanks to British colonialism and the ubiquity of English as the international language of business, plenty of us can read and write in English).

I'm fortunate to earn enough to be able to set aside a book budget every year to support my favourite authors - what I can't find in the bookshops here (which seem to only stock the most popular bestsellers) - I go on Google Play to buy (or order from Book Depository). Even then, I draw the line when publishers greedily price an ebook at hardcover prices (US$20 and above) which makes it a ridiculous amount to pay for an ebook in my local currency. If there was a subscription service or if publishers made it more affordable (i.e. prices commensurate with what the market can support) to obtain books in countries (like the one I'm in), I'm pretty sure it would help in reducing piracy and boost sales.

 

[Danny McG]

Just a minor observation because I'm not a writer.
It must also feel really crap if you've been banging out stories for years and nothing of yours has ever been pirated.

I suppose you have to sit looking down and stay quiet at writer's conventions etc when they're all griping about piracy and you're like thinking
"OMG! Nobody even bothers to rip my work off, I must be dire!"

 

[Ursa major]

What such an author should be thinking is: "Pirates**, those people sporting eye patches, all seem to have lost their eye for quality."


** - One assumes that they pirate books because: 1) they think books are too expensive; 2) they can't spare another arm and a leg....

 

[Danny McG]

They should be 'arr'ested

 

[Joshua Jones]

Ok, so, first off, it isn't "elitist" to suspect that someone should pay for a book. Capitalist, perhaps, but not elitist.

Second, there already is a "Spotify for books"; it's called the local library, and it has been where people who cannot afford to buy books have been going for literal millenia. Of course, the cost of books has gone down so substantially, nearly everyone can afford it (hence why it isn't elitist), but if you cannot for some reason, the library is always there.

Now, the real question in my mind is why there aren't online libraries partnered with local libraries for e-books. My idea is to use one's library card as an online ID, and one can check out e-books to be read in a built in reader. This way, the library can get additional registrants, the people can get access to books, and the authors can either be paid a flat fee for the book, or could be paid in royalties for access. Everyone could win in such a setting...

 

[AlexH]

Ok, so, first off, it isn't "elitist" to suspect that someone should pay for a book. Capitalist, perhaps, but not elitist.

Second, there already is a "Spotify for books"; it's called the local library, and it has been where people who cannot afford to buy books have been going for literal millenia. Of course, the cost of books has gone down so substantially, nearly everyone can afford it (hence why it isn't elitist), but if you cannot for some reason, the library is always there.

Now, the real question in my mind is why there aren't online libraries partnered with local libraries for e-books. My idea is to use one's library card as an online ID, and one can check out e-books to be read in a built in reader. This way, the library can get additional registrants, the people can get access to books, and the authors can either be paid a flat fee for the book, or could be paid in royalties for access. Everyone could win in such a setting...

Libraries are not everywhere, but I think I mentioned that a lot of people who pirate books probably do have access to a library. I think the UK is very lucky - even where there aren't physical libraries, there are often mobile libraries.

It is possible to loan e-books (and magazines) online from my local libraries. Is that not widespread? A lot of people are probably not aware. The library websites in question are not the most user-friendly.

 

[Joshua Jones]

Libraries are not everywhere, but I think I mentioned that a lot of people who pirate books probably do have access to a library.

It is possible to loan e-books (and magazines) online from my local libraries. Is that not widespread? A lot of people are probably not aware.

I honestly don't know how widespread it is. I am reasonably sure my local library doesn't have that option, but the flipside for me is that every county on my rural peninsula has a library, and several have more than one, plus there is a mobile library. One needn't drive more than about 20 minutes anywhere you are to find a library, assuming it doesn't come to you! So, I would be astonished if much of America's population doesn't have ready access to a library.

The point I was trying to make, though, is that we already have systems in place to address these isssues, if we would use them more and invest in their development. We as a society tend to be more focused on attacking the problem, though, rather than addressing the demand for the problem. Without a demand, there is no piracy, as there is no value in stealing it.

 

[Ursa major]

A lot have been closed in the UK, and some of the ones that are still open can only stay open by using volunteer help.