E-Book Piracy: The Publishing Industry's Next Epic Saga?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by David Derrico

I'm not doubting any of you, and I'd also prefer to sell direct when possible. But the fact remains that retailers are necessary. As an independent author, I have no name recognition, no bookstore presence, no publicity machine and no money for advertising (which would quickly eclipse my royalties and I would be paying money for the right to distribute my work). In my mind, Amazon earns its 65% cut. I've had my own website up for years (where I sell my eBooks in any format with no DRM), and have always charged LESS than Amazon (except for the current 99 cent sale, where it's the same). Since I don't have to give Amazon their cut, I pass the savings to the reader. Yet, my direct sales through my website are but a TINY fraction of my sales through Amazon. The bottom line is that small authors just can't afford the time and money to get people to notice their work, and Amazon at least gives us an outlet.

In my perfect world, everyone would come buy directly through my website, but it just doesn't happen.

My experience was exactly the opposite: My e-books, once placed on Amazon's site, had dismal sales compared to my website. The problem with putting my books on others' sites is: No advertising budget means no one will ever find them there; they quickly get lost in the morass of big-budget publisher books (heavily advertised and promoted) and the dead weight of teen-vampire-gay-porn-fanfic that quickly fills their e-book coffers.

Though I'm not getting rich off of my sales, I'm making a hell of a lot more of them than I ever made through Amazon or any of the other e-book sites I've distributed my books through.

Whichever way you sell, the bottom line always is: Promotion is everything.

[sircastor]

Originally Posted by tompe

Of course it means just that in some cases. The laws should be changed to make it legal. There are no natural law telling what should be illegal. What is illegal is what we have decided to be illegal.

I disagree. Natural rights have been defined as a product of simply being alive. Some people call them unalienable rights, some call them God-given rights. Whatever the case, they define us to having the natural rights of Life, Liberty, and Property. The natural rights define what laws should be. We know killing is wrong and so we create a law which makes it unacceptable to kill. The law doesn't define that it's wrong to kill, just that the group has decided there will be consequences for the action. From there, we do create laws that are defined solely on the basis of civil requirement/desire. They do find root in natural rights though.

As for point-of-sale, it's at Amazon's servers, and is pretty much like buying anything else on the web. The only difference is the method of delivery.

[ficbot]

I confess, I did download a few 'free' books from grey sites when I first got my reader I just wanted to try them and see what was there. I found without exception that every single book I downloaded was poorly formatted and needed a ton of work to be readable. Then I got hooked into Fictionwise's sale/coupon/member sales, and when I realized I could get the same books for $3 each if I was careful with the coupons, I stopped going to those other sites. It's worth the $3 to have something proper and readable

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I confess, I did download a few 'free' books from grey sites when I first got my reader I just wanted to try them and see what was there. I found without exception that every single book I downloaded was poorly formatted and needed a ton of work to be readable. Then I got hooked into Fictionwise's sale/coupon/member sales, and when I realized I could get the same books for $3 each if I was careful with the coupons, I stopped going to those other sites. It's worth the $3 to have something proper and readable

Perhaps you've been to the wrong sites. Most pirated books I read in the past were formatted just as well, or better, that currently commercially available books, and if you knew the right channels, it was easy to report typos and problems in the formatting and text to the proofreaders, and the next version had them fixed.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by sircastor

I disagree. Natural rights have been defined as a product of simply being alive. Some people call them unalienable rights, some call them God-given rights.

Well if they really exists this is a belief in something supernatural and I do not have this kind of belief. And if they just are assumed they do not have the same status as a natural law since you can choose not to follow them.

And from what I remember from my philosophy studies the rights of life, liberty and property is not considered to be God-given rights.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well if they really exists this is a belief in something supernatural and I do not have this kind of belief. And if they just are assumed they do not have the same status as a natural law since you can choose not to follow them.

And from what I remember from my philosophy studies the rights of life, liberty and property is not considered to be God-given rights.

What? Philosophy assumes God exists?

That's a new one on me.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well if they really exists this is a belief in something supernatural and I do not have this kind of belief. And if they just are assumed they do not have the same status as a natural law since you can choose not to follow them.

And from what I remember from my philosophy studies the rights of life, liberty and property is not considered to be God-given rights.

The proper view is:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note that property is not specifically stated - but that this self-evident truth is applied to ALL men (women too for those who need it put into words), not just those who happen to live in the US.

However, how can a person have life, liberty or the unfettered pursuit of happiness if one cannot be sure that personal property is secure?

Of course, that also implies the right to provide for the personal defense of self, family and personal property. After all, if one can only stand by while those who are stronger and more numerous steal one's property, then one has been deprived of one's inalienable rights - and the right to bear arms is the individual's means to protect those rights.

Derek

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by sircastor

I disagree. Natural rights have been defined as a product of simply being alive. Some people call them unalienable rights, some call them God-given rights. Whatever the case, they define us to having the natural rights of Life, Liberty, and Property. The natural rights define what laws should be. We know killing is wrong and so we create a law which makes it unacceptable to kill. The law doesn't define that it's wrong to kill, just that the group has decided there will be consequences for the action. From there, we do create laws that are defined solely on the basis of civil requirement/desire. They do find root in natural rights though.

As for point-of-sale, it's at Amazon's servers, and is pretty much like buying anything else on the web. The only difference is the method of delivery.

But killing is NOT wrong. Murder is wrong, but the simple act of killing is not wrong. To state that all killing is wrong bars one from self-defense (for there will be times when self-defense cannot be limited to driving off an attacker).

The difference is that murder is an act of aggression, pure and simple, while causing death in an act of self-defense is not.

Derek

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

The proper view is:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note that property is not specifically stated - but that this self-evident truth is applied to ALL men (women too for those who need it put into words), not just those who happen to live in the US.

However, how can a person have life, liberty or the unfettered pursuit of happiness if one cannot be sure that personal property is secure?

Of course, that also implies the right to provide for the personal defense of self, family and personal property. After all, if one can only stand by while those who are stronger and more numerous steal one's property, then one has been deprived of one's inalienable rights - and the right to bear arms is the individual's means to protect those rights.

Derek

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

There's rights... and there's rights. In the U.S., you are free to buy land with a home on it, and you will probably feel secure living on it. On the other hand, if the federal, state or even local government decides they need your land, they can unilaterally condemn it, force you off of it (with a compensation decided by them, not you), and use it as they see fit. So how "secure" is that homeowner, really?

The "rights" involved with digital products still need to be clearly defined, established and accepted. We can't assume we will end up with the same rights as familiar print-based products... e-books are unique digital products, and may need a new definition of rights that apply to them--maybe more like the rights you have to watch a TV program, say, but not to rebroadcast or duplicate and sell it--or the right to use an internet account, but not to give away a wifi signal without compensation to the internet provider--etc.

A consumer's rights in terms of what choice of devices they can use to read an e-book still needs to be established, and without this being decided, the usage rights won't mean much. It matters little to me what Amazon's licensing says, or what the government's laws say, if I can't read their e-books on my iPaq.

[DawnFalcon]

And trying to pretend that people, by and large, will abide by those limits and not go to the darknet...well, it's amusing at this stage.

And why do we need rights taken away compared to the print versions, Steve? If it's like a program, then I'm only going to pay program prices ($1-2) rather than book prices ($6-8) for it, too.

[Nathan Campos]

As I've already said, all things have two or more sides.
eBook piracy is illegal and is bad for the autors, but at the other side, make people read more. What is a very good thing, but now, the governs need to make laws and fiscalize this actions much more to make a floating point where the autor and the guy that download books illegaly are beneficiated.

Putting books that have a low price

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

What? Philosophy assumes God exists?

That's a new one on me.

Of course not. But in philosophy you discus and analyze a lot of proposed opinions and "God given rights" is one proposed concept that some people believe in and that can be analyzed.

[David Derrico]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

My experience was exactly the opposite: My e-books, once placed on Amazon's site, had dismal sales compared to my website. The problem with putting my books on others' sites is: No advertising budget means no one will ever find them there; they quickly get lost in the morass of big-budget publisher books (heavily advertised and promoted) and the dead weight of teen-vampire-gay-porn-fanfic that quickly fills their e-book coffers.

Though I'm not getting rich off of my sales, I'm making a hell of a lot more of them than I ever made through Amazon or any of the other e-book sites I've distributed my books through.

Whichever way you sell, the bottom line always is: Promotion is everything.

That's interesting that your experience is so opposite of mine. Pretty much all of my promotion efforts either list my own website only, or both my website and an Amazon link. But people seem to be buying from Amazon. My deduction is that many of the sales are probably coming from listing in Amazon search results or their "You May Also Like..." section. Also, I post over on Kindleboards, and perhaps members weigh the convenience of instant Whispernet downloads over getting a non-DRM version by buying direct.

[DawnFalcon]

"My deduction..."

See, this is the sort of data you need, because it informs your own marketing efforts..