Book "thieves"
Nov. 22nd, 2010 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhian_crockettThere's nothing new about writers complaining about "book pirates", this being only one of the many posts I've seen on it. The usual arguments are familiar, too, and I see no particular need to cover them myself -- a bit of googling should find you more of the debate, if you're interested.
Personally, I try to be mindful in my reading (see:holyschist's post on it, here). If I read a book in such a way that the author doesn't make any profit from it, and there are legal ways to do this (secondhand bookshops, borrowing from a friend, libraries, free copies given out online), I usually try to make sure that the author does profit as a result, provided I think the author is worth supporting (e.g. I would not buy a copy of a book full of racist ableist crap).
The way I do this is twofold: first of all, I talk about the book. I tell people that I loved it, or didn't, and discuss it with people. That happens, in fact, regardless of whether I liked the book or not.
For example, I read Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal, on the train this morning. I didn't really enjoy it: the debt to Jane Austen is more than she seems to acknowledge. All the characters, the whole situation, all of it is taken from bits and pieces of Austen's work, and then magic -- "glamour" -- is pasted on over the top. Her writing is competent enough, but without Austen's subtleties. I'd recommend as "beach reading", not as something serious that has depth. Regardless, Mary Robinette Kowal has that benefit from me, if nothing else: she's being talked about, and reaching more people.
Think of Tim O'Reilly's essay, available here, in which he states that, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy."
I have friends who would buy anything that has the vaguest link to Jane Austen. And they in turn will tell their friends, who feel the same way, so that from just my not terribly positive reaction to Kowal's work, there's a whole chain of potential sales.
Second of all, I buy a copy for someone else. For their birthday, for Christmas, or just because, whatever. In my case, the answer is usually "just because". That's pretty much the first point all over again, with the addition of my single purchase of the book for someone (which makes, what, 50p difference to the author's potential net profits?).
I have a lot of problems with the argument as it is so often framed. The accusation that "you don't work for free, so why should I?", for example. I didn't know they could read my mind -- wait, clearly they couldn't, since I do (so far at least) write for free. I might be a volunteer for a charity organisation. I might be the partner who stays at home to look after the children, in which case my hard work would almost certainly not be paid for.
(People involved in fandom almost invariably write for free, and often produce wonderful work which cannot legally be paid for. I haven't quite worked out how I want to work that into my argument, but it is on my mind. The idea that there is a moral imperative to pay an artist for their work is likely foreign to many people who are artists, whether they are popularly considered to be so or not.)
My final point is very anecdotal, and not directly related to books and publishing. The music service, Spotify, has been around for a couple of years now. It's a legal way to listen to whatever you want, apparently at no cost to you except viewing a few ads (unless, like me, you pay for a premium account). By this time, most of my friends and family have Spotify, and none of us do any kind of downloading of music, except perhaps where Spotify's catalogue of available music doesn't have what we want.
Spotify may have problems related to how much they pay the record labels and artists whose music they make accessible, but if we imagine it were a perfect system, I think it would cut down on a lot of the problems. One of the reasons people download music is because they want something specific, and they want it right now. Services like Spotify allow instant gratification, for little to no cost. It also allows people to try out new music, some of it old or obscure. Or, for another example, I'm not interested in Neil Young's music, generally, but I've had "War of Man" on repeat, entirely legally, since I was earwormed with it last week. The temptation of downloading it illegally would have been great, if this was ten years ago, when I would neither have wanted to buy the CD nor had a way to pay for a single song online (since I didn't have a credit or debit card).
I suspect that instant gratification is part of the attraction of ereading devices like the Kindle. When I have mine (Christmas!), I'll be able to download books instantly, wherever I am, thanks to 3G access to the Kindle store. They have many books available, many of them at very affordable/competitive prices.
As musicians have in the past, authors need to come to terms with the digital world. My first suggestion for that would be to make sure that your book is available worldwide as an ebook -- I've seen one artist decrying the illegal downloads of a scanned copy of her book as "unnecessary" when no official ebook was available -- and at a reasonable price.
There's a whole 'nother debate about what "a reasonable price" constitutes, which I don't have time to share my thoughts on, just now.
Personally, I try to be mindful in my reading (see:
holyschist's post on it, here). If I read a book in such a way that the author doesn't make any profit from it, and there are legal ways to do this (secondhand bookshops, borrowing from a friend, libraries, free copies given out online), I usually try to make sure that the author does profit as a result, provided I think the author is worth supporting (e.g. I would not buy a copy of a book full of racist ableist crap).The way I do this is twofold: first of all, I talk about the book. I tell people that I loved it, or didn't, and discuss it with people. That happens, in fact, regardless of whether I liked the book or not.
For example, I read Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal, on the train this morning. I didn't really enjoy it: the debt to Jane Austen is more than she seems to acknowledge. All the characters, the whole situation, all of it is taken from bits and pieces of Austen's work, and then magic -- "glamour" -- is pasted on over the top. Her writing is competent enough, but without Austen's subtleties. I'd recommend as "beach reading", not as something serious that has depth. Regardless, Mary Robinette Kowal has that benefit from me, if nothing else: she's being talked about, and reaching more people.
Think of Tim O'Reilly's essay, available here, in which he states that, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy."
I have friends who would buy anything that has the vaguest link to Jane Austen. And they in turn will tell their friends, who feel the same way, so that from just my not terribly positive reaction to Kowal's work, there's a whole chain of potential sales.
Second of all, I buy a copy for someone else. For their birthday, for Christmas, or just because, whatever. In my case, the answer is usually "just because". That's pretty much the first point all over again, with the addition of my single purchase of the book for someone (which makes, what, 50p difference to the author's potential net profits?).
I have a lot of problems with the argument as it is so often framed. The accusation that "you don't work for free, so why should I?", for example. I didn't know they could read my mind -- wait, clearly they couldn't, since I do (so far at least) write for free. I might be a volunteer for a charity organisation. I might be the partner who stays at home to look after the children, in which case my hard work would almost certainly not be paid for.
(People involved in fandom almost invariably write for free, and often produce wonderful work which cannot legally be paid for. I haven't quite worked out how I want to work that into my argument, but it is on my mind. The idea that there is a moral imperative to pay an artist for their work is likely foreign to many people who are artists, whether they are popularly considered to be so or not.)
My final point is very anecdotal, and not directly related to books and publishing. The music service, Spotify, has been around for a couple of years now. It's a legal way to listen to whatever you want, apparently at no cost to you except viewing a few ads (unless, like me, you pay for a premium account). By this time, most of my friends and family have Spotify, and none of us do any kind of downloading of music, except perhaps where Spotify's catalogue of available music doesn't have what we want.
Spotify may have problems related to how much they pay the record labels and artists whose music they make accessible, but if we imagine it were a perfect system, I think it would cut down on a lot of the problems. One of the reasons people download music is because they want something specific, and they want it right now. Services like Spotify allow instant gratification, for little to no cost. It also allows people to try out new music, some of it old or obscure. Or, for another example, I'm not interested in Neil Young's music, generally, but I've had "War of Man" on repeat, entirely legally, since I was earwormed with it last week. The temptation of downloading it illegally would have been great, if this was ten years ago, when I would neither have wanted to buy the CD nor had a way to pay for a single song online (since I didn't have a credit or debit card).
I suspect that instant gratification is part of the attraction of ereading devices like the Kindle. When I have mine (Christmas!), I'll be able to download books instantly, wherever I am, thanks to 3G access to the Kindle store. They have many books available, many of them at very affordable/competitive prices.
As musicians have in the past, authors need to come to terms with the digital world. My first suggestion for that would be to make sure that your book is available worldwide as an ebook -- I've seen one artist decrying the illegal downloads of a scanned copy of her book as "unnecessary" when no official ebook was available -- and at a reasonable price.
There's a whole 'nother debate about what "a reasonable price" constitutes, which I don't have time to share my thoughts on, just now.
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Book theft
Date: 2010-11-22 09:17 pm (UTC)Re: Book theft
Date: 2010-11-22 09:55 pm (UTC)The majority of this post is not, in fact, about illegal downloads, so the exact statistics on that are not necessary.
Re: Book theft
Date: 2010-11-23 02:57 am (UTC)Re: Book theft
Date: 2010-11-23 07:01 pm (UTC)Re: Book theft
Date: 2010-11-23 07:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-23 03:16 am (UTC)bettermore permanent paper copy they can read in the bath. This seems pretty basic to me? I don't read ebooks at all, but if I did, I'd still be buying the ones I loved in paper form.But in sum: technology (and piracy) have changed the music industry, but I think it's largely for the better--at least from my point of view as a fan of small folk and indie groups rather than the latest Pop Sensation. Those groups have never been able to make a living off a tiny cut from album sales, if they could even get signed by a major label. They are more dependent on word of mouth and fan devotion than famous groups, and the technology to self-publish CDs and sell direct to those fans (who will buy their CDs instead of pirating because they care) has, I think, made a lot more of those groups successful.
Books are a different situation entirely, and I'm not so sure about comparisons. But I don't think the root problem is piracy; I think most people realize authors need to eat and want to give them money. It's lack of worldwide ebooks, it's countries where buying a single book is a 10-25% of your monthly income (what would these authors do if a new paperback book cost them $300 US and their library didn't carry international book? Cough up the money because stealing is wrong? Never read another book? I wonder). It's publishers who don't put out real human-read audiobooks, and then sue vision-impaired readers for using crappy machine-reading so they can enjoy books. It's DRM and proprietary formats that make it difficult or impossible for people to move their legitimately purchased ebooks around between devices.
If the publishing industry has to change or die, I'm hopeful that it will be a beneficial change.
And you know what? I'm a freelance writer. I typically charge around $50/hour if it's not a flat-fee deal. Book reviews in paying publications usually get $20-50. It can take me 2 hours to write a review (one of the reasons I am always behind), and it IS work--so if I review a book from the library, true, I didn't directly pay the author. But one could argue (I would not, actually, because I think this is a little stupid) that I gave the author $20-100 of free publicity. Funny, I don't see authors arguing that fans shouldn't give away publicity for free.
But it IS valuable. Cindy Pon saw an actual 3rd? 4th? quarter spike in sales from fans on the internet blogging about Silver Phoenix and encouraging people to buy the non-whitewashed cover before the publisher remaindered it.
"Well, why don't you work for free?" is such a strawman argument.
People can encourage libraries to buy books. They can buy them for friends and relatives. They can review books. They can donate money to an author's crowd-sourced project (I know of at least two reasonably successful mid-list authors who have done crowd-sourced novels).
(Also, I kind of think any author who can't understand the situation of someone living in the developing world, who cannot legally purchase many internationally published books for less than 10-25% of their monthly income is a privileged first-world ass, and I have zero interest in reading any of their books.)
P.S. I don't pirate books--or buy legal ebooks--but I do buy used books and use the library, on account of not having 25% of my income to spend on books or anywhere to put that many books.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-23 07:15 pm (UTC)Personally, I contribute a lot to developing artists -- I helped crowd-fund Kat Flint's album, Dirty Birds, and would've bought into Thea Gilmore's attempt at it, if I could blinkin' afford it. Technology has provided such wondrous ways to engage with projects in that way.
I like what Amanda Palmer says, about artists coming to people hat in hand, cutting out the middle man. If it happens in the book industry, it'll change things a lot -- which scares people to death, I think. They don't know what to expect. They want to bury their heads in the sand, because "the old system worked fine". Clearly not.
I'd love to see the 'hat in hand' model work out for authors, too. It's more difficult to apply in the book industry, I think... but we'll see.
I agree with you on most everything you said. It really doesn't pay (ha) to underestimate the power of blogging and book reviews. I bought Silver Phoenix because of those posts, and added my own review, which in turn brought Cindy Pon to the notice of other readers, who in turn would blog... Definitely, definitely valuable.
I encourage my local library to buy large print books, since all they have is two shelves' worth. They're probably sick of my badgering. ("We buy them and you don't read them!" "That's because I'm not asking for them for me." "*huff, huff, incomprehension, huff*")
I've always tried to be responsible in my reading, to support the authors I love. I felt sick, recently, when I looked at how much it'd cost me to buy Jo Walton's Ha'penny -- £25. I don't have that much to spend, I barely have an income at all. So in the end I bought it second-hand, and bought several of my friends copies of Farthing, which is affordable. It's not always like that -- sometimes I just spot a book in a charity shop and want it now now now, or get a free ebook copy from Baen or whatever. But whatever it is, I do try to give back to the author in some way. To hear some authors talk, you'd think that made me some kind of impossible mythical creature.
(I always feel so incoherent trying to talk about what I think/feel about all this -- I envy how clear your posts/comments are! Thank you for sharing.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-23 08:10 pm (UTC)Either of those can be used infinitely as long as they're well-treated.
I think a lot of that argument rests on the idea that a stolen ebook can be kept and copied forever. But a) a library book can be checked out many times (I kept some books checked out of my university library for years because I couldn't afford to buy them and no one else wanted to check them out) and b) most people read most books ONCE, so whether they're reading a pirated copy and deleting it (or letting it sit on their HD unused) or buying a secondhand book, reading it, and giving it away/reselling it, the author still got paid once--for the original book bought and sold to the secondhand store, or the original book bought and scanned by a pirate. Still not seeing a huge moral difference on the part of the reader, even if there is one on the part of the distributor. Neither is paying the author directly.
Besides which, I haven't seen people benefiting financially from uploading ebooks, as far as I'm aware, but if I just walk across town, both my library and the local second-hand bookshop are profiting by the book business, without any of it going to the poor starving authors.
I draw a big distinction personally between piracy for financial gain and piracy just because--I had part of an article of mine plagiarized recently, and what pisses me off is the plagiarism and the fact that my words are being used to sell something. I would have zero moral objection to someone emailing my article to a friend with credit, even though as far as the copyright owner is concerned, that's not acceptable either. Obviously, not everyone's going to agree with that, but I do think it's important to make these distinctions between piracy/plagiarism/theft-for-profit.
I HAVE noticed that a lot of these recent arguments have come from authors in the UK and other countries where authors get a small kickback from libraries based on circulation figures. I think this would pretty much destroy libraries in the U.S., looking at increasingly cut hours, and increasingly many librarians replaced with self-checkout machines, etc. I'm also not sure I like the trend it sets: that the author deserves money for every time their book is read not every time it's bought, because the next logical step is ebooks that expire after one reading, or charge a fee when you reread, and it makes me think the only reason they haven't tried this with paper books is because it's not possible outside of a library circ situation. I find this worrisome.
If it happens in the book industry, it'll change things a lot -- which scares people to death, I think. They don't know what to expect. They want to bury their heads in the sand, because "the old system worked fine". Clearly not.
I'd love to see the 'hat in hand' model work out for authors, too. It's more difficult to apply in the book industry, I think... but we'll see.
THIS. Yeah, it is a lot harder for authors to apply models used in performing arts, but the publishing industry will have to change somehow. And it IS scary, but it's not avoidable at this point. And I hope it will end up being a positive change.
To hear some authors talk, you'd think that made me some kind of impossible mythical creature.
Strangely, I have noticed that many of these authors are authors whose books I have no interest in (or actively dislike). The readers/fans are not the enemy! Even if they can't always buy your new hardbacks!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-23 08:48 pm (UTC)(I kept some books checked out of my university library for years because I couldn't afford to buy them and no one else wanted to check them out)
I am doing exactly this, at the moment!
Agreed, anyway. I can see some point in the distinction as applied to someone who distributes ebooks, meaning those who distribute them to hundreds of people (there are people who maybe just send a PDF to a friend or two, which is different, to my mind).
I am equally concerned about expiring ebooks, etc. I already own one ereading device, and will own another, but if that comes in, I'll hie me back to paper books. Ebooks are supposed to be more convenient, not less.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 12:39 am (UTC)This is the problem with wanting Very Expensive Academic Books one has no legitimate job justification for (my library/ILL use in grad school was less than 10% related to my degree). Ugh, by the time I can go "Oh sure, I can spend $300 on the giant two-volume translation of Secret History of the Mongols" it'll probably only be available used for $600. (Yay, alumni card...as long as I stay in the area.)
Agreed, anyway. I can see some point in the distinction as applied to someone who distributes ebooks, meaning those who distribute them to hundreds of people (there are people who maybe just send a PDF to a friend or two, which is different, to my mind).
Yes, I think there is a difference between distributors and downloaders. (Another thing I think is problematic about some of the calculations--I know people who pirate stuff on MASSIVE scale, like, they have enough music to listen for over a solid year. I guarantee you that they download stuff because they can, not because they ever look at or listen to most of it. And there are a lot of them in the developed world, so I suspect a good percentage of those pirating figures are for files that are passed around and copied, but never actually used. So...not really lost income for the authors/musicians/etc. Any attempt at calculations involving pirated materials are going to be hand-wavy, since there's no way to quantify who does buy legit copies later, who downloads stuff and never uses it and hence wouldn't even have been a library user, the effect of additional word of mouth due to pirating, etc.)
I kind of want an ereader for traveling, and there is always Project Gutenberg and the Baen free library, and stuff like that, but I'm not sure ereaders are cheap enough to justify for me yet, given my reservations (and the fact that I tend to prefer library books unless I KNOW I want to reread, etc.). If one could buy a paper book and ebook at the same time, so the ebook is like a nice portable backup copy, maybe...but of course, I also have serious reservations about ereaders and bathtubs. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 01:01 am (UTC)Agreed. I know people with ebook collections in the thousands. There's no way they obtained them legally, and they don't actually read them, they just mindlessly upload and download. (I have a large collection of books, dead tree and ebook both, so that people do judge that I'm not reading them, just collecting. I read voraciously, though, and there's a vast difference between my five hundred book TBR mountain and the 6,000 book illegal collections I know exist.)
The thing I'm looking forward to about Kindle is the ability to easily download a sample. The couple of times I've used my Kindle app, I've done that, and been able to pick what I wanted much more effectively. Even if I don't want the Kindle version of it ultimately, it'll be useful.
I'd never dare take my ereader in the bath. Cheap paperbacks that belong to me, always. I do love love love my Sony for travelling, though. I regularly do a five hour train journey, and have to a) keep myself amused throughout and b) travel light. My ereader has made that so much easier.
I do agree with you about wishing one could buy a paper book and an ebook at the same time. I'd love to have digital versions of many of my books, legally, without paying for them again.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 02:24 am (UTC)I read voraciously, though, and there's a vast difference between my five hundred book TBR mountain and the 6,000 book illegal collections I know exist.
Definitely. Actually, of my paper book collection, the unread ones are a fairly small percentage (mostly history books bought used or remaindered, and then I didn't get to them. I have, um, 3? biographies of T.E. Lawrence plus Seven Pillars of Wisdom and have read only part of SPW). But that is indeed different from thousands of pirated ebooks. I guess I really don't understand pirating stuff just to have it, not use it--but I also don't see how a bunch of unread books, unwatched movies, and unlistened to music on people's harddrives actually harms anyone, since otherwise it never would have occurred to those people to accumulate that stuff legally (actually, I think that's a fallacy in some of these arguments: if media pirates would NOT have bought the stuff legally, then how are they stealing money from the authors, under the assumption that if there were no piracy, these people still wouldn't be buying the stuff? I'm not sure you can have it both ways).
Easily downloadable samples would be awesome, if they're long enough! I think about 2-3 chapters is a good sample length for most books.
Is a sinner who reads library books, very very carefully, in the bath.(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 06:26 pm (UTC)Of my actual collection, the unread books probably consist of at least a third. I do have a problem with buying books despite not having enough time to read them all. Still, my intention is to read them eventually, and I'm sure pirates with massive collections in the thousands are not expecting to be able to read them all...
The Kindle samples are, in my experience, a pretty good length. That's a utility I'll be very glad to have.
I just don't trust myself not to drop them. I would if I trusted myself!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 06:49 pm (UTC)Meeeee tooo. I'm sort of getting better, though. My new strategy is to weed the shelves periodically, get credit at the used bookstore, and buy fewer books with that credit. So, in theory, the book collection should be ever-shrinking (except I also buy non-fiction for reference on a semi-regular basis, and new books sometimes, and craft books...).
I have thus far *knock on wood* managed not to drop any books in the bath.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 07:12 pm (UTC)I've only done it twice, but it learned me. *laughs*