Comments on: Yes, Virginia, there are e-book pirates

By: Michael Banks

Michael Banks — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:45:17 +0000

Fictionwise sells Random House titles, and The Da Vinci Code and other titles are available in various formats (the pirates have to steal them somewhere). I wish I knew what sort of volume even DVC was doing. But there’s no equivalent of BookScan for e-books, is there?
–Mike

By: Branko Collin

Branko Collin — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:40:07 +0000

Isn't Random House doing e-books right now? It seems Fictionwise is selling some of their books.

By: Michael Banks

Michael Banks — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:36:43 +0000

Might it be that e-book demand is currently so low as to provide no incentive for publishers to step into this mess? My contacts at Doubleday/Random House have twinked out on the issue (no responses). I infer that it’s of no interest. (Either that, or the fact that I’m not with the Wall Street Journal or Wired gives them no incentive to respond–but I’ll rant about that another time.)

I saw the defensive statement that Garson quoted. At least they didn’t say, “Master Resale Rights Included!”
–Mike

By: Garson Poole

Garson Poole — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 01:05:22 +0000

Blog readers might be interested to know that the website has a “User Agreement” that attempts to provide a rationale for the availability of ebooks that are still under copyright. Here is an excerpt:

Read this before downloading these ebooks:

Please support the authors by buying hard copies of these ebooks. We are not supporting ebook piracy and are only allowing you to download this so it will be more convenient. We are not responsible for whatever you do with these ebooks after you have downloaded them. These ebooks are for backup purposes only, you must have purchased the book or you have to delete them within 24 hours.

By: Huw Thomas

Huw Thomas — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:25:23 +0000

I would say that the success of iTunes has mainly been driven by the ubiquity of the iPod, and by Apple’s clever integration of its various hardware, software and retail assets. That’s not to say that people don’t prefer to use content honestly, just that iTunes isn’t necessarily an example of that in action.

If there were a surge in ebook demand, you can be sure that Harper Collins or any other trade publisher would hire more than 6 people to work in the divisions concerned. At the moment, I think that for publishers producing pbooks, ebooks are inevitably going to be a low priority: given the choice, most of their customers will go for a paper book. It’s niche e-publishers with no corresponding paper product that are perhaps more interesting to observe.

By: KP

KP — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:56:19 +0000

Publishers already have the files in a format that can easily be turned into an ebook, so it should not take longer than about a minute. So they could do it right now if they wanted, but they are being super-paranoid, wanting to riddle the ebook with DRM-boobytraps so that it becomes far more convinient to use a pirated ebook than a one you bought. Publishers are supporting piracy, even if they don’t realize it.

By: Branko Collin

Branko Collin — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:49:27 +0000

It’s pretty meaningless to talk about piracy if you cannot substantiate your claims. Opponents of marihuana in the US once claimed that smoking pot drove black men to sexual violence against white women. And although these claims were never substantiated, marihuana was outlawed nevertheless.

As it is now, Jon is using his blog entry to say absolutely nothing.

By: Jane

Jane — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:13:09 +0000

I wonder how many books are downloaded that people would have purchased if they were in ebook form already? Doesn’t the success of ITunes show publishers that people would rather buy legimitate versions? I wonder how long it takes for a publisher to turn its word doc manuscript into an ebook format? I remember talking to the ebook person at Harper Collins. She told me that the division had 6 people in it.

By: Robotech_Master

Robotech_Master — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:10:01 +0000

He probably doesn’t want to promote illegitimate distribution of intellectual property. (Nor, for that matter, do I. If you really want to know you can find it in one of today’s posts to the ebook discussion mailing list, though.

I checked out one of their titles, Casino Royale, and was reasonably impressed with its presentation; it was PDF form, with paragraph indention, italics where appropriate, and relatively few typos.

The site itself was quite slick-looking, with clickable book covers to get to lists of authors’ works. It has a very uncluttered, easily-usable design, pretty much the diametric opposite of the “if you still have memory left on your computer, we haven’t opened enough pop-up windows yet” warez sites that you can stumble across inadvertently. Revenue presumably comes from the Google ads that are embedded on the site. It’s too bad they can’t turn their talents toward good instead of evil.

By: Branko Collin

Branko Collin — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:50:50 +0000

It seems you forgot to name the site, or link to it.