The third in a series of reports on piracy that began in 2009, Le MOTif zoomed in on comics, as this is the category of books that is pirated the most in France. Comic books make up 10-14% of France’s global book market, but the availability of comics in e-book format does not meet the readers’ needs — resulting in organized teams of pirates (up to 100) that have scanned 30-35,000 comics, of which 8-10,000 are accessible to a larger public, which might not know about specialized sites.

58% of the 50 best-selling comics are not available as e-books. The report notes that pirating teams are even able to scan and translate new mangas from Japan. It also points out that, strangely enough, even though the number of pirated comics is increasing, paper comic sales is also increasing. The books that sell the most are also pirated the most, and vice versa. Could there be something to the idea of piracy having a promotional effect? (Though, on the other hand, cause and effect could go the other way—pirates might just want most the the titles that sell the most.)

The article has a couple of points that puzzle me. For one thing, it says that “Pirated mangas are often streamed, whereas comic books are scanned.” I wonder if by “mangas” they mean animé? The idea of “streaming” a comic doesn’t make sense.

It also notes that pirated comics are “sold online until the legal version appears in France, at which point they are removed,” and puts their price at an average of $15, slightly below the price of the equivalent paper book. At least on this side of the Atlantic, I’ve never even heard of anyone selling pirated comic or manga scans; they’re all posted for free download on BitTorrent or cyberlocker sites.

One point that caught my attention was the suggestion that piracy is a response to unmet demand. This is something that folks like Gabe Newell of Valve have brought up before, and we see it play out in manga-related matters over here, too. For example, the manga and animé series Detective Conan had its first hundred or so issues and episodes translated and sold commercially over here (where it was known as Case Closed)—but the vast majority of the 800+ manga issues and 600+ TV episodes have not been translated and probably never will be. But fans translate and post them online for other fans to read or watch.

While it’s technically piracy, it’s the sort of “piracy” on which the entire anime fan community in the US was originally built—since technically-illegal fansubs were what launched demand for anime over here in the first place. And it seems doubtful that any company would see a 600-episode-and-still-going show as being worth the vast financial expenditures involved in translating, given that only the few most dedicated fans would even contemplate buying them all, let alone be able to afford them, so it’s probably going to continue to be an unmet demand.

There are an awful lot of animé and manga that have never been and probably never will be licensed for American translation and sale—too esoteric for the broader audiences over here for a licensee to be able to recoup its investment. And as long as there isn’t a way for fans to get them in English legitimately, they’ll continue to be pirate-fansubbed. (Small wonder that some animé studios are beginning to subtitle their domestic DVDs in English themselves!)

This seems to be the same thing the French comics community is finding out: if people can’t get the comics legitimately in the form they want, surprise! They’ll find a way to get it illegitimately.

When Parliament member Tom Blenkinsop asked the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer about reducing or eliminating VAT for e-books, the Chancellor said, essentially, that under EU agreements they did not have any choice about the VAT rates they charged. However, that is not stopping other European countries such as France and Luxembourg from acting to reduce e-book VAT rates.

So why the UK intransigence? If he was really awake the [exchequer secretary] might also have paid attention to a recent memo published by the EU that sought to clarify how VAT needed to be modified in member states following a consultation with those countries. The EU specifically stated that the review should take as a principle that "similar goods and services should be subject to the same VAT rate and progress in technology should be taken into account in this respect, so that the challenge of convergence between the on-line and the physical environment is addressed”. French Culture Minister Frédérique Mitterrand has already welcomed the communication and said in a statement that he applauded the comment in the 16-page document on fiscal neutrality.

Blenkinsop is not going to let the matter drop, Jones writes, and will continue pushing in Parliament for a reduced VAT rate. As the e-book market grows, reducing that rate means giving consumers more money to spend on e-books, and hence pass along to e-tailers, authors, and publishers. The bigger the market gets, the more important that move will become.

I hadn’t been aware that tax rates on e-books were so high in the UK. It kind of puts the squabbles over Amazon collecting state sales tax in a bit of perspective. Hopefully they will soon be able to get that brought down.

Along with the new store, Amazon is selling a French edition of its lowest-end non-touch Kindle (the one that sells for $109 ad-free in the US) for 99 Euros (US$133). The devices will ship on October 14th.

I notice that the French Kindle store has a number of works by French author Maurice Leblanc available quite cheaply. It’s almost enough to make me want to learn French.

(Found via Publishing Perspectives.)

But a consortium of French publications seem to expect they’ll have better luck. Reuters reports that eight such publications, ostensibly “fierce competitors” under normal circumstances, have put aside their differences and are trying to negotiate with Apple.

The papers want a reduction in the 30% commission rate, and also access to customer data, and have already signed on with Google’s Android marketplace subscription kiosk at a 10% commission rate and with the access to the data they desire. If they are unable to come to terms with Apple, the papers may choose to launch their own HTML5 application, as the Financial Times did, rather than make their papers available through the “Newsstand” store that will be part of Apple’s iOS 5.

(Found via eBookNewser, AppleInsider.)

A French publishers’ association and authors’ association also filed suit against Google at the same time as Hachette and fellow publisher La Martinère (which also settled) did, and have not said whether they also plan to drop their suit.

The deal took two months longer than it was supposed to, but both parties seem satisfied with its terms. A little strange, given how much acrimony there was in Europe over Google’s scanning projects not long ago.

The National Library of France announced Wednesday, July 6, launching an appeal to private partners for the digitization and enhancement of its collections. “Today is a historic step,” said President BNF, Bruno Racine, during a joint press conference in Paris with the Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, and the Commissioner General for investment, René Ricol.

The BNF has identified 12 areas that can be scanned in partnership with private actors. These include ancient books from 1470 to 1700, a set of 300 000 French and 500 000 printed in the public domain, the French press from 1780 to 1940, the 78 rpm records and LPs, modern or medieval manuscripts, or photography and French cinema until World War II.

The total cost of digitization programs amount to 150 million euros (including public and private shares), representing more than 20 times the annual budget of about 7 million dedicated to scanning since 2007.

Read the Complete Article (via LeMonde, Mechanical Translation via Google)
Read the Official Announcement (Google Translation of French Doc; PDF)

Via INFOdocket

(Photo: Lauren Manning)

It seems that price-fixing, whether by governments or publishers, is becoming very popular for e-books. Of course, many European countries like France already fix the price of printed books, so adding a similar clause for electronic ones is only to be expected.

The agency model is, in effect, a return to the net book agreement in electronic form. Publishers let that go in 1997 – and bitter experience has taught them to regret it. Losing the net book agreement did not lead to greater variety, customer choice, a better deal for producers or for shops (as those on the right claim unfettered competition should). It led to a three-way carve up of the trade between Waterstones, supermarkets and Amazon. Hundreds of viable publishers servicing thousands of shops were swapped for just over a dozen bloated giants with only a small number of effective outlet options.

And without price controls in place, the Guardian notes, the e-book industry was starting to reflect that same lack of competition—particularly where Amazon and its ability to discount are concerned. One publisher suggests that the EU raids were actually “masterminded by Amazon.”

But publishers are facing a battle on two fronts—not just in the courts, but in public opinion as well. The Guardian looks at Lost Book Sales (which we mentioned here and here), a site where people can complain about books they wanted to buy but were unable to. Although the article conflates matters of pricing with matters of territorial restriction (Lost Book Sales is about both), and overgeneralizes from the “You won’t let me buy it, so I’ll rip it off instead” mentality of some people who post there to suggest all consumers feel this way, it does note they have a point:

The customer may be unpleasant, but he or she is always right. It’s clear that publishers do need to up their game to accommodate the new demands. There’s also the fact that they’ve been pretty dreadful at digitising the backlists of their living authors, while those of dead authors are widely – and often freely – available. Publishers have to do something to win over people like those complaining on the Lost Book Sales, who, after all, represent pretty much everyone.

Though it also notes that things aren’t necessarily easy on the publishing side either, what with the extremely baroque nature of rights contracts and other e-book-related complications. But on the other hand, independent authors selling their e-books for as little as 99 cents is not helping consumer perception of agency-priced books as overexpensive.

The Bookseller’s FuturEBook blog follows up this article, noting that comments to the Guardian post are overwhelmingly anti-publisher. Furthermore, e-book sales are increasing but prices aren’t rising.

The average price of paid-for books in Amazon’s Kindle top 50 chart today is £1.79 [US$2.87]. It is little wonder Guardian commentators think e-books should cost less than agency publishers are making them available: they do.

I saw an article in my daily RSS trawl that said something similar about the US Kindle charts, but I forgot to star it and now I can’t find it again. Regardless, it’s interesting to note that the rise of indie publishing is doing precisely what the publishers feared when they decided to implement agency pricing: inculcating a perception that e-book prices should be rock-bottom cheap. Print publishers are going to have a hard time breaking into those bestseller lists if they keep their prices that high.

Industry observers are pleased with the deal, which seems to have produced a similar result to the Google Books settlement without expensive, time-consuming litigation. However, the French Publishers Association is still skeptical, warning that Google "has never respected its commitments as regards intellectual property law".

And French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand has reacted cautiously, expressing regret that Hachette acted unilaterally before the French book business as a whole had reached a consensus strategy, and saying he would continue consulting with the publishing industry toward that end.

Warning that the [agreement between Hachette and Google] must "respect the principles defined within the framework of these consultations", Mitterrand said he had told Google in the last few days that he attaches great importance to the issue and that his priority was for respect of authors’ and publishers’ copyright to be assured before the U.S. concern began working with major institutions like the French National Library. He "will remain attentive to the results of the (legal) procedures underway in the United States", where a settlement between authors and Google is awaiting approval by the courts.

The Bookseller’s FutureBooks reports on the settlement and posts the press release. The Bookseller itself has more backstory, noting that Hachette had filed an objection to the Google Books settlement with the US court in September. Google says that it does not currently plan to replicate the deal in other countries, but is “always talking to our publisher partners around the globe about possible collaborations."

The really nutty thing, however, is the provision of the law that prevents libraries from offering ebooks at the same moment that the paper book is released.

Clearly this is all aimed at Google and Amazon. Here is a Google translation of part of the article about an interview with Herve Gaymard: In the interview published in The Tribune yesterday, Herve Gaymard stated that the legislation ” the single price of digital books “was mandatory legislation. And primarily ” for new players like Google and Amazon know what to expect. These are butt and went to face the resistance of French publishers, they are now obliged to negotiate . ”

The app store description doesn’t say much, just “ePagine’s ebook reader allowed access to a catalog of more than 100,000 titels, protected or not by the Adobe ADEPT DRM System [stet]“.

The support link takes you to the French ePagine site, which can be found here.

Now The Bookseller is reporting that writers are lambasting the publishers, claiming that their statement is “gobbledygook”.

The Permanent Writers Council (Conseil Permanent des Ecrivains, CPE) said that authors also had rights under French intellectual property law, including earning a percentage of the earnings from their work. The CPE is the umbrella organisation for writers from 15 creators’ societies and collection agencies. …

Author François Bon said in his blog on the Tiers Livre site that he was furious by the use of the words “natural responsibility”, and wondered how Hachette Livre c.e.o. Arnaud Nourry and other eminent publishers could have signed such “gobbledygook”.

For the last four years, publishers have been offering authors an optional amendment on digital rights, and within the last few weeks, the SNE has drawn up a new type of contract that includes digital rights, Bon noted. He castigated the level of royalties in France, saying he had torn up a contract offering 6% on both print and digital versions of a book.

Exclusive: The information is still unofficial, since the introduction of this service will only be on October 21 next, when Focus on the Digital organized by the NIS. It will speak digital, for sure, but in the meantime, several elements have filtered …

Today, the functioning of the Amazon Kindle is simple: a camera linked to an ebookstore. Simple, but pretty damn restrictive, since between others, the ebook reader from Amazon will only play files in Amazon. EPub not so. However, this system has inspired Franaçs Bookeen ePagine and, since both have linked an agreement on the online bookstores and managed by ePagine Bookeen latest model, the Orizon.

Create an environment that Amazon, the French

The issue is simple: any equipment purchased in a physical store or online will be stamped with the name of the shop and when you launch the browser of Orizon, will open the page linked to the ebookstore the bookstore.

For example, if a consumer goes to Ferret north in a few days, will be sold when the ebook reader, he will buy his Orizon for 229 € and at the time of purchase, a little message will reach the servers that will resolve when Bookeen data from the device to the shop Ferret Northerly line. Managed by ePagine. Everything is for the best in the best of worlds.

Indeed, one side is the customer loyalty by connecting the camera to the store when the other is familiar to consumers this modus operandi is very close to that of Amazon. However, the method is still less rigid. Thus, customers purchasing a Orizon can always contact the customer service of ePagine to change the link between the device and the online store. Therefore, we can link its product to another ebookstore. It would not be possible, however, to perform the operation alone.

Vital partnerships

It will mean that the physical or online store sells the Bookeen reader, while the other hand, the bookstore will be managed by ePagine for all works. Even 1001libraires.com be built for this job is because finally ePagine partner.

And on the other hand, issues of personal data and their management are obviously wince. When Oyo are blocked on the online store Chapitre.com, or that the Sagem is blocked on the store FNAC, the data flows only between the machine and the ebookstore. If we can change on the fly links between libraries and Orizon ePagine, the question arises of where to store the information given above.

We should have more answers on this subject on Monday.

Finally, there is a problem throughout: Bookeen would need to open its own online bookstore, for reasons of reliability and image abroad. How do publishers – and by extension, the booksellers already online – take this initiative, it remains to be discovered ..