Claire Ryan of The Raynfall Agency posted a pretty good article today on piracy; it includes the agency's thoughts about what authors need to know, along with some practical tips for avoiding piracy of their works. Ryan didn't cover anything new, but she did discuss the basics. I agree with most of what she wrote, but I think she weakened her argument right at the end. Removing DRM and making books available in all territories? That's excellent advice. Readers are far less likely to pirate if they can get your books in the format they like. And if the book is free of...

What news organizations are learning from their e-book efforts (Poynter Online) What's left if B&N sells the Nook division to Microsoft? (The Passive Voice) A 'novel' idea for spreading literature in Africa: The cellphone (Christian Science Monitor) The e-book piracy debate, revisited (NYTimes.com) The fascinating stories behind classic book titles (Flavorwire) Kindle Daily Deals: Subterranean by James Rollins (and 3 others)...

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is on the record with a comment over at GigaOM that password sharing among family members is not a big deal. I applaud him for his sensibility in recognizing this. I think too many content creators fail to make a distinction between casual sharing amongst members of a household, and uploading to a torrent for millions and millions of people to consume for free. I am delighted to see a big player like Hastings recognize this. He does concede that multiple users sharing an account is 'not ideal.' But he clarifies that what they are seeing is situations such...

DRM opponents should be sending love letters to the Japanese Digital Comics Association. As of March 26th, its “streaming manga” website JManga (which I covered here before) will stop selling new manga—and as of the end of May, manga already purchased will become unavailable to view. And there is no way to download and back up manga files that have been purchased from this site—they can only be read online. At the end of May, loyal customers can kiss goodbye all the money they have ever spent at the site. Unused purchase points will be refunded as Amazon gift cards, but...

One of the anti-DRM arguments people often make is that if you make it easy enough for people to buy content legitimately, they won't need to pirate anymore. Here is a case study in favor of that argument: Thorin Kiosowski over at Lifehacker has a great essay up about why he stopped pirating media and started paying for it legitimately. Kiosowski begins by explaining why he pirated to begin with, namely that at the time, 'legit' digital media was confusing, expensive and failed to provide a good experience. He then lists three things that changed his mind: • He stopped feeling the need to own...

eBook sales have been skyrocketing since 2011, and the publishing market, of course, has been revolutionized as a result. But as the volume of available e-books grows, so does the consumer piracy of e-books. eBook Plus has been launched with the intention of improving the system. As a platform that connects readers, authors, publishers and advertisers, eBook Plus' claim is that it will correct the piracy problem by allowing readers to legally read e-books for free, while at the same time providing advertising opportunities for businesses. Publishers and authors, in other, will presumably have thousands of people reading their books for free, and...

In my last post, I discussed what I've observed to be the three biggest reasons people pirate e-books. Now that we understand the reasons, how do we actually deter piracy of e-books? Let me answer that question for each of the three reasons. 1. I Like To Collect stuff Here's the bad news: There's not much you can do about this one. Collectors like to collect in quantity. They are unlikely to spend much money, if any, on the books. You can deter piracy by offering free books for download, but that will only solve the problem for people who are willing...

Piracy is an endlessly debated topic. Views on it range from "don't worry about it too much" to "it has a huge impact on sales." What is often ignored are the reasons why people pirate and, from there, what publishers could do about it. I've hung out in forums with e-book pirates. I've read about the subject, and I think I can distill my observations down to three main reasons why people pirate (or why they justify it to themselves). In this article, I'll examine them. In my next article, I'll discuss how understanding the reasons can lead to practical ways to reduce...

The piracy debate may well be irrelevant in the future of publishing (Tools of Change) Piracy is yesterday's worry for today's 'artisan authors' (The Guardian) Macmillan to launch two-year ebook library lending pilot (Paid Content) This Clever Resume That Looks Like an Amazon Page Is So Good I Would Buy It (Gizmodo) Kindle Daily Deals: APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki (+ 3 others)...

Digital Book World just published a report that piracy does harm sales and backed it up with a list of 25 studies that prove the point. Okay, splashy headline. You can agree or disagree with it, your choice. What I found interesting were the recommendations to publishers: 1. Make content available online 2. Use existing anti-piracy laws Those are excellent suggestions, and, oh, by the way, the exact suggestions many in the e-reading world have made for years. As I said in my introduction post, I used to be a pirate. Why did I stop? Because the books I wanted finally became available in...

When I was visiting relatives over the weekend, I had a fairly potent reminder of the enduring power of the public domain—and I finally succumbed to the inevitable realization, that in some cases, piracy is just too much work. On Saturday night of our stay, it turned out we didn’t have time to watch Marvel’s The Avengers as I’d hoped we could. So my sister-in-law instead introduced me to the first episode of an engrossing ABC television series called Once Upon a Time. The premise is that Snow White’s Wicked Queen worked a curse that trapped well-known fairy tale...

Is the era of the professional writer drawing to a close? At least one contemporary British author thinks so. In a recent article, the Globe and Mail quotes UK writer Ewan Morrison’s contention that advances from traditional publishers have declined so much in recent years that he is practically working for free. Morrison sees self-publishing, book piracy, rampant e-tailer discounting, free writing online, and the “free culture” movement as killing off traditional writing and publishing. While consumers may be happy to get a lot of stuff for free, he insists, they’re killing our culture, and “There will be no...