the meerkat does not understand this mentality...

[lagilman]

Last night was at the Masters Series Scotch Tasting, featuring Glenmorangie and Ardbeg. Yum. But moving slow this morning as a result.... (no overindulgence, just exhaustion)

Meanwhile, I've been informed of the existence of an open, static website where members have "graciously" uploaded all the Retriever books (among thousands of other titles). Greaaaaaat.

Can someone, seriously, please explain to me why people believe it's morally/legally okay to ask for/upload/share pirated copies of in-print books, rather than paying for them?

No, seriously.

How, in their minds, is this not stealing (not just from bookstores and/or publishers, but from the writers who own the work)? Do they not understand that a book that doesn't earn money means no more work from that author (and, eventually, no more books at all)? And if they do understand this... do they not care? If they enjoy the work so much... do they not want more? Or are we all interchangeable?

I'm not asking to start a flamewar or have other people pile in on "my" side of the question... I'm really wondering what these people are thinking when they say "oh, can you upload that? I want a copy too!" when they can go to the bookstore (or the library -- it's YOUR library, the books are already paid for!) and get a legitimate copy....

Is it just ignorance? Arrogance? Or is there something I'm missing, in my desire to make a living/keep my industry healthy?

EtA: anyone who can honestly say they want to read my books, have no cash that isn't going to food and rent and medical, and can't get to a library to request it? E-mail me at lag (at) lauraannegilman (dot) net and I'll see what I can do. (within reason). So there, that justification's gone.

Comments

[orcaarrow.livejournal.com]

I feel this is an outgrowth of the sense of entitlement people seem to have. I want it, so I can take it.

[rflong.livejournal.com]

Sympathies - I found out ebook copies of The Wolf's Mate had first gone on sale last week because Google Alerts threw up two pirate sites with it available. Sucks.

I thought Patricia McLinn's approach - contacting advertisers (http://www.ninc.com/blog/index.php/archives/a-call-to-protect-copyrights) - was wonderful though.

[lagilman]

It is wonderful, yes. But it puts the onus on us to track them down and then go through all the steps with each advertiser... and that means less time to actually handle the "ordinary" business like writing. We're not companies, we're independent practicioners, and while I'd love to have PA to do some of this stuff, I can't afford to even bring in an intern (unless they'll work for free books and lunch).

But *shrug* This is what we're having to do, just to protect our income.

[rosefox]

I think people don't see it as any different from borrowing a book from a friend or the library.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

Orcaarrow nailed it out of the box.

People have a highly developed sense of enttitlement these days.

I should be able to read this things. I can't afford to pay, but *I* want them.

[nightwolfwriter.livejournal.com]

We argue about this on another board that I frequent, although it's mostly music/movie/game downloading.

The biggest excuse there? "I'm a poor college student. I'll buy stuff once I graduate."

Yeah, right.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

"I'm a poor college student. I'll buy stuff once I graduate."

I've heard this, yes. The irony of course being that -- at the college I work at, at least -- there's a wonderful library with full interlibrary loan capability.

I've also heard from people who (say that) they think they're "teaching the publishers" a lesson. Leaving for a moment the interesting question of what lesson, exactly, they're teaching, these are the same people who stick their fingers in their ears and yell "LalaLAla" when an author points out that an author's sales determine her ability to get more work from Teh Evil Publishing Empire. Teh Empire cares only about Teh Empire's income; so if one author's sales fail because her books are being traded free, rather than purchased, Teh Empire just cuts her loose and gets another one.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Quickest way to solve that problem is to link background checks to pirated stuff. Then, when the poor college student fails the job screening, they might have to think a bit harder on what they're doing.

The internet: where everything you've ever posted never goes away.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Pirates Are The Music Industry’s Most Valuable Customers (http://torrentfreak.com/pirates-are-the-music-industrys-most-valuable-customers-100122/)

So yeah. Right.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

When I was a poor college student, I skipped meals to buy books, and went to the library when I couldn't afford to miss any more calories.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

Based on talking to some folks at my bookstore, there's a weird disconnect where people think "if it's on the internet, it's free." That includes books, music, movies, photos. If they can download it from somewhere, it's free, and not stealing. Even when I bring up Napster file-sharing and the lawsuits, and they get shifty-eyed, they're not willing to concede that internet content != free. It all started with cassette tapes and recording from the radio, said one of my customers.

I boggle, I really do.

[elektra.livejournal.com]

I've got to agree here with the disconnect.

I recently had someone ripoff some code from my website and try to sell it. When I went to the group [club] with the problem, someone's recently-graduated-from-college son expressed the sentiment that it was perfectly alright to copy anything without a visible copyright notice . . . fortunately, my intellectual property rights attorney disagreed.

What are they teaching our children these days?

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

"It's no different from libraries or used bookstores."

"Publishers won't release DRM-free versions."

"E-book prices are too high."

"I want to try before I buy."

"It's good publicity for the writer. (The real enemy is obscurity!)"

"Authors are all rich anyway, so it doesn't matter."

"Authors are artists who shouldn't worry about getting paid."

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Jim, between those quotes and Woodstock holding the spear, I get the feeling this is like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. A bad feeling, that.

[jslinder.livejournal.com]

You know, if you TRULY can't afford to pay, that's almost one thing (which begs the question of how you have access, but lets go without that for now). In that case you aren't truly cannibalizing a sale (since you could not have bought it in the first place). It's still 'RIGHT', in the same way that stealing food is not right when you can't afford it, but at least its understandable. Yes, there are libraries, but for many the SF/F/UF section is paltry at best.

The true problem is most of the people downloading this CAN afford it (lets face it, used books are not THAT expensive), and instead prefer to download rather than pay (this especially galls me when legitimate e-book versions are available). That's not entitlement, its arrogance, the same arrogance that affects sports figures, politicians, as well as pretty much everyone else, which is 'the rules do not apply to me'.

It's not limited to books of course, movies, music, games, papers are all routinely pirated. All of which take money from their makers, which will eventually lead to less original materials. But since the rules don't apply to these people, neither do the consequences. And its not a priority on the social scale. Have you seen the dealers at cons who sell bootlegged videos? They don't hide.


I don't claim to be a saint. I have downloaded pirated materials. But its always either something I could not view locally (or at least not for an extended period of time), something I wanted to sample and then buy, or something that was out of print and I could not obtain from another channel. I'm not sure if any of those reasons are 'Morally Right', and it certainly runs the risk of being a slippery slope.

There are any number of factors that have led to this. The largely unregulated freedom of data movement provided by the internet. The increasing prices of entertainment media, often conflated with generally declining quality. Teens and college students who have grown up with the mantra of information should be free, without understanding the consequences of those decisions.

I don't have a solution, btw. It's kind of like the war on drugs, until you eliminate demand, supply will always appear.

[lagilman]

It's kind of like the war on drugs, until you eliminate demand, supply will always appear.

Except in this case, demand could easily kill the supply. And then all that will be left is the "I wrote it and threw it up online" amateurs where the readability level is... varied.

I still don't understand the "I can't afford it" line, when it's available via your public, tax-supported library... and many olf them have downloads available!

[roseaponi.livejournal.com]

*is equally baffled* It must be the rampant entitlement. And the anonymity - one assumes these people don't normally shoplift or take money out of tip jars.
I have to admit, for work that's in the public domain, downloading is an excellent way to quickly get access to research - maybe people think that "public domain" and "internet" are the same thing.
And those "poor college students" must not spend enough time in libraries.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

When I asked for opinions about audio book sites the other day, mentioning audible.com specifically, the first comment I got was a link to an LJ pirate community. Not what I was looking for. I ended up joining audible.com and did find some legitimate public domain sites. Guess I should have been more specific about what I was looking for.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

As others have said, "I want it, therefore I will take it. I don't even have to kill you first!"

At least *real* pirates risk their own lives . . .

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

I think it's partly that it's so easy, and so invisible. How many people *never* use office supplies from their workplace for personal purposes? The number of people who would *never* download pirated content is probably similar, excluding those like yourself who know first-hand how damaging it is to the content-producer.

It's easy. It's enjoyable to get more content than you can necessarily buy right now, in the convenience of an electronic format. It's easy to make excuses. In many cases there's no accountability but your own conscience. It's easy for people who've never thought of content producers as real people to never even think about them needing money to pay bills and buy food.

As for the people who upload - I imagine they get a thrill out of providing things that people want and getting attention for it. Even if there's no monetary benefit to them, there's the ego of getting attention from downloaders, of one-upping other uploaders, even of getting angry attention from content-producers. That desire for attention seems to be what motivates trolls, so I expect it's at least part of what motivates uploaders.

As far as I can tell, all the "reasons" aren't really - they're just the words that get spouted when someone's asked to justify something that they know is wrong but want to keep doing. They're not related to *why* people steal. They're just excuses to keep doing it rather than spending some money on content or some time on going to the library.

I feel guilty for the bootleg content I've used in the past. I haven't gotten around to buying all of it legitimately, even though that was my excuse at the time: "I'll buy it when it comes out in the US." I still hope to, both to make amends and to support the content producers so they can make more. (and to enjoy the content in a better format) But it doesn't make it right. I don't remember whether I honestly thought it did at the time, but I do know that if I hadn't had some belief it was wrong I wouldn't have felt the need to make excuses.

For me, education made the biggest difference - learning, for instance, that pirated anime resulted in quantifiably *lower* sales figures when it came out in the US rather than bringing in a wider audience and raising sales figures like a lot of fans want to believe. Obvious now, yes, but keep in mind that what one *wants* to believe needs stronger evidence to disprove.

Also, reading author blogs and realizing "hey, these people are like me - they *need* money to pay for the rent, and the electric, and the groceries, and repairs on the car that just broke down, and so on." Again, it should be obvious but it felt like a revelation. That made me more conscious of pirating as a categorically *bad* thing, rather than just something that made me uncomfortable to do, and it also made me more likely to get involved in conversations on pirated content and copyright, and more likely to pressure my friends and acquaintances to buy rather than pirate.

I don't speak for everyone, of course, but this might provide some perspective on some of the people who do it.

[house-draven.livejournal.com]

People upload because they want to download. Most torrent sites work on a ratio basis. You must upload x amount in order to be able to download y amount.

Just fyi. :)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It's beyond aggravating. I had to turn off Google alerts which was automatically notifying me each day as new pirate copies and websites popped up.

[delkytlar.livejournal.com]

I had someone approach me after I'd given an anti-piracy talk at a con. From his demeanor and comments, I assume he was an active pirate, but he wouldn't confirm it. He told me that he knew authors weren't being hurt by piracy because "Authors are paid employees of the publishers. They get a nice salary and benefits to sit in an office all day and write novels." He wanted to hear no part of what would have been my lengthy rebuttal.

However, he's not the only person I've met who has this idea that the big publishing houses' offices are full of rooms where staff writers (you know, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and Laura Anne Gilman) spend their days writing books, sucking down free coffee and taking three martini lunches on the expense account, when not appearing on Oprah. I can't count the number of average people (including some of my relatives) who have asked me, upon hearing that I work at a publishing house, "Oh! What books have you written for them?" In my experience, it's a wide-spread assumption that if you work for a publisher, you must be writing books for them.

I think people really don't understand how writers earn a living (those who actually do earn a living at writing). They think, if writers are so well-off and secure in their creative employment, where's the harm? Honestly, after that con experience, I stopped trying to understand the pirate mind. It's a different culture and worldview than I'll ever have.

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

It's a thankless job, but I do encourage you to keep trying to educate people - the more they understand about how things really work, the more likely they are to see the harm in piracy, and hopefully eventually change their habits and spread the understanding further...

Real ignorance supports willful ignorance, so taking out that support might help in some cases.

[blitheringpooks.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[plattcave.livejournal.com]

You can't understand why they think it's right, they can't understand why you think it's wrong.

[lagilman]

Hrmn, but will they acknowledge that they are undermining and weakening the industry that brings them what they enjoy enough to take w/o paying -- thereby resulting in less of what they enjoy?

If they won't accept legal definitions, will they accept logical repercussions?

[house-draven.livejournal.com]

I agree with many above -- it's a sense of entitlement. I see it everywhere, in so many different forms.

I also think ignorance plays a large part as well. When I was writing screenplays, I was amazed at how many people thought the *actors* just more or less made it all up as they went along. When I was writing games, people thought the programmers did it all (and alas, there came a time when they did, though fortunately the wheel has turned somewhat). And now, as I "work" on fiction (in quotes because you know how little I've written in the past few years), people all seem to assume that everyone makes the kind of money that King and Rowling do, so it's "okay" to download a novel or six because "they can afford it and I can't".

They also think writing's *easy*. If I had a dollar for every time someone said "Anyone can write," P and I would never have to work again. And I think this perception adds to the entitlement. Since "anyone" can do it, it has no intrinsic value.

And perhaps some will see entitlement in the following, though I obviously don't. I will confess that I have downloaded songs from artists I didn't know -- just one or two. (Christian Kane being one, though he put one song up for free. I downloaded one other, then bought everything up there for sale.) If I liked the songs, I paid for them or the entire disc through iTunes or bought the cd. If I didn't, I deleted the songs. I don't feel guilty about it or even feel that it's wrong, because to me, it was like trying on a dress in a dressing room. If I liked it, I paid for it, and if I didn't, I put it back on the rack. Music is something one uses over and over again -- does anyone buy a song to hear only once? If iTunes let you hear more than 30 seconds of a song, then I wouldn't even download as a dressing room.

Otoh, I have *never* downloaded a film or book. Films and books come into a different category for me -- the initial experience *is* the thing. It's wonderful when we find a book or film we like enough to read or view over and over again, but for me at least, I read/watch many more items where a single serving is enough. (That doesn't mean the book or film was "bad" -- I just have limited storage space that's already overflowing and can only keep material I'll re-use.) If the author/publisher chooses to give me a "dressing room" of sample chapters, groovy. But otherwise I make my choice based on other criteria, pay my money and take my chances -- pretty much what we do when we go see a film in the theater.

As for e-books, I'm not buying. Why on earth should I buy something that will inevitably be obsolete? Well, perhaps I would if the price were low enough, but it never will be. I haven't done much book shopping lately, but from what I've seen e-books are being priced at about the same as hardcover. In a couple of instances, the e-book was *more* expensive than the hardcover. Ridiculous.

I haven't seen the figures, but that's what it's going to take to convince me that the manufacturing costs of an ebook are equitable with that of a hardcover. I don't see how on earth it can be.

For me to buy ebooks, they'll have to include a free technology upgrade -- when the reader updates so that my ebook can no longer be read on the new reader, then I get a free download of the new version -- and the price will have to be significantly lower than that of the print version. I refuse to pay over and over and over again for the same material good.

As to stopping piracy...I think the various author's groups, like RWA and SFWA, are going to have to devote resources to fighting it, just like the music industry did. And certainly the publishers should be devoting resources to fighting it as well. There will also have to be pressure put on legislators to put aid or trade sanctions on nations that permit/encourage pirate sites (Russia, Georgia, Norway...I'm looking at you).

[spiffikins]

I read on another author's blog the other day - the actual cost of printing the books is about 10% of the overall cost to publish a novel - so in fact, the ebook version and the dead-tree version don't cost that much difference to make.

Skip the 'why'

[ekovar.livejournal.com]

"Why" is an interesting discussion about human nature but "how", as in how to stop people, is more useful.

Pirating started long before people were uploading books. About 20 years ago someone I knew casually at St. Johns wanted to borrow the install disks for some significant program or another. I explained the obvious and not only did he not understand it, he thought something was wrong with me. After all, other people shared programs.

A couple of years after that I used the same "If you" logic on someone who was very, very drunk and pounding his head against a wall. Big guy, upset about something, and his friends couldn't get him to stop. After I got him to listen it took only four Socratic sentences, starting with "If you keep pounding your head against that wall you'll break the wallboard, right?" and ending with his agreeing, and understanding, that if he pounded his head against the wall or damaged the hotel in general he wouldn't have a place to pound his head against the wall. We never had a problem with him again.

Because he was drunk I had to skip the arguments, make the logic simple and I added that one last bit, which made it personal to him: if you do X you won't be able to do X -- or perhaps it's Y or Z -- anymore. Variations of that formula keep working in a number of situations. You've been ending the argument with this being about you. It isn't. It's about this specific reader getting things by one or a couple of specific authors -- not authors, the concept, but names they know -- to read.

People are rarely approached or responded to this way -- not an argument and certainly not accusations of stealing, but a couple of sentences about cause-and-effect finishing with the effect on them, personally.

(Besides, even if there isn't a useful result you have the entertainment of confounding them by not getting into their argument. A cheerful "okay, so you don't understand a business model. Hey, have you tried the hotel restaurant? I've heard service is really slow" knocks them totally off balance.)

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of the comments, but I think people ask for cybercopies because they are in love with the idea of transmitting stuff. I don't think they even think of these potential transmissions as books.

[ilvack.livejournal.com]

I think I've said it before here, but I was once one of these people. I'm very much guilty of downloading things that were not mine to begin with.

I never thought of it as a sense of entitlement, though I'm sure I would have uttered some such statement if asked, but growing up in the Napster age did lead me into thinking that taking others works was perfectly fine.

Taking music? Sure, that's ok. It's free over the radio, you can stream it over the internet. Why not have it on your computer to share with your friends.

Movies? Sure, I could spend 20 bucks to go to the movies or to buy the DvD, but what if I don't like it? What if it's too rare?

Books? Yeah, libraries are supposed to have the books I want to read, but try getting a copy of a book by Al Franklin in a library in my home town and you'll be beaten to death with GOING ROGUE.

None of these arguments are very good, but they're the ones I've heard from many of my peers. They're the ones I would have told you a few years ago.

If there is any bits of solace to be taken, one of them is this: Most of the thieves, and that's really what we are, do grow up.

Most of the same people who once gave me those excuses now spend their money on the products they so love. I for one only have legally bought and paid for music/movies/audiobooks on my iPod now. I still have a slew of PDFs from my own downloading days tucked away on a backup disc somewhere, but each of those files has been replaced by it's real world counterpart. NOTHING beats the feel of a real book in your hands.

The few that refuse to grow up, and who decide they will never have enough money to get the things they really want, are thankfully in the minority. I know that's like saying "Well, I got robbed last night, but at least it was by ONLY one person", but perhaps this last bit will help.

As technology evolves it is becoming harder and harder to steal things digitally. Digital Rights Media, while a pain a good deal of the time, seems to be having a positive affect out on the Net. I hope the day will come when the only way to get away with stealing another persons work will be to sit down in front of the computer and physically type word for word from the book in question. Then maybe the thefts will stop once they see how hard writing truly is.

*quietly shuffles off his soapbox*