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.

[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.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[rflong.livejournal.com]

I agree.

Sadly this seems to be the way things are moving. Entitlement seems to be the issue. :(

[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.

[roseaponi.livejournal.com]

mmm...evil... :D Make the charges for downloading illegal copies equal to shoplifting, and uploading equal to ... um, stealing an entire warehouse of books and flinging them out on the streets.

[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!

[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 . . .

[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?

[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.

[jslinder.livejournal.com]

You are thinking more of a city library I suspect. The local library's SF/F section here is about 30 books from the big names. If you want something else, they can request it from interlibrary loan, and you might see it in 2-3 weeks, maybe, if they can be bothered (the entire staff for the township is 2 people). If I want to go to the Phila library, I have to both jump through hoops (because I don't live in Philly) and either drive in or pay for a train (which comes up almost to the cost of a book.) Downloads? Muahahahah.

And there are rural libraries far less vibrant than mine.

[lagilman]

You are thinking more of a city library I suspect.

Actually, I was thinking of the small suburban library I grew up with. If a patron requested a book, they got it, somehow. That's what librarians DO. Especially when a kid/teenager's looking.

As for waiting... well, maybe so. Again, we have this "I want it NOW and I want it FREE" mentality that makes me wonder if these people have ever paid for or waited for anything in their entire lives (and if not, why someone hasn't smakced them down yet. Just try that in the supermarket, m'dears, and you may get a rude shock)

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

After all, the music industry already goes after people who illegally download pirated music, why not do the same for books?

Makes sense to me.

[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.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

I would argue that the "now" is much more of a focus than the "free," here. I know for a fact that my small-town library wouldn't be able to get your books, incidentally, regardless of the delay.

But what difference does it make to your bottom line as the writer whether a person illegally downloads a book or borrows it from the library? Do libraries pay out royalties based on the number of times a book has been signed out? (if so, that will be the first indication I've heard of that the Galax city library has moved past the 1950s in its organizational capabilities)

Ebooks are being priced competitively against hardcovers, and expect to compete with free. The trouble and extra time involved in finding a specific song, in a good quality version, on a torrent site is comparable with shelling out the $0.99 on iTunes, where the transaction is so blindingly easy I'm surprised we're not hearing of iTunes addictions. To make a similar comparison, ebooks would need to be at least ten times harder to get via download sites, or ten times easier to get from someone like Amazon. In reality, the products purchased from Amazon et al are of *lesser* value than those acquired illegally. When you don't have the right of resale, are limited to a specific display device of (unavoidably) limited lifespan, and -- as recent events demonstrated -- can't even prevent the retailer from taking the purchase right off of your reader, well... Let's just say I'll not be buying any ebooks in the near future.

I also have yet to see a compelling argument for why the ebooks should be priced the way they are. The only point I've seen is a cost breakdown being used to "prove" that ebooks have to be priced the way they are.

I'm sorry, but a flawed business model is a bad reason for me to buy something.






*now* let's see the flamewar.