Author Walter Jon Williams Asks For Fans To Help Him 'Pirate' His Own Works Better

from the piratesourcing?-crowdpirating? dept

Consumerist points us to a blog post from author Walter Jon Williams, where he discusses his disgust with pirate copies of his books -- but not for the reasons you might expect. It seems he's upset about the quality of the scanned copies and is asking his fans to help by creating better scans:
I embarked upon a Cunning Plan. I discovered that my work had been pirated, and was available for free on BitTorrent sites located in the many outlaw server dens of former Marxist countries. So I downloaded my own work from thence with the intention of saving the work of scanning my books-- I figured I'd let the pirates do the work, and steal from them. While this seemed karmically sound, there proved a couple problems.

First, the scans were truly dreadful and full of errors. (Even if you're desperate for my work, I can't really recommend them.) A lot of time has been spent copy-editing, both by me and by Kathy-- which isn't really so bad, because this would have to be d0ne anyway.

But second, apparently a few of my books were so obscure that they flew under the radar of even the pirates! You can't imagine how astounded I was when I discovered this.

I could really use some decent scans of some of my books, and I figure some among you must have better scanners and OCR than the piece of crap that's currently sitting on my shelf.
Not only that, but he's offering rewards to those who help him, saying he'll send them signed (physical) copies of certain books, and also put their name on the scan.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: piracy, scans, walter jon williams


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 4:11pm

    Heh?

    A lot of time has been spent copy-editing, both by me and by Kathy-- which isn't really so bad, because this would have to be d0ne anyway.

    Intentional? If so, nicely done.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Zach Mollett (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 4:22pm

    Re: Heh?

    The formatting on his website makes it pretty indistinguishable. But I also hope that it was intentional.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Meee, 24 May 2011 @ 4:27pm

    Someone please tell me this is not a trap.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Adm. Akbar, 24 May 2011 @ 5:12pm

    Re:

    It's a trap!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    sumquy (profile), 24 May 2011 @ 6:01pm

    Re: Re:

    damn, got to it before me.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Rekrul, 24 May 2011 @ 6:36pm

    Most OCR'ed text is chock full of typos. The problem is that most people don't even bother to run a spell checker on it, let alone manually check it to see if it scanned properly.

    I tried an OCR program once that claimed it could get the text out of any image. I imported a pure B/W image with perfectly clear block text and it only managed to recognize about 25% of the characters.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    JustMe (profile), 25 May 2011 @ 4:56am

    Why not just post electronic versions?

    (anonymously, of course, so he doesn't get in to trouble with his publisher)

    The author understands that some people are willing to read pirated copies of his books. There is some (probably large) percentage of those people would not normally purchase his books. Why not provide high quality electronic versions out to the pirating masses? The experience of reading without typos, formatting errors, wonky page rotations, etc. has got to make for a more enjoyable reading experience; one which might turn some of the pirates in to customers.

    I'm not trolling, just proposing an a variation on the original Cunning Plan.


    As a gift to the author I have added a new copy of The Praxis to my Amazon cart. I might also pick up "This is Not a Game:"


    FYI to the author:

    - The hardcover link for Amazon.co.uk for "The Praxis" on your website says "Currently unavailable".

    - It is too bad the 3-fer book is unavailable (Dread Empire's Fall, 1-3). I checked both .co.uk and .com with no luck.

    - Finally, why is the Kindle version of The Praxis the same price as the paperback at Amazon.com? There are no printing, shipping or carrying costs.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 25 May 2011 @ 7:08am

    Re:

    I tried to OCR a PDF version of Dark Helmet's book, but it turned out like crap. It thought A was @. God I hate PDFs.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Vanye (profile), 25 May 2011 @ 7:39am

    Re: Why not just post electronic versions?

    Not an author, but I am friends/acquaintances with several. The price of an e-book is very rarely left up to the author. Most of the time it is decided by the publisher. Hence, the stupidity with most prices.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    Robert P (profile), 25 May 2011 @ 7:49am

    Hah! How soon before he's sued for pirating content? Good thing he's not trying to do this with a movie or USCG would be all over him, filthy pirate.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Spaceman Spiff (profile), 25 May 2011 @ 8:47am

    At Last!

    At last, an author who has a clue! I'm tempted to go out and purchase his (hard copy) book, simply because he isn't clueless! :-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Frost, 25 May 2011 @ 8:57am

    Loss of revenue is never the problem that loss of exposure is

    Many authors or musicians just don't get that their biggest problem isn't that people copy their work without paying, thus leading to loss of revenue - their biggest problem is getting exposure towards the greatest amount of prospective readers/listeners possible. "Illicit" copying can really help there and true fans of any artist will usually wind up paying for their stuff at one point or another.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    vastrightwing, 25 May 2011 @ 9:03am

    It won't be long

    Soon, big publishing will sue Williams for giving other authors the idea they can do it themselves without the old industry titans. This will not end well.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    Mike Raffety (profile), 25 May 2011 @ 12:29pm

    Author scanning his own work?

    Umm, if he wrote the book, doesn't he still have the text on his own computer? Why scan anything? Or did he write it all out long-hand on paper?

    Plus, then search engines will be able to index the text cleanly (e.g., someone's trying to find the origin of a quote that came from his book).

    But yes, assuming this was not self-published, his publisher may well have a vested interest in blocking this, it's likely his contract explicitly prohibits him from circulating copies by any other channel.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Rekrul, 26 May 2011 @ 9:49pm

    Re: Re:

    God I hate PDFs.

    Doesn't every one?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Pete, 27 May 2011 @ 8:30pm

    Re: Author scanning his own work?

    Walter Jon Williams did not start writing books 3 weeks ago. He was one of the pillars of the cyberpunk movement in the eighties. So ummm... no. He is unlikely to have them all on computer.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.