An Open Letter To Scott Turow About Not Freaking Out About Book 'Piracy'

from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept

We recently noted that author Scott Turow had been elected as President of the Authors Guild, where his initial focus seemed to be all about the evils of file sharing. Thankfully, some are trying to talk some sense into Turow. Michael Scott points us to a fantastic open letter to Turow, from Brian O'Leary, about why his kneejerk reaction isn't helping, and that he should be focused on understanding unauthorized file sharing, and what impacts it has (both good and bad), before jumping to the conclusion that it's evil and must be stopped at all costs. Here's just an excerpt, though you should read the whole thing:

First, though: I am not a pirate.  I value intellectual property and believe its prudent defense can return value to its creators.  But I've also come to believe, in this increasingly digital landscape, that the greater threat to many authors is obscurity, not piracy.

....

That's why we started studying the impact of piracy on paid sales almost two years ago.  On an admittedly limited sample... we've found an apparent correlation between piracy and subsequent growth in paid sales.

Now, you recently told GalleyCat's Jason Boog that "...the larger problem for us is the pirating of books".  I ask, simply, "How do you know?"

There are no reliable studies of the impact of piracy in the book business.  Because our sample set is limited, I include our own work to date in that bucket.  The studies that are cited most often are based on sampling techniques that try to track the instance of piracy, then apply an assumed number for "substitution rates" (lost sales).

The Government Accounting Office recently "assessed the assessments" of digital piracy and found them all lacking.  That's not the final word, but it's an indication that conclusions drawn on the limited data available are premature, at least.

In talking with GalleyCat, you went on to say that "(piracy) has killed large parts of the music industry." But, the music industry is not dead, and there are studies that suggest that the more likely shift in buying patterns occurred when vinyl owners finished replacing treasured albums with CDs.

As replacement sales declined, purchase patterns also shifted from whole albums to individual songs.  This was a trend that the music industry actively resisted, in the end fostering the piracy it wanted to prevent.  The lesson here could be more readily distilled as: "Don't take actions (like delaying the release of e-books) that frustrate consumer demand."

There's much more in the full letter, and it's well worth the read. O'Leary suggests not that Turow ignores the issue, but that he takes a more open-minded, data- and evidence-driven approach to responding to this market issue. That is, don't immediately assume the best response is "stopping" unauthorized copies, but collect some data to figure out how to best respond to the market situation. Hopefully Turow will actually pay attention and maybe rethink his position.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, scott turow
Companies: authors guild

Texas AG Looks Into Price Fixing Antitrust Questions Surrounding Ebooks

from the had-to-happen dept

As many of you surely know, earlier this year, there was a bit of a fight between publishers and Amazon over ebook pricing, which resulted in Amazon backing down from its "all ebooks at $9.99" policy, and publishers getting the ability to raise the price on ebooks. The whole thing seemed a bit odd, and smacked of price fixing and antitrust (potentially collusion). Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so. Nastybutler77 points us to the news that the Attorney General in Texas is now investigating the issue. The theory is that it's an investigation into Apple's practices -- which could fit with the Justice Department's own investigation into potentially anti-competitive practices by Apple. But, I'm wondering why the focus isn't more on the book publishers. It used to be that retailers got to set their own pricing, and vendors requiring retailers to set a certain price violated price fixing laws. Recent case law has backed away from that concept, though I'm still not sure I understand why.

Filed Under: antitrust, ebooks, price fixing, pricing, texas
Companies: amazon, apple

JK Rowling Finally Realizing That Offering An Official Ebook Might Be A Good Idea?

from the about-time dept

We've never understood JK Rowling's stance against ebooks. Five years ago, we wrote about how she refused to allow ebooks of her books because she was afraid they would get "pirated." Of course, that made no sense. By not offering an ebook version, she actually made sure that her books were file shared even more. As we noted, even five years ago, a group of Harry Potter fans were able to scan and OCR the release of a Harry Potter book and get it online within 12 hours of its release. And by not having an official version, the only version that fans could get electronically was the unauthorized version. Not offering an official ebook version does nothing to stop unauthorized file sharing. It only prevents you from actually getting money for sales of the official version.

This seemed obvious five years ago, so we've been perplexed that Rowling has continued to stand by her refusal to offer ebooks. However, Copycense alerts us to the news that Rowling is now finally considering offering ebook versions, though it sounds like it may still be a long way off. Of course, given her misguided views on unauthorized copies, expect any official release to be locked down (not that it will stop or even slow infringing copies).

Filed Under: ebooks, harry potter, jk rowling

Author Joe Konrath Experiments With 'Piracy' To See How It Impacts Sales

from the give-it-away dept

Last week, we wrote about how author Joe Konrath felt that authors were going a bit overboard worrying about file sharing, noting that there was no way to stop it, and fighting it was just a waste of effort. Instead, he wanted to focus on providing more value for his fans. Joe has since followed up his original post with a bit of an experiment: purposely putting one of his ebooks online for free to see what happens, even though it's also available for sale:

I'll keep track of my free downloads, Kindle numbers, Paypal donations, and my rankings on Amazon and B&N for the next 30 days, then post the results.

And he's hoping people will help by promoting the book on various file sharing systems:

Also, I encourage pirates to post this everywhere. Go ahead and proliferate the internet with JACK DANIELS STORIES. You can explain that I'm encouraging it, or you can just take it and not say a word. I'd appreciate it if you post in the comments section where you're uploaded it, which you can do anonymously. Or you don't have to.

If anyone sees this ebook on file sharing sites, I also ask that you please post a link to it in the comments. The more places I can see this being shared, the better I can compare ebooks sold to ebooks shared.

Of course, some will complain that this is hardly a scientific experiment, but it should still be interesting to follow. My only worry with these types of experiments -- of which we've seen many -- is that it's in the give it away and pray variety. That can and does work for some, but is something less than a complete business model that purposely ties a business model to the shared files. If I had to guess, I'd bet that Konrath will see a boost in sales for this particular book and other books. And that's because he's using this as a pure promotional strategy. Others will complain, of course, that such a strategy doesn't work if every author does this. That's true -- and one of the reasons why I prefer more complete business models beyond "give it away and pray." However, one of the key things of a good business model is recognizing good promotional strategies that remain "low hanging fruit." And, in a time when you still have many authors freaking out about file sharing, embracing it is probably a good bit of low hanging fruit in building up an audience.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, joe konrath, piracy

Students Overwhelmingly Don't Like Kindle As A Textbook Replacement Option

from the ouch dept

Amazon pitched its Kindle Dx as a perfect replacement from having to lug around heavy textbooks in college, but it seems that the drawbacks to the technology have students pining for the old textbooks (found via Slashdot). In fact, in a survey after using the Kindle Dx for a while, "80 percent of MBA students who participated in Amazon's pilot program said they would not recommend the Kindle DX as a classroom study aid..." And it's not that they don't like ebooks. The same report notes that "more than 90 percent liked it for pleasure reading." Apparently not being able to "scribble notes in the margins, easily highlight passages or fully appreciate color charts and graphics" is sort of a pain for educational settings. Who knew?

Filed Under: ebooks, kindle, students
Companies: amazon

Authors Guild Worried About iPad Ebook File Sharing... But Focused On The Wrong Thing

from the people-are-reading! dept

A little over a year ago, we discussed the idea that the ebook world needed more "piracy," noting that the locked down nature of the Kindle actually limited a large part of what might help kick off the real ebook world. History has shown time and time again that so-called "piracy" is often a leading indicator of innovation in areas that people are interested in. But, unauthorized sharing in ebooks was still somewhat limited. Of course, some things have changed over the past year. There was the lawsuit against Scribd (which, last I heard, failed to get class action status) and then sudden totally unsubstantiated articles warning about unauthorized ebook file sharing.

Now, the latest, is the fear that with the success of the iPad in the market that it will become a popular platform for unauthorized sharing of ebooks. Apparently, author Scott Turow has recently taken over the Authors Guild, and has decided that ebook "piracy" is a "big problem" that has to be the focus. Perhaps next time the Authors Guild wants to show itself to be forward-looking and able to change with the times, it shouldn't put a 60+ year old lawyer in charge. Just a suggestion... Rather than saying that unauthorized file sharing is such a big problem, perhaps Turow should take a look at the music industry more closely. He seems to only be superficially aware of what's happening in that industry. Instead of recognizing that the industry wasted over a decade fighting what fans wanted, he seems to think that he can magically fight what every other industry has failed to fight. That doesn't seem like a strategy that has a high likelihood of success.

Perhaps, instead of automatically blaming those involved in file sharing, Turow should take some time to understand why it's happening, and look at those who have figured out interesting and unique models to provide more value for consumers who want it, rather than just focusing on the impossible task of trying to punish those whose actions the Authors Guild doesn't like.

Filed Under: ebooks, file sharing, ipad, scott turow
Companies: authors guild

Amazon Spying On Your Ebook Highlighting

from the who-owns-what-now? dept

There have already been plenty of questions over who "owns" the ebooks you've bought, with stories of remotely deactivated books and remotely deactivated features -- neither of which happens when you have a real physical book. But there are also other concerns opened up by newly activated features. Apparently one new feature -- sent in by a few concerned readers -- is that Amazon will now remotely upload and store the user notes and highlights you take on your Kindle, which it then compiles into "popular highlights."

I have no doubt that the feature provides some interesting data, but it's not clear that users realize their highlighting and notes are being stored and used that way. Amazon basically says there's no big privacy deal here, because the data is always aggregated. But it sounds like many users don't realize this is happening at all. Amazon says people can find out they added this feature by reading "forum posts and help pages" -- but it's not clear how many people actually do read those things. While I'm sure many people are fine with this, others might not be. And it once again highlights a key concern in that the "features" of your "book" can change over time. Your highlighting may have been yours in the past, but suddenly it becomes Amazon's with little notice.

Filed Under: ebooks, kindle, ownership, spying
Companies: amazon

Random House Realizing That Its Old Contracts Don't Cover Ebooks

from the but-it-doesn't-want-you-to-know dept

A few years back, publisher Random House lost a series of legal battles against an ebook publisher, over the question of whether or not Random House's basic contracts covered ebooks as well. The courts ruled that they did not. While Random House's more recent contracts do explicitly add in ebooks, it was still surprising to find the company trying to fight this battle again, with regards to the heirs of author William Styron's works. Random House was telling authors, including Styron's heirs, that they could not publish ebooks with other publishers.

However, knowing full well that Random House had lost that claim in the past, it looks like Styron's heirs stood up for themselves, and Random House has backed down, allowing them to publish some of his works as ebooks with another publisher. Random House is insisting that this is "an exception," and that it does not apply to other authors. Of course, that's unlikely to be true for authors who signed agreements with Random House prior to it including specific language to deal with ebooks -- meaning that many may now look to publish electronic versions elsewhere.

Filed Under: ebooks
Companies: random house

For Small Authors, eBooks Are Much Better Than Being Printed On Pulp

from the new-models dept

Hephaestus writes "This is a different perspective on the e-books as the killer of the book publishing industry. It's a take from the small author perspective."

As the eBook experience improves, especially with the increased adoption of the Kindle and iPad, authors now have the same opportunity that exists now for musicians to exploit new opportunities. Like the music world, most writers also don't expect to make a great living from writing, so for them, exposure to readers is more valuable than revenue:

If you give a writer a choice between $10,000 and 10,000 readers, the writer will always choose the latter.

After all, having 10,000 readers is a fantastic connection with which to work -- at that point, all an author would have to do to make money would be to give the readers a reason to buy. For writers, there's already a fantastic finite good that they can sell, the printed book. While this may seem counter-intuitive, we've seen this model work before: after a publisher gave away digital copies of a book for free, they saw their physical book sales increase 20x. So, like the musicians who embrace the opportunities that the new economy offers, writers have a similar entrepreneurial opportunity.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, writers

Will The Authors Guild Freak Out About Text To Speech On The iPad?

from the yakety-yak dept

When the second generation Kindle ebook reader launched with a text-to-speech functionality, the Authors Guild freaked out, claiming that this violated a totally made up on the spot aspect of copyright law. Plenty of copyright lawyers dissected this claim in great detail and concluded that the Authors Guild was making up stories about how they wanted copyright law to act, rather than paying attention to what copyright law actually said. There simply is no copyright violation in having a computer read a book aloud to you. However, after the Authors Guild ratcheted up the threats, Amazon finally caved and let authors choose to block the text-to-speech functionality.

Now, with the iPad coming out, some are noticing that it, too, contains such text-to-speech capabilities, and yet oddly, we haven't heard complaints from the Authors Guild (found via Copycense). Have they come to their senses, or have they just not realized it yet?

Filed Under: authors, ebooks, ipad, kindle, text to speech
Companies: amazon, apple, authors guild