Friday 1st January 2010
Here’s a prediction: by the end of 2010 authors and publishers everywhere will be looking at their bank accounts and wondering where the money went. Ebooks are going to be with us big time, and with the coming of mainstream digital publishing comes the the arrival of book theft so widespread it may one day make writing unviable for some.
According to CNN Dan Brown’s latest opus, The Lost Symbol, had 100,000 illegal ebook downloads within days of its release. And these were cracked ebooks too, copies that had had the DRM ‘protection’ removed by some hacker. I don’t come anywhere near to Dan Brown in sales. But I know my own work, in ebook form and as audio, is widely available as torrent downloads out there. Thanks to Google’s search robots set up to look for reviews of my work I get weekly reminders that someone, somewhere is ripping me off somewhere in the world every day.
There are those who claim book piracy isn’t the threat it might appear. A ripped-off book is not the same as a lost sale. Some of the people who pick up your pirated work wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. Maybe, too, someone who wouldn’t have bought your book will get it for free and like it so much they rush out and pay money for the real thing.
I’m not convinced. Does a shoplifter who discovers they’ve stolen something they like go back and pay for it next time? Not usually. They just go back and steal some more. And piracy, remember, is theft, nothing more, nothing less. I don’t care if someone argues, ‘Well I wouldn’t have bought your book anyway.’ Can a shoplifter get away with saying in court, ‘Well I wouldn’t have bought that bottle of Moet, guvnor.’ Of course not. The fact there is no physical loss in digital crime doesn’t make it less of a crime. And certainly not one of those so-called ‘victimless crimes’ we hear so much about today, crimes, it seems to me, that are mainly committed by people who find it socially unacceptable to think of themselves as common thieves.
Don’t misunderstand me. I think the arrival of ebooks is a good thing. I don’t hate the Internet. I don’t think copy protection is a great idea — it seems to punish the honest buyer while the ripoff merchant finds some way round. And I certainly believe there are occasions when books should be given away for free for promotional purposes (though I do think it should be the choice of the writer and publisher to hand it out for nothing, not some geek looking for someone new to pirate).
But theft is theft, and if we’re not careful we’re headed for a culture where millions of casual readers will simply sift the net for ‘free’ books for their ereaders the way they once downloaded ‘free’ music from Napster. The music industry has struggled with the problem of piracy for years. It’s changed the way musicians work, making many more reliant on touring and appearances than music sales.
Where does that leave authors? I can’t make money from public appearances. In fact it costs me to go on tour, and will doubtless cost more as embattled publishers cut back on their own marketing budgets and rely on authors to sell their books for them. The only income I have from writing comes from the sale of books and, at less than 50p a copy or so in royalties for a paperback, it’s not exactly rich pickings. It’s also worth pointing out that books are actually cheaper today than they were ten years ago, by a considerable margin. You can pick up discounted paperbacks online, in supermarkets and book chains for perhaps two thirds of what they cost a decade ago. And still some people want them for free?
There is a real danger that we’re sliding towards a cultural shift which divides creative writers from their work, where copyright itself is somehow seen as theft, a conspiracy against a public that has a ‘right’ to take what it wants from the web for nothing. If that happens we’re headed for fewer professionally published books, a poorer range of literature, and the dumbing down of mainstream publishing to a handful of established genres and big-time authors. This is not what books should be about.
I’m deeply grateful to the vast number of decent, honest readers out there who wouldn’t dream of pirating a book, no matter how easy it might become. But I do wonder if you are an endangered species — and if so how soon it will be before professional authors begin to join you. Those of us who write for a living are lucky, but it’s still a job. If we’re just producing books for others to rip off for free it won’t be long before some begin to find other ways to pass the time.
Tags: Book theft, Writing
This may be useful re Google Books settlement
http://www.societyofauthors.org/information-and...
If a foreigner sets a book in a particular country that's always the place
that's hardest to crack which is why I was both surprised and pleased to get
published very quickly in Italy. Don't take it to heart. Just keep on
writing.
2010/1/21 Disqus <>
Thanks for that. I am based in the U.S. but will be published in the UK.
Frankly, I doubt the Google deal will affect me much one way or the other.
My agent says he would go for it, on balance, but admits that he at
something of a loss. It seems to be a Google promulgation – like a
Presidential decree – that has been cooked up in the States but could have
near-universal application. The French, as you might expect, are taking it
to court. Maybe they'll sort it out. By the by (and don't feel you have to
respond to this – you've got work to do), France seems to be the hardest
European market for Brits to crack, even when, as in my case, the story is
set there. I suspect they feel that if it wasn't written in French to begin
with, it can't be any good. They could, of course, be right.
Good luck in the future … not that you need it.
Walter
Congratulations! But I'm afraid I am no wiser to the Google Book Agreement
than you – though I have tried to understand it. Everyone over here seems to
say don't sign. But I'd ask your agent's advice or seek that of someone
rather better informed than I. It seems to me to affect US-based writers
rather more at the moment.
2010/1/21 Disqus <>
David, old top,
A quick question. I know you're busy. But it looks as if my novel may
actually be published and my agent has asked me if I wish to sign up for the
Google Book Agreement. I know next to nothing about this. The usual sites go
on and on about the politics of it, but offer little that is clear and
unbiased on what it actually amounts to from an author's standpoint.
Obviously, from my perspective, the important thing is just to get into
print – and I have no expectations of becoming a Big Name Brand any time
soon. Even so, the deal looks to benefit Google much more than it benefits
writers. But should I bow to the inevitable or should I say no? What do you
think?
Walter
Good name for them – and rather more polite than some I can think of!
2010/1/8 Disqus <>
I agree that content production will suffer and think there are parallels in the film industry where huge upfront budgets are required to produce the films we love. If copyright can not be preserved what will be their incentive to spend the budget? I always ask people what is your favourite film? I then suggest that it would not have been made without an enforceable copyright regime. The same could be said of one's favourite book. Will t-shirts and character models produce sufficient alternative income?
I am calling the people who have already undergone the cultural shift you mention, “Copyright Hippies”
Libraries are great and important institutions. No author is going to feel cheated by any reader who frequents them. You're right though – there should be a public lending right scheme in the US. I will be writing about ours in the UK later this month when I get my 2010 statement.
But it's very possible that fiction writing will become an amateur sport, a hobby, that will support no one or very few people.
That happened to opera and poetry. The country used to support many local opera companies, in which people made a living; now we listen to a few excellent ones only. You used to be able to make a living as a poet–yes, really! Who waits for the latest poem now? Who reviews it? Only small circles of people who are essentially hobbyists.
Times do change. This is one change I don't want to see, but it may happen.
England does something similar, and I wish the US would. I do almost all my reading from the library, and could never afford to be the reader I am without it, but I'd like to feel the writer is getting something more than the royalty for the individual copy.
I do request and order books a lot, which, I guess, ups the demand.
You two are talking about two different things. No matter what it's called legally, David Hewson is saying that copyright infringement is, morally, theft. (Just as one might say some uses of eminent domain are actually theft, or starting a war is mass murder.)
It is faintly encouraging to see people who steal things squirming so much to find some way to justify their actions. I suppose it goes to show they know that what they do is wrong. The bank account example is not ridiculous; the argument being put forward was that anything that doesn't exist in physical form cannot be stolen. Clearly it can.
The music industry has struggled with the problem of piracy for years
Yeah because they were stupid. You have them to thank for the proliferation of piracy. Napster was one site, they had everything on one server. Instead of thinking – hey there's a bunch of people downloading stuff we should monetize this, they just shut it down creating a vacuum. Into that vacuum came peer to peer, a service that could never be shut down because it wasn't located on just one server. If they had set up a paid napster alternative back then we would not have such a problem with piracy.
You and other authors keep calling it theft. Yes it's illegal, yes it's wrong but it is not theft. It is copyright infringement. Even the music industry realises this or why else would they be pursuing folks through the civil courts for copyright infringement?
Your bank account example is ridiculous. A bank account is a digital representation of a physical entity – paper money. An ebook is not tied to a paper book, you can copy it endlessly for all eternity.
So I would like to know from the authors – what is being stolen? You call it theft, what is being stolen? I don't see it. If someone is going to download a book illegally they weren't going to buy your book in the first place – so I wouldn't call it a lost sale. What exactly has been stolen? I'm very interested to know.
So if you go into someone's online bank account and empty it that's not theft because there's no loss of physical property? Yes – we need to use the right terminology. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is theft.
Yes, we have.
1. Itunes led the way, and now consumers don't have to pay $18 for a CD when they only wanted one song.
2. More independent artists, not fewer, have emerged to sell their music directly online.
3. The RIAA failed to accept reality, failed to win over the public, and quit following throug with legal threats on cease & desist letters after 2008. Their current legal battles are all older cases from the first half of the last decade. Even with the court cases they have won, the battles are pyrrhic victories, as –
4. they have themselves to thank for permanently alienating an entire generation of music listeners who know that musicians are often cheated out of the pitifully small royalties they do make with the large conglomerates.
5. Most musicians make their money through concert sales and merchandise, not the packaging of their music or the music itself.
The music industry is NOT the same as the publishing industry.
Still sure you want to compare books to songs?
Since you can't return, loan, or keep a digital copy beyond the life of the technology that encases it, a print copy is inherently more valuable. A digital purchase is a LEASE.
Also, JFYI, I am allowed to scan my entire library if I want to for backup so long as I don't upload it for mass sharing. The Betamax decision decided that. Books can survive for hundreds of years; most digital copies of anything become obsolete within a decade. The backup copies I could make are inferior copies.
The movie industry agrees with me, by the way: they offer digital downloads for many popular titles when you purchase the physical DVD, for FREE. If the book industry did this, there would be a lot less need for people to file share to find e-copies of books they already own.
I have a laptop for work because I have no choice. I cannot afford an e-reader. Why should I spend the effort of scanning all of my books every time I travel when I can download copies someone else has made and leave my books in one place? No one else reads them when I'm away; they sit and gather dust. I don't consider that wrong, morally or otherwise, and I've already paid for the books. I buy books to support the authors. I also have no room for the amount of reading I do in one carry-on.
Just some food for thought — some 'pirates' are using the Internet as their neighbor's scanner and actually spend money on books. A lot of money. In my case, almost all of my disposable income.
I also keep a list of authors who have walked around pantless on Teh Internets, advocating for dumb ideas like DRM, the draconian “3 strikes” rule and the misinterpretation of U.S. copyright law. I have a long memory. Every time I reach for one of their titles, I remind myself of their beliefs, and I think twice about buying their books.
No one here has said anything that bad, but on DearAuthor I have had to drop some really good authors from my TBR list. It was sad. I got over it.
“you simply stole that book”
It's called copyright infringement. The very definition of “theft” implies a loss of *physical* property. If we're going to call something illegal, we need to use the right terminology.
I realize it's easy to conflate ethics and morality with legality, but doing so spreads misinformation.
Thou shalt not steal.
I'm guessing that might mean books as well as anything else. But, in a world where all is relative and entitlement reigns supreme there is no such thing as mine. Only yours if you want it and that for the taking. Dark ages, here we come.
Hi,
Just read your reply to D.H. who replied to me and no matter what others might mean I totally understand your points.
As you said, I live in a European country where the possibility to buy a book might be bigger – also from a web-shop. But as you said the prices often are much more expensive.
In my country with a population of 5,5mio most american books never gets translated either. A lot of people read but most books from authors outside Scandinavia (Northern part of Europe) and some from the UK, unless they have become international bestsellers and might be made into a movie, never gets translated because the sales possibilities are seen as non-profitable. A few worlswide known authors I know but genres and well known authors in the U.S who write them were a huge “Who?” and “what?” for me.
I've counted and I've downloaded 8 e-books during the last 2½ year and I now own 7 of them in paperform (from 3 diff. authors) + 66 other books in total from those 3 authors. Those 73 books I would never have bought if I hadn't read the 7 books first. Call me naive but the first 3 I read I didn't even know probably was illegal for me to read because I stumbled over someones personal internet library with books she'd bought and thought they were just for reading.
The last 5 books I've known was illegal and as you I don't like to steal someones work and again I know it's not an excuse but the money that might have been lost on those 7 e-books mean that they got money from 73 books they so far that they wouldn't have and I'll buy every future books from them too.
I save money and use just about all the money I get for birthday/x-mas to buy the books in 'portions' when I can affort them. I have a huge list of would-like-to-have-books but I don't just download them because I know it's wrong but I wont say I'm sorry for the 8 books that I DID download. I could download 1000's of books but don't just do it if I don't have the intention of checking a series for future paperbook buying.
I might live in a 'rich' country but it's one of the most expensive countries to live in worldwide too and as a student I live very much under the poverty line. Including the $6,000 I borrow from the state every year and have to pay back in the end, I have an income of of about $19,000 a year. Don't know how much that is compared to the U.S but the average working person in my country earn about $42-55,000 a years. I know that sound like much but my regular yearly expences (and I live cheap) are about $15,500 before food, clothes, schoolbooks/thing for education and extra expences that might show up. This means I have an average of $290 a month for food, clothes etc.
This again might sound like a lot to many and enough to just try and buy a book and see if I like it.
But, just to give an example, a gallon of milk (have checked the U.S weight scale and converted the prices) cost $6, 1 pound of our dark bread =$1 at least, a pound of butter = $5, most sliced meat you put on/in bread is an average of about $12 a pound. In the last 18months as a student I've bought a regular beef a staggering amount of 5-6 times because I can't affort it because it's about $10-12 a pound and that's not even the good meat. A normal McDonalds meal in my country (and I think it's about the size of a small regular meal in the U.S) is $10-12 so I haven't had a McDonalds meal for 18months. I've even said no to going a couple of times to save the money so that I could save the money to buy a book from one of the authors I now follow because I checked around online.
I know someone will just say now that I've just given one long excuse to why I stole those books online. And yeah, you could be right and I do feel bad about doing it.
You're right, I shouldn't do it. Every case of downloading illegally is theft no matter the situation.
From now on I wont do it again. From now on I wont check out new authors online so they might have gotten me as a new reader/customer. I'll TRY to find the books in one of the 'foreign books' areas in one of the two libraries in my country that have the books that the author might get at few dollars a year from. If I DO buy a unknown book/series online I'll buy it used. The author wont get any money from me in the end and I might sell it again to my friend whom I also got hooked on the books (and have started buying them) or I'll borrow hers.
The average of $20 I save up and use a month to buy books I've started buying because I stole those 7 e-copies could be used much better. Who need any other books than those I find in the libraries.
With the $20 I have/had to buy book I like, I can't affort to try and use $10-15 or more I'd use to try a book and see if I like the series so I'd rather not try it at all.
The 3 authors whos books I already buy I'll probably keep on buying. Stealing or not I feel that the 73 book I've bought so far and their future books have paid out the 7 e-copies long ago.
But all others are not possible any more (incl. David Hewson whom I've never heard of untill I stumbled over the link to this blog) because I have no other way of deciding if I really like the author. I used to research an author thoroughly online and then if they keept making me going back to maybe reading their books – then I tried to download a couple of books. That have worked those few times except for one mistake.
But a theft is a theft. All the books I could have bought from other authors in the future doesn't count anymore because I would have to steal a few e-copies to do it. I'm not any better than those who rip off every e-book they can get their hands on because they wont buy the books just because I thought my motive was better.
I've blogged about this a bit too and agree with absolutely everything you have to say here, David. Some of the commenters who are drawing comparisons to the health of the music and film industries are dead wrong though. The only way bands/musical artists make money anymore is touring. To quote literary agent Nathan Bransford, “This isn't the music industry, no one is making money on an author tours or Ian McEwan t-shirt sales no matter how many I personally would buy.” As for movies, there are still people out there who like the experience of going to see a movie at the theatre. It's a different experience to watching it alone on your laptop. We can't relyon the book industry to stay afloat the same way the movie and music industries have — we just don't have the same lifeboats available, sadly.
Glad to hear you're going to buy from now on. No one who loves books steals books.
Like I said, I have a very good friend who's an author and I understand all these things.
I still don't think it's wrong for ME to do it, not really. But, then, I didn't say that to change anyone's opinion, and I don't think anyone would change mine.
Thank you for being polite about it
Actually, I've bought ebooks before. In fact, I just got a Kindle. I left that part out because I was making a point. I can afford a Kindle (actually, my dad can, and it's only out of guilt, but who cares?). My parents are kind enough to let buy some books. But not everyone is like me.
No more illegal download for me from now on
Actually, I don't like Dan Brown the littlest bit. Though, we have BOUGHT two copies of The Lost Symbol here in my home. One for my mom and brother and one as a gift. Get over yourself.
Oh, I did see your bit about foreign restrictions, and I know, that sucks. A little legwork can still find you some ebooks, however, that you get through legal channels and everyone gets paid. But again…if you can't buy something, that means you don't get to have it. I would love a big screen TV and it's not fair that I can't afford one. That doesn't mean I get to walk into the store and steal it. Theft is theft, and while you don't think YOU are doing anything wrong because you have all these ways you want to justify yourself, you're still benefiting from something that is hurting authors and the publishing industry as a whole (and yes, this may come as a shock to people, but cover artists, editors, and marketing people aren't rich either–they too are hurt when books don't sell, and they have families to feed).
Also BookDespository.com Free shipping on all paperbacks to most countries and a LOT of deals.
So…I'm sorry if I've missed this in your comment, but why can't you buy cheap ebooks in your country? No one said you had to buy everything in paperback from Amazon. But if you're stealing an ebook…why not just buy one from one of the many online ebook stores? You don't even have to pay shipping, they often have discounts and deals (for example, Fictionwise had 40% off over the holidays).
I get that people live below the poverty level, but you know what? Authors do too. And if you're willing to fork over money for an internet connection and computer, dropping $5 now and then on ebooks (where authors often get a much bigger cut of the royalties) and then doing the “legwork” to find legal free reads online isn't difficult or expensive.
You may think now that you won't mind people stealing your work, but if you ever get published and are trying to make a living at it and support a family, you will be singing a very, very different tune as you want illegal downloads of your work rise into the thousands.
Let's have a simple economics lesson. You steal a book, the author can't afford food and a roof over their heads. They stop writing and go back to ditch digging, retail or some other godawful job so they don't have to live in a cardboard box. Then… guess what? There are no more new books to steal. Enjoy your eleventh stolen copy of a Lost Symbol! Tell me, how did the tenth copy end?
They may be able to afford buying them in Europe, but when you're from Latin America, it's much, much harder. Most Latin American countries, including the one I live in, have most of the population living under the poverty line. Which means these people can barely afford to buy food or have a roof over their heads. No, I am not one of them. But because of this situation of society, there isn't a strong market for books. Yes, there are books here, of course. Yes, we have imported books, translated books. Great. Except that these books are very limited, usually to best sellers. Publishers here won't spend money with copyright and print to translate a book which just won't sell, because reading is not a concrete part of most people's reality. So, bringing a book like The Lost Symbol, an international best seller, would be an advantage: Dan Brown is well know, there's a movie of his books, people will buy. But bringing a book by, let's say, John Doe, who's a NYT best seller in Thriller Author, but unheard of outside the US, is not going to give them profit, so, they just won't bother. Sometimes, they'll try an author, translate them, see if they sell. If not, they stop printing mid-series and leave the fans wondering. Variety just doesn't exist. It's a selected market, filled with national authors and international best sellers.
What about importing the original books?, you ask. The ones in the original language? Why don't I just go to the 'foreign' session of the bookstore and buy it? Because in a country where most people can't afford to eat, learning a foreign language isn't exactly a priority. It's barely taught in public schools, and even in private. People who wish to learn another language have to take an extra course, which is substantially expensive. Most people just can't afford. Again, I'm not one of them. I'm fluent in English. But the mass just isn't. And, again, the powers that be won't buy imported books for their bookstores if most people can't even read them.
Then you take someone like me. Who loves to read more than about anything, except maybe writing. Someone who speaks a couple foreign languages and wishes to read international books, wishes to have a wide variety of knowledge, learn about new realities and just read good stories. Someone who, despite being able to eat, and have a roof and even afford a good foreign language school, can't afford to buy books on Amazon all the time, because the shipping is about twice the price of the books, and with currency, you end up paying over 50 bucks for two paperbacks. With all the books out there to be read, it just isn't doable.
Libraries? Well, pulling my arguments from before, international books aren't even translated/imported for selling, let alone to be available in a library.
So, I have two concrete options: either I limit my reading to national books (which for some reason I *hate*. I can't stand national literature), classics and the few (relatively, maybe not in absolute numbers) translated and imported books OR I download illegally. I'm very, truly sorry (and people who know me knows that I am), but I download. I read a lot of books this year. From all the authors I read, all the books, only FOUR books have been either translated or imported to here. None of the other authors have even been heard of here. If you ask people online, in forums and everything, they'll ask “who?”. And, believe me, a few of these books, I made the sacrifice to buy (hence the over 50 bucks for two paperbacks). And, if I lived in the US, I would have bought every single one of these printed books for 7, 10, 15, even 25 dollars. But, from here, I just can't.
It's hard for you and many other authors to understand the impossibility of it. You believe that where there's a will, there's a way. Unfortunately, there isn't always money where there's a will or I'd be in an University abroad instead of being stuck here. So, my way, the one I can live with, is to download.
And believe me when I say it, I've recommended these books I read to dozens, possibly hundreds of people (if you count forums, amazon boards, yahoo! answers, facebook, myspace, twitter), many of who had never heard of those authors, either. But upon my recommendation, they bought the books, they liked the author, and even bought their backlist.
I'm good friends with an author, publishes author, which I met, by the way, in one of these discussions about illegally downloading, and what she told me is that she won't judge me for what I do. In the end, my reading books for free, ends up getting these authors more buys (even if not thousands, but some) than they would have had otherwise.
And, yes, I realize most of people just don't want to spend money with books. And I'm sorry there are these people. And, believe me, if I *could* I'd have a million books stacked up here in my home. But I can't. And every time I look for a book by an author I like, I feel terrible about it. But I try to make it up as much as I can.
Having said all of that, I want to be an author some day. And, I don't suppose I'd “like” to have my books illegally downloaded, not really. But I wouldn't judge everyone who does it. I wouldn't criticize them all. I wouldn't call them all thieves for that matter, even if that's what people like to call it. Because I've lived this. And the thought of a girl like me, trapped in country she hates, doing something she hates, who uses books as her escape from the world, who wants to read my books and can't afford to, is worse than knowing a bunch of people are downloading my books for free just to save a few bucks.
Why did I write all of this? I'm not sure. I'm passionate about this subject. I realize I won't change anyone's mind, and most likely, not many would really understand, because they haven't lived it. I just hope that maybe, just maybe, they would at least realize that not ALL people who download are horrible thieves that are just too scared to snatch a copy at their local bookstore. Some of them don't even have THAT option (not that I would EVER do that, but, stilt… you know what I mean)
I this is spot on David. I know lots of people who steal software, films, music, books and so on but refuse to do so myself. I can't see why some people it's unreasonable to pay the creators of these items for their efforts. (There are some arguments I at least understand: for example, £280 is simply more than Windows is worth; £340 is simply more than Office is worth, they should be £80/£110 each – but that doesn't give me the right to steal them. If you want to compute for free, you can, easily, using Linux.) Books are reasonably priced, although I accept that e-books probably should be cheaper than they are, as many are the same price or a small percentage lower than paper books – but they are still reasonably priced. But the advantage over paper books is that I can download a sample chapter free, then decide if I want to buy. At the end of the day, it's still theft if I take one without paying. I wouldn't steal one of your books from a friend's shelves so why steal it on line, just because I don't know the victim of the crime. (Yes, I can borrow it from a friend, so that could be a lost sale, but I have to give it back.) I've followed your blog for ages and consider it one of the best writers' blogs around. I've only recently bought one of your books, which I got for around £2 from a Borders closing down sale – yes, I wanted to pay less for my first David Hewson in case I didn't like it, and I think similar schemes to encourage people to start reading an author are a great idea – but I would never have considered stealing a book to read it. I think it's part of the way we accept that we live beyond our means, we aspire to greater possessions but don't have the cash, so we borrow, use credit cards and quite frankly steal. Anyone who cooks up a reason to justify stealing is denying a part of their nature that is no better than taking from a friend, a shop or whatever. Keep up the good work.
I think you'll find you can buy very cheap books from Amazon UK and get them shipped very inexpensively to Denmark if you want. Clearly from what you say you are willing to buy books – which is great. But what about the books you steal that aren't in a series? How would you feel about having your work stolen this way if you were an author?