E-book piracy

[chongjasmine]

How do I contact the FBI on book piracy, and what shall I say to them?

[Vertigo]

I suspect you won't get very far with it Chongjasmine. The people who upload these pirate torrents will generally do so in various totally anonymous ways, generally using user accounts set up in countries that don't care too much about copyright piracy. Unfortunately there are all too many such countries. About all the authorities can do is catch people downloading said pirate copies and I'm not sure if they have actually committed an offense or whether it is only the person who made the copy and uploaded it.

[Boneman]

But... if you google 'FBI contact', on the opening webpage for the FBI on the top left is a 'contact' button, which brings up a 'internet crime' option. Can't harm to try, all they can say is it's now to do with us...

[J Riff]

All heading towards utter control over the internet. Your location and everything you do tracked and monitored. Accidentally clik on the wrong thing and boom down comes the door.
As always, the big money people, writers, musicians, aren't much affected. If you are struggling to survive and your book/music is suddenly available to all, and you lose a lot of revenue and go out of biz... it kinda suits the big players just fine. So it's Catch 22 all the way, and no answer here.

[Montero]

Hhm.
Always been slightly unconvinced by arguments about total government control via internet monitoring because

1. There is so much to monitor
2. They only have so many people to check the info
3. They only have so many people for breaking down doors.
4. How often has UK government lost track of its own data? Let alone anyone else's.

There is always theft (sadly) whether it is shoplifting, burglary or ripping off what should be paid for as free internet downloads. I think the main difference between physical theft and "free" downloads is a lot of people in the latter don't even realise they are doing something wrong. The law hasn't caught up with the realities of the digital age.
Global law regarding merchandise just doesn't exist.
If we were say to move to a system where any country joining onto the internet had to sign up to certain legal standards that would be an answer, if it was prosecuted. However one of the joys of the internet is the global communications it offers and that would restrict it.
So we are really back to a minority (the pirates who do the uploads) spoiling it for everyone else.
Blinking human race. Some days I think we progress despite ourselves, not because of ourselves.

[Anne Lyle]

You forgot to add the storage needed for all this monitoring, Montero - not an insignificant obstacle. I work at a scientific institute with one of the largest data centres in Europe, and it's actually becoming cheaper to throw data away once it's been processed, and re-run experiments if needed, than to store the original data for later re-analysis.

[TheTomG]

As I understand the Government monitoring side of things, it's done via auto-scanning for words of interest, thus filtering out a lot of content. Such monitoring does exist on emails and text messages, there's even been court cases to specify that it isn't a tap or a monitor until a human being reads it, so a piece of software can scan all your emails without any need for a warrant to do any searching, as it's not a search at that point.

All very weird. Got to wonder what sort of distorted picture of the world such monitoring brings up, since I am sure it catches a lot "words of interest" being used in an entirely innocent (ie "uninteresting") way, but by then you've already caught the eye, electronic and artificial as that eye may be, of the Government and related agencies.

[iansales]

Some of this needs to be put into perspective. There is a huge number of public domain works that are available as ebooks - see the Gutenberg Project, or all those CDs of 10,000 books you see advertised in magazines. There is another huge number of out of print works available as (pirated) ebooks, but who exactly is losing out from their piracy? Charity shops? Only secondhand copies of the books are now available, and if publishers won't bring the books back into print it's because they feel there's not a large enough market for them.

And then you have the in-print works that are being pirated... And yet, most people just want the procurement of a book to be easy. Like with a Kindle. They don't mind paying for a book, if buying it is easy. But hunting down a pirated copy, downloading it, reformatting the file, etc., all means more faff than most people are willing to put up with - even for a free copy.

[Anne Lyle]

There's also the issue that many pirate sites are heavily infested with malware - people who download books from such sites and then have to reinstall Windows to fix their computer are not likely to do it a second time!

[Montero]

Originally Posted by iansales

There is another huge number of out of print works available as (pirated) ebooks, but who exactly is losing out from their piracy? Charity shops? Only secondhand copies of the books are now available, and if publishers won't bring the books back into print it's because they feel there's not a large enough market for them..

The author looses.
And if there are pirated copies given away, any potential sales market is even smaller.

I would like to see it be easier for authors to do short run re-prints of back lists. Or for there to be a system of readers signing up "somewhere" (author's website, publisher's website, amazon?) to say "hey I'd like this to be re-printed". There has always been publishing by subscription (Diane Duane did it the other year on a book a publisher wasn't interested in).

There are several John Barnes books for example that are out of print. Hoping they come back into print but not yet.
I do buy second hand, but much prefer to buy new to benefit the author. Mainly buy second hand if I get part way through a series and the next book is out-of-print. (There seems to be a bit of a pattern recently, of re-issue of say book 1 and 2 of a series and then not the rest. So book 3 is only available second hand, but there are still copies of say 4 and 5 left over from the original print runs.)

Originally Posted by iansales

And then you have the in-print works that are being pirated... And yet, most people just want the procurement of a book to be easy. Like with a Kindle. They don't mind paying for a book, if buying it is easy. But hunting down a pirated copy, downloading it, reformatting the file, etc., all means more faff than most people are willing to put up with - even for a free copy.

Thanks. That is reassuring.

[Montero]

Originally Posted by TheTomG

As I understand the Government monitoring side of things, it's done via auto-scanning for words of interest, thus filtering out a lot of content. Such monitoring does exist on emails and text messages, there's even been court cases to specify that it isn't a tap or a monitor until a human being reads it, so a piece of software can scan all your emails without any need for a warrant to do any searching, as it's not a search at that point..

Yup. Heard that too. Even so, even with modern computers and search engines etc that is still an enormous quantity of data.

Originally Posted by TheTomG

All very weird. Got to wonder what sort of distorted picture of the world such monitoring brings up, since I am sure it catches a lot "words of interest" being used in an entirely innocent (ie "uninteresting") way, but by then you've already caught the eye, electronic and artificial as that eye may be, of the Government and related agencies.

Yup. But still think they are overwhelmed by all the data and while it is not nice to think of private emails being read, well most of them are not so very private. Still think the mass of data is too much for really detailed monitoring, even electronically. After all, how much data do you have on your hard drive and how long does it take to search that?

[Montero]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

There's also the issue that many pirate sites are heavily infested with malware - people who download books from such sites and then have to reinstall Windows to fix their computer are not likely to do it a second time!

Also interested in your point about data storage Anne. Didn't know that.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by Montero

The author looses.
And if there are pirated copies given away, any potential sales market is even smaller.

The author loses nothing. The book is out of print, and they get no money from the sale of secondhand copies.

Of course, the book might one day come back into print... but it's unlikely. Well, it was until the SF Gateway was created - although that's only for ebooks. OTOH, the author could self-publish on Kindle, etc. Which again means readers will go with the easy option - even if it involves paying some small sum.

[Montero]

Originally Posted by iansales

The author loses nothing. The book is out of print, and they get no money from the sale of secondhand copies.
.

Yes.

What I meant, and did not say clearly enough, was that if the books are being pirated there is a demand. If the demand is filled by pirated copies then there is no incentive for a new print run as the demand is no longer there. However, if there were no pirated copies and the demand therefore continued to exist, and possibly even grew, then there would be more incentive for the publisher to re-print. So the author does lose.

It is also back to the self-limiting nature of second hand paper back sales vs the easy replication of eBook.

[Montero]

Originally Posted by iansales

OTOH, the author could self-publish on Kindle, etc.

Mmm - only if their contract with the publisher allows it or the publisher is happy for it to happen.

As in

1. I seem to remember some wrinkle about what counts as out of print and reversion of the manuscript to the author. Not sure now if this was with paper copies, or a concern regarding eBooks being produced by publishers - as in if an eBook exists with the publisher, is the book out of print even if they are not printing paper copies.

2. How do larger publishers regard "their" authors wanting to re-print their backlist themselves? Would good will be lost even if the contract allows it?