Copyright Infringement of Books 468
Maximum Prophet recommends a NY Times piece on the growing phenomenon of unauthorized digital versions of copyrighted books showing up online. The problem has been growing exponentially, fed in part by the popularity of reading devices such as the Kindle and the iPhone. The article features the odd photographic juxtaposition of Cory Doctorow and Ursula K. Le Guin, who take opposite views on electronic editions, authorized or not. Ms. Le Guin: "I thought, who do these people think they are? Why do they think they can violate my copyright and get away with it?" Mr. Doctorow: "I really feel like my problem isn't piracy. It's obscurity." "Doctorow, a novelist whose young adult novel 'Little Brother' spent seven weeks on the New York Times children's chapter books best-seller list last year, offers free electronic versions of his books on the same day they are published in hardcover. He believes free versions, even unauthorized ones, entice new readers."
http://ebookshare.net/ (Score:2, Informative)
http://ebookshare.net/
You wouldn't believe how many ebooks I have (Score:4, Informative)
Go to Usenet, get just about everything you could want. Build up a personal library of hundreds of texts that would match a (small town) library.
The book publishing industry will go the way of the music and movie industries, just a bit slower since reading text on a monitor is still not quite as easy as a real book.
Re:Yet another unsustainable business model (Score:4, Informative)
For distributors and retailers, somewhere around 50% of the cover price, less any discount they offer.
For publishers... the value of a good editor is difficult to estimate. The same goes for a copyeditor and indexer.
As for the rest, I calculated that my publisher earned seven times as much as I did from my previous two books. This is after taking out the per-unit cost. Given that there was little editorial support, little marketing support, and production was a fiasco of heroics, confusion, and impossible deadlines, I'm not sure that said publisher provided seven times as much value as I did.
I'm not going to work with that publisher again. Now I have my own publishing company instead.
Re:You wouldn't believe how many ebooks I have (Score:5, Informative)
The book publishing industry will go the way of the music and movie industries, just a bit slower since reading text on a monitor is still not quite as easy as a real book.
You mean like how the US Music industry is posting profit growth of 4% annually over the last three years? Or perhaps you meant the Movie industry with its 3rd year of growth?
Baen Free Library (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com]
There are some pretty big name authors here as well as new authors who are trying to make it. You can read the dissertation by that commie Eric Flint about "Online Piracy".
Baen Publishing is noted for including a CD with some hardback novels that has free novels in it. Surprisingly enough they've not cried foul when digital editions of those CD's have ended up online.
http://www.webscription.net/p-162-freehold.aspx [webscription.net] You can read a good friends book here.
Re:HA! (Score:5, Informative)
Google settlement (Score:3, Informative)
http://inklingbooks.com/googlesettlement/googlesettlement.html [inklingbooks.com]
Re:the real issue (Score:3, Informative)
Have you even read any Cory Doctorow novels? Sometimes they are a little out there, but at least the perspective is fresh. (Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, I'm looking at you.)
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom had its less believable bits but was very forward looking, Eastern Standard Tribe moreso. Little Brother was probably his best one yet and eerily prescient.
What's more they're free for download. Now it isn't Shakespeare, I'll give you that, but it is entertaining and the writing is quite a bit better than a Stephen King piece of trash (Cory sometimes even uses big words, correctly.) So taking a novel for a spin won't cost you anything and if you have an open mind it may even profit you personally (just not monetarily.)
I've met the man, and he cares about your rights and fights continuously for them even though he no longer runs the EFF. So maybe you even owe him a second chance, or at the very least you shouldn't trash him just because his writing isn't exactly your cup of tea.
Re:Not just assimilating information (Score:3, Informative)
Now take a e-reader to the beach and see if you can read it in bright sunlight, when it have been sandblasted and sprinkled with saltwater, and overheated....
Actually, I did just that with my Sony. Works fine (it has an aluminium case, and the whole point of eInk screen is that it's readable in direct sunlight!). By the way, I wouldn't recommend getting a paper book sprinkled with any kind of water, either...
As well, the existing ebook readers are very new tech. Keep in mind that the very first eInk one had appeared in 2004 (Sony Librie), and the first mass-produced ones in 2006. There are still many quirks in them (slow refresh, low DPI) that are getting ironed out. If you buy one now, you are definitely going to be in the "early adopter" category, and I don't kid myself that it's not the case with the two I own (one for myself, one for wife). I still find them immensely convenient and well worth the price for my needs, but they are definitely not going to sell like hot cakes just yet.
However, the pace of technological development is fast, and there are already working prototypes of things behind the corner - full color, thin flexible/bendable screens, and so on. The existing high price is also to the large extent influenced by patent on e-paper technology held by eInk Corporation - they milk it for all its worth, which is why screens are so expensive. But it will expire in a few years.
Which is why I gave 10-20 years as an estimate of when electronic readers will become mainstream, and will drive paper books out. It's still inevitable, just not right now.