Author Encourages Users to Pirate His Book 237
mariushm writes "Peter Cooper, the author of Beginning Ruby, breaks down how he gets paid for the book, including the advance and royalties, giving a nice clean explanation of how authors get paid for their books. He also describes the negotiations over the second edition of the book, in which he begged his publisher, Apress, to offer the ebook version for free, believing (strongly) that it would promote sales of the paper book. He even notes that the original version's ebook barely had noteworthy sales, so it seemed reasonable to offer up the ebook for free to drive more attention. No dice. Even though Apress has done that with other similar titles, it wouldn't agree. As he retains the copyright for the actual text, he encourages people to buy the book and create an online version of it without covers, contents table and indexes, promising not to enforce his copyright over the new work."
I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have dealt quite a bit with copyright law when creating FairSoftware's virtual company [fairsoftware.net] license. I'm afraid the author is incorrect when he says that he retains copyright, therefore he can authorize people to download his book for free. He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license. The whole point of the word exclusive is to say that although you are the author, you can't give the text to anyone else anymore, once you signed the book deal.
That being said, this is a great blog post for everyone who ever wondered how tech book deals work. He is making about $2 per sale of a $40 book! So there's a great debate about whether to go with an editor which will take a much lower cut, but will also not be so good at promoting the book. At least someone is making money from publishing content related to open source technology :-)
Call Me Suspicious But ... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are even links on Twitter to torrents like this. I am happy for you to pirate my book, but I’m NOT A LAWYER, and I can’t guarantee what Apress would do about it – so you’d be doing it off your own back! So, uhm, don’t pirate it?
So he's covered his own ass and recognized that Apress will most likely not see things his way. Now, to do what the summary suggests is confusing to me. I don't know his contract with Apress but I must question why, if he is so upset with Apress, he isn't just releasing an HTML version of his work online. Surely he must have the source documents he wrote to write the book, correct? Then why doesn't he simply make his own HTML plain text version and host it.
The answer is painfully simple. He's reached an agreement with Apress for digital distribution rights making them the only possible channel for distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a default contract for them. Regardless, downloading the Apress version on RapidShare is copyright violation with Apress, regardless of what the author says. There's no question of that.
If I've misjudged Peter Cooper's character, I truly am sorry but he is either willfully or through ignorance putting you at risk with these suggestions. Do not follow through.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:4, Insightful)
He's not giving people a license to it (which would conflict with the publisher's exclusive license); he's just promising not to sue.
Also, why would he use a publisher that gave him only $2 per sale? You'd think that royalties would be driven up as competing publishers offer more per sale.. Why doesn't a publisher just offer 40% royalties or something and annihilate the competition?
Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah he is putting his readers at risk because they'll be breaking the law by distributing the book. I think he's just mad at Apress and wants to stick it to the man, or he still wants the promotion that a free ebook would provide. Also there's all the free publicity from slashdot..
Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... (Score:3, Insightful)
All it is is a promise not to sue. He owns the text of the book, but not the additional stuff Apress did - say, the covers, front matter (including the Table of Contents) and the back matter (indices, etc), which would mean that you're pirating his work, and none of Apress'.
Those full version torrents/downloads do include stuff the Apress owns the copyright for, and whom Apress might sue.
guess... (Score:0, Insightful)
His 2nd and Last Book (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope he enjoyed the advances and royalties 'cause he won't be getting another book deal. Doofus
Tim O'Reilly's comment... (Score:5, Insightful)
...on the post is pretty interesting. Here's an excerpt:
He goes on to discuss the hassle of shipping, returns, credit card processing, storing the books, etc. All true, all good stuff.
For what it's worth, going through a small local publisher with my JavaCC book [generating...javacc.com] has worked out pretty well. We did a much smaller print run - 350 books - so the storage wasn't as much of a hassle. Definitely a niche market, though.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
What on earth would lead you to think so? There's only so many sales to be had, and a fairly hard (though rising with inflation over time) cap on what customers will pay for a given class of book - and the publishers revenue comes out of the difference.
Because publishers can do math.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. 5% is not a screaming success. My employer has had quarters where the net margin was *only* 18% and these led to managerial changes due to the failure to meet expectations.
2. You can't say he's making 5% profit. He's making some unknown amount of income (based upon to-date and future sales), in exchange for the time spent, his knowledge, and his writing ability.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly this isn't the case, or he was rejected elsewhere. My guess is that it's standard practice, and that there's a reason for it. Probably that most of the money on that $40 book gets divided up between printing, distributing and promoting the book... all the labor, risk, fronted cash, etc. of others that goes into that book. The content of the book is more like a big start on the way to a successful product.
Otherwise someone else would have done what you mentioned and annihilated all competition. We're not the first ones to think it up. :)
Also note that traditional publishing has not disappeared in the face of self-publishing, on-demand publishing, etc. There are good reasons for that.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so... (Score:1, Insightful)
For reference - that's 5%, essentially 5% profit. In most places in the business world, that would be considered screamingly successful. Doubly so since he's making an ongoing profit for work he did only once and isn't responsible for the ongoing work of marketing and stocking.
In a perfect world he would make 100% profit based on the merit of his content. Let's make it so kids, contemporary and elderly.
What? Oh, you expected more words before that last dot...not gonna happen, at least not from me.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Surely the publisher provided an editor to clean up the manuscript before publication, thus putting the copyright clearly in the hands of someone besides the author alone."
So does that mean Microsoft gets a piece of my copyright when I run the MS Word Spell Checker?
I'm pretty sure the editor is "work for hire" any way you look at it.
Re:Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
If he's so sure he has the copyright... (Score:2, Insightful)
...why doesn't he offer a download himself? That way everybody who downloads it at least comes to his web site and there is no "what if he turns around on his promise not to enforce copyright" doubt in the air.
Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
From 40$ only 18$ goes to the publisher, the rest is amazon's money, library's money, wasted on damaged books when shipped, on returns and so on.
From that 18$ publisher pays the 10% royalty (but only after they get back their $6000 advance), the printing company, the editors that formatted the books and then they have their profit.
I find it more ridiculous that Apress sells his ebook for 23.99$ when the printing costs, shipping and so on are non-existent. Basically, ebook brings Apress more profit than printed books at this point.
Failure to enforce your copyright negates it (Score:0, Insightful)
From the article: ;-) So, er, don’t do it!
Apress couldn’t do anything about it because everything would be my copyright. Now, I cannot allow you to do this, but I would not pursue you or enforce my copyrights if you did
In the United States, failing to enforce your copyrights negates them. You must protect and enforce them or you lose them.
What the author should have said was that he expressly authorizes the electronic distribution of his work to anyone.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unknown is right. Very few understand what percentage he really got. The author himself is not among them.
It's not that the royalty statements are excessively complicated though they could certainly be simpler, it's that they don't provide enough info. Can't check their math. And then what's this Licensed Rights? Reserve? Why are the statements so unclear? I don't believe for a minute that it's necessary. One possible reason for the obscurity is real easy to come up with: Hollywood accounting. Confusopoly. Looks like those could be ways of padding the bill to reduce the "profits" on which the publisher must pay royalties.
Anytime I've been hit with some mystery charge, it's often been an attempt at robbery. Auto mechanics are one of too many groups notorious for that sort of thing. A common scam around where I live is this $6 charge for "shop materials". The last time they tried that one on me, I pointed out that before I came, I got a quote that included all charges, and if that $6 was part of the charges, it should have been included in the quote and it wasn't. They backed off.
They may be honest publishers (ok, stop laughing). However, clarity is essential for honesty to be visible.
Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... (Score:3, Insightful)
He's reached an agreement with Apress for digital distribution rights making them the only possible channel for distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a default contract for them. Regardless, downloading the Apress version on RapidShare is copyright violation with Apress, regardless of what the author says. There's no question of that.
As the Slashdot blurb states, the author retains copyright of his text, so thus the copyright violations are "against" him, regardless of what the publisher claims. As far as digital distribution, that is a contract (i.e.civil law, not copyright which is often now criminal law in the US) between those two parties. As long as Apress and the author don't break there respective terms as per the agreement (i.e. they don't publish his work without paying him and he doesn't give permission another party to publish his works if an royalty-based exclusive agreement) then it is moot.
Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, as alain's post [slashdot.org] points out, he admits himself that he granted Apress an exclusive contract.
It really rubs me the wrong way when authors/artists encourage people to pirate their material. You are asking me to do something illegal and take on risk of being sued, but you aren't willing to put it up online yourself? You are feeling rebellious because you are having second thoughts about the contract that you signed, but you want me to be the one that rebels? How about no. Pirating your material is no different to me than pirating any random major label artist. I'd rather support authors/artists who were willing to take the risk to self-publish, and provide legal means for me to support them directly without enriching the middle-men.
Re:Call Me Suspicious But ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Best solution for him would be to ask people to provide email addresses - privately - then email them the book from another account and delete the receiver's email address afterwards. Apress would have no idea how many he'd sent out, and the people asking for them would expose themselves to little risk, especially if they too used a disposable account.
Why is the link incorrect? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why does this link go to some Cancer site, and not take me to the Article... And if they expect me to sign up, then can someone please post the REAL URL? I really want to read this article.
Re:A bad summary makes bad responses (Score:5, Insightful)
"All the traffic to the site is going to somewhere you can donate to a good cause and earn some actual karma."
Uh, yeah... and so now those of us who read the nonsense comments and thought "I'd like to see for myself what he really said" can't actually get to your original blog post.
Well played, genius boy.
Can't speak for anyone else, of course, but as for me... when someone hides his original words I'm not inclined to trust his claim that they were misrepresented.
Bad judgment by author makes situation worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A bad summary makes bad responses (Score:4, Insightful)
Your "solution" is to redirect all slashdot readers elsewhere? Then you're being portrayed accurately here.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:4, Insightful)
$2 per sale of a $40 book
And it keeps repeating on and on in the IP industry. Wasn't there a Slashdot article not long ago that EA was spending three times as much on marketing as they did on developer costs. The stories about artists getting screwed is numerous. And Hollywood has even given name to an accounting type used for screwing other people out of money. And it isn't just the copyright industries. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than they on research. And the list goes on.
And there are actually people that believe that intellectual property laws are good for society? The truth is that there is an incredible waste going on in distribution, middle man skimming, advertising, manufacturing, warehousing and so on. What starts out as $2 of information becomes $40 in the store. And this is the standard, not the exception. Even when sold via the Internet via digital distribution, it still becomes over $20.
The sad truth is that todays society could easily support a 10 hour work week if we got rid of all the inefficiencies and wasted job efforts. But it will not happen in the current society, because neither side (socialists nor capitalists) are interested in getting rid of such inefficiencies. In fact, if there is one thing that everyone can agree on, it would be that people should work and work some more "to make a better society".