Authors Without A Yacht (AWaY) discussion

http://blog.rlcopple.com/?p=234

My comment (in case it is not approved)
There are signs in wildlife parks: "Do Not Feed The Crocodiles!" (or Bears, or Tigers, or Monkeys, or Raccoons.)

No insult at all intended to readers --I don't believe in insulting readers-- but it is possible that giving entire works away sets up an expectation. Sooner or later, the expectation of free stuff becomes a sense of entitlement to free stuff.

That's why I think Doctorow and Baen are supremely unhelpful to colleagues who would like to preserve their copyright and to be paid for their works.

There's a line within the copyright act to the effect of "Defend it or lose it." We saw a distant rumble of how that might affect authors from the J K Rowling case against the fan who wanted to publish a concordance.

The less Doctorow defends his, the more we have to defend ours.

I think you are off base in some of your assumptions. You are mistaken to say that piracy has little negative consequences for the authors. Piracy is hurting authors, especially the newcomers. Pirates share ebooks with thousands of readers almost the same day that a book is released for sale.

I know personally at least three authors to whom this has happened.

That has to hurt sales. We see piratical subscription sites, for which readers pay a membership fee of perhaps $12 a month. That is $12 being paid to pirates, for ebooks.

When sales drop, authors are dropped. Their publishers regretfully tell authors that they cannot buy the next book in the series. Maybe it is not happening to Doctorow and Konrath. It's happening to authors who cannot afford to give away their works, or whose contracts forbid them to give away their works.

The pirates I follow are by no means all great advocates for the books they scrump. One of the major rationales is that what they steal is rubbish, and they pirate books in order to avoid paying for rubbish.

They also are paid commissions by sites like MegaUpload and Ziddu for every would-be downloader who comes to click on a file and snag a free read. That's why pirates use Facebook and Twitter to tell as many people as possible where to download a free copy of this-or-that.

When there's that sort of motivation, and a financial incentive for piracy on that sort of scale, it is unhelpful to tell authors to bury themselves in their writing. Only the author can complain about infringement to Facebook or Yahoo or Google etc and many other social networking sites. If the authors do nothing, piracy explodes.

I don't think that insulting or prosecuting downloaders is the answer to the problem. I think, a large part of the problem is that pirates lie and there is no way to rebut their lies.

Pirates on EBay state that they have "ReSell" rights, or that they own the copyright, or that their multiple auctions of their burned CDs of their "private collections" are legal. Most readers wouldn't buy those CDs or used books that come with a gift of 50 free ebooks if they understood that they were buying stolen goods.

Most readers with whom I've spoken are appalled when they realize what piracy is, what it is doing, and the extent of it.

You know, I really hate some of these self-righteous authors that take it upon themselves to speak for every author in the world. I GIVE free reads. That doesn't mean I want people planning to pirate my for-sale works before they even release. I see requests for books of mine that aren't even out yet. I've seen pirated copies available 4 hours after a release. So, the pirates know my name. Big deal. What's it getting me? Not a darned thing that I can see...aside from maybe an ulcer.

Doctorow may THINK that the free read will encourage people to purchase the next book. I think he's a head case that is sitting back on laurels he developed before piracy was the issue it is today. IOW, since he's not a new author in the field, he's out of touch with what piracy does to newer authors that cannot afford the losses he tolerates, based on his existing reader base. A man that routinely sells 6000+ books a month can afford to say this, but he's making life harder for those individuals hoping to sell 60...or 6. Of course, it's clear he doesn't CARE what he does to those authors, as long as he's still making his 6000+ sales a month.

Can we stop piracy in its tracks? Nope. I am a realist. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to educate where I can and try to take down some of the bigger offenders I find.

Hey, I'm reasonable. I don't mind the occasional incidental sharing. That really is like checking a book out of a library or lending a book to a friend (save the illegal copying issue). I fully support the Nook and Kindle sharing systems, now that Amazon is at least being honest about what they are doing. I support LEGITIMATE ebook library systems (unlike the ones Rowena pointed out earlier). I even offer free reads. But take more than I'm offering or try to offer my works en masse or try to illegally sell my books, and yes...I will attempt to stop you...with good reason. Try to pirate a work that is for charity, and I will do so with a passion to seeing you suffer for it.

Brenna

Oooh, good come-back, Brenna. I hope you posted it, and I hope they approve it. I'm going right over to Copple's blog right now to see what has developed!

Looks like Copple isn't really interested in comments that disagree with him, doesn't it?

He did reply to me. I am tempted to point out that he used "stoled" twice in his answer.

But if someone stoled it, and gives or sells it away...

You can spend hours/days of time and lots of dollars going after someone who stoled a hundred dollars or so.

The temptation overwhelmed me.

Rowena, what you said in your response to him was spot-on. It echoes very closely the arguments I make in my book. Most of my experiences stem from my experience in music publishing, but books and sheet music are both threatened by this dangerous shift in ethics that is happening. This culture of entitlement is being made even more prominent by people like Doctorow or bands like radiohead who are the celebrities with experiences that are the exceptions to true reality.

I recently had an argument with my 22-year old son who is an ardent Ron Paul supporter. He believes in no government interference in anything. He also says that once he pays the internet provider (which he doesn't, since he still lives at home and his dad pays for it! Ironic, no?) that from that point on anything he finds on the internet should by all rights be free, since he has already paid for it. I pointed out to him that the internet providers don't pay ME any of their money, so how am I supposed to be paid for my e-Books? He haughtily informed me that I should be with a "real" publisher. I showed him the file of rejection notices I got, most of which were form letters, telling me either they don't read anything not repped by an agent (I have no money to pay an agent!), or that they like my work but it's not for them right now. It's like being a teenager, trying to get your first job! The boss tells you he wants someone with experience...you tell him you'd be a hard worker, but he wants someone with experience...if he gives you a job, you'll have experience! But someone has to break that cycle! That's what my submissions felt like for so long...they like my stuff, but don't feel it will sell...but if they published it and gave it some publicity, it would...but they only do that for authors that will sell.
My son told me that everything on the internet should be free. I got so upset with him yelling at me, that I ended the discussion by walking away from him...he's way too big to hit! ;-D
I read about this issue, I blog about it on my website, but unless they are authors. no one even seems to be aware that it is a problem. Or they are like my son, who naively assumes that pirates are only taking a copy for themselves. I've been sending him some of our links to pirates who sell stuff. He agrees that is wrong. At least that's a start!

Fiona, we should talk.

Fiona,

I need to dig out my article about indie publishers being real publishers. Too many of these young punklings believe this idiocy.

And your little man-wannabe needs to get his head out of his posterior. Ron Paul does not preach anarchy. The man talks about limits on the interference of federal government in states' rights to self-govern and their interference in the monetary system. Paul makes a lot of sense on many issues, and he would probably be offended to hear how his words are being twisted, IMO.

It's obvious that, in his sense of entitlement, your son has forgotten two crucial steps that many others his own age have (It's an epidemic, I tell you!)...responsible use of the priveleges he has (see how he likes life without the internet he doesn't pay for...you don't HAVE to let him access it) and social mores that respect the rights of OTHERS in coexistence with his own "rights," which aren't actually rights but are priveleges which can be taken away. Unfortunately, this mindset is all too common these days.

Brenna

Fiona,

Has your son ever been to Disneyland? Last time I went to a theme park, I had to pay admission, but once I was inside, I had to pay for the rides and the food.

I've paid to enter state parks, but if I want to use the telescopes, or eat in the restaurants, or spend the night in a hotel, I've been expected to pay for the elective delights I choose to consume once there.

What kind of TV service do you have?
Maybe you should put your son (on a budget) in charge of the billing, and he'd see that he can have basic cable or satellite, but if he wants the premium channels, he has to pay extra.

The internet is by no means the only example of places where your fee to get on doesn't cover access to all the available delights once on.

Oh! What about the train? Buy him a return ticket, and send him somewhere. His ticket to ride does not entitle him to free food.

Airlines.... What an example of how much harder it is to put the genie back in the bottle!

Brenna, recommend checking out a book I just finished reading. The narcissism epidemic. It's on my "read" shelf.

Thanks, William. I'll put it on my wish list and pick it up in my next book buy. Sounds like a read I need to check out.

Brenna

It's an on-going argument in my family, believe me! No, we have never gone to Disneyland...too expensive. Nor to Great America, the local place either...ditto. We don't pay for cable TV, so he has no idea of what things cost. He watches any damn thing he wants to on websites that are free, like the BBC network. But now his brother keeps turning me on to music he has discovered, but I feel guilty asking him to put it onto my I-Pod (which the kids pooled their money to give me), since that is an un-paid for copy! What's a mom to do?!

Fiona, you ask him to buy a download from iTunes or an mp3 from amazon for you instead. Simple.

Ask HIM to buy it? You must be joking! The boys buy a copy, then share with each other and with my husband. They give me pitying looks when I tell them that sounds like stealing to me...

It is stealing. You need to stand up for morals. Give him a prepaid gift card to pay for ur songs that he downloads and ask for the receipt. Give him a few bucks out of each gift card so he can start making decisions of his own as to where he wants to spend it, as payment for helping you out.

Whoa...back up one step. There are legitimate family and friend sharing programs, just as there are legitimate ebook library programs, and the content providors support these systems. I MUCH prefer someone use a legitimate sharing system than pirating, any day, since the legitimate systems are limited in how many shares on a sale occur.

Nook and Kindle have sharing programs to let you share with family members (up to 10 or so family and friends), so they have built sharing into the ebook sales medium. Though 10 seems high to me, I agree that being able to share a paper book with a friend was what was missing from the original ebook model. At least there is a sale for a certain number of copies read, which is better than piracy.

Likewise, being new to iPod, I learned something interesting last night. iTunes has a new feature called Home Sharing. It links all the computers on your home network that you wish to. Basically, if son A purchases songs on his account and stores them on his computer, son B and Mom can both access his songs and place them on their own iPods or iPhones or iPads or whatever...and vice versa. The mindset is that when you purchase a CD, person A can lend it to person B. There is nothing illegal or immoral about this situation. It's legitimate, in every way.

So, whether or not this is stealing is completely up in the air, depending on the system involved. If there is family and friend sharing built into the system, it may well not be. Content providors agree to opt into these systems, so we have no right to complain that we did.

Well, aside from the fact that Amazon was NOT up front about their sharing system initially. Now that we KNOW what it is in detail, we can't complain anymore about choosing to stay in, if we have. And I have.

Now, if someone has an ebook, movie, or music that was never intended to be shared...or if it was pirated, this is not the case. Illegal to do it. No question about it. It's infringement. It's depriving content producers of income.

One thing that must be clear...and another reason I love buying ebooks from indie press... In indie, I am usually purchasing novels for $5-7. Depending on where I purchase them, I may or may not have sharing on that book, depending on the venue, but it's likely included in the sharing systems. With NY conglomerate, I am paying $7-15 for an ebook and less likely to get sharing included. Tell me honestly... Which sounds like the better deal to you?

Brenna

Indeed, Brenna, the indie purchase sounds far superior. And thanks for that insight about the music situation. Indeed, all of our computers (5 of them, 6 when the college kid comes home for a weekend) are linked together. So I don't have to feel guilty? Thanks!
And William, my kids have all been getting allowance since they were about 5, to help them learn how to manage their money. When each turned 14 I made them get a work permit and I helped them to land their first jobs. That particular son is 18...he's free with his money and saves nothing. He sells his soul to I-Tunes regularly, leaving less than a dollar in his debit account! Honestly, with 4 of them, how can they all be so different, having been raised by the same 2 parents???

Middle child syndrome? Astrological signs? Different teachers and peers at school?

Parents' parenting styles change, too. If I were to have another child (way too late to contemplate), I should bend over backward to avoid repeating some mistakes, and as a result, I would probably make different mistakes.

:-)