# PIRACY and the decline of independent art



## CrystalVeeyant (Oct 16, 2013)

Even though I've been steadily adding to my Kindle library I have noticed my sales keep trending downward. It isn't lack of content or quality; I've been increasing the length and creativity of my erotic novellas. The reviews I do get are very gratifying so I'm confident the fault is not mine. So why my income has dropped 80% in 18 months despite neatly doubling the size of my bookshelf? I decided to search online for my name, and in just a few minutes I found a link to a "free eBook" repository: firstlibrary.us. 

Bastards.

No thief will ever be able to convince me what they are doing is right. They don't seem to get that the people they hurt most are other readers, music lovers and movie viewers. When even platinum selling bands can get dropped after one poorly selling album it speaks of an industry unwilling to take chances because it is harder and harder to make a profit. The big selling artists continue to do well because they're so big they can withstand all of the leeches, but the smaller artists eventually give up. They can't continue to work for free no matter how much they love what they do.

I used hang out in the original music scene here in the Hollywood area. I have watched dozens of talented, marketable artists forced go the indie route ever since file sharing exploded. Many of them ended up giving up and getting a nine-to-five or doing something unoriginal (cover bands, sidemen, etc.) because they could no longer afford to play for free. 

I spend many hours our of the month I could be doing something else working in a genre—erotica—that, frankly, is infested by hacks. I enjoy the writing I do but at some point it also becomes about justifying the hours I spend; there are other things that I also enjoy doing. As much as I love knowing I'm entertaining members of the niche I have a flair for working in, if more and more of my readers are using poverty as an excuse to steal my work then why should I invest the time I put into it? 

In the end the pirate loses out because when somebody else gives up producing then another voice is silenced, and the available material shrinks. The hacks will always produce so there will be material, but it ends up blending into the most trite, pedestrian and fatuous swill that only a semi-literate reader couldn't fail to feel insulted by. Hell, why not just watch a porno?

I doubt this post will change very much but maybe if just one pirate realizes he is also ultimately stealing from every other reader, then maybe he will think twice about that "giving back to the community" rationalization.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

You know, I had a little bit of sympathy for you, right up to the point you started calling people names, especially fellow writers.


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## CrystalVeeyant (Oct 16, 2013)

I'm confused how quickly some of the commenters have twisted my indictment against the undeniable hacks who are churning out material in every genre into "all other writers." Do you deny there are many writers working in all genres who would never be read at all if not for ePublishing? Do you think just because somebody takes time to put words down into a medium it's automatically good?

If you're going to decry me for generalizing then please don't do it yourself.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

CrystalVeeyant said:


> I'm confused how quickly some of the commenters have twisted my indictment against the undeniable hacks who are churning out material in every genre into "all other writers." Do you deny there are many writers working in all genres who would never be read at all if not for ePublishing? Do you think just because somebody takes time to put words down into a medium it's automatically good?
> 
> If you're going to decry me for generalizing then please don't do it yourself.


Why yes, I _do_ think this fire could use more gasoline.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

CrystalVeeyant said:


> I used hang out in the original music scene here in the Hollywood area. I have watched dozens of talented, marketable artists forced go the indie route ever since file sharing exploded. Many of them ended up giving up and getting a nine-to-five or doing something unoriginal (cover bands, sidemen, etc.) because they could no longer afford to play for free.


The indie route has arguably been as much a boon for musicians as for authors, as it cuts out the gatekeepers and eliminates some pretty nasty middlemen; if anything the music industry's middlemen are much worse parasites. It's rare for a group to finish a first album and not be indebted to the label, only to break even on a second or third release if they ever get that far. The idea that piracy has screwed these acts over worse than the industry would have is hilarious.

I too am of the opinion that the piracy downloads do not represent lost sales, only new opportunities for word-of-mouth--which is not to say I'd like to be on the receiving end, but I'm not about to get worked up about it. A recent thread on this same subject summed it up best: If the big guns like Hugh don't worry about it, why should I? They're the ones who'll take the biggest hit. Besides, most of the "free" ebook sites are disreputable.

And about that 80% drop: I strongly doubt piracy accounts for an impact that dramatic. Any number of factors could be to blame: saturation of the genre by the aforementioned "hacks", lackluster marketing, not enough engagement with the fan community, not enough networking with other authors in the genre, not taking or creating cross-promotion opportunities, changes in pricing expectations that could impact your price point. The list goes on. Maybe readers of your earlier work don't like the later work as much, even though reviews have stayed consistently positive; they could represent a shift in your demographic. What distribution channels have been affected by the recent Kobo kerfuffle, or the steady creep of the Amazon adult dungeon? Are some of your titles less available/findable through legit channels than they used to be? Heck, there are just too many possibilities. How can you be confident the fault is not yours when you've taken an 80% hit? 80% isn't piracy in action; it's marketing inaction.


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## Huldra (Nov 7, 2013)

LeeBee said:


> Why yes, I _do_ think this fire could use more gasoline.


*gigglesnort*

Anyway . . .
I of course can't say for sure, but would such a huge part of people who buy erotic e-books really go to pirate sites? I always assumed that the draw of paying for it was the more 'legitimate' feel that the free sites don't provide-- which sort of gets negated if you have to scurry off to seedy pirate sites to get your kink on.


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## She (Apr 15, 2014)

NAsh said:


> *gigglesnort*
> 
> Anyway . . .
> I of course can't say for sure, but would such a huge part of people who buy erotic e-books really go to pirate sites? I always assumed that the draw of paying for it was the more 'legitimate' feel that the free sites don't provide-- which sort of gets negated if you have to scurry off to seedy pirate sites to get your kink on.


That's a really good point, actually. The internet is full of free kinkery, so presumably the legitimacy is indeed a part of what people are paying for. I hadn't considered that!

EDIT: Legally free, I mean. As in, people posting their work on forums and blogs for other people to read free of charge. Some of it is of really good quality, and even the less-polished stuff is enough to, you know, get the job done. So I think we as writers need to think carefully about why anyone WOULD pay for our erotica, not panic that some people might not be. But that's much more YMMV than the rest of what I've been saying in this thread.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

My debut novel is all over the pirate sites. It sucks, but after being schooled here on KBoards, I decided not to fight it...it's not worth the stress and energy to play whack-a-mole with the take-down notices, etc... 

However... I'm a pretty gentle sorta person, but I have to be honest when I say I hope those sites are crawling with bugs that infect every PC or reader that downloads our books. I hope those bugs obliterate the devices, then move onto other things in that household... TV's, AC units, bedding, sexual devices, and even the lonely real-tree books probably 'borrowed' from the libraries never to be returned...anything that could possible give pleasure to the thieves, take it, 'o mighty bugs...destroy!

A thief is a thief. 'Nuff said.

(Except, can't we all just get along here? How 'bout them Bears? Anyone see the game last night?)


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

In a recent very unscientific survey it was found that 75% of erotica writers are good.  This same survey determined that it is easier to read erotica than watch a p0rno in the bath.


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## Huldra (Nov 7, 2013)

[/quote]


cinisajoy said:


> This same survey determined that it is easier to read erotica than watch a p0rno in the bath.


They finally made a waterproof kindle?? 



She said:


> EDIT: Legally free, I mean. As in, people posting their work on forums and blogs for other people to read free of charge. Some of it is of really good quality, and even the less-polished stuff is enough to, you know, get the job done.


Ah yes, I was referring to sites such as literotica. Nothing illegal and unwholesome. Or at least not illegal.


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## She (Apr 15, 2014)

NAsh said:


> They finally made a waterproof kindle??
> 
> Ah yes, I was referring to sites such as literotica. Nothing illegal and unwholesome. Or at least not illegal.


I thought that about waterproofing! I've killed so many paperbacks that way.

I know that's what you meant, I just wanted to edit for clarity!  People know they can get free erotica (and, indeed, writing of all genres), legally or otherwise. Many of them still pay for it. Those are our target audience and the people we should be focusing on trying to reach.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Sorry not yet on the waterproof kindle.  Though if you are worried a ziplock bag works wonders.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Crystal: You need better covers and blurbs. Start there. It looks like your photos are original? Since they're taken with flash, I suggest going the "American Apparel" route and designing to that washed-out, vintage look. Check out some of their ads to see what I mean.

I feel your sales pain, believe me. A lot of us do. I don't think that piracy's the reason. My first novel was "pirated" (or would have been if I didn't Creative Commons it), and my sales were great. Something's changed recently, as things tend to do in this biz.


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## Mandy (Dec 27, 2009)

Not that it excuses it, but are indie books really getting a high number of pirated downloads? It just seems unlikely to me; I would assume the piraters are downloading the best-selling and popular books. Are they really searching out indie content when there are thousands of free indie books available on legal websites like Amazon?


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Mandy said:


> Not that it excuses it, but are indie books really getting a high number of pirated downloads? It just seems unlikely to me; I would assume the piraters are downloading the best-selling and popular books. Are they really searching out indie content when there are thousands of free indie books available on legal websites like Amazon?


They got mine all over the place, and I'm not a bestseller.....FAR from it!


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## Mandy (Dec 27, 2009)

L.L. Akers said:


> They got mine all over the place, and I'm not a bestseller.....FAR from it!


Books are uploaded every day, but are they actually being downloaded by readers who want free books?


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## jcalloway (Jan 10, 2014)

L.L. Akers said:


> They got mine all over the place, and I'm not a bestseller.....FAR from it!


Same. Almost all of my books (from three different pen names) have been pirated. I don't bother sending out notices.

I launched a new pen name last week, actually. The book was bought and returned within a few hours of going live. I googled the title and author name a couple hours later and found it on a torrent site.

Brand new pen name, no other books, and BOOM. It's a problem, and there's not much we can do about it, but it is especially concerning that it is happening so quickly these days. The joke is that the book itself is the first in a series, so I intend to make it permafree. As someone was going to all the trouble of pirating it, it was already available for free on Smashwords to pave the road to permafree.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I have the ideal anti-piracy defence. I write intellectual literary fiction that to a pirate would be all skull and no crossbones. My art will always be independent and probably always unpirated and very likely unsold.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Mandy said:


> Books are uploaded every day, but are they actually being downloaded by readers want free books?


The first one I looked at showed 6800 downloads... There were 3 other pirate sites that had it, (but i didn't check downloads) last time i looked, just on page 1-3 of google. that means there are probably many more. I'd love to have half that number sold, even at rock bottom price.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

The bigger question is how many downloads from a pirate ship are actually read?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

jcalloway said:


> It's a problem, and there's not much we can do about it, but it is especially concerning that it is happening so quickly these days.


And it'll keep getting easier and it'll keep happening more quickly. Soon it'll be so commonplace that even those who'd normally pay for their books will say to themselves: "why should I when everyone else gets them for free?" or they won't know the difference between a legitimate free site and a piracy site.
Meanwhile, we can't be bothered to send take down notices because they'll either be ignored or the thieves will just post their stuff elsewhere. Worse, they'll SELL it elsewhere. And worse yet, some authors applaud the whole thing.
This is not going to end well.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

LeeBee said:


> Why yes, I _do_ think this fire could use more gasoline.


You made me choke. You ACTUALLY made me CHOKE. Darn you, winking latte! 

On topic, sort of (I'm sorry, I'm just too much of a wuss to jump into the pirate fray) I'd just like to say that I used to get really angry about other authors being more successful than me (since I was oh so brilliant and all), or at least the ones who couldn't write worth a darn (and yes, I'm quoting Stephen King there in a roundabout way). That was many years and many books ago. I think there's a name for that sort of thing.

Now I'm all for anyone and everyone succeeding with their book(s), because why not? They get to be happy, and no one else's happiness is going to negatively affect me. Unless the only way they can be happy is by brutally murdering me, which would be kind of a bummer.

Also, I'm a hack and I know it. So I'm good with not being brilliant.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

S.W. Vaughn said:


> You made me choke. You ACTUALLY made me CHOKE. Darn you, winking latte!
> Also, I'm a hack and I know it. So I'm good with not being brilliant.


Ah, good! I reached my intended target, then. This next wink? _It's just for you._


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

CrystalVeeyant said:


> I'm confused how quickly some of the commenters have twisted my indictment against the undeniable hacks who are churning out material in every genre into "all other writers." Do you deny there are many writers working in all genres who would never be read at all if not for ePublishing? Do you think just because somebody takes time to put words down into a medium it's automatically good?
> 
> If you're going to decry me for generalizing then please don't do it yourself.


I agree to a degree about your take on piracy. I'm also of the belief the vast majority of those downloading wouldn't have purchased the book anyway.

As a writer who wouldn't have been published if not for the e-publishing world, I think you're picking a fight with the wrong crowd. I stuck words on a page and a few people liked it. So "good" is a matter of taste. I'm not likely to be the next Stephen King but I'm happy with that.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Do you deny there are many writers working in all genres who would never be read at all if not for ePublishing?


Deny it? Of course not.

God Bless Amazon, for I am of the unwashed lumpen.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

Quiss said:


> And it'll keep getting easier and it'll keep happening more quickly. Soon it'll be so commonplace that even those who'd normally pay for their books will say to themselves: "why should I when everyone else gets them for free?" or they won't know the difference between a legitimate free site and a piracy site.
> Meanwhile, we can't be bothered to send take down notices because they'll either be ignored or the thieves will just post their stuff elsewhere. Worse, they'll SELL it elsewhere. And worse yet, some authors applaud the whole thing.
> This is not going to end well.


excuse me, but do you really think readers are that dumb or that venal?

i know full well where stuff is available illegally. i choose to buy my books and music through amazon and iTunes. as do most people i know.


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## Jason Eric Pryor (Jan 30, 2013)

L.L. Akers said:


> I hope those sites are crawling with bugs that infect every PC or reader that downloads our books. I hope those bugs obliterate the devices, then move onto other things in that household... TV's, AC units, bedding, sexual devices, and even the lonely real-tree books probably 'borrowed' from the libraries never to be returned...anything that could possible give pleasure to the thieves, take it, 'o mighty bugs...destroy!


There's a novel in this. At least a short story.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

telracs said:


> excuse me, but do you really think readers are that dumb or that venal?


I'm saying that web sites are increasingly easy to build and that readers will be fooled by them, yes. That doesn't mean that they're dumb. It means that the available technology will become increasingly indistinguishable from the real thing. 
Take a look at Scribd and tell me that someone new to reading eBooks would know the difference between a book uploaded by the actual owner of the copyright or someone else.
I'm a bit bothered that you'd jump to the conclusion that I was denigrating readers, frankly.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

Quiss said:


> And it'll keep getting easier and it'll keep happening more quickly. *Soon it'll be so commonplace that even those who'd normally pay for their books will say to themselves: "why should I when everyone else gets them for free?" *or they won't know the difference between a legitimate free site and a piracy site.
> Meanwhile, we can't be bothered to send take down notices because they'll either be ignored or the thieves will just post their stuff elsewhere. Worse, they'll SELL it elsewhere. And worse yet, some authors applaud the whole thing.
> This is not going to end well.


Sorry, Quiss. I took that statement the same way telracs did since I'm one of those people who pay for my books. So I guess I jumped to the conclusion you were denigrating readers as well. If you took the sentence I bolded out, you may be right about whether there are those who can't tell the difference between a legitimate site and a piracy site. I don't know because I only shop at the major sites.


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I'm saying that web sites are increasingly easy to build and that readers will be fooled by them, yes. That doesn't mean that they're dumb. It means that the available technology will become increasingly indistinguishable from the real thing.
> Take a look at Scribd and tell me that someone new to reading eBooks would know the difference between a book uploaded by the actual owner of the copyright or someone else.
> I'm a bit bothered that you'd jump to the conclusion that I was denigrating readers, frankly.


I understood you to mean that it's easy for pirates to spoof a book or website. Look at all the fake bank and credit card websites where they try to steal your personal information. The thieves copy the logo, fonts and site design, and it can look so real people are fooled and log in. You can even spoof a phone number on Caller ID now.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Quiss said:


> And it'll keep getting easier and it'll keep happening more quickly. Soon it'll be so commonplace that even those who'd normally pay for their books will say to themselves: "why should I when everyone else gets them for free?" or they won't know the difference between a legitimate free site and a piracy site.
> Meanwhile, we can't be bothered to send take down notices because they'll either be ignored or the thieves will just post their stuff elsewhere. Worse, they'll SELL it elsewhere. And worse yet, some authors applaud the whole thing.
> This is not going to end well.


A good test for this is observation of Amazon free books vs cash sales. We don't have to use pirate sites to see the effect of free books. To date, cash sales keep increasing at the same time there are zillions of free books available through an excellent search and selection site. This is also a situation where consumers are fully informed.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

crebel said:


> Sorry, Quiss. I took that statement the same way telracs did


The sentence you bolded does in no way assert that readers are dumb.
I suppose we'll have to wait a few years to see if I'm being overly cynical. I sure hope that I am.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Bluebonnet said:


> I understood you to mean that it's easy for pirates to spoof a book or website. Look at all the fake bank and credit card websites where they try to steal your personal information. The thieves copy the logo, fonts and site design, and it can look so real people are fooled and log in. You can even spoof a phone number on Caller ID now.


That is exactly what I mean. Most of us can tell when we're looking at a pirate site _right now_, by its' URL, by it's design, by it's presentation. But that won't be the case for much longer. It doesn't take a genius these days to whip up a pro-looking site to dupe people.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Bluebonnet said:


> I understood you to mean that it's easy for pirates to spoof a book or website. Look at all the fake bank and credit card websites where they try to steal your personal information. The thieves copy the logo, fonts and site design, and it can look so real people are fooled and log in.


I actually do a bit of this for a living, legitimately of course (for clients). Even trained, it's alarming how high the response rate is. I've mocked up pages in as little as ten minutes that saw success (or failure depending on your view).

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Jason Eric Pryor said:


> There's a novel in this. At least a short story.


Don't you dare write it! It's copy-writed! Claimed! (As Daryl from The Walking Dead says)


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Am I to understand that the only people who won't pitch a pathetic hissyfit over piracy being a thing are hacks?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> Am I to understand that the only people who won't pitch a pathetic hissyfit over piracy being a thing are hacks?


Hey man, what's wrong with my pathetic hissyfit?


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

Piracy is an issue, and one that deserves continued attention. I take comfort from seeing what Steve Jobs seem to know before everyone else: that if you make purchasing sometime an easy and satisfying experience, most people will opt for paying rather than what they know is stealing. What SJ did for music, JB did for books.

I think the issue also varies tremendously from country to country. I'm surprised by how common pirating seems to be in Canada, where I grew up. I think that stems from a misguided "royalty tax" that was put on writable CDs, which for many people felt like an implied license to pirate music.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Hey man, what's wrong with my pathetic hissyfit?


I meant quitting as per the OP's assertion that only hacks will be left because of pirating.

I didn't even see you pitching a hissy, but if you did, apparently, that means you are not a hack. Or something.

Piracy is the classic example of mountains from molehills and the most damage it does is to the people who overreact and blow off their own foot trying to kill flies with a shotgun.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

> I spend many hours our of the month I could be doing something else working in a genre--erotica--that, frankly, is infested by hacks.
> 
> The hacks will always produce so there will be material, but it ends up blending into the most trite, pedestrian and fatuous swill that only a semi-literate reader couldn't fail to feel insulted by. Hell, why not just watch a porno?


Ah, I see you are here to make friends. Welcome.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Quiss said:


> That is exactly what I mean. Most of us can tell when we're looking at a pirate site _right now_, by its' URL, by it's design, by it's presentation. But that won't be the case for much longer. It doesn't take a genius these days to whip up a pro-looking site to dupe people.


It seems to be taking Kobo and B&N quite a long time to match the Amazon site.


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## Nihilist (Aug 9, 2013)

opcorn:


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

I agree piracy is not right and it's not harmless. All of my books are now on various sites being given by various philanthropic thieves. Thing is if they were actually philanthropic they'd buy my books and then give the purchased copies away instead of simply robbing me!

Personally I just don't know that there's much we can do about it. Until someone out there comes up with a world wide law that says you stole so and so's property and gave it away for free - you now owe so and so for each and every giveaway, we're fighting a losing battle.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Well Amazon could stop making it cost nothing... but people think Might 'Zon is totally right to continue the policy of making every book effectively free if you're dishonest enough.


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## Nymirra (Mar 15, 2014)

Two things.

One. I come from a background of writing original and fanfiction stories that I posted entirely for free. People loved them and asked for more. I wrote more. They got free stories, I, unwittingly, developed an online fanbase. Without that fanbase, I wouldn't be doing as relatively well as I am right now with publishing. What I'm saying is that one side of the coin is "thief!" and the other is "free publicity!" Perhaps 10% of the pirates could, in extremis, have been sales. Maybe. The rest are just potential future readers. I know for a fact (They've told me) that fans have bought my work in spite of already having read it for free just to support me in writing. I'm convinced that the same happens with piracy.

Two. Perhaps I am naive, but I prefer getting my stuff legitimately. I only pirated in the past when it was difficult or impossible to get what I wanted, or when I was younger, when I didn't have the money. You're never going to convince a zealous teen in any case. So again, just choose to view it as free publicity. You will go mad otherwise, because you just cannot stop some people from pirating. I'm convinced that all our stories could be offered for free forever from this moment on and there would -still- be people "pirating" them by going to torrenting sites and whatever.

Yes, a part of me screams "thief!" when I see a pirated book, but I try to suppress that side. Not because some pirates aren't just thieving scum, they are, but because a lot aren't, or end up not being. Just put it out of your mind and continue on. Focus on improving everything. No writer should ever stop improving, none of the great masters and mistreses ever stopped. Make the pirates and fans -want- to support you rather than ranting about them not doing so. Oh, and... Get some better covers.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

I thought about replying but decided I'm going to go try my hand at writing erotica instead. If hacks are making money at it, then I'm going to make money at it, because no one is a bigger hack than me. And yes, I will fight you for that crown. 

I suppose I could just rest a book on the keyboard in this reply box for anyone expecting the 10k word piracy wall of text from me. 10k EROTIC words about piracy. Erotic Piracy. Erotic Pirates. Pirotica.

BOOOOOOOM.

Pirotica is MINE. You will pay me a license fee each time you try to write a story in the Pirotica genre.

(trust me, you will thank me for this when we are all rich and talking like eroticized pirates at our Rich Erotica Authors Convention).


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Nymirra said:


> I'm convinced that all our stories could be offered for free forever from this moment on and there would -still- be people "pirating" them by going to torrenting sites and whatever.


And all our stories could be pirated for ever and a lot of us would still write. I like getting paid, but I love writing and will write whether I am earning from it or not.


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## ThrillerWriter (Aug 19, 2012)

I love pirates.

I'm not one, but I'm extremely thankful for what they do.

I'm actually, politically, what one would consider an anarcho-capitalist (let's not make this a political discussion), and intellectual property may be the largest debate among an-caps right now. There are great arguments and great thinkers on both sides about whether or not IP actually exists.

Practically thinking, for me at least, pirates do something I can't do. They reach a market in a matter of seconds that would take me a long time to get to. The market may not even be reachable by me, because I don't know where to reach people who 'steal'. Getting my books in their hands, if left to my own devices, would be extremely difficult. 

Not all pirates are only pirates. Plenty of them will support an artist once they've come to like them, and if I have that opportunity, to reach someone who wants to pay for my work, then God bless the folks that did it for me. 

More, at the basis of this, what about someone who borrows a print book rather than paying for it? Fine by me.

Buy it, steal it, copy it, whatever you want to do as long as people are reading it. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this the world we live in, where the essence of art is no longer physical, and if you can't accept that, if you can't embrace it, I think it's similar to the movie producers in the 90's fighting VHS. Silly. I'd rather embrace it and use it to my advantage. Hell, I was pirated last week, the pirate reached out to me to say how much they enjoyed The Devil's Dream, and then I sent the pirate a signed copy. That's a guarantee sale for the rest of my life.

I couldn't be more serious when I say steal my work. In the end, I believe, it's going to work to my benefit if I'm any good.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Remember Limewire? Maybe they're still going, but it's a long time since that name has been spoken in our house.

My kids, high school students with no income, saw OMG all these free songs! They downloaded a lot of stuff. And then their computer seized up. We ran a virus scan on it: 62 viruses. They lost school stuff and other important material.

Exit Limewire.

Sure, you can get a lot of stuff for free from these places, but you need to be really careful and know what you're doing. Most people don't, and don't have the time to get familiar with the warning signs, so they find it easier to buy the stuff legally.


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## books_mb (Oct 29, 2013)

L.L. Akers said:


> However... I'm a pretty gentle sorta person, but I have to be honest when I say I hope those sites are crawling with bugs that infect every PC or reader that downloads our books. I hope those bugs obliterate the devices, then move onto other things in that household... TV's, AC units, bedding, sexual devices, and even the lonely real-tree books probably 'borrowed' from the libraries never to be returned...anything that could possible give pleasure to the thieves, take it, 'o mighty bugs...destroy!


I've always wondered why the industry doesn't use the most obvious and most effective anti-piracy strategy: setting up hundreds of different pirate sites and filling them with (harmless but annoying) viruses. I admit that I pirated my fair share of other people's hard work when I was younger and viruses were an immensely big turn-off. It's a sure way to get people to either give up the search or turn to the legal alternative.


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## bardeh (Nov 3, 2013)

Instead of blaming pirates, and the oversaturation of the market, focus on things you CAN change. Your covers and blurbs leave much to be desired. Improve them, improve your sales. Simple as that.


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## Rin (Apr 25, 2011)

I have so many arguments, many already articulated by the smart people upthread.

Instead, I'll invite the mighty Hugh. There are arguments that he's at least moderately successful. >_> I mean, Wool is popular in some small niches and I can't finish this sentence with a straight face.

He accepts pirates, he has a button, right there on his site for people who've pirated it and now want to pay him. The button isn't a link to the KILLTHEEVILPIRATESCOMPUTER.VIRUS, it's just a PayPal link for those ten percent of people who may have been legitimate sales in the first place, who are now fans because of a book they've pirated.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

We had a whole topic on adding viruses to pirate copies recently on these boards, here is the topic: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,183584.0.html

On the topic of pirating, I'm re-posting a reply I made there:


> You know the best way to slow down pirating? Accessibility.
> 
> That doesn't just mean being available on Amazon, but also available on stores that aren't connected to certain countries. People in countries that don't have their own Amazon store have to pay a $2 surcharge for the books, those people are usually smart enough to get their books elsewhere. Be available on local stores, or on world wide stores like Smashwords, where you don't need a Credit Card to buy books (do you know how many countries there are where CCs are not common? A lot of them). Availability of stores in the first step.
> Availability of price is the second. I barely ever pirate games any more since I can buy games cheaply on Steam and can install and uninstall them on my computer at any given time. I don't have the budget to buy all the games I want at full price. I do have the budget to buy some cheaper games during sales a few times a year. Pricing is the second step.
> ...


There are a few people who like to do things illegally, everybody always generalises that all pirates are like that. They're not. Talk to ex-pirates, these days there are many of them in different industries. People stop downloading games illegally because they can get them for a better price, people stop downloading music because they know they can get good quality for a decent price.
We're not going towards something where people LIKE and even STRIVE to download things illegally. But if they can't get to the work in a legal way, they will take that step.

Don't assume all pirates are doing it because they like doing illegal stuff, many do it because they can't get to a work otherwise.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

CrystalVeeyant said:


> Even though I've been steadily adding to my Kindle library I have noticed my sales keep trending downward. It isn't lack of content or quality; I've been increasing the length and creativity of my erotic novellas. The reviews I do get are very gratifying so I'm confident the fault is not mine. So why my income has dropped 80% in 18 months despite neatly doubling the size of my bookshelf? I decided to search online for my name, and in just a few minutes I found a link to a "free eBook" repository: firstlibrary.us.
> 
> [illegitimate persons].
> 
> ...





CrystalVeeyant said:


> I'm confused how quickly some of the commenters have twisted my indictment against the *undeniable hacks* who are churning out material in every genre into "all other writers." Do you deny there are many writers working in all genres who would never be read at all if not for ePublishing? Do you think just because somebody takes time to put words down into a medium it's automatically good?
> *
> If you're going to decry me for generalizing then please don't do it yourself.*


If you're responding to me, I'll tell you straight out that _I_ did not generalize your comments. Nowhere did I say you wrote "all other writers". As for the rest of your comments in the post quoted immediately above, I have no idea where you got any of that from what I said.

You called other writers "hacks" in not one, but two posts. Now, one can argue whether everyone who self-publishes should be doing so, but why use this kind of language? What purpose does it serve to make adversaries out of people who are doing the same thing you are doing?

Some of these writers may look at your work, and say the same thing about you. Would you be okay with them going on public message boards and calling you a "hack" or worse?

One can argue about what damages piracy causes, without calling other writers names. It's a legitimate issue, and has been for years, and one that likely will never be solved to everyone's satisfaction. I don't condone piracy, but I understand that there's little to be gained by getting overwrought about it.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Rin said:


>


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now it's stuck in my head FOREVER! AGAIN!

There is no escaping the song that doesn't end. Yes, it goes on and on, my friend. Some people--

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(thanks for this blast from the past )


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

Hi.

My name is Anderson and I'm a hack.

*sits down*


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

I agree with the accessibility problem. I live in Japan, and if you don't pirate stuff, it is incredibly difficult to get it at all, let alone get it in a timely fashion (and when we do get it, it's about twice as expensive as it is in other parts of the world). I have to use some Internet trickery in order to pay for Netflix and Hulu. 

Think about that: in order to pay for a service, I have to be underhanded. 

When I first moved out here, I pirated a lot of stuff. Simply because it wasn't available and there was no other way to get it. 

I always look to legal sources first when I want something. And yet there are still things that I can't find at all. Or there are things that have that idiotic DRM. So god forbid you ever have a time when your Internet isn't working and iTunes decides, "hey, we need online verification of this movie, you dirty criminal, you." I have actually pirated movies I've already paid for just so I can have a DRM-free copy (which shows you how effective that bullshit is at combatting piracy).

Treat your customers like valued customers, not as dirty thieves looking for a way to stab you in the back, and they'll respond far more favorably. Most will, at least. There are some that won't, but these people are known as "assholes" and shouldn't be given too much thought.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> I thought about replying but decided I'm going to go try my hand at writing erotica instead. If hacks are making money at it, then I'm going to make money at it, because no one is a bigger hack than me. And yes, I will fight you for that crown.
> 
> I suppose I could just rest a book on the keyboard in this reply box for anyone expecting the 10k word piracy wall of text from me. 10k EROTIC words about piracy. Erotic Piracy. Erotic Pirates. Pirotica.
> 
> ...


See, _this_ is why we need a like button


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

No matter my personal feelings towards piracy, in the end, the fact is that none of it matters. Media culture has shifted towards piracy, and there's nothing you can do. The music industry fought piracy for nearly 15 years and made no headway... and they nearly destroyed themselves in the process by not evolving to fit the new culture.

Your books have not taken an 80 percent hit over the last two years due to piracy. That's just silly. A lot of things have happened over the last two years to the erotica genre, and increased piracy isn't one of them.


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## Paul Huxley (Feb 27, 2014)

Can I suggest flooding torrent sites with multiple versions everybody's free book. Every author has one right? So make it available for download and use the illicit network as a distribution tool. If people really are downloading as many books as claimed, it may as well be as part of your funnel. Who knows you might be able to tempt some people over to legitimate sites. The least it could do would be to dilute the search results of pirated ebooks out there (although lets be honest, it's all Dan Brown, G.R.R. Martin and self help books).


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

books_mb said:


> I've always wondered why the industry doesn't use the most obvious and most effective anti-piracy strategy: setting up hundreds of different pirate sites and filling them with (harmless but annoying) viruses. I admit that I pirated my fair share of other people's hard work when I was younger and viruses were an immensely big turn-off. It's a sure way to get people to either give up the search or turn to the legal alternative.


Annoying one's customers into going legit? I don't think so.

I'd sooner see infrastructures enhanced to make it much easier for people to obtain items for a reasonable price.

I have a good example here:
My oldest bought a Blu-Ray off of Amazon. It wasn't until it arrived that we realized it was a locked Region B disc. It also included a digital copy through Ultraviolet so I gave it a try.

The code included with the blu-ray errored out. Ultraviolet's website was useless, pointing toward the 12 character redemption code we should've received and ignoring the 8 character code we actually did.

Long story short, I've been fighting this for over a month, through 3 companies and dozens of emails trying to get this sorted out just so my kid can watch this stupid show.

Needless to say, pirate sites are looking mighty darn friendly to me right at this moment.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> The code included with the blu-ray errored out. Ultraviolet's website was useless, pointing toward the 12 character redemption code we should've received and ignoring the 8 character code we actually did.
> 
> Long story short, I've been fighting this for over a month, through 3 companies and dozens of emails trying to get this sorted out just so my kid can watch this stupid show.
> 
> Needless to say, pirate sites are looking mighty darn friendly to me right at this moment.


Ultraviolet isn't any better. Their app throws a fit on rooted devices. Something about piracy prevention. Very frustrating.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

L.L. Akers said:


> My debut novel is all over the pirate sites. It sucks, but after being schooled here on KBoards, I decided not to fight it...it's not worth the stress and energy to play whack-a-mole with the take-down notices, etc...
> 
> However... I'm a pretty gentle sorta person, but I have to be honest when I say I hope those sites are crawling with bugs that infect every PC or reader that downloads our books. I hope those bugs obliterate the devices, then move onto other things in that household... TV's, AC units, bedding, sexual devices, and even the lonely real-tree books probably 'borrowed' from the libraries never to be returned...anything that could possible give pleasure to the thieves, take it, 'o mighty bugs...destroy!
> 
> ...


Pssst! The only team named the Bears that I know of are the Chicago Bears, and they play football. The season ended four months ago. 

I share your views completely though. I also hope anyone who downloads from those sites gets a computer chock full of spyware, viruses, and all manner of nasty things.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I share your views completely though. I also hope anyone who downloads from those sites gets a computer chock full of spyware, viruses, and all manner of nasty things.


I would never wish that because everyone has different motives. Sure there are some who download simply for the thrill of it. Oh well, they weren't going to buy it anyway, but they could have friends who might.

I've been contacted by multiple downloaders about my books. In some cases it was because they were from countries I didn't sell in. Heck, I'm grateful for them because I might never have considered their location as a market to look at otherwise.

It strikes me as far better business to embrace readers in all of their myriad forms and do what I can to serve them however I may.


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Perry Constantine said:


> I agree with the accessibility problem. I live in Japan, and if you don't pirate stuff, it is incredibly difficult to get it at all, let alone get it in a timely fashion (and when we do get it, it's about twice as expensive as it is in other parts of the world). I have to use some Internet trickery in order to pay for Netflix and Hulu.
> 
> Think about that: in order to pay for a service, I have to be underhanded.


I've lived in Asia and wasn't allowed to open an iTunes account. Even with a US address and credit cards and everything I needed. Worse, they weren't allowed to tell me why I couldn't open the account. I spent a week with customer support on telephone and online before she discovered that I wasn't going to get one, but even then she wasn't allowed to tell me why. She did acknowledge it was because of where I was when I asked though.

Same for Netflix. Same for most of the online stores. Amazon was okay (but the Internet too slow to bother with streaming movies). On the other hand, I could walk to the market and buy a DVD of a new movie for $1 (or a boxed set of a television series for about $9) the day after it came out. And then I would read about all the piracy in Asia. It strikes me as a rather "duh" moment when you promote hell out of something, and then people find they can't buy it, that someone sees a business opportunity in that.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Just had a thought on those advising lets put viruses on pirates computers.  You want to do something illegal, should I even trust your legally gotten file?  
Though I understand that prisons will give you three meals at day at no cost to you.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I did a lot of research on piracy after a recent incident. What I found was this: right now it mostly helps writers in the U.S. because 1) it is free publicity as someone said 2) piracy is still harder than shopping on Amazon and riskier 3) at least for our age group their is still a stigma against it (and young kids who currently pirate without a thought, might feel shame as they grow older and realize how hard it is to make a buck). When it stops being more difficult, risky, and loses it's stigma, then it will become a real concern. That time is not now, however.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Just had a thought on those advising lets put viruses on pirates computers. You want to do something illegal, should I even trust your legally gotten file?
> Though I understand that prisons will give you three meals at day at no cost to you.


It's a good point. I'm not sure how one purposely infects a file. I could probably figure it out but I'm curious if anyone suggesting this already knows how it's done.

Also, a lot of sites have forums attached to each torrent so you can track it's validity. If enough people flag it as a virus the scheme won't do you any good. You're also assuming the downloaded doesn't scan incoming data for viruses. A good scanners doesn't have to cost any money. Some of the free scanners are arguably better than McAffee.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I'm not sure how one purposely infects a file. I could probably figure it out but I'm curious if anyone suggesting this already knows how it's done.


Reminds me of that huge plot hole in _Independence Day_.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

books_mb said:


> I've always wondered why the industry doesn't use the most obvious and most effective anti-piracy strategy: setting up hundreds of different pirate sites and filling them with (harmless but annoying) viruses. I admit that I pirated my fair share of other people's hard work when I was younger and viruses were an immensely big turn-off. It's a sure way to get people to either give up the search or turn to the legal alternative.


There was a recent thread on this subject. To sum up: it's a really stupid idea. It'd be bad enough for authors to do something along these lines if it were possible, but if the industry setup a bunch of fake sites (which _is_ possible), they'd be up a legal creek. Think about it: To get any traction at all they'd have to have some actual pirated content, which means they'd be breaking the laws they themselves are desperate to enforce (and for which they've pushed for ridiculous penalties). They'd also be breaking a zillion computer abuse laws by purposely disseminating malware. Sony got into trouble (not nearly enough) for their rootkit fiasco years back; this would be far worse. But on top of that, there's the fact that many places where you can easily find copyrighted material for download already carry a hefty infection risk. Why bother setting up sites themselves when they can take a clown hammer like the DMCA to sites that try to be reputable, leaving people stuck with shady .ru sites?



Daniel Dennis said:


> It's a good point. I'm not sure how one purposely infects a file. I could probably figure it out but I'm curious if anyone suggesting this already knows how it's done.


You can't infect a file--not a non-program file, anyway. To make a data file virulent you'd have to malform it in a way that was known to exploit vulnerabilities in certain readers or the software used to download the files. Otherwise you can load up a file (especially a packaged one like epub) with viruses till the cows came home and have no result beyond maybe the antivirus software recognizing it. The people who've suggested infecting fake versions of their ebooks clearly don't understand these concepts, some to the point of stuffing their fingers in their ears and shouting "la la la" any time someone said the idea wouldn't work. As of right now, there are no known ways to infect a computer or reader via an ebook. One could be discovered tomorrow, but if so it would be highly unlikely to impact anything except certain specific devices.

Besides, the way people get viruses from most of these "free" ebook sites is by the site itself (or its ads) being rigged to try to rip a hole through their browser's security. So while the idea that the industry could do this is correct on a technicality, individual authors would have no means to do so, and it still carries all the same legal problems.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

MaryMcDonald said:


> Pssst! The only team named the Bears that I know of are the Chicago Bears, and they play football. The season ended four months ago.


Lol, Mary. It's a very old joke (maybe from a movie) used to break tension and/or cause a momentary pause and re-direct after a tense or embarrassing revelation in conversation--old tool... intention of distracting from a head-on collision of differing opinions.

I see it had no affect


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## books_mb (Oct 29, 2013)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> Annoying one's customers into going legit? I don't think so.


Isn't that what the police does all the time? Putting harmless viruses into ebooks, films, etc ... and distributing them is not that different from a sting operation. Undercover police officers break dozens of laws by purchasing illegal drugs, yet they still do it to catch dealers and addicts. This kind of approach is certainly better than suing a single mother for 5 million dollars because of a download. It puts people off illegal downloads without involving any courts (which, as you know, have no problem with ruining a pirate's life).

As for the geoblocking: this is a cancer of the internet. If it's geoblocked and thus not accessible, feel free to steal. I urge anyone to steal my books if he is not able to purchase them because of where he lives. As a special service to those customers, I'll even promise to kick the idiot laywers and politicians responsible for geoblocking in the nuts first chance I get.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

David Beers said:


> I'm actually, politically, what one would consider an anarcho-capitalist (let's not make this a political discussion), and intellectual property may be the largest debate among an-caps right now. There are great arguments and great thinkers on both sides about whether or not IP actually exists.


I assure you intellectual property does exist. The thoughts in your head are yours alone. They are your property. They don't belong to society and you have every right to jot them on paper and sell them for a profit.

That aside, I think the concern for a lot of people is the idea of the possibility that in the future it will be so easy to pirate your work that it will harm the bottom line. I get the notion that a pirate isn't likely to purchase the product. But what happens if it becomes so commonplace that the trend shifts? What do you do if it's no longer economically feasible to spend your time writing?


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## Oscar Arias (Dec 17, 2013)

When my stuff finally gets pirated, I will know I've made it as writer!  :0


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

books_mb said:


> Isn't that what the police does all the time? Putting harmless viruses into ebooks, films, etc ... and distributing them is not that different from a sting operation.


Except that one is for crime and the other for copyright violations.

Suing someone is completely different than convicting them.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Okay. Guys.

Putting viruses into files is illegal. Not only that, but think about what you're saying here: you want to trash devices worth hundreds of dollars over less than ten bucks.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> Okay. Guys.
> Putting viruses into files is illegal. Not only that, but think about what you're saying here: you want to trash devices worth hundreds of dollars over less than ten bucks.


Exactly. And all of this over something that one doesn't have proof has done anything to negatively affect sales. Seriously, it's the same when someone complains that Amazon returns are thieves. It's a leap of logic based on little more than an emotional response.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> Okay. Guys.
> 
> Putting viruses into files is illegal. Not only that, but think about what you're saying here: you want to trash devices worth hundreds of dollars over less than ten bucks.


I move we change the title of this thread to "Piracy and the decline of moral consistency."


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## She (Apr 15, 2014)

Daniel Dennis said:


> What do you do if it's no longer economically feasible to spend your time writing?


At the risk of being facetious... find another way to make money?

The internet is changing everything really, really fast, and I think we're all well aware here that publishing is not immune to that. Before KDP and the rise of the indie, all aspiring writers could do was keep querying agents and publishing houses and hoping for the best. Piracy existed then, but on a smaller scale - partly because the technology wasn't there to make it so easy, but also because there just plain wasn't as much stuff to pirate.

Then things got opened up and we got to seize control as writers. The way I see it, this dystopian future people are so worried about, in which everything is free for everyone and all producers of any kind of non-physical product die in gutters is far more likely to just constitute things being opened up further. I don't know how, exactly: if I did, I'd be putting it into action right now in preparation for making a mint when it comes to fruition. But the market will definitely be there. As long as people want to read, writers will find a way to make money. Some people will inevitably get left behind (the way a few traditionalists might get left behind if they cling to the traditional publishing model too long), but writers as a group will muddle through. They always do.

What about hundreds of years ago, when copyright wasn't even a thing? We only have Shakespeare's plays because someone in the audience was scribbling them down while they were being performed, or because they were collated from the actors' copies (which only had their lines and their cues, not the whole plays) and published without making Shakespeare himself a penny. Writers still existed and made a living then, and they will even if piracy RUINS EVERYTHING as we know it.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

All right, She - stop being so feedbacking awesome. You're making the rest of us look bad.


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## chris56 (Jun 8, 2013)

I tend to see the best in people and I think the majority of people who are interested in books are going to purchase them rather than steal them.  And with the ever increasing issues with internet security, I would hope that people are smart enough to get their books from a trusted site like Amazon or B&N rather than an unknown site that is offering pirated books for download.  You never know what you're going to get along with a pirated book.


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## She (Apr 15, 2014)

LeeBee said:


> All right, She - stop being so feedbacking awesome. You're making the rest of us look bad.


Pfft, you can't just turn off awesome of this magnitude.

Seriously though, thank you - I alternate between feeling clever and like I'm shooting my mouth off  I've never even downloaded from pirate sites or torrents myself, I'm just surprised by how dramatic the reactions to it have been here. Vaalingrade is so right: wanting to destroy someone's expensive, shiny device because you feel they've conned you out of a few dollars is the very definition of an overreaction, and seriously suggesting it destroys any moral high ground that content producers occupy over the pirates.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

L.L. Akers said:


> Lol, Mary. It's a very old joke (maybe from a movie) used to break tension and/or cause a momentary pause and re-direct after a tense or embarrassing revelation in conversation--old tool... intention of distracting from a head-on collision of differing opinions.
> 
> I see it had no affect


I think you are confusing your Bears and your Dolphins. It's a line said by Robin Williams to Gene Hackman in _The Birdcage_


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I think you are confusing your Bears and your Dolphins. It's a line said by Robin Williams to Gene Hackman in _The Birdcage_


The joke predates _The Birdcage_ by at least several decades.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

books_mb said:


> Isn't that what the police does all the time? Putting harmless viruses into ebooks, films, etc ... and distributing them is not that different from a sting operation. Undercover police officers break dozens of laws by purchasing illegal drugs, yet they still do it to catch dealers and addicts. This kind of approach is certainly better than suing a single mother for 5 million dollars because of a download. It puts people off illegal downloads without involving any courts (which, as you know, have no problem with ruining a pirate's life).


It's entirely different. If it were possible to insert viruses into files this way, it would actually be equivalent to the police setting up a drug dealing racket but poisoning the product. Only an even better analogy would be that they poisoned it with a biological agent, because malware tends to propagate. And good gads, there is _no_ such thing as a harmless virus.

A sting operation would actually be more closely analogous to a honey pot, where a fake site was setup to provide bogus files (no real ones) and people who downloaded from there got tracked and dealt with individually. However inasmuch as most copyright laws center around distribution rather than downloading (the people the RIAA targeted, for instance, each shared over 1000 songs), I think the incentive to setup the honey pot would be quite low. Besides, the pot wouldn't be very well honeyed if all the files in it were fake.


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## Nihilist (Aug 9, 2013)

She said:


> Pfft, you can't just turn off awesome of this magnitude.
> 
> Seriously though, thank you - I alternate between feeling clever and like I'm shooting my mouth off  I've never even downloaded from pirate sites or torrents myself, I'm just surprised by how dramatic the reactions to it have been here. Vaalingrade is so right: wanting to destroy someone's expensive, shiny device because you feel they've conned you out of a few dollars is the very definition of an overreaction, and seriously suggesting it destroys any moral high ground that content producers occupy over the pirates.


likelikelike why is there no like button?!


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I always heard the line as "how 'bout them Cubs?" another Chicago team, probably baseball, and infamously bad.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I think you are confusing your Bears and your Dolphins. It's a line said by Robin Williams to Gene Hackman in _The Birdcage_


I've never seen the birdcage... Don't watch sports, have no idea of team names and which sport they play, or if it's in season.

But I see the concept is starting to work... So how 'bout those cubs?


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

She said:


> Pfft, you can't just turn off awesome of this magnitude.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Many people who cry out for the pirates to be destroyed come from places where access to Amazon and iTunes are normal, where ebooks are easily accessible. You come from a position of privilege.
Do you know how many people don't have access to credit cards? How many countries there are where having a credit card is something very uncommon? Those people can't get accounts on Amazon or many other legal ways to buy ebooks (or music, or film) because getting a credit card is hard for those people, it is not something their banks just hand out.
People who don't live in Amazon countries (Amazon countries being US, UK, Australia, Spain, France, Germany, etc.) have to pay a $2 surcharge on ebooks when they buy from Amazon, and many kindles aren't even shipped to them.

In the whole "technology advancement" argument and fights against pirating people seem to forget that the US is not the standard. Not at all. When it comes to ebooks, digital music, any digital advancement basically, the US is years ahead of the rest of the world. We in the Netherlands only just recently (since last summer) are able to use Netflix, we still have the $2 surcharge on Amazon, our iStore is seriously lacking, we only have some Kobo availability but not much, you know why? Ebooks regularly cost $10 for books where US customers on Amazon only pay $2 to $4 for the same book.
The US is NOT the standard when it comes to how technologically advanced companies in the world are.
We have the technology, just like everyone else, but because we're not the US or the UK, companies are not interested to spread their software to our country.

The Netherlands is part of a downward spiral. We pirate a lot of things because we usually wait 2 years for a series to finally reach our tv, or music that doesn't even reach us. Companies aren't interested in us because we're too small and we already pirate, so they don't see a profit.
We WANT to pay for products but because we live in the wrong country we AREN'T ABLE to pay for them.
We WANT to get things legally, but we can't, we can't.

And the Netherlands are not on their own.
The US is not the whole world, it is just a small part of it. But the US does have some of the most technologically advancing companies within their borders, hiring people with skill from other countries to work on it. But that technology rarely reaches outside the US, and if it does, it is for a huge surcharge.
There are many countries where people don't have access to Amazon, B&N, Google Play and many other companies. Why? They aren't the US.

Next time you like to rant about how people shouldn't pirate things, maybe think for a second why they do. There are millions of people out there who WANT to buy products legally but simply can't, because they're not US citizens. Because US companies rarely think outside their own borders.
The best thing you can do is reach out to these people, make your book available in stores that have actual distribution in European countries (and not just the UK), or Asian countries, or any other continent. Stop thinking in your US centred bubble and reach out to these people. They will GLADLY pay you money for your product, if it was available for them for the same price (or about the same) as it would be for US people.
They're NOT evil, they DON'T try to ruin you, they simply want to be able to enjoy the same products that their US friends also use, but can't because of country restrictions.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

What could be done, technically, is put a unique identifier somewhere hidden in the file.
To be pirated, at least one copy has to be bought or legally donated.
The one who caused it to escape into the wild is responsible.

The consequences:

Not public flogging, not prison, not even a fine. Just denial of Internet access for five years.
After some highly publicized cases this would maybe curb the trend somewhat.

Note: this doesn't inconvenience the honest buyer/reader, and not even the the downloader.


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## ThrillerWriter (Aug 19, 2012)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I assure you intellectual property does exist. The thoughts in your head are yours alone. They are your property. They don't belong to society and you have every right to jot them on paper and sell them for a profit.
> 
> That aside, I think the concern for a lot of people is the idea of the possibility that in the future it will be so easy to pirate your work that it will harm the bottom line. I get the notion that a pirate isn't likely to purchase the product. But what happens if it becomes so commonplace that the trend shifts? What do you do if it's no longer economically feasible to spend your time writing?


Ehh, there's arguments against IP in that property only exists because property is scarce, and ideas are not scarce. More, where you say you have the right to put down those thoughts onto paper and make a buck, you're avoiding what piracy is. It's not someone stealing your idea, they're making a copy of something they have, which is their property. I'm not really trying to get into a huge debate here, it's just when you categorically say something does exist, when geniuses on both sides can't decide, it seems a dicey thing to say.


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## She (Apr 15, 2014)

Daniel Dennis said:


>


Boromir is the answer to everything 

[quote author=Andrew Ashling]What could be done, technically, is put a unique identifier somewhere hidden in the file.
To be pirated, at least one copy has to be bought or legally donated.
The one who caused it to escape into the wild is responsible.

The consequences:

Not public flogging, not prison, not even a fine. Just denial of Internet access for five years.
After some highly publicized cases this would maybe curb the trend somewhat.

Note: this doesn't inconvenience the honest buyer/reader, and not even the the downloader.[/quote]

This has pretty much the same problems as the virus thing, if not slightly worse. In no particular order, here is a (non-exhaustive) list of reasons why that isn't a good idea:

- Any pirate worth his or her salt would have that code out in seconds.
- The internet is global. No way are you going to get every country in the world whose citizens might count pirates among their number to enforce this.
- What if the "responsible" party's computer is hacked, or the file is otherwise stolen from them?
- Five years without being allowed to access the internet is way worse than a fine or even a flogging, IMO. Think about how many jobs require it. 
- In a similar vein, how would you stop them from accessing the internet from public libraries, friends' houses, wifi hotspots etc? That's going to be impossible to enforce.

Again, even if every single pirate download is taking money out of authors' pockets, this is a horrendous overreaction.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Andrew Ashling said:


> What could be done, technically, is put a unique identifier somewhere hidden in the file.
> To be pirated, at least one copy has to be bought or legally donated.
> The one who caused it to escape into the wild is responsible.


It's not a bad idea in theory. But the issue you'd run into goes back to encryption and possibly the file format itself. To do what you're suggesting you would need to recompile a new version each time from source to increment the file. But generally speaking, the EPUB file isn't encrypted. They strip out the DRM before uploading. Once it's unprotected you can view it for what it really is: a container file (like a ZIP or a DOCX) with numerous other files inside. What's to stop the pirate from removing or changing the ID number?


Andrew Ashling said:


> The consequences:
> 
> Not public flogging, not prison, not even a fine. Just denial of Internet access for five years.
> After some highly publicized cases this would maybe curb the trend somewhat.


This would require laws. I can't speak for other countries but I don't believe the U.S. would ever go for something like this. Too many people would be stuck on the idea of the government being allowed to cut off access to a service (a private service the government doesn't provide) as an enforcement mechanism. The FCC already wants to regulate internet content and they're having a hard time. Throw this into the mix and I think any bill that touches this idea is dead in the water.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> The Netherlands is part of a downward spiral. We pirate a lot of things because we usually wait 2 years for a series to finally reach our tv, or music that doesn't even reach us. Companies aren't interested in us because we're too small and we already pirate, so they don't see a profit.
> We WANT to pay for products but because we live in the wrong country we AREN'T ABLE to pay for them.
> We WANT to get things legally, but we can't, we can't.


The people in the Netherlands are capable of doing anything anyone else in the world can do. If they want it, they can do it.



David Beers said:


> Ehh, there's arguments against IP in that property only exists because property is scarce, and ideas are not scarce. More, where you say you have the right to put down those thoughts onto paper and make a buck, you're avoiding what piracy is. It's not someone stealing your idea, they're making a copy of something they have, which is their property. I'm not really trying to get into a huge debate here, it's just when you categorically say something does exist, when geniuses on both sides can't decide, it seems a dicey thing to say.


The geniuses in most nations have figured out that innovation is spurred by giving protection to the innovators. Nothing dicey at all. It works.

And property isn't based on scarcity. It is based on possession. Value is based on scarcity


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Right. So. Now accepting stories in the Pirotica genre for a multi-author collection.

If you've never written erotica before, you get bumped to the front of the acceptance line.

If you don't understand the squiggly red line under misspelled words, have never cracked open a grammar or punctuation book (not sure if they make such things, but I claim they do, so therefore they do, whoever the hell 'they' might be, and so you should have figured out where to purchase one of these books so your book doesn't look like it was written by a sexually-charged, Crayola-wielding deviant), then you get tossed to the back of the line.

Readers of Pirotica want their heads (you can decide which head) to hurt from the power of tingly, erotical (this is a real word. I just made it up) words. Readers of Pirotica do not want their heads to hurt from trying to decipher whether the author meant to say "their" instead of "they're" when the author was writing the story in crayon (Magenta #2).

Rules:

no pirate-y incest
no pirate-y rape
must have lots of pirate-y goodness/dialog/sexual innuendo (in your end-o!). 
bonus points if you know the different between starboard and port (and if you know how to put a keel in someone's bow).

I'll buy the cover, which will consist of a pirate captain with a hook (not his hand, either). Or something. Maybe a hairy ship? I'm open to suggestions. I'll help edit your stories, though please wash them off before sending to me, as I only like the stories to be sticky _after_ I've read them, not before. We'll throw them up on the erotica sites and make a name for ourselves. Maybe even a few silicon doubloons.

You should probably use a pen name. We don't want the non-deviant public to know what we do behind closed doors / laptop lids. I'm thinking of being "Capt. Titepants" or "Trimbeard the Pirate." I'm sure you all have your own pirate-y pen names all cooked up.

Let's do this. Hacks unite! Gonna go get me some Playboy/Hustler/Penthouse/Skank magazines from the shady place downtown so I can study the flowery, flowing prose of this genre (again, I've never attempted to write erotica, but that's because it's boring... Pirotica though, is right up my alley! Or right up my galley. Either/or).

Submission deadline: May 1, 2014

Good luck, mateys. May your swords cross in friendship. Arrrrrr.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Wondering if we need a new set of author-badges here.  

Pirate friendly vs. maybe a hangman's noose.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> Right. So. Now accepting stories in the Pirotica genre for a multi-author collection.
> 
> If you've never written erotica before, you get bumped to the front of the acceptance line.
> 
> ...


And again, we feel the crushing despair for the lack of a Like button.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Let's do this. Hacks unite! Gonna go get me some Playboy/Hustler/Penthouse/Skank magazines from the shady place downtown so I can study the flowery, flowing prose of this genre (again, I've never attempted to write erotica, but that's because it's boring... Pirotica though, is right up my alley! Or right up my galley. Either/or).


It worked for _Naked Came The Stranger_. Should work again.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

David Beers said:


> More, where you say you have the right to put down those thoughts onto paper and make a buck, you're avoiding what piracy is. It's not someone stealing your idea, they're making a copy of something they have, which is their property.


This is where you're sorely misinformed. You don't have a right to copy it because it is your property. You have a right to use your copy for private uses without reproduction and without making a profit. It's called a copyright. You don't have the right to copy. Those rights are reserved by the author.



David Beers said:


> I'm not really trying to get into a huge debate here, it's just when you categorically say something does exist, when geniuses on both sides can't decide, it seems a dicey thing to say.


There really isn't a debate. Call it a friendly clarification of some very basic terms. I would, however, hesitate to call someone a genius when they don't understand the basics of what a copyright is. That is, after all, why piracy is considered piracy.


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## S. Elliot Brandis (Dec 9, 2013)

I don't really think piracy is a major issue with ebooks, especially compared with tv/film/music.

If somebody wants to pirate my work, I'm not concerned. I'm gaining a reader. Say I put a book on Amazon select and they have an incompatible device. Go ahead.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> Seriously, it's the same when someone complains that Amazon returns are thieves. It's a leap of logic based on little more than an emotional response.


If you have a series, you can literally see them taking the books in order. Where do you think they get the files to put on torrent sites?


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

It's interesting to read this thread in the context of another thread here about using pop culture references. In that thread, people are talking about copyright protection of song lyrics, trademarked names, etc., and there are several other threads where people discuss using song lyrics in your book.

Using song lyrics is a copyright violation unless you have permission from the copyright owner. I haven't seen anyone posting that they are going to use song lyrics in their books anyway, in spite of all the advice and legal reasons not to do it. So do the folks who think piracy is a positive thing, also think it should be all right to use song lyrics, without permission, in your book? It's possible to take the position some people are taking about e-books, that songwriters should not mind others using their lyrics since it makes their songs better known ... or the opposite position that it's copyright violation, i.e., a form of piracy.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

At the end of the day I just don't find this an issue worth losing sleep over.

Writing my next book
Editing
Commissioning the perfect cover
Churning out a killer blurb
Marketing
Making my readers happy
Getting better at all of this

These are all things that are far higher on my priority list.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Because even though the idea that you need permission to cite lyrics with full attribution is completely moronic, the companies that hold those copyrights and trademarks have the money to keep completely moronic things firmly in place.

Anything is possible with enough corruption and money.

Just ask Mickey Mouse--oh no, you can't even though his copyright should have run out decades ago.


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## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

It's actually been proven that people who pirate music buy more than people who dont. Go figure.

But yeah, pirating... grr!

Sent from The International Space Station using Tapatalk


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> At the end of the day I just don't find this an issue worth losing sleep over.
> 
> Writing my next book
> Editing
> ...


Those are all things that would actually sell more books too!

Unlike, you know, trying to terrorize people.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

cinisajoy said:


> In a recent very unscientific survey it was found that 75% of erotica writers are good. This same survey determined that it is easier to read erotica than watch a p0rno in the bath.


I almost choked on a Cheeto when I read that last sentence!


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## Guest (Apr 22, 2014)

She said:


> We only have Shakespeare's plays because someone in the audience was scribbling them down while they were being performed, or because they were collated from the actors' copies (which only had their lines and their cues, not the whole plays) and published without making Shakespeare himself a penny. Writers still existed and made a living then, and they will even if piracy RUINS EVERYTHING as we know it.




First, most of his audience was illiterate or, if they were literate, they were nobility and not "scribbling" notes.

Second, seriously do you even know what sort of writing implements were used in that time period? Ever try to "scribble" notes with a quill and ink jar balanced on your lap? And do you even understand how gods-ridiculous expensive paper was at that time period?

The First Folio was published by Shakespeare's friends and fellow actors. And while some claim that he didn't approve of the publication, most serious scholars assume they did in fact have his blessing as he remained friends with them and continued to work with them.

In addition, you can't compare the times of Shakespeare to today. During most of literary history, writers and artists didn't make money selling books or pictures. They were sponsored by patrons who paid them to create. Shakespeare had patrons and sold tickets to his plays. He didn't intend to make money selling books because books were a high-priced luxury. Copyright became an issue for creatives with the death of the patronage system. The ability to make an income from one's creative work became important when governments and the wealthy stopped supporting artists and writers as patrons. And even with the patronage system, very few people who were not already wealthy themselves managed to make any sort of inroads as creatives. So you can't even remotely compare the nature of publishing centuries ago to the realities of today.

Unless, of course, you are arguing that only the wealthy have the right to be creatives.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

AngryGames said:


> Right. So. Now accepting stories in the Pirotica genre for a multi-author collection.
> 
> If you've never written erotica before, you get bumped to the front of the acceptance line. (Snip)
> 
> ...


Here's an image for our pirotica sequel:


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lots of good arguments on the various angles on piracy and most of them have merit on some level or another.
I guess we'll have to fasten our seatbelts and see what the future brings.

However, I don't buy the "I have no money" or "I have no access to Amazon" line.  I don't have access to Donald Trump's millions either but that doesn't mean I just find a way to take it.  If there is enough demand in Uzbeckybeckybeckystan for eBooks then some enterprise will find a way to sell there legally. They won't if the locals get it free.

What, then, of the readers who do pay? How is it fair to them if others get theirs for free just because they don't want to pay a surcharge? Pineapples are more expensive up here than in Hawaii because of the shipping involved. That's just the way it is.
Createspace charges me a fortune to ship my own books up here to Canada. I have to grin and bear it if I want to deal with them. My choice, too.

Let's regroup in two years and dig up this thread


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## Susan Lohrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Harvey said:


> I'm surprised by how common pirating seems to be in Canada, where I grew up. I think that stems from a misguided "royalty tax" that was put on writable CDs, which for many people felt like an implied license to pirate music.


I'm not surprised (living here in Canada). When we go to someplace normal people buy books (Amazon, for example) we see that lots of books aren't available to anyone with a Canadian IP address or aren't available on Amazon.ca or they're much more expensive for us... or... or... or...

Now, being an author, I'm a huge proponent of authors earning money. But as a Canadian who has been foiled repeatedly in my efforts to legally purchase books, I can see why piracy is going on wherever there are geographical restrictions and/or vastly higher prices. (Where books are readily available to purchase, though, I'm a bit perturbed about the piracy thing.)


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

bardeh said:


> Instead of blaming pirates, and the oversaturation of the market, focus on things you CAN change. Your covers and blurbs leave much to be desired. Improve them, improve your sales. Simple as that.


I'm working my way through the thread to see if anyone else was going to mention that. Glad you did. What I was going to say to the OP is that in the last 18 months, erotica covers have changed from something that someone threw together with a grainy image and MS Paint, into a professional looking, polished cover. Your sales may have been good at first because the covers of the other books in the also boughts might have been closer to what you have, but now comparing your covers to just some of other authors in this thread, I know which one I'd click on if they were side by side in an also bought.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Susan Lohrer said:


> Now, being an author, I'm a huge proponent of authors earning money. But as a Canadian who has been foiled repeatedly in my efforts to legally purchase books, I can see why piracy is going on wherever there are geographical restrictions and/or vastly higher prices. (Where books are readily available to purchase, though, I'm a bit perturbed about the piracy thing.)


Not sure if it would solve the problem, but have you ever tried used a proxy site to skirt around the IP issue?


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> If there is enough demand in Uzbeckybeckybeckystan for eBooks then some enterprise will find a way to sell there legally. They won't if the locals get it free.


Not really. If a market is small enough, they're NEVER going to attract the eye of enterprises because they don't care about filling needs, only making profits.

Moreover, once again, you're looking at this from the perspective of someone who lives in a place that gets basically everything immediately. You can't expect people in other places to wait patiently while companies screw around with petty licensing agreements and BS over music rights.

The truth is, now that there's an alternative to putting up with the naked idiocy that used to be the only way to get entertainment, people are going to take that alternative. And they should because one should never encourage idiocy.

It's be nice if companies like Amazon or Studios learned that regional releases are outmoded and self-injuring, but they won't so they completely deserve the Jolly Roger being raised on their asses. And yeah, we kind of deserve it too for being complacent about this behavior in our business partners.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Quiss said:


> However, I don't buy the "I have no money" or "I have no access to Amazon" line. I don't have access to Donald Trump's millions either but that doesn't mean I just find a way to take it. If there is enough demand in Uzbeckybeckybeckystan for eBooks then some enterprise will find a way to sell there legally. They won't if the locals get it free.
> 
> What, then, of the readers who do pay? How is it fair to them if others get theirs for free just because they don't want to pay a surcharge? Pineapples are more expensive up here than in Hawaii because of the shipping involved. That's just the way it is.
> Createspace charges me a fortune to ship my own books up here to Canada. I have to grin and bear it if I want to deal with them. My choice, too.


We have some stores that sell ebooks, they only provide for Sony (the 2 main stores). Kobo is available here but so unknown that unless you're aware of it you wouldn't know about it.
The demand here is very low because the prices of ebooks are still as much or more than the print book prices (which are already stupidly high here) and because people don't know about them.
Ebooks are seen as a weird fluke that only super techies ever use.
And indies? No way. books are only written by the educated who are published through highly established publishers. And let's ignore that almost all the publishers here publish 75% translated books from other languages, mostly English, because they rather sell something they know will sell than take a chance with an author from our own country.

Your comparison of ebooks and pineapples or CS books is false, since ebooks don't require any transport costs, they're not even physical items. They are bits in a computer that can only be useful when they're read the right way by hardware and software that is build for that.
It's not about wanting something for free, it's about wanting an equal opportunity at the same products. Adding $2 to a $0.99 book is making people LESS likely to buy something because that is a 200% increase in price (actually many $0.99 books show as $3.65 for me, so that is even more). Let's not forget that Germany, France, the UK and many other European countries CAN buy these books at their normal price and they live not even a 3 hour ride away. We are locked out of those stores, we can only get from the US store.
We WANT to pay, but we can't get to the books for a normal price or even the same range of books that are available (many awesome books that I look up in the US store are not available to buy for me from there, I know this because those are the books that show without a price for me).

CS also charges me insanely much to send from their own store, that is why I order on the UK Amazon store. That way I don't have to pay as much for shipping and I get them in 3 days. Ebooks aren't like that. We can't buy from the UK store, we are locked out of it.

I ALWAYS make sure that my books are available in as many places as possible. That people without credit cards can buy them (BIG thing for many people here), that they are available in as many formats as possible and that people can get them for the same price no matter what country they are in.
Why? Because I'm tired of being left out of the marketing loop. I'm tired of not being able to buy things because I don't live in a country that is graced by huge corporations with the right selling models. I'm tired of being treated like a 2nd grade country just because we're smaller than the UK or Germany. I'm tired of feeling like my money doesn't matter because of the country I live in.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> I would never wish that because everyone has different motives. Sure there are some who download simply for the thrill of it. Oh well, they weren't going to buy it anyway, but they could have friends who might.
> 
> I've been contacted by multiple downloaders about my books. In some cases it was because they were from countries I didn't sell in. Heck, I'm grateful for them because I might never have considered their location as a market to look at otherwise.
> 
> It strikes me as far better business to embrace readers in all of their myriad forms and do what I can to serve them however I may.


The thing is, chances are, many pirated versions of something DO have spyware and viruses. I don't know why people do that to files or what they get out of it. Keystrokes? Passwords? It seems time consuming when a kid in Russia can hack card readers at major retailers. Anyway, my point is that the pirates who upload the books don't seem to be the type who do it to help out people in other countries who don't have access. Maybe some do, but it seems like an awful lot do it just to spread viruses or to get users cc info in the sites that make people pay monthly. I don't like supporting them in their endeavors and when I see my books on a pirate site, that's what it feels like. I am not opposed to free books. I think I've given away at least 200,000 copies of my books.


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## Susan Lohrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Daniel Dennis said:


> Not sure if it would solve the problem, but have you ever tried used a proxy site to skirt around the IP issue?


Absolutely, that does solve the problem and allow an IP-challenged person to pay for a book rather than stealing it. Mind you, it may not be entirely legal, and so I would never admit to trying such a thing myself.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> We have some stores that sell ebooks, they only provide for Sony (the 2 main stores). Kobo is available here but so unknown that unless you're aware of it you wouldn't know about it.


You're making it sound as if Europe is a technological wasteland. That's just not true.

In fact in the Netherlands as well as in Belgium we have a plethora of ereaders and eshops.

This store www.ereaderstore.be alone has several brands that are unknown/less known in the US, yet are as good if not better than Kindle or Kobo.

There's also Bol which has 4.885.122 books in English, and several hundreds of thousands in Dutch, Flemish, German, French, Spanish and Turkish.
They also have 32 ereaders.
In Belgium we have FNAC (one of many vendors), which essentially sells Kobo-ebooks and Sony and Kobo readers.

The fact that ebooks are higher priced is not Amazon's fault, or Kobo's, but that of the European Union, who under pressure of France wants to control the price of books in general.
Which is why I took an account with amazon dot com. Easy-peasy.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

L.L. Akers said:


> Here's an image for our pirotica sequel:


I'm thinking we should just make a thread and do this. I've never written erotica, but I'm a famous pirate of the high seas (around Washington state now that they've passed those hippie laws). I can hit PornHub and watch an hour or two of their documentaries so I can get a feel for the genre. I think I've even heard of some pirate-themed documentaries that would be excellent examples to work from. Almost like fan fiction haha.

We can even upload the collection to pirate sites just to see if it helps us sell a sequel... like a kind of weird piroticexperiment.

If this doesn't work out, maybe we'll try those 'furries' that dress up as weird cartoonish animals and fondle each other at conventions. I bet there's a few stories worth writing from one of those get-togethers. Maybe I'll just come up with the weird themes/settings and you erotica writers, since you're all apparently just as hackish as me (and much more experienced), can write the stories. I wonder if there's a slang term for 'pirate pimp.' We should make one up for it and charge everyone a licensing fee for that too. Even have one of those 'playah hatah balls' where all the pimps show up to diss each other, except we'd all be dissing each other's hackneyed erotica.

"Your main character is so one-dimensional, she's her own plane of existence."

Okay, well, I'll just keep working on some hatin' insults. These are a lot harder than normal insults.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Harvey said:


> I think the issue also varies tremendously from country to country. I'm surprised by how common pirating seems to be in Canada, where I grew up. I think that stems from a misguided "royalty tax" that was put on writable CDs, which for many people felt like an implied license to pirate music.


These days a lot of it stems from not being able to get content when the US gets it. I think our tolerance was never that high for it, but it's pretty much non-existent now. Can't buy a season pass on iTunes Canada? Pirate it. Can't get what you want with Netflix Canada? Hack it with a VPN to get US Netflix.

Books are the same way, though pretty much every new book is now released in Canada on the same day. But it's almost too late now. It taught people to not even bother looking.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

AngryGames said:


> I'm thinking we should just make a thread and do this. I've never written erotica, but I'm a famous pirate of the high seas (around Washington state now that they've passed those hippie laws). I can hit PornHub and watch an hour or two of their documentaries so I can get a feel for the genre. I think I've even heard of some pirate-themed documentaries that would be excellent examples to work from. Almost like fan fiction haha.
> 
> We can even upload the collection to pirate sites just to see if it helps us sell a sequel... like a kind of weird piroticexperiment.
> 
> ...


Just in case we have some new people on the board not familiar with AngryGames' sense of humor... He's kidding... Or he's Angry...hmm... Either way, this is a joke. Right, Angry?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> These days a lot of it stems from not being able to get content when the US gets it. I think our tolerance was never that high for it, but it's pretty much non-existent now. Can't buy a season pass on iTunes Canada? Pirate it. Can't get what you want with Netflix Canada? Hack it with a VPN to get US Netflix.


I wonder how many new pirates have been created by PBS cutting Downton Abbey and running it three months after it runs in the UK?

The US has access issues as well.

And that points to the solution. Make it easy for people to buy your material at a reasonable price and the sales will follow.The RIAA said "oh you kids don't want to buy CDs? You want mp3s? We'll just sue you until you relent" and CD sales continued to drop. Apple said "we'll sell you tracks at .99 cents" and they sell billions of dollars worth a year.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

AngryGames said:


> I'm thinking we should just make a thread and do this. I've never written erotica, but I'm a famous pirate of the high seas (around Washington state now that they've passed those hippie laws). I can hit PornHub and watch an hour or two of their documentaries so I can get a feel for the genre. I think I've even heard of some pirate-themed documentaries that would be excellent examples to work from. Almost like fan fiction haha.


I keep waiting for a sign-up link or something....


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Kat S said:


> And that points to the solution. Make it easy for people to buy your material at a reasonable price and the sales will follow.The RIAA said "oh you kids don't want to buy CDs? You want mp3s? We'll just sue you until you relent" and CD sales continued to drop. Apple said "we'll sell you tracks at .99 cents" and they sell billions of dollars worth a year.


THIS. The cat's out of the bag. People have grown used to watching things when they want to watch them, reading where they want to read, etc etc. It's the businesses that cater to these needs that will thrive.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Susan Lohrer said:


> I'm not surprised (living here in Canada). When we go to someplace normal people buy books (Amazon, for example) we see that lots of books aren't available to anyone with a Canadian IP address or aren't available on Amazon.ca or they're much more expensive for us... or... or... or...
> 
> Now, being an author, I'm a huge proponent of authors earning money. But as a Canadian who has been foiled repeatedly in my efforts to legally purchase books, I can see why piracy is going on wherever there are geographical restrictions and/or vastly higher prices. (Where books are readily available to purchase, though, I'm a bit perturbed about the piracy thing.)


I thought Kobo was Canadian, even if now owned by a Japanese company. Or are we not allowed to admit that on Kindle Boards?


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

L.L. Akers said:


> Just in case we have some new people on the board not familiar with AngryGames' sense of humor... He's kidding... Or he's Angry...hmm... Either way, this is a joke. Right, Angry?


<shrug> I'm up for anything. I see dino erotica and tentacle erotica and alien erotica getting some exposure. Or is pirotica too weird? (weirder than alien tentacle dino erotica?). Or is it because I've never written erotica? I might be good at it. I can write complete sentences, and I know the slang words for private parts and all that stuff. And again, anything I'm not familiar with or don't understand, there are documentaries all over the internet to give me tips and pointers.

Now you've made me question my abilities. I must challenge myself to make sure I still have 'it.' Whatever 'it' might be. 'It' might be making a bunch of us rich beyond our wildest dreams (I'm talking piles of booty, enough that we could literally swim in it... I wonder how long I can hold my breath undercoin... I bet you two rubies and a necklace made of pearls that I can go for at least three minutes).

Right. It's on. Like Donkey Kong.

(hopefully that uncomfortable silence I hear is all of you busily scribbling away with your quill and ink, and I will soon see my inbox filled with tales of walking the plank or being tied to the yardarm)


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I thought Kobo was Canadian, even if now owned by a Japanese company. Or are we not allowed to admit that on Kindle Boards?


I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. If a publisher won't publish with worldwide distribution, I still can't buy it on Kobo. Plenty still do. I run into this issue with non-fiction books.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Our house is full of pirates copies of Game of Thrones. The HB downloads them off a torrent site as soon as the ep comes out in the US. That's the sort of universal availability people demand. We're still VERY FAR from reaching that. Certain companies really fail to get that. They also fail to get that the market for material outside the US is much bigger than inside the US.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. If a publisher won't publish with worldwide distribution, I still can't buy it on Kobo. Plenty still do. I run into this issue with non-fiction books.


It was in response to a comment bemoaning the limitations of amazon.ca without even mentioning Kobo, so it has rather a lot to do with it. As another Kindle Select thread has started it will not be long before someone points out that cutting out Kobo is madness because so many in Canada prefer to use it. That was one of the reasons I abandoned thoughts of 3 months on Select.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

travelinged said:


> I've lived in Asia and wasn't allowed to open an iTunes account. Even with a US address and credit cards and everything I needed. Worse, they weren't allowed to tell me why I couldn't open the account. I spent a week with customer support on telephone and online before she discovered that I wasn't going to get one, but even then she wasn't allowed to tell me why. She did acknowledge it was because of where I was when I asked though.
> 
> Same for Netflix. Same for most of the online stores. Amazon was okay (but the Internet too slow to bother with streaming movies). On the other hand, I could walk to the market and buy a DVD of a new movie for $1 (or a boxed set of a television series for about $9) the day after it came out. And then I would read about all the piracy in Asia. It strikes me as a rather "duh" moment when you promote hell out of something, and then people find they can't buy it, that someone sees a business opportunity in that.


If you had a US address and credit card, not sure why you weren't able to open an iTunes account. I have a US iTunes account-used my parents' address and there's no credit card on file with them, I just fill up my account with gift card points. iTunes doesn't use geoblocking (or at least they don't now, maybe it was different when you were in Asia). With Netflix or Hulu, you can set it up, but you need a proxy or VPN that makes them think you're located in the US. I use a service called Unblock Us.



Quiss said:


> Lots of good arguments on the various angles on piracy and most of them have merit on some level or another.
> I guess we'll have to fasten our seatbelts and see what the future brings.
> 
> However, I don't buy the "I have no money" or "I have no access to Amazon" line. I don't have access to Donald Trump's millions either but that doesn't mean I just find a way to take it. If there is enough demand in Uzbeckybeckybeckystan for eBooks then some enterprise will find a way to sell there legally. They won't if the locals get it free.
> ...


There are a LOT of misconceptions in this post. First off, the idea that some local enterprise will find a way to sell it-no, they won't. The expat population makes up an extremely small percentage of the population here, so there just isn't enough of a demand. Even Japanese film distributors don't see the benefit of releasing a movie from the west sooner than six months in.

Some of us do try to find a way to get it legally. But with all the restrictions thrown up by the different companies who basically tell us "we don't want your dirty foreign money," what do you expect?

The best way to combat piracy is to make it easy for your customers to buy your products. Yes, there are people who will pirate, but most people are decent and would prefer to obey the law and not steal. But when stealing is infinitely easier than buying something legally, then is it any surprise?

And also, the pineapple analogy is ridiculous. There are no shipping costs associated with digital content. If I want to buy a print book from Amazon US, then yes the shipping costs are understandable. But if I want to buy a digital book, those costs should not be there. That's called fleecing.



Patty Jansen said:


> Our house is full of pirates copies of Game of Thrones. The HB downloads them off a torrent site as soon as the ep comes out in the US. That's the sort of universal availability people demand. We're still VERY FAR from reaching that. Certain companies really fail to get that. They also fail to get that the market for material outside the US is much bigger than inside the US.


Exactly. And if the companies don't wise up and start meeting that demand, then people will go to other places to find the content. You can load up the digital files with all the DRM you want, you can pollute the torrent sites with fake files or trackers, you can prosecute every pirate you can find, but as long as the content is not easily available in a paid format, people will still demand it. And if the companies don't want to meet that demand, the pirates will. They've already proven they can crack any DRM you throw at them and put up the files in places you wouldn't even think to look. So while these companies are trying their hardest to fight the pirates, the pirates have already figured out how to crack or get around that DRM and the people who are being punished are the paying customers.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> It was in response to a comment bemoaning the limitations of amazon.ca without even mentioning Kobo, so it has rather a lot to do with it. As another Kindle Select thread has started it will not be long before someone points out that cutting out Kobo is madness because so many in Canada prefer to use it. That was one of the reasons I abandoned thoughts of 3 months on Select.


Ah!


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## Rin (Apr 25, 2011)

The better access people have to content, the more willing people are to pay for it.

A non-book example.

There was a Veronica Mars Kickstarter to get a movie made. Awesome. If you backed X amount, you would get a download code on the same day as it was released for sale (with Australia supposedly getting it sooner, as we're ahead). The release date was either Thursday or Friday. People waited patiently for codes - then the general sale started where people could grab it off Amazon/iTunes/wherever, and most people were still waiting for their code.

Four days later, I still didn't have my code, whereas people who hadn't backed the project had been able to buy it for cheaper. :/ A lot of people on admitted on Kickstarter they pirated it, due to frustrations of waiting to get what they'd paid for.


A book example.

There was a book, set in Brisbane, that I wanted to buy...except the ebook version of it took months upon months upon months to become available for sale in the place where it was set. -_-


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> First, most of his audience was illiterate or, if they were literate, they were nobility and not "scribbling" notes.
> 
> Second, seriously do you even know what sort of writing implements were used in that time period? Ever try to "scribble" notes with a quill and ink jar balanced on your lap? And do you even understand how gods-ridiculous expensive paper was at that time period?
> 
> ...


Shakespeare died in 1616. The First Folio was published in 1623. It is true that S made money from the production of his plays and patronage. The FF is dedicated to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, patrons, I believe, of S and his company. It is also true that some of the plays had been previously published in quarto though probably inaccurately so.

I handled a copy of the FF in a rare book library years ago. It had thick boards and, at 900 pages, was very heavy. With a hard swing, you could brain a man with it. The pages were a nut brown color and very difficult to read for that and the jagged type. It was a tremendous accomplishment to publish the book and would have been very expensive--an argument in favor of S being S. If the book were a fraud, who would have paid for it; and why would have those men, including Ben Johnson, signed on to it? And, and all the years since its publication, why has not history provided a satisfactory answer to the real S who was not the man praised and enshrined in the First Folio?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> Because even though the idea that you need permission to cite lyrics with full attribution is completely moronic, the companies that hold those copyrights and trademarks have the money to keep completely moronic things firmly in place.
> 
> Anything is possible with enough corruption and money.
> 
> Just ask Mickey Mouse--oh no, you can't even though his copyright should have run out decades ago.


Mickey is operating under current law. Someone else can't profit from him? So what?



> And, and all the years since its publication, why has not history provided a satisfactory answer to the real S who was not the man praised and enshrined in the First Folio?


Because there is insufficient evidence.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Hudson Owen said:


> Shakespeare died in 1616. The First Folio was published in 1623. It is true that S made money from the production of his plays and patronage. The FF is dedicated to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, patrons, I believe, of S and his company. It is also true that some of the plays had been previously published in quarto though probably inaccurately so.
> 
> I handled a copy of the FF in a rare book library years ago. It had thick boards and, at 900 pages, was very heavy. With a hard swing, you could brain a man with it. The pages were a nut brown color and very difficult to read for that and the jagged type. It was a tremendous accomplishment to publish the book and would have been very expensive--an argument in favor of S being S. If the book were a fraud, who would have paid for it; and why would have those men, including Ben Johnson, signed on to it? And, and all the years since its publication, why has not history provided a satisfactory answer to the real S who was not the man praised and enshrined in the First Folio?


You seem to be misreading Julie's post. She wasn't making an anti-Stratfordian argument. She was refuting someone who incorrectly asserted that we only have Shakespeare's plays through actors' memorial reconstructions or note-takers in the audience. As Julie said, that's simply wrong. The folio is thought to have been set, after Sh's death, from a combination of manuscripts in his hand and in scribal hands and from existing quarto editions of the plays.

More to the point of this thread, many scholars believe his sonnets, published in 1609, when he was still alive, may have been pirated. If that's the case, then we have a pirate to thank for the preservation of some of the greatest lyric poetry written in English. That's the example the person Julie was responding to should've used.


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## AJHolm (Feb 18, 2014)

I don't have a problem with piracy. Calling it theft doesn't make sense, because you're not actually dealing with a physical product. 

The people who pirate it are the same people who probably would not have bought it anyway. In other cases, they may like it enough to support the author. But if someone reads my book and enjoys it, they'll likely talk about it and share it with the world, which can only be a good thing in my eyes.

I would prefer a system in the future where a person has the choice to buy books for whatever price they wish.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I would prefer a system in the future where a person has the choice to buy books for whatever price they wish.


I'd prefer Porsche adopt that pricing system.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> Our house is full of pirates copies of Game of Thrones. The HB downloads them off a torrent site as soon as the ep comes out in the US. That's the sort of universal availability people demand. We're still VERY FAR from reaching that. Certain companies really fail to get that. They also fail to get that the market for material outside the US is much bigger than inside the US.


That reminds me of this comic from the Oatmeal. HBO's locked down their distribution so tight that you can't get their most popular show until well after it's been spoiled to death, unless you do the sensible thing and download it from torrent sites. (I have not yet watched a single episode of the show, though I'm intrigued by it.) Many a time I've been practically desperate to give someone my money in exchange for a product they have _no legitimate reason_ to withhold, but they never bring it to market--or never do so in a remotely timely fashion.

The entertainment industry hasn't even remotely begun to grasp that in the age of the Internet, consumers have zero tolerance for the Byzantine web of rights and agreements that keep content from them in a reasonable time frame. There's no excuse for CBS or Fox to delay their on-demand content by 8 days, let alone to have so little of it, when other networks can deliver their shows within 24 hours of the original air date. It's not like they haven't had time to see the wind blowing and adapt when all their contracts came up for renewal. Last summer's tiff between CBS and Time-Warner, in which CBS actually geoblocked their paltry online viewing options for Time-Warner Internet customers in the blackout zones, accomplished nothing but ticking off viewers. And don't even get me started on DVD region codes, used mainly to enforce differing release schedules (and fix prices!) by geographic area; when I become a supervillain I'm gonna bring the hammer down on that crap.

Which is not to say I think it's right that our books end up on pirate sites, or that there are people who will download entire CDs or movies without ever considering paying for them. But companies like HBO deliberately screw themselves out of sales they absolutely could have made. Maybe I'm in glass house territory for only having my books up on Amazon so far, rather than also having some epub channels, but at least that's many orders of magnitude less stupid than what the TV networks and their ilk do on a regular basis.


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## She (Apr 15, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> First, most of his audience was illiterate or, if they were literate, they were nobility and not "scribbling" notes.
> 
> Second, seriously do you even know what sort of writing implements were used in that time period? Ever try to "scribble" notes with a quill and ink jar balanced on your lap? And do you even understand how gods-ridiculous expensive paper was at that time period?
> 
> ...


I'm not sure what I've done to justify your tone here. I'm not making this stuff up - I learned what I said about the distribution of Shakespeare's plays from a lecturer at university. I'm aware that this doesn't make it gospel and I'm more than happy to delve deeper into the facts with you, but this "do you even understand?" stuff comes off as a bit patronising.

It may very well be that Shakespeare didn't mind inaccurate copies of his work being spread around for profit by others (and why would they have bothered to do it if there wasn't profit in it?), but that really supports my point as much as yours.

You're right, of course, that Shakespeare is a very inexact parallel to what we're talking about. However, you're taking my remarks out of context. With people so ardently nervous about the future of publishing, the point I intended to make is that writers made a living before copyright and they'll make one even in the unlikely event that copyright collapses under pressure from the pirates. Inferring instead that I'm saying only the wealthy are allowed to be creatives is reductive and unhelpful. Here's what I wrote:



She said:


> What about hundreds of years ago, when copyright wasn't even a thing? We only have Shakespeare's plays because someone in the audience was scribbling them down while they were being performed, or because they were collated from the actors' copies (which only had their lines and their cues, not the whole plays) and published without making Shakespeare himself a penny. Writers still existed and made a living then, and they will even if piracy RUINS EVERYTHING as we know it.





Becca Mills said:


> More to the point of this thread, many scholars believe his sonnets, published in 1609, when he was still alive, may have been pirated. If that's the case, then we have a pirate to thank for the preservation of some of the greatest lyric poetry written in English. That's the example the person Julie was responding to should've used.


Yes, well, there's that too.


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## ericaroswell (Apr 17, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> Because even though the idea that you need permission to cite lyrics with full attribution is completely moronic, the companies that hold those copyrights and trademarks have the money to keep completely moronic things firmly in place.
> 
> Anything is possible with enough corruption and money.
> 
> Just ask Mickey Mouse--oh no, you can't even though his copyright should have run out decades ago.


AND Walt Disney based his stories/characters on existing fairy tales that were in the public domain. How ironic.


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## ThrillerWriter (Aug 19, 2012)

Daniel Dennis said:


> This is where you're sorely misinformed. You don't have a right to copy it because it is your property. You have a right to use your copy for private uses without reproduction and without making a profit. It's called a copyright. You don't have the right to copy. Those rights are reserved by the author.
> There really isn't a debate. Call it a friendly clarification of some very basic terms. I would, however, hesitate to call someone a genius when they don't understand the basics of what a copyright is. That is, after all, why piracy is considered piracy.


This is where we diverge. Alas, to go into the history of 'copyrights', is not something I wish to do. Take care.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

ericaroswell said:


> AND Walt Disney based his stories/characters on existing fairy tales that were in the public domain. How ironic.


As is Apple's OS. It is based on BSD which is free and open software and as such in the public domain.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Andrew Ashling said:


> As is Apple's OS. It is based on BSD which is free and open software and as such in the public domain.


You misunderstand free software. Public domain means that it is not covered by any licence. Even something under the ultra-permissive GNU General Public Licence is not public domain. The BSD license is much more business friendly which is why Apple chose it as opposed to GPL which could have harmed their legal claims to their own proprietary code.


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## Andrzej Tucholski (Jan 4, 2014)

Researches show that people who pirate are most likely to pay for culture in the long term. Also: people who pirate wouldn't buy the book if it were unavailable on torrents.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

David Beers said:


> This is where we diverge. Alas, to go into the history of 'copyrights', is not something I wish to do. Take care.


I could really care less about their history. Their purpose is pretty simple to understand and in 2014 there's nothing I stated that's not accurate. You can't make a copy and give it away because you choose to ignore the rather simple fact that you weren't given the right to reproduce something for your own monetary gain. Otherwise, why not take a bestseller and turn around a resell it? Why give it away? If it's truly yours then make a profit. But you know why. You can't defend that position.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, 

It's been going so well.   Debate passionately, but let's keep it civil.  

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Susan Lohrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I thought Kobo was Canadian, even if now owned by a Japanese company. Or are we not allowed to admit that on Kindle Boards?


If a book has geographic restrictions that exclude Canadians from buying it, it won't be available on Kobo, though.


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## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

This place is a madhouse! 

Sent from The International Space Station using Tapatalk


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Perry Constantine said:


> If you had a US address and credit card, not sure why you weren't able to open an iTunes account. I have a US iTunes account--used my parents' address and there's no credit card on file with them, I just fill up my account with gift card points. iTunes doesn't use geoblocking (or at least they don't now, maybe it was different when you were in Asia). With Netflix or Hulu, you can set it up, but you need a proxy or VPN that makes them think you're located in the US. I use a service called Unblock Us.


Perry, 
Japan is treated quite differently than SE Asia. ITunes was blocking Cambodia all through last year... I didn't leave until August. Netflix wouldn't even let me get to their home page with a Cambodian ISP. I got an error message saying "SORRY NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA". I talked to some folks who used proxies with mixed results. Worked for some, but others not. I don't recall which proxy services they used.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

If you think Apple's treatment of Asia is bad I can top it for you. I lived in Ireland 2006-2008, which is of course Apple's tax HQ through which they avoid being tax resident in any country in the world. Despite it being the HQ you cannot buy anything from iTunes in Ireland, it not only rejects your Irish credit card, but if like me you previously had a British iTunes account it will not let you use that as you are not in Britain anymore. Or at least that was the case in 2008. Of course you can get in your car and drive to Northern Ireland, which is fine if you live in Cavan, but I lived in Cork (where the Apple HQ is).


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> If you think Apple's treatment of Asia is bad I can top it for you. I lived in Ireland 2006-2008, which is of course Apple's tax HQ through which they avoid being tax resident in any country in the world. Despite it being the HQ you cannot buy anything from iTunes in Ireland, it not only rejects your Irish credit card, but if like me you previously had a British iTunes account it will not let you use that as you are not in Britain anymore. Or at least that was the case in 2008. Of course you can get in your car and drive to Northern Ireland, which is fine if you live in Cavan, but I lived in Cork (where the Apple HQ is).


I think I'd just use a proxy site. Sounds like they're identifying your geographic region based on your IP address. I've never tried, but I imagine a proxy should be able to skirt that pretty easily.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I think I'd just use a proxy site. Sounds like they're identifying your geographic region based on your IP address. I've never tried, but I imagine a proxy should be able to skirt that pretty easily.


That would not have worked for me because I had foolishly cancelled my British credit card.


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## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

David Beers said:


> I'm actually, politically, what one would consider an anarcho-capitalist.


Ha! Same here. 



Kia Zi Shiru said:


> The US is not the whole world, it is just a small part of it.


 Blasphemy! Who told you these lies?  (kidding lol)

Sent from The International Space Station using Tapatalk


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> There's no excuse for CBS or Fox to delay their on-demand content by 8 days, let alone to have so little of it, when other networks can deliver their shows within 24 hours of the original air date.


They don't need an excuse. They owe me nothing.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Mercia McMahon said:


> You misunderstand free software. Public domain means that it is not covered by any licence. Even something under the ultra-permissive GNU General Public Licence is not public domain. The BSD license is much more business friendly which is why Apple chose it as opposed to GPL which could have harmed their legal claims to their own proprietary code.


You misunderstand the implications and the point I was making.
Taking something that is easily available or for free, and making it proprietary to profit from it.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> They don't need an excuse. They owe me nothing.


Oh, please. When a business can't deliver on something pretty basic but its competitors can, that's a sign they're either not competing in the same league or they're straight-up incompetent. The air-to-on-demand and air-to-online delays of CBS and Fox aren't a problem for other networks. And make no mistake: they're beholden to _somebody_ for an excuse, even if it isn't you or me. They get regular enough feedback on this that CBS has a form-letter response for anyone complaining about it, yet they never deal with it; so they know viewers are angry. They have to know, on some level, that many viewers who are shafted out of seeing their shows will turn to other sources to see them one way or another. Are they not beholden to shareholders who wonder why they're losing out on ad revenue they could be making from those lost streams? Even when viewers aren't turning to other sources, they're not seeing those shows, not seeing those ads.

The '90s are well over. Are we seriously to believe that CBS lacks the clout and resources to do what ABC and even the Food Network can? Any major network saying they have to wait 8 days to put their shows online and then they'll only show the last handful of episodes, is guilty of mismanaging their online presence. That's the public perception, and inasmuch as managing PR has never been more important as it is in these days of social media, it _does_ call for an explanation. "We're dumb enough to keep signing contracts requiring such a long wait" is not one.


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## Catchy (Mar 3, 2012)

CrystalVeeyant said:


> I'm confused how quickly some of the commenters have twisted my indictment against the undeniable hacks who are churning out material in every genre into "all other writers." Do you deny there are many writers working in all genres who would never be read at all if not for ePublishing? Do you think just because somebody takes time to put words down into a medium it's automatically good?
> 
> If you're going to decry me for generalizing then please don't do it yourself.


Is it just the writing end of things you're encountering these "hacks" or do you also see it in the areas of cover design, editing and formatting?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Oh, please. When a business can't deliver on something pretty basic but its competitors can, that's a sign they're either not competing in the same league or they're straight-up incompetent. The air-to-on-demand and air-to-online delays of CBS and Fox aren't a problem for other networks.


What reason do we have to think they can't? Why presume it is a problem for them?



> And make no mistake: they're beholden to somebody for an excuse, even if it isn't you or me.


Well, its certainly not me. They are accountable to stockholders, and that accountability is usually based on total corporate and division performance.


> They get regular enough feedback on this that CBS has a form-letter response for anyone complaining about it, yet they never deal with it; so they know viewers are angry.


Viewers? Which ones? What percentage? How does consumption and revenue from their delayed offerings differ from the nets with shorter delays?



> They have to know, on some level, that many viewers who are shafted out of seeing their shows will turn to other sources to see them one way or another.


Not sure how we know that. That kind of knowledge is usually the product of ratings and sales, not theory. Perhaps they believe their lying eyes over some theory?



> Are they not beholden to shareholders who wonder why they're losing out on ad revenue they could be making from those lost streams? Even when viewers aren't turning to other sources, they're not seeing those shows, not seeing those ads.


I don't know if shareholders are wondering about that level of detail. First, they would have to establish there is a loss. Is there? How do we know?



> The '90s are well over. Are we seriously to believe that CBS lacks the clout and resources to do what ABC and even the Food Network can?


So are the Roaring Twenties. So what? I am sure CBS can do whatever the others are doing.



> Any major network saying they have to wait 8 days to put their shows online and then they'll only show the last handful of episodes, is guilty of mismanaging their online presence.


I don't know. Depends on results, not theory.



> That's the public perception, and inasmuch as managing PR has never been more important as it is in these days of social media, it does call for an explanation. "We're dumb enough to keep signing contracts requiring such a long wait" is not one.


I don't know what the public perception is. How do we find out? I suspect it is a theory being projected onto the public by advocates.

They still don't owe me an excuse.


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## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

People still watch Fox? Lol

Sent from The International Space Station using Tapatalk


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

And that ladies and gentlemen is _exactly_ the kind of thinking that justifies piracy.

"Hey, we don't care about what our viewers and fans, whose eyeballs are what our advertisers pay us for in the first place."

Hey, that's swell. Just stop pretending to be surprised when your viewers and fans stop caring about you in turn. You made in your bed, now sleep in it.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> And that ladies and gentlemen is _exactly_ the kind of thinking that justifies piracy.


Companies tend to forget that there's really no such thing as being too big to fail.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> They still don't owe me an excuse.


Nope, they don't owe anybody an excuse or explanation. We don't owe those companies our business either. Guess who ultimately has the last laugh?

Time and time again, companies under-estimate the power and viral nature of public opinion and speed with which public perception can go against them. If they're on a tight income vs outgoing budget, even the speed with which this can bring down a large company surprises them.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Oh man, I just realized that piracy means that the Holy Free Market has judged them and declared their worth to be 0.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> Oh man, I just realized that piracy means that the Holy Free Market has judged them and declared their worth to be 0.


Ain't it a great "country?"


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> And that ladies and gentlemen is _exactly_ the kind of thinking that justifies piracy.
> 
> "Hey, we don't care about what our viewers and fans, whose eyeballs are what our advertisers pay us for in the first place."
> 
> Hey, that's swell. Just stop pretending to be surprised when your viewers and fans stop caring about you in turn. You made in your bed, now sleep in it.


Perhaps viewers and fans just don't care what advocates want them to think.



> Companies tend to forget that there's really no such thing as being too big to fail.


I suspect they are just as smart as we are, and probably know much more about their business han we do. The fact that a company does not agree with us does not imply it is ignorant of what we know.



> Nope, they don't owe anybody an excuse or explanation. We don't owe those companies our business either. Guess who ultimately has the last laugh?No need to pretend when we can simply observe.


Exactly. That's how a free market works. I don't know who has the last laugh.

I agree there is no need to pretend when we can observe. Facts trump theory.



> Time and time again, companies under-estimate the power and viral nature of public opinion and speed with which public perception can go against them. If they're on a tight income vs outgoing budget, even the speed with which this can bring down a large company surprises them


.

Exactly. That's the nature of capitalism. And when they fall, their assets and operations are usually taken over by someone else and the good times keep on rolling.



> Oh man, I just realized that piracy means that the Holy Free Market has judged them and declared their worth to be 0.


A pirated book and an Amazon free book are both offered at zero. However we also see the books are offered for positive prices in the same period. So, with two prices, we can't pretend the market has judged. But we can observe the fact of the two different offerings.

We can also see the transaction costs of the pirated book are considerably higher than the positively priced book. So price to consumer for the pirated version has to consider that.

God Bless the free market, for it has brought more prosperity to more people than any other system in history.

Ain't this a great country?


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## ThrillerWriter (Aug 19, 2012)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I could really care less about their history. Their purpose is pretty simple to understand and in 2014 there's nothing I stated that's not accurate. You can't make a copy and give it away because you choose to ignore the rather simple fact that you weren't given the right to reproduce something for your own monetary gain. Otherwise, why not take a bestseller and turn around a resell it? Why give it away? If it's truly yours then make a profit. But you know why. You can't defend that position.
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


You should care about the history if you want to understand what they are used for.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

David Beers said:


> You should care about the history if you want to understand what they are used for.


I already clarified the purpose of a copyright. It's sitting out there in plain English. If you're going to sit there and argue different then I'd recommend doing as I suggested and selling the pirated work. It would give you a chance to see numerous legal actions so tiu can argue your points to the courts. Obviously you know better than they do. Why not set the record straight since you're of the impression you know better.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## ThrillerWriter (Aug 19, 2012)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I already clarified the purpose of a copyright. It's sitting out there in plain English. If you're going to sit there and argue different then I'd recommend doing as I suggested and selling the pirated work. It would give you a chance to see numerous legal actions so tiu can argue your points to the courts. Obviously you know better than they do. Why not set the record straight since you're of the impression you know better.
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


I'm not trying to say that I wouldn't be sued in court. That's not the point of my argument, although you've tried to twist it there. My point is that intellectual property may not exist. You haven't proved evidence against that besides saying "I have ideas, so they're mine." The counterargument, as I stated, is that ideas are not scarce, so you can't necessarily claim that it is your idea. Simply because the state says that copyrights exist, does not make it right, not does it mean that intellectual property exists. It means that people with guns say you can't do something, and thus, you can't do it or risk angering those people with guns.

I'm unsure what you keep going on and on about, really. You don't know the history of copyright law, but just keep spouting off that it exists. Fine, I admit that. Copyright, and patent law, exist. That does not equate to intellectual property existing--which was my point with my original post. There are towers of thinking on both sides of this argument, which, it would appear, you have read none of either. I'd advise you to look into Stephan Kinsella's work for someone who says IP is not real, and Robert Wenzel for someone that argues it is real. Again, go back to my original post, in which I said basically that I haven't come down on a side of whether it is real, but that am thankful for pirates.

If you want to continue debating against an argument that I'm not making, please feel free to do so.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

David Beers said:


> It means that people with guns say you can't do something, and thus, you can't do it or risk angering those people with guns.


You lost me. A lot of people own guns.



David Beers said:


> There are towers of thinking on both sides of this argument, which, it would appear, you have read none of either.


You're right there. I see no point wasting time reading a counter-argument theorizing something isn't real when I've come to the logical conclusion that it is. Most governments would agree. That's why the copyright laws exist.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## ThrillerWriter (Aug 19, 2012)

Daniel Dennis said:


> You lost me. A lot of people own guns.
> You're right there. I see no point wasting time reading a counter-argument theorizing something isn't real when I've come to the logical conclusion that it is. Most governments would agree. That's why the copyright laws exist.
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


Oh the lulz. Governments agreed for a long time that slavery was okay. Let's just agree to disagree here.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

My feeling about piracy is basically this: Yo, if you're going to steal from me, at least review the thing. Give _something_ back.


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## S. Elliot Brandis (Dec 9, 2013)

SevenDays said:


> My feeling about piracy is basically this: Yo, if you're going to steal from me, at least review the thing. Give _something_ back.


I reckon a lot do. People that pirate music go and see the band when they tour. I've been to concerts in the past where the band has basically said 'uh - how do you all know the words to that song, the album isn't out here yet?'.

One thing that matters though -- in my opinion -- is the perceived distance between the artist and the purchase. Say you have a dead author, a major big-5 author, a small-press author, an indie author, and that guy you know that wrote a book. From left to right, I think the chance that somebody would pirate their work diminishes. There is a greater sense that the purchase truly affects and benefits the writer, and not just some corporation.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

David Beers said:


> Governments agreed for a long time that slavery was okay.


Governments are made up of people. They carry out the will if the people. In the US, the people abolished slavery. I don't see them siding with you on abolishing copyright laws.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

David, Daniel--

agree to disagree.  You're taking over the thread, and any time one has to invoke slavery (or Hitler) the argument has gone too far.  I'm going to start removing posts.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

David Beers said:


> You should care about the history if you want to understand what they are used for.


Good point. The US Constitution does that in a few words. It tells us Congress has the power...

_To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;_



> There are towers of thinking on both sides of this argument, which, it would appear, you have read none of either.


What does the Tower say in support of the idea IP does not exist? What is the core idea? Does the Tower deny ideas exist?


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

'Limited' Ha.

'Authors and Inventors' Ha.

"I'm sorry, technically, you were under contract with us when you discovered that cancer cure. Therefore, you get none of the profits and we're going to bury your work because it's a one-shot cure instead of a long-term and profitable treatment."


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

thread locked for the time being since people can't seem to stop arguing . . . . will consult with the rest of the mod team about reopening.

_Update: we've pruned a few posts and unlocked the thread._


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> 'Limited' Ha.


All US books prior to 1923 are out of copyright.

Generic drugs exist because patents expire.



> 'Authors and Inventors' Ha.


Every author on this board is protected by copyright law.

Inventors routinely secure patents.



> "I'm sorry, technically, you were under contract with us when you discovered that cancer cure. Therefore, you get none of the profits and we're going to bury your work because it's a one-shot cure instead of a long-term and profitable treatment."


That is work for hire. Risk is assumed by the employer. Those who choose to assume the risk work for themselves and keep the benefits. Buried work is not protected by patent.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

travelinged said:


> Perry,
> Japan is treated quite differently than SE Asia. ITunes was blocking Cambodia all through last year... I didn't leave until August. Netflix wouldn't even let me get to their home page with a Cambodian ISP. I got an error message saying "SORRY NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA". I talked to some folks who used proxies with mixed results. Worked for some, but others not. I don't recall which proxy services they used.


Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification on that. Unblock Us is the proxy service I use. Every now and then, I have to go to their site to reset my address, but that's the only hiccup I've ever had.



Terrence OBrien said:


> They don't need an excuse. They owe me nothing.


It's not about owing you anything, it's about smart business. The people making these decisions are either backward-thinking to the point that they look at this whole Internet thing as a fad or they're just too lazy to go to the trouble of figuring out a way to take advantage of a new age. It's like a self-published author who relies entirely on CreateSpace and refuses to make their content available as ebooks--it's a stupid business practice.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> It's not about owing you anything, it's about smart business. The people making these decisions are either backward-thinking to the point that they look at this whole Internet thing as a fad or they're just too lazy to go to the trouble of figuring out a way to take advantage of a new age. It's like a self-published author who relies entirely on CreateSpace and refuses to make their content available as ebooks--it's a stupid business practice


The people making the decisions are deeply involved in the internet. Remember, the issue is an eight day delay vs a one day delay. Booth systems use the internet in the same way. The difference us the delay. So, I don't see ervudernce of backward thinking or laziness.

The wisdom of these decisions depends on the objectives and the strategy chosen to meet those objectives. We can't say one tactic is better than another unless we understand how it fits into the overall strategy, and what kind of petfomance the strategy is yielding.

Does a anyone here know the operating results if one day delay vs eight day delay? I don't.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

I know one operating result: more people are likely to illegally download something with an eight-day delay.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Perry Constantine said:


> I know one operating result: more people are likely to illegally download something with an eight-day delay.


That is reasonable. If I had decision making responsibility, Id ask for some quantitative data on that. Then I wold ask about the illegal downloading on one-day delay and the difference between the two. Then Id ask for the sensitivity of total revenue to the number of delay days.

I would also ask how viewership of first run broadcast changes with one vs eight-day delay. Since first run broadcast ad rates are much higher than internet rates, the sensitivity is important. There are all kinds of things I would look at. It is a large linear programming system where moves in one area have cascading effects on others. The more I know about them, the better my decisions will be.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Yay. Finally, someone likes my Pirotica idea. All the arguing and such was kind of a nether region buzzkill, but I'm one of those guys that is ready to go again quickly. Sad that Pirotica is not new or inventive or fresh or revolutionary. I think I'll still write it anyway.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Wow!  Long topic.  Just want to remind you - most of the sites that have pirated free stuff - whether it is ebooks or videos - cause viruses on PCs.  Those "Torrentz" sites are usually blocked by my powerful antivirus system and I cannot even open them because they are so infected...so I don't think  that many people actually download pirated stuff for long anyway...so it is not that bad...and anyone who reads this who wants to download free stuff - BEWARE!  It will destroy your androids and PCs.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> the Series Title of one of your series is REALLY HIGHLY EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE to trannies, and really needs to be reworded to not sound offensive


A little pot kettle black here. Unless you're discussing what connects your cars engine to the wheels, tranny is also considered extremely offensive.

But yes, I can see a lot of issues with the books in question and how they haven't kept up with the changes in short erotica in the last couple of years. Also, everyone's sales are down because of changes to the algos that devalued older titles and simply because there are a whole lot more titles out there.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Just wanted to say: I love you, EelKat. And I love your car! That is the most magnificent thing I've ever seen... I can't even imagine the work you must've put into it. It's gorgeous!

You are the definition of prolific in all things. I am in awe.


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