From Claire Ryan at The Raynfall Agency:

Okay, we all know about this. Piracy, the great and terrifying force that’s destroying authors’ means to make a living on one hand, and getting their work in front of thousands of new readers on the other. There’s plenty of conflicting information out there.

. . . .

1. Piracy is not something that can be stopped.

This is because of the limits of technology. Sorry, guys. It’s not possible to stop piracy completely through technological means. If there was a way to do it, the big media companies would have found it by now, seeing as they’ve spent the last ten plus years throwing millions of dollars at the problem.

Now, having said that, let me elaborate a little. It’s possible for you to prevent your work from being pirated if you never publish it and keep it on your hard drive or in your notebooks forever. I’m assuming, though, that you intend to actually publish your work, or you’re already published.

. . . .

2. Piracy can be reduced, however.

You can, in fact, cut the rate of piracy. You know what’s working for the big media companies, whether they like it or not?

Netflix, and iTunes.

Think about it. What do these things have in common? They make it really, really, REALLY easy for a user to access the content. Netflix is a monthly fee, all you can eat option; iTunes is a one-click buy. This is what you want to aim for, when you’re selling your books. Piracy takes time and effort that plenty of readers just don’t have, but they’ll do it if they feel they have to. If you want to sell your book and restrict it to the US, for example, you better accept that it’ll be pirated outside the US by fans who don’t want to wait around for their local release. If you make your book inconvenient to read for some users, say by adding DRM, then they’re likely to pirate it to get a copy that ‘just works’.

. . . .

6. People have lots of reasons for pirating.

It’s not always about the money. When it comes to ebooks, it’s really not about the money. Everyone can afford a few bucks for a book. The denizens of the Internet are used to getting their content instantly and conveniently, to the device of their choice, in the format of their choice. Take away some part of this, and they’ll resort to technical means to get it back.

Link to the rest at The Raynfall Agency

From Paid Content:

Simon & Schuster will offer authors data on how and when their books are being pirated online, CEO Carolyn Reidy said Thursday.

Simon & Schuster, like many other publishers, works with a company called Attributor “to track and remove infringing copies of digital, audio and print titles published by Simon & Schuster from online sites.” Authors will now have access to Attributor’s data through the Simon & Schuster Author Portal, which also lets them track their book sales. Literary agents will have access to the data as well.

Link to the rest at Paid Content and thanks to L for the tip.

From ZDNet:

Is DRM really about controlling piracy, or does it serve a different function altogether?

In a Google+ conversation, Google engineer Ian Hickson argues that digital rights management (DRM), often found embedded within products including DVDs and eBooks to prevent unauthorized copying or use, is not in place to protect firms from the prevalence of piracy.

Instead, Hickson argues that this belief is based on “faulty logic,” and it is actually used as a tool to give content providers power over playback device manufacturers, as distributors cannot legally distribute copyrighted material without permission from the content provider. So, those who offer media, including games and film, gain leverage in how the files can be used and shared, as well as the means to tap into additional revenue streams.

Link to the rest at ZDNet

From LifeHacker:

Let’s be honest for second: most of us have illegally downloaded something in our lives. Maybe it was a song, some software, a game, or a movie. For a period I pirated everything I could. As technology pushed forward, it became less necessary, and now I don’t even bother. Here’s why.

. . . .

The bulk of my pirating ways happened in the mid to late-2000′s during that awkward time when media companies were fighting the inevitable internet download ecosystem, and prices for digital versions were often higher than the boxed equivalents. It was a time when no one was really doing digital correctly, when experiments were happening everywhere, and when sites and stores were popping up (and being shut down) repeatedly. Essentially, if you wanted to go digital, nobody was making it easy for you.

. . . .

98% of my music piracy was just downloading copies of what I already owned on vinyl. Before download codes were included with records, you had to purchase an album twice if you wanted to listen to it on the go. As a (former) wannabe audiophile with a love for vinyl, this didn’t fall within my tiny budget.

Basically, the lack of a consistent shopping ecosystem or any type of trial service made digital downloads a risk. Sure, shareware, demos, and 30 second samples existed, but they were rarely helpful. It was just easier to pirate something than it was to get it legitimately.

. . . .

A lot of this DRM put absurd restrictions on the devices you could use, or worse, locked it onto one specific piece of hardware or software. This meant if you wanted to jump between devices, your content was stuck on old hardware.

. . . .

In fact, the main reason I stopped pirating is that now, piracy takes too many steps. It’s now a better experience to download something from a legitimate source than it is to pirate it. In fact, I hardly even noticed that I’d stopped pirating—it just kind of happened.

. . . .

It might have taken media companies a lot longer than it should have, but it’s now incredibly easy to download anything you want, to any device, for a reasonable cost. These downloads sync across accounts (and more often than not, devices as well) so they’re accessible everywhere. They have interfaces that are easy to understand and easy to use.

Link to the rest at LifeHacker

From the BBC News:

Online retailer Amazon has launched a service that stores free digital versions of CDs bought via its store.

AutoRip, which is only available in the US, will automatically keep a digital copy of eligible CDs in a customer’s cloud storage account.

Customers will be able to access the music via Amazon’s Cloud Player on the web or via tablet and smartphone apps.

Amazon has drawn up a catalogue of 50,000 CDs that are eligible for AutoRip.

. . . .

The catalogue has been compiled from those albums that have proved most popular with Amazon customers in the last 15 years.

The list includes “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and “21″ by Adele.

Any customer who has bought a CD in the catalogue from Amazon since the firm started trading in 1998 will be eligible to get a free MP3 copy of it. Amazon said it anticipated creating copies of millions of CDs.

Link to the rest at the BBC and thanks to John for the tip.

UPDATE: If you visit the AutoRip Page, you’ll see that Amazon is using the AutoRip feature to sell CD’s that are included in the program.

From TeleRead:

Publishers of e-books have a dilemma: You want readers to find (and purchase) your products. And yet you don’t want pirates making your products available for free. But is digital rights management (DRM) technology, one method publishers use (with questionable success) to combat piracy, a hindrance or even antithetical to content discovery?

. . . .

Will DRM survive? Are we moving from an ownership world to an access world where intellectual property is concerned? How will libraries’ role in discoverability evolve as e-books become more prevalent? Does DRM stop piracy? Is DRM-protected content less valuable to a publisher?

Link to the rest at TeleRead

From ACLS News:

You have to hand it to the editors of Wikipedia – half of whom are under 28 – youthful rebellion never looked like this. By instigating a 24-hour blackout of the service in January, they became the first generation in history whose rebellion left corporations and venture capitalists clapping their hands in glee.

Glee, because the protest made it harder for democratically elected governments to pass legislation strong enough to protect ripped-off writers, musicians and other artists from those who profit from stolen intellectual property. Why? Because the blackout, which shut down the online encyclopaedia, was in protest against two bills before the US Congress: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). The publicity it generated shook politicians so hard they quietly dropped the proposed legislation.

. . . .

Welcome to the age of the online oligarch: as rich and powerful as Enron, but with a better media profile. “What has come out of this is the power of these organisations to get legislation they disapprove of shelved,” ALCS deputy chief executive Barbara Hayes comments. “Where is this freedom they’re all talking about, if they can pull the plug on their service when they can’t get what they want for free?”

The rallying cry of Wiki and its supporters – including Google (2011 annual revenue: $37.9bn), Facebook (latest quarterly revenue: $1.8bn) and eBay (2011 revenue: $11bn) – was free speech.  These and other organisations that came out against the legislation – including illegal filesharing sites like iFile.it (which with Library.nu is said to have made $11m from ebook downloads)  - ran banners urging users: “Tell Congress: please don’t censor the web!”

. . . .

Contrary to popular belief, illegal filesharing sites are not shoestring operations run by penniless kids. They require vast servers to host stolen content. They also require huge bandwidth to handle the illegal downloads. Even start-ups – let’s call them small town dealers – need computer equipment, software and broadband services that cost considerable amounts of money. To pay for their operations, traffickers use two revenue models: paid-for premium subscriptions that enable faster downloading; and display advertising – often supplied through Google Ads – which appears as content downloads.

Link to the rest at ACLS News

PG always thought SOPA and PIPA were very dangerous to ordinary internet users, another RIAA overreach. If The Authors Guild favors something having to do with technology, there’s at least a 90% chance that it’s a dumb idea.

From PaidContent:

Only a handful of very large software and entertainment associations are permitted to use the official FBI logo to warn consumers about the perils of piracy. Until now.

This week, the Justice Department posted a regulation that will allow all copyright holders — no matter how small — to download and use the logo. According to the FBI, the initiative was spurred by groups like independent film makers and sports leagues that have been clamoring to use the image:

. . . .

The Justice Department and the agency acknowledge that “widespread use of the APW Seal may “dilute” the value of the image and the FBI’s message” but claim that any potential logo-fatigue will be offset by “increasing the anti-piracy message across the board.”

Link to the rest at PaidContent and a link to the FBI Draft Regulation

From Baldur Bjarnason, writing at Futurebook:

The greatest threat to the continuing survival of the publishing industry is… the publishing industry

Most incumbents in the industry misunderstand the origin and nature of piracy, how it develops, how it is fostered, and how it thrives. If they did, they’d drop DRM and be scrambling around to transform the industry practices that threaten publishing’s very survival

They don’t understand that piracy is a function of community, not technology.

…

You can see this process repeat itself several times over in other segments of the comics and TV industry:

1. Restrictions lock out a large group of interested buyers.

2. A segment of those buyers form a piracy group reasoning that they can’t be harming anybody because none of them could pay even if they wanted to.

3. A community is formed that grows used to getting stuff for free.

4. The existence of the community readjusts the audience’s expectations of what is right and what is wrong.

5. Piracy becomes endemic and impossible to eradicate, even if you do address all of the concerns that caused the groups to form in the first place.

6. Attempts to take out the communities result in massive consumer backlash because the consumer now expects these things for free.

The reason why this happens is simple: excepting major taboos, human beings rely on social proof to tell them what is right and what is wrong.

Your average reader’s internal compass for right and wrong is going to take its adjustments from the surrounding social group. The human animal is social to such a degree that the existence of an established community is going to weigh heavier than the voices of lone authors or the PR missives of large companies. People will use social proof to rationalise cheating. Many people will ignore their own beliefs and conscience if most of those they see as their peers say or act differently.
…

The tragedy of modern publishing is that the industry seems to be trying its best to promote and foster the creation of ebook piracy groups.

• They enforce strict geographical restrictions that exclude large markets that are used to buying their books in english (most of northern Europe, for example).

• Amazon’s regional surcharges mean that the ebooks that are available are more expensive.

• They implement DRM that restricts, sometimes severely, fair use, note-taking, text-to-voice, and clipping.

• They sometimes strip the ebook files themselves of covers, leaving the reader with ugly, generic, covers.

• The legal ebook versions are much more likely to be filled with errors or even missing text than their print equivalents, leaving buyers uncertain as to whether they should buy more new titles.

Piracy groups solve these problems for many readers. (Note, I am not talking about generic piracy groups that unload hundreds of titles at a time, most of which have clearly never been read.) That the publishing industry stops creating these problems is essential to its survival. Now’s the time to do it. It’s still early days in the ebook transition and the industry has a narrow window of opportunity to address these problems before these groups become more common.

You should read the rest: The Community’s the Thing. I don’t have much to add to this excellent discussion of the origins of content piracy, except to point out there is a mainstream publisher who gets it. In fact, it’s the only mainstream publisher that I actually deal with directly. But for this one exception, I get all my books from Amazon’s site because Amazon’s shopping experience is so great. Why do I go to this publisher’s website? Check out this blurb:

You get lifetime access to ebooks you purchase through [our website]. Whenever possible we provide them to you in five DRM-free file formats — PDF, ePub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, DAISY, and Android .apk. Our ebooks are enhanced with color images. They are fully searchable, and you can cut-and-paste and print them. We also alert you when we’ve updated your ebooks with corrections and additions. Now includes Dropbox syncing.

You don’t get that from a pirated book (or from any other mainstream publisher). This publisher considers piracy “an early-stage marketing investment”.  The head of the company says:

… the losses due to piracy are far outweighed by the benefits of the free flow of information, which makes the world richer, and develops new markets for legitimate content. Most of the people who are downloading unauthorized copies of [our] books would never have paid us for them anyway; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of others are buying content from us, many of them in countries that we were never able to do business with when our products were not available in digital form.

 This is a publisher that sells to the crowd most likely to be acculturated to online piracy. And they sell bundles. For example, for a print book that they sell for $24.99 might cost $19.99 in ebook form, but you get them bundled for $27.49. And this is for books where having both has real value to the consumer.

As you may have guessed, this isn’t one of the Big Six. I’m talking about O’Reilly Books. A lot of folks here may have never heard of them because they sell to geeks. They even sell books by other publishers on their website. They are advertising a Microsoft Press book on their home page right now. Don’t let any of the Big Six tell you that this stuff can’t be done. It is being done.

Guest post by William Ockham

From The Wall Street Journal:

If you were attacked by pirates, who would you want by your side? A loyal horde of head bangers, gangstas and hard-core punks? Or a brainy clutch of bookish types? I’d generally advise you to go with the former group. But it turns out that in the swashbuckling arena of digital piracy, the publishing world is acquitting itself far better than the brash music industry.

Ten years ago this Sunday, the record labels thought they had turned the tide against piracy when the wildly popular Napster—a service that allowed anyone to find and download recordings online—declared bankruptcy. At the time, annual American music sales had dropped by about $2 billion, having peaked at $14.5 billion in 1999. The labels blamed Napster, claiming that the company encouraged copyright infringement. Sales have since declined by a further $5.5 billion—for a total plunge of over 50%.

. . . .

Publishing has gotten off to a much better start. Both industries saw a roughly 20% drop in physical sales four years after their respective digital kickoffs. But e-book sales have largely made up the shortfall in publishing—unlike digital music sales, which stayed stubbornly close to zero for years.

This doesn’t prove that music lovers are crooks. Rather, it shows that actually selling things to early adopters is wise. Publishers did this—unlike the record labels, which essentially insisted that the first digital generation either steal online music or do without it entirely.

. . . .

Compare this to the situation in books. Although it had some small-time forerunners, the Kindle, like the Rio MP3 player, brought portability to a mass market. But the Kindle launched with licenses rather than lawsuits from the key rights-holders in its domain, and offered more than 90% of the day’s best sellers when it shipped.

This meant that consumers discovered digital books through a licensed experience that delighted them. Exciting hardware, a critical mass of titles and Amazon’s retail sensibilities were all integrated into a single elegant package that piracy has never matched.

Of course, piracy emerged anyway. Countless unlicensed e-books can be found online, and millions of people use them. But sales figures suggest that relatively few of these downloads represent foregone purchases. Most Kindle, iPad and Nook owners seem to view piracy as a low-rent and time-consuming experience compared with the sanctioned alternatives. They probably wouldn’t if the publishers had kicked things off with a five-year content boycott.

. . . .

Publishers face many challenges today, and some may be existential—Amazon’s dominance, for one, and the potential for authors to sell directly to readers. But as one industry executive wryly observed to me after ticking off a list of his industry’s perils, “at least we’re not self-immolators.”

Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal (Link may expire)