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)

From Seth Godin:

Publishers are spending a lot of time debating DRM on ebooks. Many of the powers that be are worried about piracy, they say, and they are resolute in making sure that there are locks on the books they publish.

. . . .

For me, though, the interesting notion is of book piracy itself.

How many more people would prefer a hard drive full of 10,000 songs to one with 10,000 books on it? We’re hungry for one and sort of unaware altogether of the possibility of the other. What would you even do with 10,000 books?

Software is pirated because in just a few minutes, the user saves a hundred or a thousand dollars, and feels okay about it because software seems unreasonably expensive to some.

. . . .

Books are free at the library but there’s no line out the door. Books are free to read in comfortable couches at Barnes & Noble but there aren’t teeming crowds sitting around reading all day.

Books take a long time to read, require a significant commitment, and they’re relatively cheap. And most people don’t read for fun. Most of the inputs necessary for a vibrant piracy community are missing.

As Tim O’Reilly famously said, books don’t have a piracy problem. They have an obscurity problem.

. . . .

[I]n the long tail world, overcoming obscurity is the single biggest hurdle. If only piracy was a problem…

Link to the rest at The Domino Project

From Future eBook commenting on the Pottermore ebook watermarking system:

This really feels like a watershed moment, doesn’t it?  So, briefly…

1) I’m a bit confused – how is watermarking not DRM by another name?

. . . .

4)  Are you sure that embedding personally identifiable information in the book itself is such a good idea?  No nagging privacy issues?

. . . .

6)  Hasn’t your customer database just become the ne plus ultra of hackers’ wet dreams?

Link to the rest at Future eBook

From Reuters via Yahoo Finance:

A group of 22 Chinese authors have filed a claim against U.S. technology group Apple, alleging its App Store sells unlicensed copies of their books, Chinese state mediareported on Sunday.

The group, the Writers Rights Alliance, petitioned Apple last year to stop electronic distribution of the writers’ books and had earlier persuaded Baidu, China’s largest search engine, to stop publishing their material on its Baidu Library product.

The writers are seeking 50 million yuan ($8 million) compensation from Apple, saying it was selling pirated versions of 95 books via its online store, Xinhua reported, without stating where the claim had been filed.

Link to the rest at Yahoo Finance

From CNet:

The country’s largest Internet service providers haven’t given up on the idea of becoming copyright cops.

Last July, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other bandwidth providers announced that they had agreed to adopt policies designed to discourage customers from illegally downloading music, movies and software. Since then, the ISPs have been very quiet about their antipiracy measures.

But during a panel discussion before a gathering of U.S. publishers here today, Cary Sherman, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said most of the participating ISPs are on track to begin implementing the program by July 1.

Supporters say this could become the most effective antipiracy program ever. Since ISPs are the Internet’s gatekeepers, the theory is that network providers are in the best position to fight illegal file sharing.

. . . .

The program, commonly referred to as “graduated response,” requires that ISPs send out one or two educational notices to those customers who are accused of downloading copyrighted content illegally. If the customer doesn’t stop, the ISP is then asked to send out “confirmation notices” asking that they confirm they have received notice.

At that time, the accused customers will also be informed of the risks they incur if they don’t stop pirating material. If the customer is flagged for pirating again, the ISP can then ratchet up the pressure. Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls “mitigation measures,” which include throttling down the customer’s connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating.

Link to the rest at CNet

PG is not a friend to pirates, but this sounds creepy to him. It also sounds like a system that will be prone to errors.

Since most urban areas have more than one ISP option, PG predicts lots of service cancellations by customers who receive one of these notices.

From The National Law Journal:

As sales of electronic books and readers skyrocket, the threat of piracy and other copyright issues loom. Publishers are test-driving different litigation strategies to fight illegal downloads. They are also arguing in court that author contracts, some decades old, give them the exclusive rights to publish e-books.

. . . .

The digital files for e-books are much smaller than those for music or movies and thus they are quicker and easier for pirates to copy and distribute through peer-to-peer file-sharing.

Publisher John Wiley & Sons has engaged in an aggressive strategy in combatting e-book piracy. Last October, the publisher filed the first of seven “John Doe” suits in the Southern District of New York against unknown defendants, identified by their Internet Protocol addresses. The complaint alleged illegal copying and distribution of e-books in Wiley’s “For Dummies” series of instructional books. The publisher filed subsequent “John Doe” suits in December, January and February.

Although Wiley’s campaign appears similar to the one pursued by the recording industry that targeted music downloaders in recent years, lawyers for the publisher say it’s not nearly as broad.

. . . .

Wiley’s litigation strategy is much narrower, said Maria Danzilo, legal director at Wiley’s global education business. The company’s objective in the litigation is more nuanced than one might think, she said. The ultimate goal is “going after the worst of the worst and people who are profiteering. We’re doing a lot of due diligence to differentiate” between those who operate on a large scale and small-time downloaders, Danzilo said.

Bill Dunnegan of New York-based Dunnegan & Scileppi, who represents Wiley in these lawsuits, said the litigation is meant “to demonstrate or educate people that this type of infringement is not a no-risk proposition.” He said the publisher wants to “dry up the demand for [pirated] e-books.”

Dunnegan said the company is “bending over backwards not to treat this as an assembly line operation.” Wiley is investigating the John Does “in order to avoid going after teenagers and grandmas. After we’ve identified people we don’t want to send a [demand] letter to, we have a lawyer listen to their story and explain to them what’s going on,” Dunnegan said. For many offenders, the company will take $750 for minimum statutory damages “even if we could negotiate more.”

Link to the rest at Law.com

From The eBook Test:

You as an independent writer put your work up for sale on a site or store.

Someone bi-lingual in another country gets it. That person decides to do either a straight translation or an “adaptation.” And then likewise sells it — maybe even to a local traditional publisher.

In your worst nightmare, that edition becomes a huge best-seller. And you will never know that. How can you? It doesn’t have your name on it and you can’t read that language. You will never see that stolen money. And even if you find out about it, do you know a good lawyer in Albania or Slovakia or even Germany?

. . . .

In the nightmare of all of your nightmares, the English-language rights are picked up and suddenly people are talking about how you ripped off a best-seller that you originally wrote.

Link to the rest at The eBook Test