Internet Book Piracy Read online

  “In the case of your average writer or regular writers who are also professors, this is their main source of income, so they are basically losing their livelihood when their books are pirated, so it’s important to control and prevent piracy or go after the offenders. But where students are finding a way to gain access to these overpriced books they are forced to buy by their professors, then I think sharing these books, so everyone pays much less or nothing, is fine. That shouldn’t be considered piracy or theft.”

  In short, as these interviews illustrate, for the average person engaged in what writers, publishers, and law enforcement consider piracy, they considered their actions to either not be piracy, since they are sharing information with peers, or to be justified because they are facing an unjust system where books are grossly overpriced and they are forced to buy them. These kinds of justifications might apply to the 50–70 percent of the population of different age groups engaging in piracy to some extent. This is in contrast to the much smaller group of active pirates who are engaging in it as a business through running online websites or copying and reselling pirated books at a reduced price, such as at local flea markets.

  A comparison might be to the sale of drugs, which has been criminalized for decades and has only recently, at the end of 2014, been decriminalized under Federal Law by the Obama administration. The vast majority of the users are like the researchers and students, involved in obtaining the drugs for their own personal use, while a whole criminal enterprise is much like the pirates in operating the production, distribution, and sale of the product. The big difference, of course, is that in the case of pirating of books by the small-scale users, there are writer and publisher victims, whereas the users of drugs for recreational or medical purposes generally don’t see themselves as victims, unless they should get bad drugs or get addicted from drug overuse and abuse.

  In any case, the vast number of researcher-student “pirates” illustrates the difficulties of dealing with the problem, where they are defining themselves as not engaged in piracy or are justified in their actions. Perhaps consider the problem a little like the situation that existed in Prohibition, where the popular use of alcohol was so great that ultimately, Prohibition was ended. At the same time, while it existed, Prohibition triggered the genesis of organized crime, and even after it ended, the criminal organizations it spawned generally continued; they just turned to other activities, such as prostitution, gambling, and drugs. Similarly, the popularity of file sharing and getting overpriced books at a discount has created a vast network of pirate sites today. These sites are making huge sums of money through advertising, subscriptions, or lower-priced but illegal downloads, where the writers and publishers don’t get paid.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Free Speech, Technology, and Piracy Controversy

  ANOTHER BIG ISSUE RAISED BY piracy is that of free speech and the degree to which current concepts of piracy might be outdated. Some believe that those against piracy should yield when there is a conflict between free speech rights and claims of piracy that challenge that right. A related issue is the development of new technologies that create new ways of distributing books and other creative materials that may undermine current definitions of piracy.

  My interview with Parker Higgins, a free-speech advocate working with the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, helped to examine these issues and suggest new ways of looking at the piracy–free speech conflict in light of the new technologies.

  A key problem, as Higgins points out, is the way that the copyright holders have sought new agreements or laws that might not only protect the rights holders, but restrict legitimate speech or communications. As Higgins explains:

  “At the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, we’ve been working on issues like piracy in unauthorized downloading for over a decade now. Whether we’re talking about books, movies, or music, what we’ve seen over and over is in an effort to reduce unauthorized downloading, the rights holders have pushed for new voluntary agreements or laws that end up restricting other kinds of legitimate speech or communications.

  “One of the ways that these efforts to reduce piracy end up affecting legitimate speech is by affecting what sorts of technologies people are allowed to use or develop. One example we’ve seen for a long time is in the development of peer-to-peer, or P2P, technologies, which by themselves have many legitimate uses. People who want to distribute something cheaply or people who want to make sure that everyone has the latest version of something are among the many reasons to use P2P technologies.

  “BitTorrent is a popular example. BitTorrent is a technology and protocol, a lot like email is a protocol, and there are different ways of implementing it. When you’re downloading a file, it goes faster for everybody when you download parts of that file from different users who already have parts of the file, because as more people are downloading something, you get a bigger swarm providing these parts. And that’s the opposite of the way a centralized server works in that the more people who are trying to get access to something, the slower it goes.

  “So there are a lot of people who like that quality when they are legitimately transferring a large file they own. At the same time, people who are trying to distribute free content like that they don’t have to pay for all the bandwidth and it’s faster if more people use it. So those legitimate users are affected negatively when companies go after BitTorrent as technology because it has been used for piracy.

  “The big question is how do you distinguish between legitimate speech and infringement? It’s the hard question that underlies this whole debate. And the answer is that there’s no technical way to make this distinction, especially when you have to account for uses such as if I bought a DVD or the hardcover version of a book, but now I’m going to be traveling and I don’t have the hard copy, so I want to download a copy. A lot of people would view that kind of downloading of something I already bought as somehow less infringing than if you download the most recent best seller because you want to read it.

  “But there’s no way to distinguish those different uses technically. And so, what we’ve seen in practice, both with books and previously with music and movies, is that companies go after all the uses of a new technology and let it get sorted out afterwards.”

  Higgins used the Google Books lawsuit as an illustration of this conflict between the new ways to distribute and consume books—made possible by the new digital technologies—and the old ways of thinking about the buying and sharing of physical books. One problem has been that there is not yet an agreed-upon way to distribute books that satisfies those who want to read books and the authors and publishers who want their books distributed in such a way that they get paid. As Higgins describes it:

  “One of the interesting things about the Google Books lawsuit is that it reveals a different understanding between some of the parties involved. What triggered this suit is that Google was digitizing books in the same way that it scans websites. Some of these books are copyrighted works in much the same way that some websites are copyrighted. In both cases, the idea is that we can scan it in order to index it and thereby point people to the right place. Then, maybe they’ll actually buy the book, or maybe they’ll go and get it from the library.

  “But that’s not the model that many publishers and authors use when they’re thinking about books. While some did agree with Google, many considered that books should be treated like the physical book. It’s closed until you buy it or get it from the library, and you don’t have full access to what’s inside until you buy it or borrow it at the library. Even if you want to just look something up, it’s considered bad form to just go into the bookstore and read the part that you’re interested in.

  “Now, given the new technologies, I think we’re going to see a lot more of those changes of models, so that people have a different view on how they want to interact with books. And I think that’s what’s going to drive the changes in the way people consume books. For example, right now there’s
no way to subscribe to get the latest paperback in the mail, and maybe the new model for distribution would be something like that, if people would really like to become subscribers. Or maybe the new distribution model for books will be something else entirely. We don’t know the best way now, so we need to see people try out these different things to see really what sticks.”

  Yet, while we may not know the exact new model going forward, Higgins expressed a view shared by a growing number today: Most individuals will want to do what is the fastest and most convenient, while paying a reasonable and fair price for doing so, while using the new technologies. Then, if this happens, the problem of piracy will go away, or at least become very much reduced, since people will be willing to do what’s fair. As Higgins noted:

  “Whenever you’re talking about unauthorized downloading, it’s important to keep in mind that some people won’t buy something, whether it’s cheap and convenient or really hard to download. But those people are not the people to worry about, since they are only a small percentage of the people involved in piracy. There’s a much larger percentage of people who will choose the most convenient way to get the best product, and they don’t mind paying a fair price for that. So, I think given how hard it is to separate out what we consider good downloading from bad downloading, the real opportunity lies in making legitimate purchases easier, more convenient, and higher quality.

  “So instead of trying to decide how to make computers know which users or which downloads are infringing, it would be much better to make it really, really easy for consumers to buy the books they want, and let’s make those books as good as anything they can find on the internet. This way, when it’s easy, when the price is competitive, and when the quality of the book is good, the problem of piracy will evaporate.”

  This is the same approach that has worked well for music and movies, Higgins suggests. He believes that some entrepreneur will be the one to come up with the new approach that works, since established companies have too much invested in the way the system works now. As Higgins describes it, this approach makes perfect sense, and it is necessary to do something to embrace change, given the new technologies, since the current models aren’t working. As Higgins notes:

  “That’s what we have seen works well with, for example, with music and movies – (a simple subscription or low-cost purchase model that makes it inexpensive and cheap to pay). There’s probably no greater impact on reducing movie downloading than the widespread availability of Netflix. What works about Netflix and makes it take a big bite out of unauthorized downloading is that it has a lot of what viewers want, though still not as much as what it could, and it’s available when you want it and it’s inexpensive.

  “Likewise, you might imagine those same qualities with a little modification applied to the book market. Maybe this new approach will be something like a library, but whoever is going to create the next model for what works for books will create a major transformation in the marketplace. I think we’ll see a lot of things not work or only partially work, before we realize that something has definitely worked.

  “So that need to experiment with different approaches makes it difficult to imagine that somebody who has a lot invested in the way that things currently work is going to take that risk. You never know, it could happen, but I think we’re likely to see the new system come from somebody who is a smaller player. For example, maybe a group of independent authors or self-published authors might figure out something and only realize after it’s already been running that it is successful and that it has obviated the problem of unauthorized downloading.”

  At the same time, still other models might work for other authors, since there is no one-size-fits-all model for everyone. For example, for most authors, the piracy is less of a problem than remaining unknown; piracy might be one more way to help let people know about them and their book, and then they could leverage that into a paying book deal. Or some authors might use ebooks for free download as something of a loss leader, and then turn interest in them into getting speaking engagements or doing book tours to sell hardcover books. So different things may work for different authors as a way to make money. As Higgins comments:

  “For the vast majority of authors, nearly more than 90 percent, you haven’t heard of them, and I haven’t heard of them. The biggest threat they face is that no one will know about their book. They may have experienced a couple of downloads that weren’t authorized, but for them, obscurity is a much greater threat than piracy.

  “Thus, for such authors, sharing free ebooks may work well. For example, a former EFF employee and now an EFF fellow is the author Cory Doctorow, who makes ebooks available on his website, and then sells hardcover editions. He does book tours where he sells those hardcovers and signs them. And he also gets speaking engagements.

  “So not exactly the same precise combination is going to work for everybody, but the same precise combination has never worked for everybody. We’ll always have authors who do different things to make money, and for Doctorow, since he makes ebooks available for free download on his website, piracy is not a problem.

  “While very few authors have been able to completely eliminate the problem of Internet piracy like this, looking at his model might be an instructive way to go for some authors.

  “Thus, in thinking about what comes next, what ends up displacing both unauthorized downloading and the book market today, we need to recognize that the new model will be a lot of different things. There’s no reason why the monolith of publishing has to be replaced by a monolith of digital publishing distribution.

  “And so we’re going to see a lot of different things that work in the future. So the model for book distribution may not look like what we have today, but it will work and it will end up with people getting paid.”

  Thus, new technologies have brought about the free speech versus piracy conundrum, which could well be resolved by new models providing different approaches to distribution for writers and publishers. So instead of fighting against piracy, there could be new techniques that lead to both sharing and writers and publishers getting paid, as well as spreading information about their books. We won’t know exactly which new models will work for a while. But the interview with Higgins has pointed out the need to look for these new models. Some suggestions are provided in the final set of interviews with Sandra Shepard, the intellectual property lawyer, and with Alex Semeny, who has developed an online platform where authors can share their work and get paid whenever anyone downloads what they have written.

  CHAPTER 7

  Alternate Ways to Monetize Your Writing

  GIVEN THE VAST NUMBER OF pirates and the difficulty of combatting the piracy of one’s material once a file is copied and shared, it can be difficult to fight back. While takedown notices may stop some pirates, as might lawsuits and criminal charges, that may not be enough to stop additional pirates who pop up like weeds that keep coming back.

  Another approach is to find ways to use the pirates to help monetize your writing that leads to other material you have written that is only available for purchase—or use them to help publicize your work to a paying audience. That’s the approach of Sandra Shepard, an intellectual property lawyer and strategist based in San Rafael, who commonly finds that after people discover their material has been stolen online, they are eager to sue. Their first questions are: “How can I sue these people?” “How much can I get?” and “How do I get them to pay?”

  But her approach is quite different in that she encourages people to use the pirates to gain more attention for other work they can sell. As she explains:

  “What I mostly will say to them is that you’re looking at piracy from the wrong direction. You really need to try to use the pirates. How can you use them? Well, what you need to do is to think about your digital book as a way to get people to your website.”

  The goal of this approach is to use a link to your website in this pirated material as a marketing tool to get peopl
e to purchase additional material from you, whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. Shepard explains:

  “From a fiction standpoint, say you’re writing a book that’s based in Hawaii. You might put some links in the manuscript that lead people to your website where they can see the area that you’re talking about. And perhaps there are posters by a photographer along with a message that says: ‘Hey, if somebody buys these, I’ll give you a percentage of them.’ Or perhaps your website might lead them to a place where they can buy published books or other materials.”

  Or if one has a nonfiction book, there could be related products available, as Shepard describes:

  “Here’s how you might monetize a nonfiction book. Let’s say that it’s a book on art forgery, and you are going to tell people how to know if something is a real Michelangelo sculpture. So then you say in your writing that a Michelangelo will always have this sort of scratching and other distinctive qualities, but then you say that ‘if you want to see what I’m talking about, click on this link and it will take you to my website and I’ll show you the difference between a forgery and a non-forgery.’

  “Then to monetize that you can do one of two things. Number one, you charge them a little bit to see the video, say thirty cents. Or you surround the images with advertisements that people can click through if they’re interested in those things. So there might be an advertisement for an art auction, an advertisement for paint cleaner. In other words, you offer them whatever you have, and your deal with them is that if somebody clicks through from your website, they will pay you a little bit.”