Dear Author found another fascinating post on CNET and after seeing people say again and again “eBooks are nothing like music!”… listen folks on the Internet digital content is pretty much all the same ball of wax they are all showing up on the same Torrent sites the same dang way. So act like eBook piracy is different than music piracy all you want. It’s the same sites and the same people all doing the same thing.
There is no Santa Claus and there is no Tooth Fairy and you are not special and I will not tell you lies to make you feel better. The truth is the RIAA did not make pirating go away and they spent way more than you or I make on this and have been doing so for years now. So why are people acting like online piracy was created yesterday and it is all about them?
The only thing I see are simplistic ideas in play currently and frankly I don’t want to see authors running around trying to stop something they cannot possibly ever have stopped in the first place. As I pointed out when the whole Cassie Edwards plagiarizing thing was going on…
I like the Plagiarism Detection Software I was seeing out there. That software if developed and supported by the right publishers could be used to scan the nets looking for pirated content and files such as eBooks with the added benefit of detecting plagiarism from their own authors. So why not stop spinning your wheels and put your money to use there people and explore the wonders of modern technology? It has to be better than expecting authors to wage the war for you.
Anyway, I thought this post said something really important much like many other commentators have said over and over and over again.
Q&A: A Front-Row Seat For Media’s Meltdown
Tags: eBook Commentary“Well be on to the next thing. Well spend some number of months–I’m just essentially recounting the music industry’s journey–filing vast numbers of infringement notifications, letting everybody and their granny know you’re infringing our content. They’ll take the temperature and they’ll do surveys and collect data and they’ll try to convince themselves that this is having a real effect in reversing the tide and then after some period it will just not have been convincingly demonstrated to have worked. And they’ll realize that by any number of measures the piracy problem has only grown worse. But they will have to exhaust all of those things and more. They will have to chase legal remedies, legislative agendas, all the way to what they view as being the end of the line before they say “OK, so this really is the landscape we’re stuck with. As much as we didn’t want it, this appears to be it. Now we have to just dive in and make businesses that work here.”
Tags: eBook Commentary
kirsten saell wrote,
The process and appeal of ebook piracy is no different than music piracy, but the damage, IMO, is greater–simply because of a lack of alternate revenue streams to make up for losses. Authors don’t have t-shirt sales and concerts and stuff. All they have is words on the page. That’s all they get paid for, and you take that away, they don’t get paid. Or published.
But that doesn’t mean the solutions won’t be exactly the same.
Link | October 29th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
You know I would so buy say nice posters of book covers and stuff.
It just seems the current contracts around cover art does not really address author merchandising like it probably should.
I do not think online merchandising gets explored enough honestly.
Link | October 29th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
kirsten saell wrote,
It just seems the current contracts around cover art does not really address author merchandising like it probably should.
I do not think online merchandising gets explored enough honestly.
I don’t know about that. Swag like posters, magnets, etc, given away in contests usually ends up in the trash. Readers don’t form a community fan identity around books–or authors–the way they do around music, because reading is not really a community experience the way music is. Unless the book is a smashing success like Harry Potter or Twilight, that is–and even then, the swag is pretty much aimed at kids, not adults.
Link | October 29th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
Well having a husband that does silk screen work… promotional items can do wonderful things like bring in the bucks when you may not even expect it.
Link | October 29th, 2009 at 7:56 pm