Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 176 posts

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#131

Post by rick888 »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #53
rick888 wrote: post #7

This still doesn't change the fact that piracy does hurt authors. The sad fact is that piracy is only getting worse. Even when you can get a song for 99 cents with no DRM or restrictions, music piracy is still rampant. I'm waiting for the next set of excuses. In '99, it was because music was too expensive and the artists were getting screwed (which is a funny excuse, because 1% of something is something, but 1% of 0…

It doesn't hurt them. It fails to help them, which isn't quite the same thing. What we need is a way to compensate creators that doesn't require damaging the social utility of their work.

"It doesn't hurt them. It fails to help them"

This isn't true. When you don't attempt to prevent piracy, people think it's okay. They then feel they are entitled to getting your stuff for free...and the value will approach $0 (because nobody will be willing to pay you anything). This is already happening.

It's very similar to currency. A $100 bill is really just ink and paper. If society didn't believe it was worth this much, it wouldn't be.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#132

Post by modeless »

xtho wrote: post #50

> “Books are priced too high” I don't think he (the "pirat") has an idea of how much time has to be invested in the production of good books. I personally think that books are drastically undervalued and that people are not willing to pay enough for good books which has the consequence that they are either served well targeted bestsellers, which can be produced at that price, or junk. Big publishing companies and bes…

The App Store has proven that most software is overpriced. If there was a book store with $.99 and $1.99 books, I think we would discover something very similar.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#133

Post by rick888 »

nene wrote: post #122

What struck me most was this passage: In order to thwart piracy, she refused to allow her latest novel to be released as an audiobook since the format is popular with file-sharers and also denied the publication of Russian and Chinese versions. Isn't it like taping on the cover of the book: "Only for white"?

"Only for white"

hmm..so there are no whites in Russia?

Most e-commerce companies where I've worked block both Russia and China due to massive piracy or credit card theft.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#134

Post by cosmicray »

modeless wrote: post #132
xtho wrote: post #50

> “Books are priced too high” I don't think he (the "pirat") has an idea of how much time has to be invested in the production of good books. I personally think that books are drastically undervalued and that people are not willing to pay enough for good books which has the consequence that they are either served well targeted bestsellers, which can be produced at that price, or junk. Big publishing companies and bes…

The App Store has proven that most software is overpriced. If there was a book store with $.99 and $1.99 books, I think we would discover something very similar.

The question could be argued about if software was overpriced, or were there too many layers in the distribution chain that all wanted to make something off the software sale. The iTunes App store has collapsed the distribution chain. The OS X App store may do the same.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#135

Post by hxa7241 »

WillyF wrote: post #4

I think that humans have an inherent problem with seeing piracy as theft unless they are the victims. Theft in a traditional sense is almost always zero-sum, and piracy isn't. We weren't really built to deal with this. The closest thing that I can think of is having someone sleep with your spouse—it's kind of like stealing, but it's not zero-sum. And it's not illegal. It also doesn't help that our intellectual proper…

You seem to be suggesting we should learn to submit to IP and its restriction on copying. This would be a sad and very wrong direction.

We should have cultural norms that encourage and support both production and copying -- they are both good, and mutually reinforcing. And we should build commercial systems around that, not warp our innate moral sense to fit some arbitrary market arrangement. If certain corporations don't like it they are the ones that need to reform themselves.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#136

Post by RK »

krschultz wrote: post #56

I've seen the following argument a thousand times: "Well the marginal cost of a copy of [some digital good] is 0 so it isn't stealing!" That argument is actually completly irrelevant. I took a train the other night, and there were only 2 people in my whole car. The previous week it was packed. Both times I had to buy a ticket at the same price. If you don't see what that has to do with pirating music (or software, or…

Without commenting on IP piracy itself, I don't think the train analogy works for the additional reason that it certainly costs less to transport a train with (say) zero people than a train at full capacity. Fuel cost is probably the biggest issue.

Others have already pointed out that a train has a finite capacity, unlike copies of digital media.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#137

Post by mcantor »

noonespecial wrote: post #98
neild wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's astonishingly easy to convince yourself that you "wouldn't have bought the thing anyway". The best way to be sure that you aren't lying to yourself is to not pirate things.

I pirated Photoshop for nearly all of my young life, since the release of 1.0. The day my business made its first dollar from photoshopped images, we bought the entire Adobe Creative Suite. Not have bought it anyway has a strange way of turning into bought the whole damn thing. I have no trouble at all with people who pirate to dabble, but I do have trouble with people who pirate software and then use it to make mone…

I did this exact same thing, and I'm an "information wants to be free" hippy at heart, so for a long time it was my favorite debate point in favor of piracy. But, Adobe really pushes the "Student" version of their products nowadays, and they are way more affordable as well as completely identical to the real thing. The only difference is the licensing.

However, I guess the argument still exists for anyone who still can't afford it, or who wants to learn but isn't a student.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #78
krschultz wrote: post #56

I've seen the following argument a thousand times: "Well the marginal cost of a copy of [some digital good] is 0 so it isn't stealing!" That argument is actually completly irrelevant. I took a train the other night, and there were only 2 people in my whole car. The previous week it was packed. Both times I had to buy a ticket at the same price. If you don't see what that has to do with pirating music (or software, or…

There are still a fixed number of seats on the train (or plane). If someone "steals" a seat then that's a seat that someone else cannot have. This is dramatically different from the case of digital media where there is no similar impact. For music piracy the only cost is the potential lost sale of the music to the "pirate". Edit: to follow up, I'm a music pirate and proud of it. In my experience there are three types…

If someone "steals" a seat then that's a seat that someone else cannot have. This is dramatically different from the case of digital media where there is no similar impact.

True, but:

a) when you sneak onto a train and get a free ride, it only works once. If you make a habit of this, you'll probably get caught. If you download a song illegally for free, you can listen to it for the rest of your life unless you lose or delete the copy you have.

b) the exclusion of another passenger in any case only becomes significant when the train is full. If the train is half-empty, you're riding for free but nobody else is worse off because there's an abundance of seats. Of course you have a tiny negative effect on the fuel consumption of the vehicle, but that's much less important than the principle.

c) In any case, when you ride without a fare your offense is against the train operator. You don't get sued/prosecuted by the passengers who had to wait for the next train. The issue is not whether or not there was a seat available to someone else, but whether or not the service provider received the due cost of the ride/song/whatever, which cost is levied for market availability rather than for availability to an individual buyer standing in line behind you.

Now I quite agree with you that there are so many economic incentives in favor of digital piracy and such perverse incentives for the publishers' preferred way of doing business, that something has got to give and that's why we're seeing such upheaval in the media industry. I just think that one a philosophical level the argument isn't as clear-cut as you are suggesting.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#139

Post by hxa7241 »

rick888 wrote: post #130
hxa7241 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really do have a different moral status though. Copyright and IP are purely pragmatic commercial arrangements. Any wrongness in infringement comes solely from it simply being against the rules of a particular game we have decided to play. If we had different rules, such copying would be harmless. The copyright-based industries have tried to present infringement as a fundamental moral wrong. It is not. Quite the…

"They really do have a different moral status though. Copyright and IP are purely pragmatic commercial arrangements. Any wrongness in infringement comes solely from it simply being against the rules of a particular game we have decided to play. If we had different rules, such copying would be harmless." You're making his point. You could also the same thing about anything.

> You could also the same thing about anything.

That is not accurate. Many laws -- those we probably most respect -- are grounded on actual basic factual effects. They have a justification prior to conventional or legal constructs.

For example, if you take a material object from me, you deprive me -- directly and physically. That is the core justification of normal property, and there is no such justification for IP.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#140

Post by TheCondor »

krschultz wrote: post #63
tjr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked on numerous music recording projects. In many cases, I did everything by myself. In one case, I hired (and learned from) some of the very best in the industry, and between my partner and I, incurred approximately $20,000 in costs... and had an awesome time doing so. But even when I do everything myself, I'm using high-end equipment and software that I've paid thousands of dollars for. It's not free of cha…

Exactly. I'm not a muscian (I'm freaking terrible at anything involved with music), and I have no stake in this game. But software development is the same freaking business model, but for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy.

The complexity of software changes the equation dramatically.. When you buy a piece of software, outside of games and certain embedded apps, you're typically investing in the longer term life of the product. You expect the owners to update, fix and enhance the product. Free software takes that to the extreme, you pay for support and nothing else. There might be some other exceptions but whether or not it's a conscious part of the decision you sort of expect it. The SaaS model also takes it to the extreme, there are often some other value-adds for doing things in the cloud but a big one is they are constantly improving your apps. Back in the day there were more efforts to fight piracy and there were copy protection schemes and all that ilk.

Books and music are in kind of a funny space, the costs of production have fallen through the floor; you can literally buy a computer and some fairly in-expensive equipment and record good quality recording. If you have a little more money you can do a completely professional top of the line recording.. Second, the industry is completely built around selling a finished commodity, you buy the book or the CD and it's done, there is no more business. Third that comodity is very easy to pirate. With music it seems like they could put concert tickets in with the CD or coupons to get them more cheaply or buy other merchendise, that caters to a fairly small market though. Some other sort of value-add that justifies the expense seem like the only options with the industry as it is. Maybe they could not distribute recordings and make a subscription radio service that played the content exclusively (that seems lame though, but people didn't like the idea of SaaS or pay per cycle in the old days either)

Personally, I bought the pick-axe book a handful of years back, read it, did some stuff, put it on the shelf. Then the 2nd edition came out, I bought it, unfortunately life and other things got in the way of that one so it just sat on the shelf. Now there is a 3rd edition.. I'd have paid maybe $15 more the first time around if I got some free upgrades, I'd have probably paid $15 more the first time AND paid $5-10 for an upgrade when it came out. The $40 or $45 each time though.... It doesn't feel like you get that much. I'm not going to pirate it but I can't say that I don't see why people would.

Post reply on HN