David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy • Hacker News Board

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#21

Post by patio11 » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 5:39 AM UTC

I'm totally, 100% with you on piracy. Your work should not be stolen.

However, if your goal is a business as a full-time technical author, piracy is not your major enemy. Can I strongly suggest looking at the self-published ebook versus traditional published book choice as if you were offered it for the first time today? The first gets you on Amazon, puts you in full control of your marketing, let's you experiment with pricing and message, gives you post-launch opportunities for improvement, and bumps your "royalty" to 70 ~ 95%. The second gets wee little advances. If you look at those advances as buying equity in your book, they're the equity equivalent of a personal loan from CapOne.

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#22

Post by forensic » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 6:14 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #16

yakshaving wrote: post #10

Also posted this in the comments on the site, thought I'd join the discussion here. I appreciate David's perspective on piracy, but I also embrace and understand where Tim O'Reilly is coming from (Far worse to be irrelevant . I think I have the solution. Why not create an entirely new genre of content that offers a greater level of utility than static digital eBooks? Knowledge is getting created faster than it can be…

> I know that may not even cross many author's minds, but if there were messages like "95% of the profits from this eBook will be contributed to the author, so that they will continue producing high value content", I believe more people would be inclined to purchase. I doubt it. If they don't have the character to buy the book normally, an appeal to the authors needs won't help. You do know it takes more than an auth…

People aren't that black and white.

Little statements like that definitely make a difference.

A lot of pirates do it to avoid buyer's remorse, and finding a message inside appealing to them to support the author is hardly unnoticed.

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#23

Post by SoftwareMaven » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 6:46 AM UTC

You need to be really careful how you "motivate" people in these kinds of situations if you want to have a positive effect. A study was done at Petrified Forest National Park comparing the rates at which petrified wood was stolen depending on whether signage said people had stolen petrified wood in the past. Turns out 4x more people were willing to steal if they knew other people had done it before them.

Unfortunately, I think the method used in the post falls into the "4x more" category. David may have unwittingly increased piracy rather than reducing it.

[1] http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/cialdini.pdf (see the section on Environmental Theft).

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#24

Post by michael_dorfman » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 7:34 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #21

I'm totally, 100% with you on piracy. Your work should not be stolen. However, if your goal is a business as a full-time technical author, piracy is not your major enemy. Can I strongly suggest looking at the self-published ebook versus traditional published book choice as if you were offered it for the first time today? The first gets you on Amazon, puts you in full control of your marketing, let's you experiment wi…

I agree with you on the general point, but the deal with the publisher can get you quite a bit more than "wee little advances." The publisher lends credibility/gravitas to the enterprise (which may or may not be important, depending upon the type of work), and can (if they choose) bring a large marketing budget (and sophisticated marketing apparatus) to bear on your behalf.

I'm not arguing that self-publishing isn't the more lucrative option in many cases; I'm just saying that going with a traditional publisher is not necessarily a sucker bet.

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#25

Post by Natsu » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 8:02 AM UTC

kkowalczyk wrote: post #8

What I found in this article: unrealistic suggestion that Google should decide which page on the internet contains or doesn't contain copyrighted material. What I didn't find: 1. A single piece of data, even of the anecdotal variety, that piracy is responsible for his declining royalties. By his own admission: he doesn't know and there are other trends that might explain decline in print sales. 2. A description of ho…

Also missing is the fact, pointed out in one of the comments to his post, that Google already filters suggestions:

http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-censoring-bittorrent-r...

Essentially every page on the internet contains copyrighted material. Which pages contain copyright infringing material is another matter entirely. Because copyright is based on permission, you have to know who has given whom permission to do what, and that data simply isn't available. You can guess, but if third parties became legally liable for being wrong, things would get ugly fast.

For example, just the other day, the book "Basics of Compiler Design" was up on HN. The authors are giving a PDF of it away for personal use and at-cost reprinting. If one naively assumed that everyone giving away PDFs of published books was some sort of evil pirate, they'd have been banned from Google for their generosity.

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#26

Post by anthonyb » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 9:29 AM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #24

patio11 wrote: post #21

I'm totally, 100% with you on piracy. Your work should not be stolen. However, if your goal is a business as a full-time technical author, piracy is not your major enemy. Can I strongly suggest looking at the self-published ebook versus traditional published book choice as if you were offered it for the first time today? The first gets you on Amazon, puts you in full control of your marketing, let's you experiment wi…

I agree with you on the general point, but the deal with the publisher can get you quite a bit more than "wee little advances." The publisher lends credibility/gravitas to the enterprise (which may or may not be important, depending upon the type of work), and can (if they choose) bring a large marketing budget (and sophisticated marketing apparatus) to bear on your behalf. I'm not arguing that self-publishing isn't…

Agreed, but you should at least try out the non-traditional route before dismissing it, especially since he's already got a blog and decent search traffic. eg. No, no downloads here - just a 4.95 javascript e-book with a couple chapters for free.

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#27

Post by dexen » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 11:09 AM UTC

esw wrote: post #14

When I find a technical book that I want to buy, the first thing I do is search to see if it's available as a download. I'm happy to pay - I just don't see any need to own a physical book that consists primarily of extremely tangential technical knowledge. I have tons of outdated technical ballast (e.g. "The SQL 2000 Bible", "The IIS 5.0 Pocket Guide") gathering mold in boxes in my basement already.

You've touched on an important issue: some books (or texts, in general) are much related to the current state of art, and won't be very useful in 10 years. Contrast SICP -- pretty much transcendental, every other hacker recognizes those four letters -- with jQuery reference. jQueries of this world come and go.

Now the question is, what is the value added of having a hardcopy of SICP, and what is of having a hardcopy -- or e-copy -- of jQuery?

Another issue is bit rot of e-books. With no common long-lived e-book format (perhaps beyond HTML and PDF), you can't readily expect an e-book to be handy with technology in 10 years. It's a fast changing market, as of now.

So, in the end, what is a realistic price for a short-lived e-book?

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#28

Post by tomjen3 » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 11:10 AM UTC

anthonyu wrote: post #15

Just for independent verification purposes, I tried to find a free copy of this book using his search terms, and didn't come up with anything in a few minutes of clicking after results. It appears that there is a 5th edition of his Javascript book and a 6th edition of another author's HTML book easily reachable from those terms, but no free electronic copy of a 6th edition Javascript book. Google will remove links to…

Not just that, but there seems to be no sixth edition available from anywhere at all, with the possible exception of a torrent that I didn't bother to look closer at.

Why are we talking about this issue at all?

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#29

Post by BitMode32 » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 11:26 AM UTC

Ok here's my take on your situation. First of all I don't see why getting a salaried job would be so bad for you. You're an MIT Grad, that alone will get you a high paying job anywhere in the field. Second you know your stuff and you seem like a pretty smart guy. Sorry about your royalties being cut short and I really do understand the "I have to provide for my family" situation. But here's where I stand, I'm actually glad people pirate ebooks. Let me tell you why. Consider my situation, I'm a CS Student with a part time job and my source of income sure enough is not even half of what you make in royalties. I simply don't have the money to pay for most of the books that are required for my classes. So anytime I find a pirated book on the internet that otherwise would cost $60/$100 I jump up with joy. After all I'm saving my cash. This last statement sounds a little selfish to most, but I believe is not. You have a degree David (From MIT) I've might add and I don't. If resources are available online, that are going to make me a better programmer and give me a chance to better my future from learning these skills I'm sure as heck going to download the book. Plain and Simple. I believe information should be free for those that are striving to achieve something. Lastly If anything that I said offends or ticks you off, I would simply advise you to look at things like this. Maybe your royalties are decreasing but your book is helping this individual secure a better a life for himself. So I would like to Thank you none the less for a wonderfully written book.

Re: David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy

#30

Post by wladimir » Tue, Apr 26, 2011, 11:27 AM UTC

marcusbooster wrote: post #2

He makes a good point. Since Google recently went after the content farms that hurt their search results, it would be nice if they extended that to authors and legitimate content producers.

This is a good point. Why is it still so hard to find legal, DRM free ebooks to buy?

It doesn't make sense that when you search +"title" +ebook you get almost only pirate sites. This is the same problem that used to exist with music. Unless it becomes easier to buy ebooks legally, the "pirates" will win.

This is not really Google's fault only though... Some weeks ago I tried to buy a scifi ebook, but was bounced by Amazon because I'm not from the USA. In other stores I had similar problems.

Authors: at least make sure everyone can buy your ebook legally!