I would rather see my books get pirated than this • Hacker News Board

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#291

Post by mavhc » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:52 AM UTC

techdragon wrote: post #65

sverhagen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rumor has it that TikTok'ers are doing explainers on how to easily create these for a quick buck, so why wouldn't there be plenty of takers stateside. It being the onslaught it is, murky territory and all, much enforcement seems pretty unlikely anyway, so why not give it a try.

People used to sell this sort of information, it was the classic digital multi level marketing scam without the overarching marketing company. There were ads on YouTube google and Amazon all the time for get my book about how to successfully make money self publishing books on Amazon… people bought it tried to do the harder part of writing stuff then eventually some decided they could crib the book that convinced the…

The author of the article:

In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses (How to Publish Your Book), she is the author of The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#292

Post by ThrustVectoring » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:53 AM UTC

rgoulter wrote: post #259

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to generate the book until after it's sold.

The "don't need to have it to sell it" is how we got "Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies": https://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358 A bot with a good reputation adds a listing at 1.27x the price of a worse-reputation listing. Another bot had a conflicting strategy: selling at 0.99x the price of the next cheapest.

Not talking about the physical book, that's old news. LLMs drive the price and time requirements of "writing" the book down below what one consumer would require. So you could theoretically generate a listing, wait until someone hits it, and then ask the LLM to write a book that hopefully vaguely resembles what you promised.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#293

Post by lathiat » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:53 AM UTC

VincentEvans wrote: post #193

lathiat wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is that Apple specifically requires all digital only purchases to only use in-app payment and must give Apple 30%. You are not allowed to process digital purchases through an app with your own payment system. You also can’t tell people that or link them to the website. This does not apply to physical goods. Which is why all the apps you mentioned are fine. This is the same issue that has been talked about…

Heh, ok. But re-read the above adventure in digital commerce that I have described. Can none of this be made easier if a company gave even a fractional amount of care? Like, for instance - allow searching and requesting a purchase from a child’s Kindle pending an approval action by a parent? That’s just one example I thought of instantaneously - because I used the damn thing. Can none of the, probably thousands, prod…

I agree the Kindle part was silly, and could be much improved. I just wanted to specifically clarify why you started out on the wrong foot with iOS and why the iOS app couldn't even tell you about the option existing elsewhere.

However once you started on a browser, the rest of your story I would agree with.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#294

Post by throwaway290 » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:59 AM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #284

throwaway290 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not prohibiting anything. This is purely Amazon's decision. They make customer's life hell to save money.

Amazon don't want to pay Apple's ransom, Apple has no part in the transaction, has no costs, yet is acting as the Mafia, demanding their cut if you operate on their territory. Giving in to Apple's crimes would be immoral.

Crimes? It's market economy, man. Apple created great phones. Think Apple and its phones are bad? Don't offer your app on them. Oh but everyone uses these phones. So if you're amazon you now offer the app in a half-assed way to capture customers but avoid giving Apple money for further improvement of their phones... Cool beans! Way to take care of your customers.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#295

Post by tsimionescu » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:01 AM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #261

ccvannorman wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do the ends justify the means, matey? Commenter's point was that it's obviously easier to pirate. This is exactly the point; As an author, I'm upset that the system is like it is, I'm not upset at the many people who are undoubtedly going to pirate my work if it's difficult to get, whether it's right or wrong. No Author finishes their work and declares, "Now, let me make this as difficult as possible to purchase."…

>No Author finishes their work and declares, "Now, let me make this as difficult as possible to purchase." It's the PLATFORM. IMO, the logical conclusion here is obvious: copyright should provide the author with the right to money, but not with the right to control actual distribution - we should be legally allowed to send the author $X in the mail and then torrent the thing. This notion that the author should contro…

Copyright doesnt exist only to prevent people from getting your books for free. It's also there to prevent other authors from using your story for their own - for example, this is (part of) what prevents Universal Studios from putting out their own Spider Man movie.

Now, arguably this has even worse consequences on culture than the banning of copying ebooks. Still, it complicates the expected cost of a book significantly, so replacing current copyright with your proposal would require some alternative for this case as well.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#296

Post by mvdwoord » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:04 AM UTC

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #190

zen_1 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cough mobilism.org/libgen.is/irc channels/z-library cough

Do the ends justify the means, matey? Have you considered accessing freely-licensed content instead, and supporting authors who believe in the freedom movement, such as Creative Commons? How would you feel, if you were an author, and people openly advocated piracy, such that you were deprived of sales, and earning an honest living?

You are a lot of fun at parties I guess...

Perhaps authors could explore more consumer friendly ways of distributing their work? You paint a false dichotomy.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#297

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:08 AM UTC

unglaublich wrote: post #272

masklinn wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a wise man once said > piracy is almost always a service issue and not a pricing issue

Service _is_ a pricing issue: pricing is about the valuation of a service. If the price doesn't outweigh the benefits of the service, people will not use the service.

[deleted]

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#298

Post by adhesive_wombat » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:09 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #149

VincentEvans wrote: post #128

Let me tell you how to buy a kindle book for my kid’s Kindle that is connected via a child account in “Amazon Household” to my Amazon account. (This opening sentence already signals how the rest of this will go). A child’s account can’t buy books - you have to do it for them. 1. I open Amazon app on my iphone and find the book - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 2. I open Kindle app on my iphone…

> Delightful experience. compare this with the piracy option: search for torrent or download link, click, wait for download to finish. Upload to device. Read and enjoy.

> Upload to device.

Compared to a WisperNet download, that's actually a bit of a faff. Don't get me wrong, I use a hacked Kobo, but getting the books on the thing requires a computer and either to use a micro-USB cable or faffing about with a fileshare and WebDAV.

Kindle: attach book to Kindle email address, send.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#299

Post by madaxe_again » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:10 AM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #4

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

It would appear that Jeff Bezos has not trademarked his name.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#300

Post by waihtis » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:13 AM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #290

waihtis wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, currently the top LLM fails at repeatedly generating a stable set of pretty simple regexes for me, so where pretty far from a full-blown LLM dystopia at this point.

The question is does the rapid progress in LLMs continue over the next few years, or do we reach another local maximum. Is "currently" going to improve rapidly?

as I understand we're approaching local maximum with LLMs and that is what I base the previous comment on, but fully layman and no insight into deeper layers of LLM R&D