Piracy makes ebooks less desirable to one author
Around the web you’ll find articles and blog posts about ebook piracy. In the age of “going digital” and peer to peer networks, some authors are throwing in the towel and saying “you win” to the pirates.
While some rationalize that pirates are not the type of people who will buy your book, others say that getting a free ebook may be the start of a paying relationship with that author. In other words, they view it as a test drive. The problem is, most car dealerships are willing to give you a test drive, but not let you take the car home for a week.
Is DRM the problem?
Some say that “the harder you make it for someone to buy an easily replicated digital commodity, the more likely they are to share that commodity as a way of making things easier for others.”
Others are so afraid of ebook piracy that they refuse to put their books in an eformat. Most notably, Harry Potter. Within 12 hours of the release, people around the world had already scanned in the pages.
Who does Piracy Affect?
Some one say the writers. But one could make the claim that pirating a copy of Harry Potter is not going to financially hurt JK Rowling or her publisher.
Shiloh Walker says piracy hurts the readers too. She’s also halting all writing in the middle of a series. How sad for her readers!
Share your thoughts
Is DRM the problem?
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It’s kinda sad for Shiloh, too. I love that series.
I had to be realistic. I put far too much time into it, work too hard on it. And in the end, I had to acknowledge it just wasn’t time well spent, not from a business viewpoint. Since my writing is a business, it was a decision I had to make.
I don’t think DRM is the problem for ebooks, or music, for that matter. It is rediculously easy to find programs and hacks to remove DRM.
I don’t like DRM. I have a Sony PRS and a lot of the time a book is cheaper in a non-PRS friendly format for cheaper than the Sony format, so I admit, I remove the DRM and reformat to work for me. BUT, I don’t then send it on to anyone else, either.
I think reading is getting to be an expensive hobby, I was spoiled by getting a bookseller discount for years when I work for Waldenbooks and Barnes & Noble. Now I just can’t buy as many books and therefore am using the library a lot more to supplement.
I wish libraries would do more e-book options and not just for the mainstream titles either. Have any of the ebook publishers, like Ellora’s Cave or Samhain, tried to put together options for libraries to purchase, like Overdrive, Netlibrary etc.? I haven’t heard of any. Maybe this is something that can be done to help. If the option isn’t available to the libraries, they can’t buy it and more libraries are purchasing ebooks for their users (not my library as the people in charge are technophobes, I used to work there so I know).
I guess we’ll have to see.