What can we learn from a book pirate?
Book publishers are still struggling to figure out a way to deal with ebook pirates in a way that will not alienate the average ebook reader. The music industry did a very crappy job of this, and they are paying the price.
In general, the publishers believe that ebooks strip sales from print books (of course, print books are more expensive) and that ebooks are so easy to pirate, they need to be loaded with draconian DRM to protect the financial interests of the publishing company and the author.
I think that these publishers are deluding themselves. Ebooks can help drive sales of print books and ebooks, in the end, are more profitable because of the ‘infinite supply’ theory. Furthermore, DRM has done little to stop pirates. DRM only serves to keep honest readers from buying an ebook.
So what goes on in the head of an ebook pirate? Are they rogue readers who refuse to pay for anything and get a rush off reading popular novels for free? Luckily for us, we can get some answers from the blog The Millions. They posted a fascinating article Confessions of a book pirate where they interview a book pirate, who of course stayed anonymous. What he says is fascinating and can shed light on on what ebook piracy is all about.
I picked out some important bits of the interview that I think are quite revealing.
Both print books and ebooks are prone to piracy
When most people think of pirated books, they think of ebooks. But that’s only half the problem. Print books are very prone to being pirated as well. It takes little more than a scanner and some time to properly format the text. Authors who refuse to release their novels as ebooks are frequently ‘victims’ of this type of piracy – which I detailed in the post J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, ebooks and the definition of irony.
According to the book pirate, scanning physical books is very common:
Between 2002-2005 I created around 200 ebooks by scanning the physical copy, OCRing and proofing the output, and uploading them to USENET. I generally only upload content that I have scanned, with some exceptions.
200 ebooks created from scanned copies of print books! That’s a lot. This shows that maybe publishers priorities are skewed in the fight against piracy. If a print book is not readily available as an ebook, then pirates will make it available.
When asked if scanned print books or DRM-broken ebooks are most common, the book pirate said:
Most of what I have seen is scanned physical books.
This shows exactly what I talked about in my post about J.K. Rowling refusing to sell her books in digital format. People want to read Harry Potter as ebooks, but since they aren’t available through her publisher, they turn to pirated copies.
Just how easy is it to scan a print book? Not hard, but time consuming:
The scanning process takes about 1 hour per 100 scans. Mass market paperbacks can be scanned two pages at a time flat on the scanner bed, while large trades and hardcovers usually need to be scanned one page at a time. I’m sure that some of the more hardcore scanners disassemble the book and run it through an automatic feeder or something, but I prefer the manual approach because I’d like to save the book, and don’t want to invest in the tools.
There you have it, someone with a the right equipment and some free time can easily scan a print book and upload it for others.
Even pirates would buy ebooks – at the right price
Since ebooks are still in their infancy, the price point for ebooks is all over the board. Amazon is trying to bring some order to the controversy by pricing most of their books at $9.99. For me, that is a little on the high side. The book pirate agrees:
I do not buy DRM’d ebooks that are priced at more than a few dollars, but would pay up to $10 for a clean file if it was a new release.
Publishers are balking at the $9.99 price, saying it’s stripping sales of print books. Yet, as the book pirate says, no more than a few dollars for a DRM’d ebook, maybe a little more for a new release. And to stop downloading pirated books altogether?
I guess if every book was available in electronic format with no DRM for reasonable prices ($10 max for new/bestseller/omnibus, scaling downwards for popularity and value) it just wouldn’t be worth the time, effort, and risk to find, download, convert and load the book when the same thing could be accomplished with a single click on your Kindle.
Yet publishers want ebooks to be just the opposite: Strict DRM at higher prices. They are encouraging piracy. I have always maintained that piracy itself is not the problem, it is a symptom of the larger problem – not giving consumers what they want.
Downloading pirated ebooks is fast and easy
It’s probably no more difficult to download a pirated ebook than it is to buy one from Amazon or Sony (for example). With the right torrent software and a little practice, downloading a pirated ebook is simple and then one can convert the book to whatever format is needed to fit their device:
Since books are generally very small files, they can be downloaded in minutes. You can then convert the file using one of many applications, for instance Mobipocket Creator, to PRC or another format that works with your reader. You can then plug your Kindle into your computer and copy the file over. The entire process typically takes 5-10 minutes.
It’s almost a no-brainer for consumers to download a pirated ebook that they can’t find through the respective publisher. Or, if the publisher locks the ebook with ridiculous DRM and wants an equally ridiculous high price for the ebook, then consumers have more of a reason to pirate – no DRM and no cost.
In closing, I hope publishers are paying attention to what this particular book pirate is saying. They can learn a lot. I’m guessing most book pirates are like him, they don’t want to screw publishers over and would gladly buy a legal DRM-free copy for the right price.
Sure, their are pirates out their who get a kick out of getting everything for free and simply don’t care. Even if publishers offered a reasonable ebook at a good price, they’d still resort to pirating. But I’m sure they are in the minority.
For the record I have never downloaded a pirated ebook, nor have I uploaded a print book I have scanned. I’m not saying I’m morally superior to anyone. When there’s a book I want to read as an ebook and I either can’t find it through all the ebook stores online, or the price is outrageous (ie $20 + ), I have seriously considered.
Maybe one of these days I’ll do a video post showing just how easy it is to download a pirated book. But I make no promises.
Related Posts
- Will book publishers learn from music and newspaper industries?
- Irony Revisited: Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and the 10 most pirated ebooks of 2009
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, ebooks, and the definition of irony
- 2 authors, 2 very different viewpoints on ebook piracy
- How giving ebooks away for free increases print book sales
Read More: eBooks, Technology, The Interwebs
