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This is a surprise?

by Scot Standke
18 replies
Seems digital piracy has hit the "real" book world pretty hard.

Digital piracy hits the e-book industry - CNN.com

If they only knew how long this has been going on, especially in the IM arena LOL

Interesting to see a major book sell more copies digitally than in hard cover too.

Scot
#surprise
  • Profile picture of the author joe.marsh
    That was interesting..

    The stats caught my attention.

    Thanks
    Joe
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  • Profile picture of the author summer07
    And its the 'usual suspects' -- same 2 websites that are allowing pirated downloads -- how do they avoid getting shut down? I wonder if they'll draw more fire now that they have offended a big player like Amazon?
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    • Profile picture of the author Bryan Zimmerman
      Originally Posted by summer07 View Post

      And its the 'usual suspects' -- same 2 websites that are allowing pirated downloads -- how do they avoid getting shut down? I wonder if they'll draw more fire now that they have offended a big player like Amazon?

      That's a really good question! How is it that the same two sites can continue to freely just give out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products (at least that's what it would add up to) and not get shut down. I know there has had to of been a ton more complaints than the ones I know of.
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    • Profile picture of the author Scot Standke
      Originally Posted by summer07 View Post

      And its the 'usual suspects' -- same 2 websites that are allowing pirated downloads -- how do they avoid getting shut down? I wonder if they'll draw more fire now that they have offended a big player like Amazon?
      I could be totally off base here but I'd guess they are based somewhere outside the US where they are harder to reach.

      Scot
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  • Profile picture of the author Lou Diamond
    Hello,
    the way things are compressed these days and as cell phones have more features,
    digital piracy will continue to be up.

    Last week there were many articles in the news about Paramount,
    Paramount pirated - NYPOST.com

    there was over 20 million downloads of Star Trek alone.
    Lou
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  • Profile picture of the author AmyBrown
    Not defending piracy at all (I paid for that book on the Kindle and in hardback!) but it's important to realize that the number of downloads don't directly translate to lost sales. I wonder how many of those who downloaded it actually read it. My experience is that a large portion of the warez/pirate community collect products but don't actually use them. There's literally not enough time in the day to watch and read the material they download.
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    • Profile picture of the author steve995
      Originally Posted by AmyBrown View Post

      Not defending piracy at all (I paid for that book on the Kindle and in hardback!) but it's important to realize that the number of downloads don't directly translate to lost sales. I wonder how many of those who downloaded it actually read it. My experience is that a large portion of the warez/pirate community collect products but don't actually use them. There's literally not enough time in the day to watch and read the material they download.
      Amy,

      I suspect that you are right - it seems that many cybercrooks are collectors rather than users - but it kind of misses the point. The fact is, theft is theft, whichever way you look at it because it is the taking that constitutes the crime and what happens after that is pretty irrelevant.

      It's a bit like me breaking into your house to steal your TV. My guilt is not mitigated if I never get around to watching it...

      But like I said, i do think you have a valid point

      Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author AmyBrown
        Originally Posted by steve995 View Post

        Amy,

        I suspect that you are right - it seems that many cybercrooks are collectors rather than users - but it kind of misses the point. The fact is, theft is theft, whichever way you look at it because it is the taking that constitutes the crime and what happens after that is pretty irrelevant.

        It's a bit like me breaking into your house to steal your TV. My guilt is not mitigated if I never get around to watching it...

        But like I said, i do think you have a valid point

        Steve
        I agree that the crime is committed with each and every download. My only point is that many people assume that each download equals a lost sale and fortunately that's not true.
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      • Profile picture of the author xiaophil
        Originally Posted by steve995 View Post

        It's a bit like me breaking into your house to steal your TV. My guilt is not mitigated if I never get around to watching it...
        Steve,

        It's nothing like that. It's more like someone filming a movie on your TV through a window. There was no breaking and entering and nothing was stolen.

        EDIT: Yes, it's still a crime: copyright infringement, but not theft.

        I really like books, and personally spent over £10k on them while I was in the UK (technical books in the UK are very expensive - easily £50+ each). I've also had an ebook reader for years and it's a very poor substitute for holding the real thing.

        I think Amy has a point. It can take me up to a year sometimes to digest a single tome. How many books does the average person really read?

        Phil
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by AmyBrown View Post

      Not defending piracy at all (I paid for that book on the Kindle and in hardback!) but it's important to realize that the number of downloads don't directly translate to lost sales. I wonder how many of those who downloaded it actually read it. My experience is that a large portion of the warez/pirate community collect products but don't actually use them. There's literally not enough time in the day to watch and read the material they download.
      Actually, they steal them and then resell the ebook at a price cheaper than you do and use Black Hat techniques to rank higher in the search engines than you do. Some of them just "share" them for rep points and status, but many sell them.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnnnson
    I understand that can be hard to see they work been stolen but "hey!", piracy is one of those things that will never finish. So i think they will be making more money if they try to use piracy in their advantage. For example: when Nine Inch Nails come to Portugal, Trent Reznor (Lead Singer) put a pen with the new album on the bathroom. Some people may think this is stupid but to be honest nowadays its great way of marketing. I don't know but this is just my point of view.

    And maybe its time to drop the prices of the products, books, movies, music, because if somebody real like a movie they will probably gonna buy it if they have a good price.

    Note: soz about my english.
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  • Profile picture of the author viscomica3
    not reallyyyy............
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  • Profile picture of the author Truffle
    I'm not for pirates (although their eyepatches and wooden legs do look cool, and so do their awesome clothes lol) but it's something that will always happen.

    songs and movies have been pirated for years, ebooks too (it's only now that the general "public" is catching on)

    But think about it like this, if someone would go through the trouble of spending a few hours (or longer) trying to find your ebook, download and share it (then it must have value in their eyes)

    Also you have to realize that a lot of these "pirates" are all like "AAAARRRR! a new download!" they download and then the excitement wanes off... on to the next download!

    It's pretty much like a lot of people when buying books (or ebooks for that matter) they buy it and are like "yay now my worries will be gone!!!" but a lot of them never reach past chapter 1 let alone chapter 2

    So nothing really happens with them (oh and it's a good thing that ebooks don't reallly "cost" anything to distribute, so you're not "out of money"

    And a lot of these eye-patch wearing, rum-lovers are freebie seekers, so they weren't going to purchase your product anyway, so no sales lost (mostly that is)

    just my thoughts on it,

    have a nice day,
    joeri bickx
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    • Profile picture of the author Victor Edson
      Originally Posted by Joeri Bickx View Post

      And a lot of these eye-patch wearing, rum-lovers are freebie seekers, so they weren't going to purchase your product anyway, so no sales lost (mostly that is)

      Lets assume that everyone pirating is just a teenager who would have never really bought that book anyway.

      Or we could be realistic, and notice that a lot of people are now just going to a torrent site and downloading whatever they WERE going to buy, simply because it's there for free.

      Why spend $50 on a game/book/software or anything else when you can get it for free? That doesn't mean that if you couldn't get it for free, you wouldn't buy it.

      Pirating is definitely a huge $ loss for the sellers of digital products, and I've often wondered why the sites allowing illegal downloads simply aren't shut down.

      We have an Internet Czar now, what's he doing about it? Probably nothing, like most government officials, but that's another story..
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      • Profile picture of the author Truffle
        Originally Posted by Victor Edson View Post

        I've often wondered why the sites allowing illegal downloads simply aren't shut down.
        Well, a lot of torrent sites (or sites that contain illegal downloads) have a TOS which states that you can't upload stuff that you don't have the rights to. And a lot of the other sites which don't have this in their terms of service are hosted in countries where the rest of the world can't say anything about it.

        If I'm not mistaken I thought russia is a country where for example the us can't "shut a site down" and even if they asked or demanded to, it probably wouldn't happen

        I could be wrong about this, since I'm not "up-to-date" on the whole online-piracy and rules about taking websites down and stuff.

        I do remember a pirate saying :
        There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.
        I guess a lot of modern pirates have heard this and are starting to catch on

        anyhow, I don't think it's really possible to "get them all" or anything and as long as there is a sea, there will be pirates and you can surf on the seas and on the web... so lol
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        • Profile picture of the author css
          Ironically, "Treasure Island" is in the public domain. As well as "Moby Dick" and many others.
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  • Profile picture of the author butters
    They easily get away with this because their servers are in a place like iraq or somewhere like that. To answer your original question, is it a surprise? No it's just piracy, it's here today and will be here in the future. The people who create games, movies etc... account for the amount of money lost through piracy. Its like them big IM launches, they say that 40% of people will refund the product but they still turn huge profits. I am obviously not condoning it.

    Some companies bring it on themselves to, take adobe, you have pay like £1000 to get it, what student in there right mind would pay that?
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  • Profile picture of the author sandra.IMqueen
    well, piracy is going to increase. There is no doubt about that. But it was interesting to see digital version sold more . Next time , they got to create videos of ebook and put it in membership area using dlguard lol
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