Mind you, I’m forced to go through that effort, as the DRM would otherwise lock me to my current Sony eReader. I don’t expect this one to last much longer than the previous one – about two years before the fragile, needlessly glass screen cracked.

With that eReader (BeBook), it was MobiDeDRM for PDB/MOBI/AZW books, rather than Inept for EPUBs.

Besides that (and because) eReaders are a combination of expensive and fragile, I like to take books out of the house on my phone, leaving the delicate e-paper device at home. DRM prevents that, and therefore, must go.

Anyway, I’ll be keeping an archive of my decrypted, converted* eBooks backed up in a various places.

* to EPUB; looks like it’s the most widely supported: 20 of 26 eReaders support it, and almost all new publications are available in EPUB format.

This cannot be overstated. I go out of my way to buy (sometimes multiple copies of) really high-quality releases with *care* taken.

Shoddy crap — cut versions of movies, sound-distorted music albums, etc. — is so common that I have to go to downloads in order to *find* high-quality, uncut copies of classics. Releasing damaged, trashed copies isn’t going to encourage me to buy from the copyright holders.

Even *textbooks* do this. The “later editions” of most textbooks are worse than the first edition. They’re designed to shuffle the chapters and page references around from earlier ones so that students have to buy a new textbook instead of buying last year’s textbook from last year’s students. They’re *trash* and used bookstores are the place to find a good textbook, but of course it’s hard to find enough copies to equip an entire class, so professors use the “new edition”.

Downloading can change that, and I predict that freely-licensed textbooks will take over all scientific fields within 10 years.

If they do nothing and they lose 10,000 sales/copies then they will think “we could have done more”; however if they impose DRM or other methods at IP protection and they still lose 10,000 sales/copies, then they will be able to think “at least we did all we could to try and stop it from happening”.

I think that this is the real motivation, especially for publishers and executives because then they can be “seen” to be doing something other than making money.

You got it. It’s very similar to the “security theater” at the airports — the desire is to *appear* to be doing something. Whether it actually has a positive effect, they don’t really care.

“They’ll blame it on greedy corporations because they don’t understand how the book advance system works just as they don’t understand how record companies front the initial money for music production, distribution, and advertising.”

Sorry. I understand both systems completely. Both systems are dead. Largely because the “initial money” is now irrelevant — music production is done at home; book authors generally get their advances *after* they write large hunks of the book; distribution costs nothing (OK, maybe $1000/yr max) on the Internet.

That leaves advertising. Hire a fucking ad agency.

“They’ll rehash the BS about how they buy more books because they stole your book.”
They didn’t steal anything. You still have your copy of your book, don’t you? Yes, yes you do. Nothing was stolen.

“Too bad it wasn’t your book among those they bought.”
Well, because your book was crap and not worth paying for, perhaps?

“The library metaphor isn’t apt. When you are done with a library-loaned object, you are supposed to return it.”
Whatever. People have been Xeroxing library books since the Xerox was invented.

“My textbook is already pirated on the internet, and I can tell you it has had a significant effect on my projected sales.”
You’re in an especially broken market. Textbooks are vastly overpriced and most students would not buy them unless forced to. If they can avoid buying them, they simply don’t, and that’s always been the case — they borrow the library copy for the term if they have to. If your textbook were (a) any good, and (b) priced reasonably, they would actually buy it.

“My own students bring pirated versions to class.”
Good for them.

“Luckily, I don’t have to live off those sales.”
Nobody lives off textbook sales. Absolutely nobody. In fact, most textbook authors *don’t write textbooks to make money off sales*. You write them because you’re sick and tired of the crap textbooks you have available and you want a better textbook for your class. So in fact this is a case where the authors *do not need to be compensated at all, and will write the books for free*.

Wow. Amazing levels of delusion continue to survive.

Of your entire post, this is the most ridiculous bit:

My textbook is already pirated on the internet, and I can tell you it has had a significant effect on my projected sales. My own students bring pirated versions to class. Luckily, I don’t have to live off those sales.

How dare those dirt-poor college students learn for free by circumventing a highly exploitive industry!

How do they justify the prices they charge for a digital book when the file they send to the printer is digital already and would need very little reformatting to fit an ebook. If they were to include a voucher for a hard copy with a digital download for that 12 to 15 dollar and up in “special editions” price, then I would purchase more.

However publishers have modeled their business plan after the other media whores and will suffer the same fate as them if they are not careful. Until they change their pricing, I will download and convert to my format whatever books I want.

There are plenty of free software tools to convert txt, html, pdf, and many other formats to whatever type is needed. One of the best is Calibre, the dev is very open to suggestions and is quite friendly on his forum.

You know, all the sarcasm and finger-wagging you can muster isn’t going to put more money in my pocket. I’ve got about $5 to $15 a month to spend on media entertainment (books, movies, music, games) for myself. That isn’t going to change no matter how guilty you try to make me feel. Even when my income increases, I’m always going to be seeking the best value for my money. If I can buy one new item or a couple of secondhand items from those categories, and obtain from unauthorized distributors good-enough copies of 100 other things that I’ll never afford, then that’s what I’m going to do. You can consider it theft or a lost sale, but that doesn’t change the fact that I only have a couple hundred dollars of disposable income per year, tops, and that if you didn’t get any of it, then you failed to compete with all the other things that I spent that money on. This is the reality you need to wrap your head around. Consumers do not have infinitely deep pockets, and they have more forms of entertainment competing for their disposable income than ever.

http://www.hoponbaby.com/

If they do nothing and they lose 10,000 sales/copies then they will think “we could have done more”; however if they impose DRM or other methods at IP protection and they still lose 10,000 sales/copies, then they will be able to think “at least we did all we could to try and stop it from happening”.

I think that this is the real motivation, especially for publishers and executives because then they can be “seen” to be doing something other than making money.

Now, back on the post:
Books were created in a way that people could pass knowledge without having to be present.

They evolved, became cheaper. Now they are used to pass stories created by someone, and enjoy the others. PEOPLE that fear getting it pirated is people that didn’t write for the joy of doing it, and that other people reads you, but rather for the MONEY.

There are exceptions, is true. But I think: what matters is that you get enough to live okay and that as much people as possible can read it.

Then, a good book will actually get you at two places at once: you get many people to read it (unless it has a certain public, but yet, can be used for study by teachers and blah blah blah), and will get you MONEY, since people will be willing to pay for it, since it is worth.

It ends up being the same for music, games, applications and anything else. IF it is good quality, even if it is pirated, you’ll get money, and make people happy; just don’t come up with stupid protections or measures.

WHAT A GREAT IDEA about the movie ticket voucher.. first time i have heard that. now THAT is productive anti-piracy thinking.

About rip-off at the movies: I once met a Disney rep. and during our conversation he jumped on me for my (very diplomatic) pro-piracy views. They feel very strong about this.

Ok, so I suggested that he and uncle Walt put a ticket or voucher in every dvd I bought from the shop and in return I would indeed go to see a film in the cinema next time my son would tug at my sleeve in the direction and pay for the adult seat.

Halv win but no double loss for Disney – everybody wins.

All Im saying is give us more value for money, and we’ll consider…

Almost all the people who think reading on a digital device sucks have never actually held or tried to read from an e-ink device. They are just as easy or easier to read from than paper. Battery life on most of them is measured in days and sometimes even weeks. Yes, the price point is still too high for many people but that has also been steadily dropping.

While I don’t think the potential for digital sales on books will ever reach the percent music is at, book publishers could very easily get this right if they wanted. They have a VERY clear roadmap on what will happen if they try to suppress, ignore, or limit the technology.

you sir or madam are exactly the problem…

I am assuming that you are a professor of some sort for a university or college.

You are speaking of your projected sales for your book. But what would be your projected sales if you did not require the book you wrote to be the textbook for the class you teach, and that you are payed to teach?

Lets be semi serious here for just a second please. I dont think i have ever seen a university textbook that costs under 120.00$. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!! for a book. This is payed for by students who have little to no money to eat as it is. And for what? because you try to force them to purchase a book that you wrote. Come on sir, this surprises you?

How on earth is this practice not only unethical (teaching students that the only correct answer to the subject is based on your research) but how is it not even a conflict of interest?

It seems to me that the 700$ per class that my girlfriend pays is WAY more than a fair price to include a textbook.

For the first time in history consumers have the ability to say “hey, this is not ok to constantly give me the bare minimum for my money. it’s not ok to intentionally load an album with “filler” songs on it, to extend the recording life of an artist and make them more profitable.”

The consumer has the power now to force a company to actually provide a quality product, and it scares the crap out of them. and rightfully so imo.

i think the consumers are simply saying, “stop raping me at the register, and ill stop raping u online. $50.00 to take my 2 kids to a movie is INSANE. bring that price back down to earth and charge a reasonable amount and people will be much happier to support your work. It is not each customers job to single handedly finance your children’s college education.

No amount of positive thinking og self-delusion will take away the fact that as long as there is electricity in the world people will download – everything and increasingly so.

Mind you, I absolutelely agree with you: the media industry should make things better for us the consumers and spend hard earned money on bs companies that scare them into buying their junk anti-piracy ‘solutions’.

But for that to happen they need to come to terms with the fact that every day a million or so customers leave their shop without paying for the stack of dvd’s they are carrying. Not only should the industry come to terms with this, they even have to liuke it!

You can’t stop piracy, you can’t even minimize it, but if you inspire one or two pirates now and then to actually go and buy for an item one day, then you will have done the best anyone can hope for.

I myself have been riding the torrents and sponging the net for anything digital for years and paid only my internet provider for that. Until recently, that is – when I went and bought the movie a CD in a shop. ‘Some People have real Problem’ by Sia Furler, an aussie singer. The CD is pure gold and I would never have come across it if it was’nt for the net and never bought it if not for the initial piracy I comitted.

That kind, I am afraid, is the only good deal the industry will ever get from piracy. But if they started using that fact to their own end, the end will inevitably be very good for them.

It will happen as it happened in the music industry. Big guys donot see little ones or are too arrogant to see them.

It is an eternal law of human nature. A better one will come and beat you down. Itunes killed HMV. Google is defeating Microsoft (who will have thought so 5 years ago)as themselves badly hurt IBM. and etc…

I won’t be surprised if this website sunbookr.com with its new business model kills Amazon.

Btw, there is a (limited) digital edition of the Beatles remasters, as an USB apple, with all the remasters in 320 kpbs mp3s and also and above all, in 24 bit flacs, all WITHOUT ANY DRM…

“The focus should be on offering an outstanding product and user experience. Give consumers what they want, for a decent price”

Piracy is a direct consequence of corruption in the media industry. The industry has been focusing more on money, than on making affordable quality products that is available to the general public.

The industry must realize, that they cannot ignore the fact that everything digital can be pirated.

This is NOT about piracy, this is about an industry that makes their OWN rules. They consider customers to be nothing more than “Consumer Units”.

Dear Industry..
Change your attitude and respect towards consumers, there is more to a successful business than just making money !!

chris

What on earth are you talking about you idiot?

TPB is offline everywhere atm…

They’ll be back, they always come back..LoL

iTablet.

Lets see what happens when that hits the fanbois.

Err no. You’ve done that yourself with your “top 10″ download lists with figures in the millions…..Its not exactly going to do anything to counter the argument. Kind of shooting yourself in the foot.