"As to hanging, it is no great hardship...": Internet Piracy, and Who It Hurts.

If other people can access the file, how could it even be grey?

The problem I have with the "same as a physical copy" argument isn't with the reader, but with the people who are putting it up to be downloaded.

If you've already got a copy of the book, you've paid your money, great. Digital, physical, it's the same thing. The book is not the collection of pages, but the story within it.

But the book shouldn't be available for you to download in the first place.

Are you as a reader doing anything wrong? On the whole right/wrong scale I'm a little fuzzy at the best of times, but think of this.

You are downloading a book that shouldn't be out there, which shows the people who put it there that there's a demand.

Yes, if one person stops downloading it won't stop the tide. But just as that demand builds on a person by person basis, so does reducing that demand. If you stop downloading, sure, other people won't. But there will be one less person doing that.

But it's got to start somewhere.

Ah, okay. I hear 'torrent' and think 'other people can access'.

That would definitely be ideal - I love the way the new Vorkosigan book came out, but I'm sure they don't feel they can do that with every author.

This completely works for me (although these days, I admit I will happily pay top dollar to the publisher for pure virtual copies just so I don't have to _store_ the physical book. The key word here, however, is pay).

I am waiting for the day I can pay a few dollars more and get a physical book and a electronic book at the same time. I am being good, and either buying the physical book or the electronic book, and trying to be content with the choice I made either way - but it's hard. I don't download books, though I do haunt the Amazon Kindle list for freebies - but that has lead to me picking up new series.

I wish, wish, wish I could lend the electronic books, even if it's only half a book. The first chapter isn't enough to get my friends hooked, and I find when lend out books I can make book chains of being lending and buying and lending and buying (the Dresden series got out to 12 links before I lost track, with many of those links actually being hubs).

I want the ease of electronic, but find I am buying books I know I want to take off in paperback, so I can lend, and hope they catch on.

To be clear, I do try to buy in paperbook the books I think I am going to want to lend - all of yours are paperback, most new authors or new series, the first book in paperbook. Am getting annoyed at my shelves because of this - the urge to complete the set is still there, and I already spend too much books.

Blessedly, at least in the world indie-produced knitting pattern books, hardcopy+e-file is starting to become the norm. It's less about reading on a device, of course, and more about being able to print out a copy, carry it in your bag, and scribble notes, without ruining the book. Which isn't much help to Our Hostess, of course, but there are levels of publishing that Get It.

I am happy to see someone feel this way. I have said over and over I would happily buy a Kindle if I also got a Kindle edition included of any book I purchased.

Not in my opinion.

Sorta I like I download TV shows sometimes. They are all either:

a) shows that I download on the "watch and delete" theory, and eventually buy when they are legally released on DVD

or

b) shows that are woefully off the air and not available on DVD

There is a third category of "shows I download so I can watch them without worrying about Livejournal spoilers because they air at different rates in different countries e.g. Doctor Who, Eureka, Torchwood and I do not live in the UK or USA", but these usually end up eventually falling into category a).

Both categories may be morally questionable, but I feel no guilt because in case a) I am buying the media once it's available anyways, and in case b) I would if they only bothered making it available.

I actually don't think I was aware that books were pirated to the same extent as movies and music, but I suppose it's unsurprising, really.

Yes. I have a "shows I would pay for right now but will acquire the DVD box of later" category, because waiting for two years and then watching the (painful) dubbed German version, or waiting for months for the box set ... = :-(. I do buy the box sets though, once they're available as Region 2 DVDs, so I kind of figure I am just de-synchronizing ownership and watching the show. But still, very shady area, I know... .

The economics of television and the economics of books have nothing to do with each other, which is one of the reasons I get frustrated with discussions of internet piracy as this great big unified thing.

Authors make money only from sales of books. Your downloading a copy of the book to try or buy is directly hurtful to them. Seanan is not JK Rowling, she actually needs that fifty cents from each copy, as do 99.99999999999% of all other published authors. (Incidentally I also think people who torrent filk albums have a place in a really dark circle of hell, because the people who make those CDs have put up their own money and are getting paid BACK.)

Television shows are already paid for by advertisers and cable subscriptions. Everyone involved has already been paid by the time they go on the air, and downloading copies because the BBC hasn't figured out that there's no real benefit to making people in other countries wait, or because the show comes on at 10 pm and you have to be at work at 5 am, does not mean that people will not get paid for the work they've already done. I pay for a cable subscription. Most of the TV shows I torrent are either from other countries or have already been paid for by my cable subscription.

Going to iTunes, assuming I was willing to let them install their virusware on my computer (yes, they make you install their software to download files that will run just fine on other software, which is one of many reasons I don't buy anything from iTunes), would be paying for it TWICE. (Also, I resent it when people put rootkits, spyware and other DRM-related crap in video or audio files, so that you have to buy it again when formats change or your machine dies--because a computer of mine was nearly bricked by a Japanese audio CD from Sony.)

Now, if you don't buy the DVD, then they won't get that money, but sometimes there isn't a DVD to buy--I generally delete all the torrents of shows I like once the DVD comes out (although I really do not know if I can bring myself to pay any more money for Supernatural S5).

I really badly want a DVD of "Be Good Johnny Weir" and I am still waiting, and nobody has put up a copy of the final episode either, so I will have those torrents forever. Along with a lot of goofy old TV shows that are impossible to find. :(

So, there's your economics lesson for the day.

I completely agree with you on filk (or even independent artist) torrenting. I've met some of the people personally, or watched their blogs/newsletters/whatever and realized a long time ago that a in a small niche market, people don't make a whole lot of profit, if any. It's really a labor of love, in those cases.

My boyfriend suggested that I torrent the filk albums I want to buy eventually--I'm not sure he actually understood why I refuse to do that. I mean, I have a long list, but can afford maybe one or two CD's a year, if I take the money out of what I would otherwise spend on books.

(On the flip side, I have no idea how to torrent anything, and no real wish to learn.)

Yeah, independent artists, too :)

Basically I think that it matters whether or not you're preventing people from getting paid for their work. Movies and music are often a grey area between books where you definitely are preventing people from getting paid, and TV where you definitely aren't, and with music I really do think a lot of it depends on the label.

Although I wish more independent artists would use something other than iTunes. One of the most significant contributing factors to piracy of music and other media is the fact that many online distributors, whether or not they use DRM, make you download their software and put it on your computer whether or not you need it, and there just can be no good reason for that. I used to buy music from Amazon.com, but that stopped when they started making people use their downloader--I tried to download a soundtrack for 3 hours without success, and then torrented the thing in 15 minutes. I wanted to pay for it.

There's a lot of music I just don't have because the options are iTunes or steal it or find someone who is selling the CD in small batches.

Your downloading a copy of the book to try or buy is directly hurtful to them. Seanan is not JK Rowling, she actually needs that fifty cents from each copy, as do 99.99999999999% of all other published authors.

Whoa - back off, sunshine. I never said I was downloading books to "Try or buy". In fact, I never said I was downloading books at all. I said that I supposed it was unsurprising that books are pirated as voraciously as other media, even though I wouldn't have thought about it because - as someone who is neither an author nor someone who downloads books - I was blithely unaware that anyone would bother.

You seem to be agreeing with my take on while TV shows are sometimes downloadable - even if it's a grey area - so I don't quite know why you were replying to me to teach me all about my supposed wrongs, but thanks for making what was already turning into a crappy day even crappier. I appreciate it.

I'm sorry--wasn't my intention.

The way I read it I thought you were applying try and buy logic to books.
If that's not the case, seriously, sorry, there's a lot of crap days going round.

Practically speaking, the real problem with "try or buy" is that people don't buy. If people who torrented books (and music, et cetera) always went on to only read the first third of the book (and only played the song once, and so on) and immediately deleted their pirated copy and/or went out and purchased a legal copy, it wouldn't be a problem.