Hachette’s anti-piracy memo: On target
You can’t have it both ways.
If you dislike traditional DRM as much as I do, then you need to be open to other anti-piracy strategies.
Among them is to monitor file-sharing sites a well as encourage them to be more vigilant—through the use of word-search software, for example.
One of the publishers taking an aggressive stance against piracy is Hachette, publisher of such bestsellers as David Baldacci.
I deplore Hachette’s fixation on DRM (more of a penalty on legit users than on pirates, who can strip off “protection” or scan in paper books). But the company is right on the money with an initiative to encourage authors and others to report piracy. An excerpt:
HBG is firmly committed to combating this type of blatant online piracy, and our Legal Department reviews those sites on a periodic basis for unlawful copies of a sampling of HBG titles. The Legal Department sends various document sharing sites, including Scribd and Wattpad, numerous copyright infringement take-down notices each month. In addition to the checks being made by our legal department and our editors, we hope that authors and agents will check frequently for infringements and report them to us. The most efficient method of reporting piracy is to complete the Online Piracy Report Form attached and email it to HBG’s Legal Department at piracy@hbgusa.com. We will then pursue the take-down process. If an author or agent is unable to complete the form for any reason, they should notify their editor.
To an extent, some of the piracy is happening out of ignorance. The use of social DRM—embedding the names of purchasers in books—would be one way to remind readers that the material is copyrighted.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Actually, I’ve never believed “ignorance” is the reason for most piracy… or even much of it. Anyone who’s old enough to know what money is for, knows these books are supposed to be paid for, a fact which they are defeating by putting them online for others… period.
Because of this, social DRM has little power. There are those who revel in revealing themselves to be the source of piracy, and can often conceal their identity easily enough anyway (”This book is the property of LONG JOHN HACKER ARR!”). Finally, if someone who downloads a book is likely to read a social DRM message, they are just as likely to read a prominently-placed copyright notice…
May 25th, 2009 at 9:37 am
The funny thing about this is that the email itself seems to be pirated. The original email contains this sentance (which is why I didn’t post it):
This may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, delete immediately, and understand that no disclosure or reliance on the information herein is permitted. Hachette Book Group, Inc. may monitor email to and from our network.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:45 am
DRM punishes the legitimate buyer whose purchase becomes confined to one device or to a compute-mobile device pairing. Unlike a printed book, it cannot be shared with a family member or a friend. It is not truly owned. A printed book can be borrowed from a library. A printed book can be sold privately or in a used book store. Therefore, an author or publisher doesn’t receive payment from every person reading a printed book. An e-book with DRM, well …
You’ve heard it all before. I reiterate because it is the essence of the issue. I buy ebooks. When they have DRM I feel that I am being ripped off. I cannot even share a good ebook to my wife. Publishers, fix that problem and maybe piracy will diminish.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I wish people would stop using the term “social DRM” for a practice that isn’t social. Social would mean that the practice emerges among readers or consumers rather than being imposed on them. Call it something like “non-obstructive DRM,” “toothless DRM” or “DRM lite” but don’t call it social. It’s insulting (once again) to the readers of books, upon whom all of these practices ultimately depend.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I agree with Bill Davidson above. I’d also add that piracy itself is not the problem, rather, it’s only a symptom of the problem. The problem is DRM, which unfairly punishes legitimate ebook consumers.
While Hatchette certainly has the right to go after pirates, they can save themselves a lot of time, money and aggravation by making their ebooks as widely available as possible, sans the DRM. Then pirates would have no motivation to do what they do, because the books are already out there and widely available.
The second part of the equation is pricing, but that’s a different post for a different time.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Although I very much respect the copyright issue, as others here point out – with an ebook, I cannot even share it with other members of my household or best friends. I let my son/daughter, my best friends, my co-workers, read my DTB (dead-tree book/paper) versions all the time. I cannot do this with my ebooks, and that is quite a loss. The music industry has not tanked from the more widespread availablity of non-DRM’d mp3 files; the publishing industry needs to catch up.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Is this publisher using traditional DRM? …
Do they still have a problem with ebook piracy? …
How strange! …
Why use the DRM?
Scribd and Wattpad are not the real problem. They play relatively nice: when they learn about the copyrighted material, they remove it.
What is the real problem for publishers? … The sites that ignore the takedown messages. I won’t mention names, but one of the most prominent of these sites is from the same country that gave us Bergman films, and spicy meatballs.
And here’s another problem for publishers —
Publishers must be asking themselves:
“How can we assure our authors that the books and ebooks published with us are “safe” from piracy?”
We need innovative answers to these questions; not DRM and take-down threats. Which always remind me of one of my grandfather’s sayings: “After the horse has escaped, the fool shuts the stable.”
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
May 25th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Simple answer: They can’t.
This is a clear indication that publishers are thinking about their jobs the wrong way. They should be asking themselves: “How can we provide such a value to our authors that the expected amount of piracy we know we’ll experience won’t be an issue?”
Of course, I also believe customers are thinking about the problem the wrong way, when they complain that DRM doesn’t let them do things they can do with a printed book. An e-book isn’t a printed book. The sooner we all understand that, the sooner we can move on to developing e-books, and an e-book market, the way it should be developed.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
If there is a proven way to protect ebooks from piracy, I invite someone to teach me. … I will be the first to applaud any successful anti-piracy prevention technique.
Steve summarizes the situation perfectly:
It’s better to focus one’s publishing energies on the positive side of things.
What I am planing to do in the future is to create a web page for ebook pirates. Called “The Bluebeard Inn,” it would take all the challenge — and all the fun — out of pirating ebooks.
The sign on the wooden door would say something like:
I’d rather do that and laugh at the situation, than lose time and sleep raving about the plague of digital barbarism and the divine right of copyright holders.
Another one of my grandfather’s favorite sayings advises:
“When a mad dog runs at you, welcome him!”
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
May 25th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
And as Cory Doctorow says “My problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity”. All his books are available in multiple ebook formats for free from http://www.craphound.com.
B
May 25th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
There’s no particular challenge or fun involved, Michael. Whereas groups compete to release movies, with books it’s a matter of ̏I like it, others probably will, so I’ll upload it.̋ Simple sharing, with no names attached for gloryhounds, as with movies and other releases.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Good point, Dhamu. There is something optimistic in what you’ve reported. Somebody liked the original (e)book well enough to want to share it. Authors who are victims of e-piracy should remember to be grateful as well as outraged.
Now suppose instead of giving the ebook away, the ebook was sold by the pirate for a low price. (Or the pirate might simply place an afiliate link — skull and crossbones banner — onto his/her web page). The author would receive most of that income, and the “pirate” would receive a small percentage of each sale.
Is there a way to re-invent the ebook pirate into an ebook distributor? … To transform our Long John Silvers into Robin Hoods?
And suppose we sweetened the deal by sending some of the author’s/publisher’s money to a charity, mutually agreed on by the author and the ebook pirate?
Of course, authors and publishers can’t compromise too much … But I’m wondering — since everyone involved (publishers and pirates) has a common interest in books and reading — if there might be some strange ways to build bridges here.
And I wonder what might have happened in the Pirate Bay case, if the Swedish government would have started a dialogue with the pirates. Try to understand why they are doing what they do … The law suit seems to have been ineffective. The Pirate Bay owners said that they will burn their money rather than pay the fine; and even if the PB owners go to jail, Pirate Bay itself — and all the file sharing — will carry on.
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
May 25th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Piracy is a problem. Maybe not for Cory, but it is for those of us who try to make a living in the eBook world rather than the paper world where Cory lives.
DRM is also a problem. But I absolutely believe that waving our hands and saying DRM is the problem, rather than a fatally flawed attempt at a solution, is burying our heads in the sand (to mix a metaphor). DRM imposes costs. On the other hand, those who believe they have a moral right to freely share unlimited copies of books with their friends and families should feel at least partially responsible when publishers impose DRM.
BooksForABuck.com does not use DRM. However, that doesn’t mean our authors prefer to have their books freely shared without payment (or paid for once and shared forever). None of my authors are getting rich. Neither am I. I believe in setting low prices and asking readers to buy their own copies.
Rob Preece
Publisher
May 26th, 2009 at 3:12 am
Hi Rob,
I agree that DRM is not the solution, but I don’t think that there is an evil conspiracy to defraud authors either. While there is perhaps money to be made in film or software piracy I truly believe that the majority of “book pirates” are just eager to read their favourite books on the go and when there is no alternative, they download a dodgy scan of a book and laboriously go through, editing to correct OCR typos, space problems, etc. with no aim but to better improve their reading. There is also a lack of education on the topic. Five years ago, people thought it was okay to use an image from the web for their project – “it’s there for free”.
With Cory Doctorow, I have read all his work but only actually bought his current book Little Brother in DTE. I didn’t know he was an author of fiction before I found his site, and while I like his journalistic writing, wouldn’t have bought a book of his on spec without seeing if his writing worked in a longer form first.
PS. Now I know about your site too, I’m going to buy a book on there that caught my eye, but permit me to make a couple of suggestions please? First is to provide books as plain text or RTF too, the second is not to mix SF with fantasy.
Ben Vost
keen eBook reader
May 26th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
It is really simple to make sure no-one copies your work.
Don’t make it public. Go away. Leave us alone.
etc.
No-one will give you any money, but it will save you all the stress over this issue!