Kindle exclusive: Terry Goodkind’s first novel, Wizard’s First rule
eBabel, worsened by proprietary DRM formats, is poison for the e-book business. But could exclusive e-deals with Amazon or Sony or others be be another deadly form of Balkanization?
Via a RosettaBooks exclusive for the Kindle, Terry Good will allow publication of an E edition of his first novel, Wizard’s First Rule.
Related: Chelsea Green and the great big mistake, from Booksquare. Other bookstores didn’t cotton too well to Chelsea Green’s exclusive with Amazon on a p-book about Barack Obama.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Yes, deadly. Let us not forget, the Kindle is thus far only available in the USA…
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
It’s a good book. I’d buy it if I could get it in ePub.
OK, so actually I don’t even own the paperback (yet), I borrowed it from a friend. (GASP, how dare I! If I’d done that with a friend’s eBook I’d be in trouble!)
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
“Terry Good will allow publication of an E edition of his first novel, Wizard’s First Rule.”
Riiight…like all of Goodkind’s novels aren’t already available in every e-format already on every warez site/usenet fantasy e-book group.
All Goodkind and his publisher are doing is guaranteeing they’ll never get paid by his fans who want to buy e versions of his books (and here, all we’re really getting is an extended rental on the Kindle).
I’ve heard of publish or perish in academia, but why do publishers keep forcing this ‘pirate or perish’ mentality on those of us who gladly pay to buy Baen books and would gladly pay to buy Goodkind and other author’s books?
August 25th, 2008 at 12:43 am
There is no forcing of this “pirate or perish” mentality at all.
It is a conscious decision made by individuals to steal. And that is what pirating and the use of pirated goods is. It is stealing, plain and simple.
If you want the goods, you pay for it.
If you want the goods for free, you steal.
If you can’t get the goods in the format you want, then I guess you need to either accept the format it comes in, or not get the goods.
But make no mistake, if you pirate or use pirated goods, you are stealing. It is not the manufacturers fault. They aren’t forcing anything.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
It’s kind of interesting from a sociological point of view. The fact that the Internet has made access to information so easy has given a lot of people an almost subconscious feeling of entitlement—if any information can be obtained so easily, it all should. That is the true meaning of the oft-misused aphorism “information wants to be free.” Not “free as in beer,” since most people would be perfectly happy to pay for the e-books they want, but free to be obtained.
If people want particular information (if we look at a given title in e-book form as “information,” which it technically is), and it would be easy to get if not for the decision of the publisher not to make it available, then they feel “entitled” to go out and get it by whatever means they can.
(You could even make a case for it not even being all that morally wrong if they already bought a printed copy. Per the judgment in RIAA vs Diamond, consumers have the right to “space shift” their media, so they would be legally entitled to have an e-book version if they scanned and OCR’d it themselves. Downloading an illicit e-book has the same outcome and just saves them that work. Of course, as Michael Robertson found out when his CD-scanning music streaming service got shut down, the law doesn’t quite see it that way.)
It’s also interesting to see the differing terminology used by both sides of the argument. One side claims they are being “forced” to download. The other side claims that is “stealing.” Neither term is technically accurate.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Stephen Healy wrote:
Couldn’t disagree more. It is the manufacturers fault, and pirating works that aren’t available electronically is not stealing (in a moral sense — I concede the point that our ridiculous copyright laws make such actions punishable by courts).
Chris Meadows wrote:
Nice analysis. But also, Chris, there are times when not only is there no electronic version but the physical book is itself long out of print (so-called orphan works).
August 25th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Brian: So there are. But those fall somewhat outside the context of the discussion of Terry Goodkind’s book, which most definitely is not orphaned.
(I do have to note, though, that I have never encountered a “pirated” work that’s been orphaned; all the works old enough to possibly be orphaned have been popular enough that their copyright was not in doubt—otherwise, not enough people would have wanted them for it to be worthwhile to scan and “pirate” them.)
August 26th, 2008 at 12:44 am
[quote=Brian Carnell]Couldn’t disagree more. It is the manufacturers fault, and pirating works that aren’t available electronically is not stealing (in a moral sense — I concede the point that our ridiculous copyright laws make such actions punishable by courts).[/quote]
And I couldn’t disagree more. The manufacturer can not ever be blamed for people stealing their goods. To think that is to lay the mantle of responsibility always at someone elses door.
You as an individual are responsible for your own actions. Plain and simple. If you choose to use goods that you have not paid for but should have - you have stolen those goods.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Chris wrote:
“(I do have to note, though, that I have never encountered a “pirated” work that’s been orphaned; all the works old enough to possibly be orphaned have been popular enough that their copyright was not in doubt—otherwise, not enough people would have wanted them for it to be worthwhile to scan and “pirate” them.)”
You seem to be claiming that there are no orphaned works that are of any value. That’s not really what you meant, is it? And something could be orphaned and have a relatively recent copyright date. You are aware of what I mean by orphan works, right?
As for Stephen,
“You as an individual are responsible for your own actions. Plain and simple. If you choose to use goods that you have not paid for but should have - you have stolen those goods.”
So, would you say the 19th century American publishers who legally published editions of Dickens that they hadn’t bothered to pay Dickns for were thieves?
Frankly, the last century and a half or so of copyright law appears to be nothing more than a method of rent seeking. Whether or not it would be legal for me to pirate a given work at any period in American history turns not on some principle about property and theft, but rather what happened to be in the interests of the content industry (for lack of a better term) at the time. As such, it’s a bit hard to get worked up over potential violations of said laws.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I said “if you choose to use goods that you have not paid for BUT SHOULD HAVE - you have stolen those goods.”
Perhaps I should be clearer.
If something is for sale, and is copyrighted, and you get access to those goods without paying for it, either through piracey or straight out theft, then you’re stealing from the person who owns the goods.
If you go out and find a copy of Wizards First Rule online and you download it without paying for it, knowing full well that it is pirated, then you’ve committed an immoral act.
There maybe a contradiction in your statement about 19th century publishers.
If they’re legally publishing editions of Dickens works then they can’t be considered theives. Theft is an illegal act so they can’t very well be legally publishing something if they’re theives.
The question is whether they’re publishing editions of Dickens works legally or illegally.
My original statement that it is not and can never be the manufacturers fault stands. You are responsible for your own actions.
You walk into a store, and pay for the goods within that store. If you walk into a store, grab items off the shelf and run out the door without paying for them, then you’re a theif and have committed an immoral act.
Ethically there is no difference between that, and downloading pirated movies, music, books. It may be easier to do one over the other, but ethically it is the same result.