Techdirt. Stories filed under "authors"

Authors Guild Shuts Itself Off From Public Criticism, As People Realize It Represents Publishers, Not Authors

Mike Masnick — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:03:00 PDT

We've written numerous times about Scott Turow during his time as head of the Author's Guild, and the amazing thing to me is that despite the fact he's been getting blistering criticism from a variety of people -- including tons of authors -- he never, ever seems to even acknowledge the points of his critics, but continues to just say the same debunked crap over and over again. Last week, for example, we did a point-by-point debunking of his error-laden, factually inaccurate and totally misleading op-ed in which he argued that pretty much everything on the internet was harming authors. I was gratified to see our debunking picked up widely -- with many of the tweets in support of our response coming from authors (including a few best selling authors). It made me wonder what sort of organization Turow is running.

Best selling author Barry Eisler penned an interesting response to Turow on JA Konrath's blog, in which he pointed out that Turow's position has consistently been in favor of "Legacy Publishing," (i.e., the big five publishers in NY) rather than authors. A similar reply from author David Gaughran pointed out that Turow seems to be so focused on propping up the legacy publishers that he directly called for an antitrust investigation into price-fixing by those publishers to be dropped, regardless of the facts of the case. Yes, even though such price fixing would harm authors, Turow immediately sided with the publishers. Incredible.

But, perhaps more telling is how the Authors Guild has now completely shut itself off from the outside world. Gaughrin also notes that right before Turow's NYT op-ed, he had also published a silly blog post about Amazon buying Goodreads, and got torn apart in the comments for the post. But if you look at the Author's Guild blog post about the NYT's oped, you'll see there are no comments and that "comments for this thread are now closed." Eisler notes that it was not always this way. In fact, he had submitted a comment to the blog post, apparently with a link to my piece, saying:

"That Scott Turow refuses to respond to this demolition of his facts, his knowledge of the law, and even his baseline logic tells you all you need to know about his integrity. And about the true function of the "Authors Guild" of which he is president."

Eisler received notification that his comment was "awaiting moderation," but obviously that comment never ran, and instead, the Authors Guild shut down comments entirely. It appears that not only are they unwilling to respond to the large number of authors who are complaining about how ridiculous Turow's position is, they also want to stick their hands over their eyes and ears to pretend it's not even happening. That's not leadership. That's cowardice.

In the meantime, even the libraries are punching back. The American Library Association responded to Turow, "taking issue" with his op-ed and pointing out how Turow is wrong about libraries and about the law.

The failure to respond speaks volumes. And it says that the Authors Guild does not represent authors at all, but rather the legacy publishers, and a very small number of authors who succeeded under the old system. Turow's actions have done massive damage to the perception and credibility of the Authors Guild. And the Guild's decision to stop hearing from critics, especially authors, is quite telling about how it views the world. It's amazing any modern author thinks it's worthwhile to be a member of such an organization.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Authors Guild's Scott Turow: The Supreme Court, Google, Ebooks, Libraries & Amazon Are All Destroying Authors

Mike Masnick — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 08:46:56 PDT

We've written more than a few times about Scott Turow, a brilliant author, but an absolute disaster as the Luddite-driven head of the Authors' Guild. During his tenure, he's done a disservice to authors around the globe by basically attacking everything new and modern -- despite any opportunities it might provide -- and talked up the importance of going back to physical books and bookstores. He's an often uninformed champion of a past that never really existed and which has no place in modern society. He once claimed that Shakespeare wouldn't have been successful under today's copyright law because of piracy, ignoring the fact that copyright law didn't even exist in the age of Shakespeare. His anti-ebook rants are just kind of wacky.

However, in his latest NY Times op-ed, he's basically thrown all of his cluelessness together in a rambling mishmash of "and another thing", combined with his desire to get those nutty technology kids off his lawn. For the few thousand members of the Authors Guild, it's time you found someone who was actually a visionary to lead, rather than a technology-hating reactionary pining for a mythical time in the past.

First up, a confused reaction to the Supreme Court's protection of first sale rights in Kirtsaeng.

LAST month, the Supreme Court decided to allow the importation and resale of foreign editions of American works, which are often cheaper than domestic editions. Until now, courts have forbidden such activity as a violation of copyright. Not only does this ruling open the gates to a surge in cheap imports, but since they will be sold in a secondary market, authors won’t get royalties.

First of all, no, this was not a "change" in US law. Courts had not forbidden this particular situation in the past, because the specifics of this hadn't really been tested in the past other than a few recent cases with somewhat different fact patterns. The point of the Supreme Court's ruling was to reinforce what most people already believed the law to be: if you buy a book, you have the right to resell it.

As for the "surge" in cheap imports, let's wait and see. It might impact markets like textbooks, which are artificially inflated, but for regular books? It seems like a huge stretch to think that it would be cost effective to ship in foreign books just for resale. And, of course, secondary markets have existed for ages, and studies have shown that they actually help authors because it makes it less risky to buy a new book, since people know they can resell it. Turow admits that secondary markets have always existed, but then jumps to what this is all "really" about in his mind: This may sound like a minor problem; authors already contend with an enormous domestic market for secondhand books. But it is the latest example of how the global electronic marketplace is rapidly depleting authors’ income streams. It seems almost every player — publishers, search engines, libraries, pirates and even some scholars — is vying for position at authors’ expense.
Yes, that's right. The Kirtsaeng decision isn't just about first sale, it's really about the evil "global electronic marketplace" sucking authors dry. Of course, Turow fails to mention that Kirtsaeng had next to nothing to do with the internet. Yes, Kirtsaeng ended up selling his books via eBay, but tons of books sell on eBay. That had no impact on the ruling at all. The issue in the ruling was about books legally purchased abroad, and Kirtsaeng did that without the internet -- he just had friends and family back in Thailand buying books for him. To blame that on "the global electronic marketplace" is just completely random and wrong. It seems like the kind of thing someone says when they just want to blame technology for everything. Turow has his anti-technology hammer, but he's got to stop seeing nails in absolutely everything.

Authors practice one of the few professions directly protected in the Constitution, which instructs Congress “to promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The idea is that a diverse literary culture, created by authors whose livelihoods, and thus independence, can’t be threatened, is essential to democracy.

Turow is a lawyer. As such, I would expect him not to misrepresent what the Constitution says, but he's done so here. Authors are not "directly protected in the Constitution." The Constitution does not "instruct" Congress to create copyright to promote the progress. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress specific powers concerning what it can do. It does not "instruct" Congress that it must do these things. The same section of the Constitution also gives Congress the ability to "grant letters of marque" to privateers ("pirates" on the high seas) to attack enemies. No one would ever argue that the Constitution "instructs" Congress to authorize pirates on the high seas to "attack and capture enemy vessels." In fact, Congress has not officially used this power since 1815. Similarly, there is no requirement that Congress "protect" authors in this manner, no matter how much Turow may pretend this is the case.

Frankly, it's bizarre that Turow would so misrepresent the Constitution, when he must know what he's saying is untrue. It really calls into question why the NY Times allows such blatantly false statements to go out under its name.

That culture is now at risk. The value of copyrights is being quickly depreciated, a crisis that hits hardest not best-selling authors like me, who have benefited from most of the recent changes in bookselling, but new and so-called midlist writers.

Take e-books. They are much less expensive for publishers to produce: there are no printing, warehousing or transportation costs, and unlike physical books, there is no risk that the retailer will return the book for full credit.

Note the implicit assumption: only publishers produce books. Turow, apparently, ignores the fact that these modern technological wonders (which he hates so much) have enabled an entire new world of massively successful self-published authors, who take advantage of this situation to realize that they don't need publishers, and the lower costs and ease of distribution makes things much easier. As Clay Shirky has said in the past, publishing is a button, not an industry. And, no, that doesn't mean that authors should all do it by themselves, but the challenges are in marketing, not in "publishing" or distribution any more (with respect to ebooks).

Also the idea of a literary culture at risk is laughable. More books are being published today than ever before. More people are reading books today than ever before. More people are writing books than ever before. Books that would never have been published in the past are regularly published today. There is an astounding wealth of cultural diversity in the literary world. Sure, some of it means a lot more competition for the small group of authors (only about 8,000 or so) that Turow represents... oh wait, I think we've perhaps touched on the reason that Turow is all upset by this. But, of course, more competition for that small group of authors does not mean the culture of books and literature is at risk at all. Quite the opposite.

But instead of using the savings to be more generous to authors, the six major publishing houses — five of which were sued last year by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division for fixing e-book prices — all rigidly insist on clauses limiting e-book royalties to 25 percent of net receipts. That is roughly half of a traditional hardcover royalty.

Best-selling authors have the market power to negotiate a higher implicit e-book royalty in our advances, even if our publishers won’t admit it. But writers whose works sell less robustly find their earnings declining because of the new rate, a process that will accelerate as the market pivots more toward digital.

Again, this totally ignores the new reality. Authors who don't like this admittedly crappy deal from the big publishers can go to alternatives. They can self-publish. Or they can sign up with one of a new crop of digitally savvy publishers who are much more like partners than gatekeepers. No surprise that Turow doesn't even seem to know these things exist. Hell, just last week we were talking about a successful self-published author who leveraged his massive success into an extremely favorable deal with Simon and Schuster to handle physical book distribution. And a week later Scott Turow argues that only historical top sellers like himself can negotiate better rates with the Big 6 Publishers in NY? Wake up, Scott, there's a whole new world out there that you seem to be ignoring.

Barry Eisler famously turned down a half million dollar contract with a publisher, because he realized that the economics of going direct were much better. Plenty of authors are recognizing that they have leverage today where they used to have none. It seems odd that Turow doesn't even acknowledge this reality at all, instead assuming that authors are still locked into the system where the only way they can become published is by taking a bad deal with a publisher.

And there are many e-books on which authors and publishers, big and small, earn nothing at all. Numerous pirate sites, supported by advertising or subscription fees, have grown up offshore, offering new and old e-books free.

If you're an author earning nothing at all, then you've got bigger problems than technology. It probably means you're mired in obscurity and no one knows who the hell you are. On top of that, it means you've done nothing at all to connect with your fans. Because we've seen authors who actively encourage the piracy of their books, but who also work to connect with their fans, and have seen their sales go way up, because those fans want to support the authors. Also, as most people know (why doesn't Turow seem aware of this?) ebook "piracy" is a fairly small part of the market, in part because the initial market was dominated by the Amazon Kindle, and publishers smartly jumped on board. Yes, there is ebook piracy, but it's not like the music and movie business where the official sources basically ceded the entire market to piracy for years.

The pirates would be a limited menace were it not for search engines that point users to these rogue sites with no fear of legal consequence, thanks to a provision inserted into the 1998 copyright laws. A search for “Scott Turow free e-books” brought up 10 pirate sites out of the first 10 results on Yahoo, 8 of 8 on Bing and 6 of 10 on Google, with paid ads decorating the margins of all three pages.

Okay, this is just dumb. First of all, no one is searching for "Scott Turow free e-books" so this shouldn't be much of a concern. I did a Google Trends search on "Scott Turow free e-books" vs. "Scott Turow books" and it shows no one searches for "Scott Turow free e-books", so he doesn't have much to worry about. Frankly, he should probably be a hell of a lot more concerned that not too many people seem to be searching for "Scott Turow books" either. But the larger point here is that, even if people were searching for "Scott Turow free e-books," how would that matter that much? By the very fact that they're doing that particular search, they've more or less self-identified as people not interested in paying money for Scott Turow books, so they're not the market anyway.

If I stood on a corner telling people who asked where they could buy stolen goods and collected a small fee for it, I’d be on my way to jail. And yet even while search engines sail under mottos like “Don’t be evil,” they do the same thing.

This is silly on multiple levels. First of all, by his own numbers, Google (who uses "Don't be evil") had the least number of "bad" sites in the results according to Turow. I did the same search and actually found only a couple sites that possibly were infringing. Instead, I did see links to the Authors Guild, to Amazon, to Turow's Wikipedia page... and to an old Techdirt article about Turow's cluelessness. That said, you could argue that if Google is "being evil" here it's actually by not giving its users what they're looking for -- which is clearly "free e-books." If people were actually doing this search (and we've already shown they're not) then perhaps it really just meant that Turow should be offering his own damn free ebooks, since that's what people are looking for. Why not offer an early work as a free download to get people interested in his books? Hell if he's really worried about it, offer up the first five chapters of a book. I've read a few of his books, and they can really grab you. Let people read the first few chapters for free and I'd bet lots of people would pay a reasonable price for the full book.

Instead of understanding any of this, Turow falsely attacks search engines on multiple levels. First, he suggests they're at fault because people are looking for free ebooks (even if they're not actually doing so for his own books). He assumes that because he did that search, others must. Second, when those search engines actually try to deliver what these theoretical people want (despite the fact that Turow himself has failed to do so) he complains about it. Finally, he falsely suggests that the search engines are making money doing so. They're not. Search engines make money if people click on ads. If someone sees a free ebook and clicks on an organic link, the search engine isn't making any money. I recognize that Turow hates technology, but that's no excuse for being blatantly ignorant about it when spewing misrepresentations in the NY Times.

From there, he attacks Google's book scanning project.

Google says this is a “fair use” of the works, an exception to copyright, because it shows only snippets of the books in response to each search. Of course, over the course of thousands of searches, Google is using the whole book and selling ads each time, while sharing none of the revenue with the author or publisher.

The second sentence has nothing to do with the first sentence. It is fair use because they're only showing snippets at a time, and most of those searches lead people to places where they can buy the books. I just did a search on Google Books for "Scott Turow" and the top links is to an Amazon page listing out all of Turow's books for sale. You'd think he'd appreciate such things. But, then, he'd have to not be a technologically illiterate Luddite.

All of this also ignores that Google's book scanning is really just about creating a rather useful card catalog for books, making them easier to find. Over and over again, people who have actually looked at the issue (i.e., not Scott Turow) have found that Google books increases sales of books. Considering he was just complaining about authors not getting any money, you'd think this would be a good thing.

He drones on about Google scanning books for a while, and then... attacks libraries for wanting to lend out ebooks, insisting that if they can do that, no one will ever buy a book again.

Now many public libraries want to lend e-books, not simply to patrons who come in to download, but to anybody with a reading device, a library card and an Internet connection. In this new reality, the only incentive to buy, rather than borrow, an e-book is the fact that the lent copy vanishes after a couple of weeks. As a result, many publishers currently refuse to sell e-books to public libraries.

One might also say "in this new reality," libraries are helping people access the wealth of information contained in books, just as they've always done. Who knew Scott Turow was so anti-library? It's kind of silly that maximalists and luddites keep jumping back to this trope. The idea that if you can get something for free, no one will ever pay for it. That's never been true and will never be true. All of the works that people pay for and download to their Kindles are already available for free on unauthorized sites. But tons of people pay. All of the music that people pay for and download to their iPods is already available for free on unauthorized sites. But tons of people pay. People will pay all the time for things they can get for free. Just check out the bottled water industry.

Turow then jumps back to attacking his other technological nemesis, Amazon, based on random speculation about a patent the company received:

An even more nightmarish version of the same problem emerged last month with the news that Amazon had a patent to resell e-books. Such a scheme will likely be ruled illegal. But if it is not, sales of new e-books will nose-dive, because an e-book, unlike a paper book, suffers no wear with each reading. Why would anyone ever buy a new book again?

Well, there's that trope again. Also, this ignores the ReDigi ruling, which has already said this is illegal, though that will be appealed. But, again, lots of people will still buy new ebooks, because they like to support authors. Also, it's likely that smart authors will embrace new and interesting business models in which this kind of thing isn't a problem. They can use Kickstarter to "pre-sell" the books and get support from fans. They can offer special benefits for fans who buy new books (such as membership in a fan club with other fans of that author). They can provide early previews or discounts on future or past works to those who buy first run copies of their new works. The list goes on and on -- and those are just the ones I came up with in the 30 seconds I spent thinking about it. Give me a full day to work on it, and the list would be in the dozens. But Turow, bizarrely, assumes that no one could possibly come up with any other reason.

And, from there, we go off onto a totally wacky tangent about Russia.

Last October, I visited Moscow and met with a group of authors who described the sad fate of writing as a livelihood in Russia. There is only a handful of publishers left, while e-publishing is savaged by instantaneous piracy that goes almost completely unpoliced. As a result, in the country of Tolstoy and Chekhov, few Russians, let alone Westerners, can name a contemporary Russian author whose work regularly affects the national conversation.

Note that he names Tolstoy and Chekhov -- two authors who both died more than a century ago. Could Turow easily name for us a Russian author from the 1940s who regularly affected the national conversation? How about the 1960s? 1980s? 1990s? No? Perhaps the problem isn't ebooks and piracy.

Meanwhile, as it so happens, not too long ago, we wrote a report on the content markets in various countries, including Russia. Turow might find it helpful, since he seems to be at a loss for actual data and facts in so many of his public statements on these issues. He can get a copy of The Sky is Rising 2 if he'd like. We offer it for free (the horror!). In it, he'd discover that the Russian book business is on the upswing. In the past fifteen years, the number of books published has increased by an impressive 266%, from just 33,623 in 1995 to 122,915 in 2011. That rate of growth exceeded all of the other countries we studied in Europe. It is true that the Russian market saw a decline in book revenue between 2008 and 2011 as the worldwide recession had an impact, but it has also recently seen the absolutely massive growth in the sale of ebook readers. As we've seen elsewhere, growth in ebook readers almost always acts as a leading indicator for later growth in ebook sales, because most readers connect easily to various authorized ebook stores, and the convenience factor leads to sales. One of the issues in Russia has been that many of the established players have been exceptionally slow in offering up authorized copies in the Russian market. If there are no authorized copies to buy, it shouldn't be a huge surprise to find out that people seek out alternatives.

It should be noted that when famed author Paulo Coelho decided to pirate his own book in Russia, it was because his publisher refused to offer a Russian translation. And what Coelho discovered was that sales of his book jumped from around 1,000 books to over 100,000 books because of his own decision to seed an unauthorized Russian translation. At the very least, this suggests that "piracy" isn't the problem and that, if handled well, authors can absolutely get people to buy, even when free works are available.

Scott Turow is clearly a smart individual. He's a fantastic author, whose books I've enjoyed for years. But it boggles my mind that he's so anti-technology based on ridiculous and ignorant claims, and that despite being called out on his ignorant statements for years, he chooses not to learn, but instead doubles down on those same ignorant statements by saying even more. It's doubly confusing that the NY Times sullies its own good name by allowing such obviously false statements to be published under its masthead.

Finally, the 8,000 or so authors (a mere fraction of the number of actual authors out there) who make up the Authors Guild are not served well by having someone as technologically reactionary as Turow leading them. It seems they'd be much better served by having a visionary leader who looks at ways to embrace new opportunities and who has realized that they can help to better promote, to connect with fans and to monetize their works. Having someone just yell about general progress, and try to ignorantly shoo the "kids" off his lawn over and over again, does them no favors.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

How Out Of Touch Is The Copyright Office? It Thinks The Authors Guild Is The 'Leading' Advocate For Writers' Interests

Mike Masnick — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:10:00 PST

One of the concerns we have about the US Copyright Office is that the staff there often seem entirely out of touch with the world we live in today. Witness, for example, its description of the Authors Guild in a recent announcement about an event they're hosting celebrating the Authors Guild 100th anniversary:

The Copyright Office is pleased to host a Copyright Matters discussion about the history and future of the professional author on December 11 at 3 p.m. in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. The event, occurring on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of The Authors Guild, the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests, will feature Guild president, author Scott Turow, as the keynote speaker. Other speakers include author and past Guild president Robert K. Massie; John Y. Cole of the Library's Center for the Book; and book market analyst Peter Hildick-Smith of the Codex Group. Also present will be guest authors Roy Blount, Jr., Katherine Neville, Mary Pope Osbourne, Nick Taylor, and others. The event is free and open to the public. See www.copyright.gov/copyrightmatters.html.

Except, of course, that's not even close to true. The Authors Guild represents a very tiny sliver of "writers." It currently has about 9,000 members, and famously only realized that self-published authors count as authors... a few months ago. Look, if copyright only covered works that were officially registered with the Copyright Office, perhaps they'd have a point in claiming that the AG represents writers. But that's silly. Due to ridiculous expansion of copyright laws in the US and around the globe (much of which the Copyright Office gleefully supported), everything that people write that has even a tiny modicum of new/creative elements is automatically covered by copyright. That includes the email you just sent and the scribble your toddler just drew on a piece of paper.

Somehow, I don't see the Authors Guild watching out for those "writers" interests.

What about me? I make my living writing -- but I see the Authors Guild as an out of touch organization run by luddites working hard to limit and hinder innovation because they're confused and scared of technology -- mainly how it creates more competition for their special club which doesn't want too many members. This is the same organization that argued that having a legally purchased ebooks read aloud violated their copyrights. The same organization that has sued libraries for scanning books to make them available for people to read in digital form. The same Authors Guild who has argued that the future of books is... brick and mortar stores. The same Authors Guild who (seriously) argued that Shakespeare wouldn't survive in the modern era since no one respects copyright any more (ignoring that there was no copyright in Shakespeare's time, and he did okay).

The Authors Guild isn't representing 99.999% of all "writers." And it certainly doesn't seem to be advocating for writers' interests, considering that it's fought against some of the best new technologies for creating, distributing, promoting and monetizing writers' works today.

Of course, we know what this is really about. The Copyright Office is still living in a time in the past, where it gets to fetishize a small cadre and closed off "club" of top professionals, ignoring that the rules and laws they seek to pass to protect that club against innovation and competition, also have massive negative impacts on the vast majority of content creators who aren't members of that tiny club. The Authors Guild may do wonderful things for a small group of authors who don't want to change with the times, but I don't see how that's a particularly beneficial service. It seems like a mistake. And the Copyright Office celebrates this?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Penguin Taking Underperforming Authors To Court To Recoup Paid Advances

Tim Cushing — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 08:08:03 PDT

This looks like it might be a new sign of the disrupted times. With major publishing houses competing with damn near everyone for readers, they can longer be expected to hand out hefty advances, especially in exchange for the literary equivalent of vaporware.

Penguin has decided to reclaim a bit of the money it threw at a selection of authors and, in one case, a potentially heartwarming tale of love and concentration camp survival that turned out to be completely fabricated. The Smoking Gun has published the names and amounts sought by Penguin in the lawsuits filed for "breach of contract/unjust enrichment." Here's a couple of defendants from the list:

* Blogger Ana Marie Cox, who signed in 2006 to author a "humorous examination of the next generation of political activists," is being dunned for her $81,250 advance (and at least $50,000 in interest). Her Penguin contract totaled $325,000.

* Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat was signed for $40,000 in 2008 to describe how he "survived a concentration camp because of a young girl who snuck him food. 17 years later the two met on a blind date and have been together ever since, married 50 years." While Rosenblat’s story was hailed by Oprah Winfrey as the "single greatest love story" she had told on the air, it turned out to be a fabrication. Penguin wants him to repay a $30,000 advance (and at least $10,000 in interest).

Ten more authors were named, including "Prozac Nation" author Elizabeth Wurtzel, who failed to deliver a "book for teenagers to help them cope with depression." The total amount, including interest, totals to over a half million dollars. Authors failing to deliver something printable (or anything at all) to publishers is nothing new, but a shotgun blast of legal filings against authors is a bit novel. (Oh, ho! A book pun.) It would be tempting to call this a new "revenue stream," but only the interest would be "new" money.

Theories as to ulterior motives or possible underhandedness on Penguin's part are being advanced (and another pun! completely unintentional!). In The Smoking Gun's comment thread, Trident Media Group chairman Robert Gottlieb speculates (strongly) that Penguin's treatment of its authors is disingenuous, at best:

Authors beware. Books are rejected for reasons other than editorially and publishers then want their money back. Publishers want to reject manuscripts for any reason after an author has put time and effort into writing them all the while paying their bills. Another reason to have strong representation. If Penguin did this to one of Trident’s authors we could cut them out of all our submissions.

Another possible angle is offered by literary blogger Edward Champion:

Why did Penguin wait until NOW to go after advances? Has Ducksworth been settled? And are authors having to pay up for discrimination?

Champion refers to the age discrimination lawsuit filed earlier this month against Penguin by Marilyn Duckworth, who alleges the publisher forced her out after 27 years of employment to pursue employees that were "faster, stronger and more nimble."

At this point, it's tough to judge the merits of the lawsuits based on anything other than Penguin's claims. It looks like straight-up breach of contract and the range of topics left unpublished (the rise of Bass Pro Shops, an "analytical forecast arguing for the future success of gold," a second book from the "dynamic pastor of the Empowerment Temple") suggest that Penguin's not limiting legal action to trendy bloggers or other "next big things." If this action proves to be successful, it's not tough to imagine other publishers following suit (Pun trifecta!), especially with the possibility of collecting 25-30% interest thrown into the mix.

But, if you're an author-to-be, and choosing to sign a publishing deal with a major publishing house, you'd have to think that this kind of thing would make you a lot less willing to sign with Penguin. Who wants the added stress of possibly being sued for the advance the publisher gave you? It would seem that authors may start to be a lot less interested in publishing with Penguin.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hachette Tells Authors And Tor To Use DRM Because It Is Awesome Or Something

Zachary Knight — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:42:30 PDT

It has only been a bit over a month since Tor's DRM-free policy went into full effect. At the time of the announcement, Tor's president stated that the policy change was made at the request of both authors and readers who felt that DRM was a hinderance to their enjoyment of ebooks. As we know, DRM is not an effective measure against piracy. More often than not, DRM is actually harmful to paying customers as they hit restrictions that do not exist in the physical realm. Even with all these reasons against the use of DRM, there are still some publishers out there that feel that DRM is an effective means of stopping piracy.

Claire Ryan writes in to tell us that Tor's anti-DRM policy is not making some other publishers happy. According to letters received by Cory Doctorow, Hachette UK is telling its stable of authors that they must use DRM, not just for the ebooks it publishes, but for all publishers distributing the same ebooks in other territories.

I’ve just seen a letter sent to an author who has published books under Hachette’s imprints in some territories and with Tor Books and its sister companies in other territories (Tor is part of Macmillan). The letter, signed by Little, Brown U.K. CEO Ursula Mackenzie, explains to the author that Hachette has “acquired exclusive publication rights in our territories from you in good faith,” but warns that in other territories, Tor’s no-DRM policy “will make it difficult for the rights granted to us to be properly protected.” Hachette’s proposed solution: that the author insist Tor use DRM on these titles. “We look forward to hearing what action you propose taking.”

The letter also contains language that will apparently be included in future Hachette imprint contracts, language that would require authors to “ensure that any of his or her licensees of rights in territories not licensed under this agreement” will use DRM.

Cory then goes on to describe just how useless such a policy is for Hachette. He points out that doing simple Google searches for certain Hachette published books turns up several DRM-free copies already in the wild. I will have to agree with Cory here when he says that this new demand by Hachette is not going to change that in any way. Those DRM-free ebooks will still be available, the tools to strip the DRM will still be available and paying customers will still be the only ones inconvenienced.

Even with this severe and detailed rebuttal of Hachette's new policy, it has taken notice and is still standing by its decision to use DRM. In a statement made to The Bookseller, Ursula Mackenzie, CEO of Hachette subsidiary Little, Brown, stated that such policies are the norm in publishing.

Many contracts from all quarters already contain some form of wording to ensure that the licensee publisher does apply DRM and also sees to it that their sub-licensees and e-tailers apply it too.

Our new wording is clearer and we will, as always, negotiate variations of that wording with the many parties with which we trade, nearly all of whom agree with the basic principles of our DRM policy.

Of course being a part of the "norm" in the industry is not what really matters. What matters is that publishers and those that represent the authors actually listen to the authors. That is what Tor did when it made its decision to abandon DRM. What Hachette is doing here is making the claim that it knows what's best for authors and readers. Of course, you can't let a little thing like the opinion of authors and readers get in the way of your high horse.

We are fully aware that DRM does not inhibit determined pirates or even those who are sufficiently sophisticated to download DRM removal software. The central point is that we are in favour of DRM because it inhibits file-sharing between the mainstream readers who are so valuable to us and our authors.

This statement by Mackenzie is even more mind boggling than the other. Here she pretty much states that DRM is not about stopping the hardcore pirates, but simply to stop people from doing things they would normally do with a physical book, such as lending it to friends and family. Of course even that much can be to the detriment of the reader and publisher, as Cory notes.

Readers aren’t stupid. When they discover that paying for books results in locked, crippled editions, and downloading for free (simply by typing the title and “free e-book” into Google or Pirate Bay) gets them the same book, minus the offensive restrictions, they start to put two and two together. After all, DRM is not a selling point. There’s no one who’s ever bought a book because it had DRM. No one has ever clicked onto Amazon saying, “I wonder if there’s any way I can buy a book that offers less than the books I’ve been buying all my life.” People buy DRM e-books because they have no choice, or because they don’t care about it, or because they don’t know it’s there. But DRM never leads to a sale.

For the reader, the DRM'ed ebook is nothing but a headache. If you are not having your book deleted from your reader and account without your permission, you are locked into a specific reader with no way to transfer your legally bought books to another reader. Why would any publisher want to harm their readers in such a way? For the publisher, that means that in today's fast changing world of technology, readers will be less likely to buy an ebook if they know they cannot transfer it to a new phone or other device. That means fewer sales for the publisher.

It gets even worse for Hachette specifically. According to Cory, at least one agency is taking a stand against its pro-DRM policy. He also warns authors who may consider Hachette as a publisher.

I know of at least one large agency that has told Hachette that it will not market books to them so long as this policy is in force. And Hachette’s authors should pay attention because, in the end, it is they who will suffer from the effects of DRM. Readers probably won’t remember who published the book that nuked itself due to a DRM misfire or was lost due to a platform switch. But they’ll remember the writer whose book they paid for and to which they lost access.

As Hachette continues its push to force DRM on its authors and readers, it will lose business from both. How it expects to survive such a two pronged loss will be interesting to watch. DRM is losing favor in the music industry. It continues to lose ground in the video game industry. Publishing and movies seem to be the only real holdouts on the pro-DRM side of entertainment. With DRM losing favor with Tor and sparking this battle between publishers, we will most likely see more publishers joining the DRM-free side of the debate.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Legit Ebook Lending Site Taken Down By An Angry Twitmob Of Writers [UPDATED]

Tim Cushing — Wed, 8 Aug 2012 09:12:41 PDT

[UPDATE: Word is filtering back that threats are being directed at some of the authors pictured or quoted in this post. I will reiterate my comment I posted below about the threats, mainly: DON'T DO IT.

THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANYTHING BETTER.

Techdirt's not that kind of site. I know that because I've been reading this site for a half-decade and contributing to it for well over a year.

If you really just want to make a statement to these writers about how they've lost a customer because of their actions, there are several places to find the names involved. I'm not going to compile a list and post it here as some sort of vindictive troll bait.

IF YOU WANT TO DO THE RIGHT THING, SUPPORT THE BLOGGERS AND AUTHORS WHO DEFENDED LENDINK, AND PATRONIZE LENDINK IF DALE CAN GET IT BACK UP AND RUNNING.]

A bizarre thing happened late last week. A bunch of authors, playing Twitter telephone, managed to take down LendInk, a legitimate book lending site. (This "discussion" has spilled over to LendInk's Facebook page.) LendInk, a matchmaking site for Kindle and Nook users to "borrow" each other's titles, somehow found itself on the receiving end of an irate mob, who accused it of piracy and sent (at least according to the threats) several DMCA takedown notices its way.

As of last Friday, the site is down, presumably as a response to the heavy influx of angry traffic and DMCA notices. There has been no official word from the person running LendInk (listed here on an info page [via Google Cache] as Dale Porter, a disabled Army vet who seemed to be running LendInk as a hobby), but it pretty much seems to be how it looks: LendInk is down and may not be coming back.

Here's a bit of the "outrage," which mostly seems to be people lining up for their turn at the "I spot a pirate" mic:

Update: At least one of these writers (Imran Siddiq) has since admitted to misunderstanding what LendInk does, and retracted his statement.

A variety of misconceptions appear frequently:

1. This is a pirating site

A small amount of investigation shows that LendInk is (was?) not a "pirating" site. No copies of ebooks were stored on its sites. All LendInk did was connect people wanting to lend books with borrowers.

Here's a brief explanation of the process from a review of LendInk by The Next Web:

Using LendInk is as simple as could possibly be. Just browse the new and notable section, or search for the book you want. After checking it’s being offered in the format of your choice you put in a request and the lender has 48 hours to respond.

If you’d prefer to offer a book for someone else to borrow, it’s just a case of entering the title, author, a description and the format you own the book in.

2. All your books are available for free.

All your books only appear to be available. Because LendInk is an Amazon affiliate, any book title searched would be listed at the site. Clicking through would tell you whether the book was actually available (meaning someone had offered it to borrow). If the author or publisher has not authorized lending, then the Borrow button would be grayed out.

The massive wave of overly-concerned authors all searched for their own books and, unsurprisingly, were able to find them listed. What they failed to do was continue any further with the process. Fortunately, someone did and attempted to talk a few people out of their torches and pitchforks.

For people who are wondering why their book is there if it isn't lendable, or was lendable but now isn't, the answer is simple - that site lists every book for sale at Amazon or B&N. Every. Book. Did you notice that they also have links to buy the books? They make money through an affiliate program, if people buy books through their links. So they list EVERY BOOK. In fact, their website might be dynamic in that it generates a page whenever someone searches for a certain book.

I signed up and posted a book to share. I then searched on that book, found it, and said I wanted to borrow it. The site wasn't smart enough to know that I was the same person.... So what happens is the site sent me an email saying someone wanted to borrow my book, with "yes" and "no" links back to the site. When I clicked the "yes, I'll lend it" link, I simply got a page that said here's the name and email address of the person who wants to borrow your book.

No mystery. Nothing illegal. It lists every possible book. Some aren't lendable. LendInk is hoping you'll buy the books using its links, if you can't borrow them. End of story.

In addition to helping more readers read more books, LendInk also (via its affiliate links) helped sell books. Sure, every sale put 6% into LendInk's pockets, but it's no different than affiliate links at any other site. LendInk wasn't taking advantage of authors. Every time it made money, the authors made money.

3. I did not give LendInk permission to lend out my book.

This is the most common complaint and, like the rest of this list, is completely wrong. The fact is that most of these authors did grant permission for lending via their royalties contract with Amazon.

If you publish through KDP (whether or not you are in Select) and are at the 70% royalty rate, then your ebooks are lendable. Period. End of discussion. If you're at the 35% royalty rate, then you can opt in to make them lendable.

This has NOTHING to do with the Kindle Owners Lending Library for Prime customers. This is not a "borrow" under KDP Select. This is merely lending a legitimately purchased Kindle copy.

Some Kindle books are lendable. When a purchaser buys a copy, they can choose to lend it to a friend. When they do this, the ebook temporarily disappears from their Kindle and appears on their friend's Kindle. After 2 weeks, it disappears from their friend's Kindle and reappears on theirs.

It is 100% legal, and it's what you agreed to in the terms of KDP.

A publisher even weighed in on the subject and declared LendInk legitimate:

Here’s how it works: if you buy an ebook on your Kindle or Nook, you have the ability to lend it out to anyone else with a Kindle or Nook (Kindles lend to Kindles, Nooks to Nooks, etc.). This website connects ebook owners with others who want to borrow ebooks. So, instead of just borrowing from a friend, you can borrow even though you don’t know the person. All they do is match lenders and borrowers together. (They’re like a dating service.) The actual lending happens through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever the ebook was originally purchased, and that’s completely legit.

Basically, LendInk offered a legitimate service much like Lendle, but for whatever reason, a certain percentage of the writing community decided LendInk was offering pirated copies to everyone. Once a good witch hunt gets going, no one's going to stop until a witch is found... or created. Shawn Lamb of Allon Books crafts up a singular "witch" in an update to her gloaticle (Achievement Unlocked: Portmanteau'd!) "Pirate Site Sunk By United Broadside!":

IMPORTANT AMENDMENT: For those of you jumping on me and other authors from the take down of a site - know this - it was a copycat site! The subtle difference is found in the title "Lendink" with a small "i" not "Lendlnk" with an "l". They hijacked the name under the pretense of getting author's permission for pirating e-books. Collateral damage is regrettable, but we were only protecting our books, as giving permission to an unauthorized Lendink site would result in our books being removed from Amazon.

Lamb's bizarre theory of small "i" vs. big "I" site-jacking is just sad. There's simply no factual basis for this statement. Searches are not case sensitive and as for the URL, it's always going to be lowercase no matter how the site owner chooses to spell it. Attempting to justify your zealous overreaction by just making shit up isn't going to make your overreaction look any better.

The most popular piece of witch hunting equipment was this response many irate authors obtained from Amazon after informing it about LendInk's "piracy:"

Hello,

We have not authorized lendink.com to loan your book and have not provided your file to them.

If you've found your work available on an unauthorized website such as lendink.com, we suggest contacting that website to confirm your rights and request removal of your work. If you distribute your book through other sales channels, you might contact them to inquire as to whether they have authorized the inclusion of your book on lendink.com.

Our lending program allows a purchaser to lend a title once and does not allow the recipient to re-loan that book. For more information about Kindle book lending, check out this page:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200549320&#loan

I hope this helps. Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

This was (and still is) held aloft by many authors as evidence of wrongdoing. But it really isn't. It's nothing more than boilerplate. Here's author Amanda Brice (again), breaking this letter down:

This is a standard response from the customer service department, who is NOT the Legal deaprtment incidentally.

No, they did not authorize LendINK to lend books. HOWEVER, what LendINK is doing is the same as Lendle eBookFling or een the lending subforum right here on Kindleboards. It's no different than simply lending your book to your mom (which is 100% authorized through Amazon, btw). This is just doing it on a bigger scale.

Amazon did not provide your file to LendINK because nobody has provided any files to LendINK. LendINK doesn't actually have any files. They are simply the clearninghouse for people to meet up with others who want to borrow legitimate copies that they ahve purchased.

Amazon touts the fact that many of their Kindle books are lendable. Not able to be borrowed through the Prime library, but that customers can lend their copy ONCE to someone for up to 14 days. During the time the book has been lent, it becomes unavilable on the owner's Kindle and can only be read on the borrower's Lindle. At the end of 14 days, it disappears from the borrower's Kindle and reappears on the owner's Kindle.

This is not rocket science...

The Amazon Customer Service department is giving a stock response. It would be a different response if you actually spoke to someone in Legal, as Legal understands that this type of set-up is, in fact, tactitly authorized by the fact that they have created a system to allow for lending. (And from a policy standpoint, this type of system would discourage piracy.)

Before the site was taken/knocked offline, any one of these authors could have drawn the same conclusions as these helpful forum contributors, but most seemed to be caught up in the excitement of the hunt. An in-depth post by April Hamilton of the Indie Author blog points out everywhere these authors went wrong and how easily it could have been prevented. Fortunately, she also saved the pertinent parts of the LendInk FAQ, which cannot be reached by Google Cache or the Internet Archive:

Is the loaning of eBooks really legal? Isn't this the same as file sharing?

Yes, loaning of certain eBooks is legal and No, it is not the same as file sharing. The key difference between the two is that the loan status of an eBook is directly dictated by the publisher and file sharing is usually done without the publishers consent. Working with Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, the publisher's make their eBooks available for loan under very strict rules. The actual book loaning process is handled by Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, not by LendInk.

I am a Publisher or Author of a book on LendInk, how did you get a copy of my book?

First, let us explain up front, we do not have a copy of your book. This is actually a common misunderstanding of how LendInk functions. No book has or will be stored on any LendInk server, ever. The title of the book is entered by our members and the book information is fed to us by an automated link between LendInk and Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Our servers only store our member contact information and the basic book information such as the author, ASIN and book description. We do not even store the book cover artwork.

It's all said and done at this point. LendInk is dead, at least for the time being. It's bandwidth is burnt and if it ever gets back online, it's very likely going to be facing down DMCA takedown notices for content it never had. And for what? Meanwhile you've got authors patting themselves on the back for knocking the site offline, all because some authors just don't like the fact that someone enjoyed their work without paying for it. Here's a couple of lovely quotes:

From the Kindle Boards:

Am I proud they have been shut down? Am I proud to have stood up for my legal rights as author? You betcha! If they were a legitimate site and had written consent from each and every author to display their work for free (forfeiting their royalty income as a result) then I doubt very much that the site would have suddenly disappeared overnight. I am tired of plagiarism, book piracy and cheap-*ss scum bags who won't part with a measly $2.99 or $4.99 to support authors and show respect for their hard work, not to mention the graphic artists, editors, photographers who also contributed to the birth of an author's ebook.

From the Amazon support board, an attack on the right of first sale:

Up until now I was just getting fed up with folks listing my books on ebay, amazon and third party sites selling the createspace paperback version at highly inflated prices!

If you can't read your own Terms and Conditions and can't parse a website well enough to determine whether it's simply performing an affiliate search or offering up pirated goods, maybe you shouldn't be in the ebook business. And if you can't deal with a few unpaid readings, go shout at your local library or something else as equally alienating and useless. Because no matter how much you yell at people for sharing, you can't have all the money.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Harlequin Authors Sue Publisher Over Creative Royalty Calculations

Zachary Knight — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:33:00 PDT

Creative accounting from legacy players is nothing new. We have seen many repeated examples of ways in which legacy publishers, labels and producers try to limit the amount of money they pay out to the artists they depend on for their incomes. We have the fact that Return of the Jedi, despite being the 15th highest grossing film of all time, is still not profitable. There is also the crumple zone inducing idea from the major labels that digital sales are licenses except when they are not. So would it be a surprise that we would find a similar situation within the legacy publishing industry?

Enter Harlequin, publisher of fine romance novels. Harlequin has been accused, according to a class action lawsuit, of using some very creative accounting to reduce the ebook royalty rates paid to authors from 50% of the net receipts to a paltry 3-4% rate:

This lawsuit results from Defendant Harlequin Enterprises Limited, the world’s leading publisher of romance fiction, depriving Plaintiffs and the other authors in the class, of e-book royalties due to them under publishing agreements entered into between 1990 and 2004. Harlequin required the authors to enter into those agreements with a Swiss entity that it created for tax purposes, and that it dominates and controls. However, Harlequin, before and after the signing of these agreements, performed all the publishing functions related to the agreements, including exercising, selling, licensing, or sublicensing the e-book rights granted by the authors. Instead of paying the authors a royalty of 50% of its net receipts as required by the agreements, an intercompany license was created by Harlequin with its Swiss entity resulting in authors receiving 3% to 4% of the e-books' cover price as their 50% share instead of 50% of Harlequin Enterprises' receipts.

What this means to the authors can be illustrated by an e-book with a hypothetical cover price of $8.00. The “net receipts” made by Harlequin Enterprises Limited from the exercise, sale or license of e-book rights would be at least $4.00, of which authors would be entitled to $2.00 based on their 50% royalty. Computing the “net receipts” based on the “license” between Harlequin's Swiss entity and Harlequin Enterprises, Plaintiffs’ 50% royalty amounts to only 24 to 32 cents.

Basically, these authors are just not happy with these reduced royalty rates. The authors claim that Harlequin Switzerland was set up for no other purpose but to syphon out as much money as possible before calculating any royalties for the authors. Hardly something that any publisher should do if they actually care about their business.

There was once a time where such a tactic would not have reached the point of a lawsuit. There was a time when publishers actually had a strangle hold on publishing and could force any terms they could conceivably get away with. However, with the introduction and proliferation of self publishing, that stranglehold is weakening. As authors are looking at the deals they are getting from publishers vs the deals self published authors are getting from the likes of Amazon and even Apple, they are beginning to lash out.

Of course, if Harlequin were smart about this, meaning it realizes the mistake of using such accounting methods, it would seek a quick settlement that results in the authors getting paid their proper royalties. If for some reason, as many publishers claim, it cannot afford to pay authors the true 50% then it will see a quick decline of new authors and a drop off of existing authors. Then, it will fail.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Our Gift To The Author's Guild: An Ad For Brick & Mortar Book Stores

Leigh Beadon — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:47:44 PDT

Not long ago, Tim Cushing wrote about Author's Guild president Scott Turow's curious assertion that brick-and-mortar book stores are the future of the industry. I didn't think that sounded very likely, but I like a good book store as much as the next person-over-20, so I thought I'd join forces with Tim to give Turow some help in his campaign. We put our heads together and produced this period-appropriate advertisement, for Turow and anyone else to use in advancing the cause of brick-and-mortar. Enjoy!

Embed This:

<a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120321/17385918193/our-gift-to-authors-guild-ad-brick-mortar-book-stores.shtml"></a>

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Author's Guild Boss On E-Book Price Fixing Allegations: But... But... Brick-And-Mortar!

Tim Cushing — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:47:00 PDT

No sooner had the Department of Justice announced its plan to investigate Apple and five of the Big Six publishers for e-book price-fixing than a representative of those benefiting most from this (alleged) collusion boldly stepped into the fray. Scott Turow, bestselling author and president of the Author's Guild, has issued one of the most profoundly self-serving and wrongheaded statements ever to grace the pages of a legacy industry's website. There's a ton to unpack here, so let's get right to it.

Scott Turow's statement is presumably issued on behalf of the Author's Guild, although there's no indication that any author other than Scott Turow was consulted. (You may remember the Author's Guild as the cheery people whose fear of technology led them to a successful claim that e-books utilizing text-to-speech violated a never-heard-of-before "audio right", in essence stating that reading purchased e-books aloud is illegal.)

Turow's burns through a whole lot of words to arrive at three basic conclusions:

1. Apple is good.
2. Amazon is evil.
3. The future of books is brick-and-mortar.

Let's take a look:

Yesterday's report that the Justice Department may be near filing an antitrust lawsuit against five large trade book publishers and Apple is grim news for everyone who cherishes a rich literary culture.

Obviously, the emphasis is on "rich." Rarely do resellers and publishers collude to lower prices. There are many out there who believe a rich culture can be synonymous with low-priced books, music, and other media, but obviously our opinions don't matter because we haven't written and sold enough books. (No, seriously. Read the comment thread on Turow's post.) Thankfully Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, who have worked in the business and sold plenty of books, also completely dismantle Turow's arguments, especially his abuse of the word "culture."

Shouldn't those who cherish a rich literary culture prefer books at reasonable prices which allow that rich literary culture to be read by more people? All I can get from Turow's statement is: "the public must prefer their books to be more expensive." In what world is it "grim news" that our "rich literary culture" should be getting cheaper?

We have no way of knowing whether publishers colluded in adopting the agency model for e-book pricing. We do know that collusion wasn't necessary: given the chance, any rational publisher would have leapt at Apple's offer and clung to it like a life raft. Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open.

You might have no way of "knowing," but the conclusions drawn by the DOJ don't look too pretty. Secondly, if "collusion wasn't necessary," then why do we have the appearance of collusion? Did the publishers not have anything better to do with their downtime than push prices around, mainly in an upward direction? Point the third: I thought it was Amazon who used deep discounts on physical books to kill off physical bookstores like Borders, and Barnes and Noble, who in turn killed off independent bookstores, or so the narrative goes. Now all of a sudden it's re-killing off physical bookstores with digital goods?

Just before Amazon introduced the Kindle, it convinced major publishers to break old practices and release books in digital form at the same time they released them as hardcovers.

Because windowing is stupid. Especially in a digital world.

Then Amazon dropped its bombshell: as it announced the launch of the Kindle, publishers learned that Amazon would be selling countless frontlist e-books at a loss... Amazon's predatory pricing would shield it from e-book competitors that lacked Amazon's deep pockets.

Selling something as a loss-leader isn't new, it isn't "predatory", and it certainly isn't exclusive to Amazon. Retailers have been doing this for a long as retail has existed. It's no different than the local grocery store selling ultra-cheap cases of soda during the summer, in the hopes that you'll stock up on hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, chips, beer, etc. while you're there. Amazon selling e-books at a loss was a way to entice customers to purchase a fully-marked-up Kindle.

Critically, it also undermined the hardcover market that brick-and-mortar stores depend on. It was as if Netflix announced that it would stream new movies the same weekend they opened in theaters.

If your business is dependent on a product whose popularity has taken a nosedive over the past few years, perhaps it's time to rethink your product line rather than blame the market leader's foresight. And since when is it Amazon's job to prop up brick-and-mortar stores?

Amazon quickly captured the e-book market as well, bringing customers into its proprietary device-and-format walled garden (Sony, the prior e-book device leader, uses the open ePub format).

Oh, for the love of... Really? You hail Apple as the savior of the sinking USS Publishing Industry, and you somehow think you can still bash someone else's "walled garden" and "proprietary device-and-format?" Isn't it worth pointing out that one of the reasons Amazon has a closed, proprietary device-and-format is because the publishers demanded a locked up system for fear of "piracy"?

Two years after it introduced the Kindle, Amazon continued to take losses on a deep list of e-book titles, undercutting hardcover sales of the most popular frontlist titles at its brick and mortar competitors. Those losses paid huge dividends. By the end of 2009, Amazon held an estimated 90% of the rapidly growing e-book market.

Well, looks like you should have gotten in on the ground floor, rather than ruefully envying a market that you seemed to want no part of.

Enter Steve Jobs. Two years ago January, one month after B&N shipped its first Nook, Jobs introduced Apple's iPad, with its proven iTunes-and-apps agency model for digital content. Five of the largest publishers jumped on with Apple's model, even though it meant those publishers would make less money on every e-book they sold.

Enter Steve Jobs, creator of walled gardens and proprietary devices and formats. And look, the publishers jumped right in even though they were giving up a bigger chunk to the walled gardener. Wait. What are we arguing about? Oh, yeah. Amazon being more evil than price-fixing publishers. Got it.

Publishers had no real choice: it was seize the agency model or watch Amazon's discounting destroy their physical distribution chain. That's why we publicly backed Macmillan when Amazon tried to use its online print book dominance to enforce its preferred e-book sales terms, even though Apple's agency model also meant lower royalties for authors.

I'm sorry. You lost me, Turow. You want to discuss e-book pricing and yet we keep finding ourselves wandering the musty aisles of brick-and-mortar. And I'm sure your lower-tier guild members are thankful to you for ensuring that they receive less money in your preferred walled garden, while simultaneously sabotaging their future sales by using inflated e-book pricing to protect hardcover margins.

Our concern about bookstores isn't rooted in sentiment: bookstores are critical to modern bookselling. Marketing studies consistently show that readers are far more adventurous in their choice of books when in a bookstore than when shopping online. In bookstores, readers are open to trying new genres and new authors: it's by far the best way for new works to be discovered.

No. Your concern is rooted in unsustainable profit margins. And would it kill you to link to these "marketing studies" that "consistently" back up your rose-colored vision of bookstores as far as the eye can see?

Publishing shouldn't have to choose between bricks and clicks.

It rhymes! And it's a false dichotomy! Publishing doesn't have to choose between those options. It can still have both. What it can't have is a return to the days of pre-digital book sales and the lush markups of first-run hardcovers. If you're looking to increase sales, it helps if you don't price yourself out of the market, via "collusion" or "agency pricing" or just flat-out refusing to align your e-book prices with reality.

A robust book marketplace demands both bookstore showrooms to properly display new titles and online distribution for the convenience of customers.

Does it? If the marketplace you have now (you know, the one that seems light on bricks and/or mortar) isn't a result of "demand," than what is it? When you say "robust market", what you're really saying is "a market that favors major publishers". It has nothing to do with the actual robust market we have today, with millions of titles and hundreds of options for both customers and writers.

Apple thrives on this very model: a strong retail presence to display its high-touch products coupled with vigorous online distribution. While bookstores close, Apple has been busy opening more than 300 stores.

So... if Amazon just opened a few retail outlets to sell its Kindle and deeply-discounted e-books, everything would be cool? Is that it? The retail world needs more brick-and-mortar foisted upon it simply because The Prices Are Too Damn Low?

Like rock bands from the pre-Napster era, established authors can still draw a crowd, if not to a stadium, at least to a virtual shopping cart.

And this week's winner of the Godwin Achievement Award (Content Industries Edition) is Scott Turow! Between this and the gratuitious Netflix reference (the killer of brick-and-mortar movie rentals), Turow is only one dodgy metaphor away from sweeping the category!

For new authors, however, a difficult profession is poised to become much more difficult. The high royalties of direct publishing, for most, are more than offset by drastically smaller markets. And publishers won't risk capital where there's no reasonable prospect for reward. They will necessarily focus their capital on what works in an online environment: familiar works by familiar authors.

Yeahyeahyeah. This argument. "Now things will suck for the lower tier of creators because no one will know or care that they've made anything, least of all those in the business of curating and selling creative content. Woe is everybody, especially those that find themselves handcuffed to a disinterested publisher who won't promote their latest and won't allow them access to their own back catalog." This thing that you think only works in an "online environment," Scott? "Familar works by familiar authors?" That's the same thing that the major publishers have been doing for years. This isn't an unfortunate side effect of the digital era. Mainstream publishers push mainstream offerings.

The indies and the self-published are where the new, exciting things will happen. And they'll do it all without your precious walled-garden-of-choice, the one with the letter "i" in front of everything, crafted entirely out of brick, mortar and windows. They'll do it on their own. Or they'll find a few like-minded writers and start their own publishing house ~~with strippers and blackjack~~! And they won't need your "protection" or "author's guild" or lousy pricing or ridiculous windows to do it. Hell, some of them might even find a way to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars while never pricing anything above a "predatory" $2.99. Weird, I know. But these things do happen. And they happen without the "power" of the major publishing houses behind them.

Any final words, Scott?

Let's hope the reports are wrong, or that the Justice Department reconsiders. The irony bites hard: our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition.

This would be tragic for all of us who value books, and the culture they support.

I can't even parse that sentence. Are you implying that price fixing is "real competition?" Or are you saying that windows, e-books at hardcover prices and walled gardens are the "real competition" and any entity working outside those self-imposed confines is only offering the "appearance of competition?" Or does "real competition" only include those that are looking to see how high they can price their offerings? And anyone who fails to price accordingly should be investigated for "predatory pricing." Is that about the size of it?

Let me FTFY:

That would be tragic for THOSE OF US who OVERVALUE our LEGACY, CULTURE BE DAMNED.

Valuing something doesn't mean paying top dollar for it. Does the person who owns 30 hardback books purchased at full retail respect culture more than the person who has 30 lower-priced e-books on their reader? If you believe that, you've got to let it go. Trying to convince the rest of the world that the only way to "value" culture is to pay top-dollar isn't going dispel that aura of entitlement that seems to surround every legacy industry.

Everyone values books and supports culture in their own way. What you want, Scott, is control over all of it. You want to be able to set the prices, timetable and delivery system. Unfortunately, you no longer have that option. Whether or not the DOJ finds evidence of collusion is largely unimportant in the overall scheme of things. If it does, prices will fall to market levels faster and windowed releases will become rarities. Even if the DOJ clears Apple and the publishing houses of any wrongdoing, prices will fall and windowed releases will become rarities. It's already happening. The future belongs to other people and businesses who move faster, respond to change quicker and are free of the fears that have held legacy industries back. This "statement" of yours is nothing more than the bitter noise of someone waist deep in water, cursing the incoming tide.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Can A Company Be An 'Author' For The Purpose Of Copyright?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 00:10:25 PST

Paul Keating points us to an analysis of an interesting copyright ruling in Singapore last year, which said that companies can't be "authors" for the purpose of copyright. They can be owners of the copyright, but not the authors:

The Court of Appeal drew a distinction between authorship and ownership. It held that these were not synonymous in that authorship refers to the act of creation whereas ownership refers to the possession of proprietary rights. An author is not necessarily the owner and the owner is not necessarily the author. The Court of Appeal said, definitively, that for the purposes of the Copyright Act, authors had to be living persons. To hold otherwise would run counter to other sections of the Copyright Act, notably the duration of works. The Court held that companies could not claim a perpetual monopoly of copyright ownership based on an assertion of authorship.

The specific case involved horse-racing tables and a dispute between two different horse-racing magazines, with one accusing the other of copyright infringement. Oddly, both magazines seem to admit that the actual data originated from neither magazine, but from the same third party: the Singapore Turf Club. Still, there appears to have been some questions about the layout and design, which could be given some level of copyright protection -- but, apparently, only if it were created by "living humans."

While this specific case may not be all that interesting, it does raise some interesting questions in other areas. For example, there is a growing niche industry of "automated" books being created for sale on Amazon. Many of them take things like public data and compile them into an ebook for sale. There wouldn't be any copyright on such public data, but if something similar was done with some creative input from an automated system, it seems like a rather reasonable argument can (and should!) be made that those books are public domain. I guess it's the automated equivalent of the monkeys taking photographs, where it seemed clear that those, too, were in the public domain, because they weren't created by humans...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Apparently The Creative Class Is Dead Because No One Works At Tower Records Any More

Mike Masnick — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:34:08 PDT

I honestly had to read Scott Timberg's column at Salon, called "The creative class is a lie," a few times before I was sure that it wasn't satire, and he actually believes the ridiculous things he wrote up. The article mainly tries to pick up on the ideas of Richard Florida, who has been arguing about the importance of "the creative class" in driving the US economy. According to Timberg, the creative class is disappearing. Now, we can debate whether or not that's actually true (and the evidence we've seen suggests the opposite), but the evidence presented by Timberg isn't evidence at all. It's arguing something completely different:

It’s happening at all levels, small and large. Record shops and independent bookstores close at a steady clip; newspapers and magazines announce new waves of layoffs. Tower Records crashed in 2006, costing 3,000 jobs. This summer’s bankruptcy of Borders Books — almost 700 stores closed, putting roughly 11,000 people out of work — is the most tangible and recent example. One of the last video rental shops in Los Angeles — Rocket Video — just announced that it will close at the end of the month.

I keep reading this paragraph over and over again, and it gets no less insane each time. Since when were the folks who work behind the counter at Tower Records and Borders "the creative class?" As far as I can tell, Timberg appears to be arguing that when the people who made buggy whips were put out of work, it demonstrated the death of the transportation industry. He's honestly arguing that the end of incidental jobs, related to an obsolete technology or system, represents the end of an entire industry -- while completely ignoring the (large and growing) entirely new system that has taken the place of the obsolete one. That's ridiculous.

Does he mention that for actual musicians and actual writers there are now many more ways to create, distribute, promote and make money? No. That would involve actually knowing what's going on. He complains about young authors and musicians "struggling through the dreary combination of economic slump and Internet reset." But, was there ever a time that the vast majority of young authors and musicians were not "struggling"? The adjective "starving" typically comes before "artist" for a reason. And the reality is that in the past it was much more difficult to make a living as an author or a musician, because the only way to succeed was to get chosen by one of a very small number of gatekeepers -- the record labels or the big publishers -- and then even after that you'd have to be one of the approximately 10% of creators they sign who they actually decide are worth making successful. Most musicians and most authors -- even those who sign to major labels and publishing houses -- still end up struggling economically. That's always been the case. Pretending that it's something new is a lie.

If Timberg were paying attention, he'd realize that the opportunities for musicians and authors today are much greater, because they don't have to be chosen by the big gatekeepers. They can put out music themselves and monetize it via any number of new and useful DIY platforms, from Bandcamp to Tunecore to Topspin and onwards. And authors have the same opportunity. They can put up their own websites and do self-publishing via Amazon or Lulu. And there are a growing number of success stories of such "direct-to-fan" campaigns in both industries -- people who would have been completely trampled and never accepted by the old industry.

And because of this, we're seeing a massive revival of cultural creativity. And that's because it's not limited to just a few gatekeepers and tastemakers, but everyone can contribute to "the creative class," and people can find their niche and find their audience. It's an amazing era of cultural output... and yet Timberg is missing it all because he's expecting to find it in the counter jockey at Tower Records?

Apparently this is a start of a new "series" from Timberg on Salon to investigate "the hollowing out of the creative class -- its origins, its erosion, the price of 'free,' and offer possible solutions and reasons for hope." But there's a problem there. The very assumption that underpins the entire series is false. If anything, the evidence suggests we're seeing more creativity than ever before. More output. And it's not just amateur content. The size of the creative industries continues to grow, and the opportunities for struggling artists to make a living have never been greater -- in large part because the internet that Timberg doesn't seem to know about has provided the tools to break down the gates and enable large segments of these folks, who never could have made any money at all, to now make significantly more.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Did Less Than 10% Of Access Copyright's Income Go To Authors Last Year?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 27 May 2011 07:15:00 PDT

Access Copyright, the copyright collection society that collects money from universities for people copying written works, has been somewhat controversial. Even putting aside its silly attempt to claim a trademark on the © symbol, it's also been looking to increase its fees massively (over 1,000% in some cases). Michael Geist has been digging in on some of the numbers behind Access Copyright (something the non-profit does not make easy, since it appears to obfuscate the money flow), and appears to have worked out that less than 10% of the money it brings in goes to authors. You can read his methodology at the link, where there are some important caveats, including some money that's being held back until the results of a lawsuit are worked out. However, it does seem quite eye opening to find out that the group brought in $33.7 million last year, and only about $3.1 million of that went to authors directly, while $8.7 million went to administrative expenses. Kinda makes you wonder who Access Copyright is really representing.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Crossing Paths: Published Author Goes Self-Published, As Self-Published Author Considers Big Publishing Deal

Mike Masnick — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:27:37 PDT

So we just wrote about best-selling author Barry Eisler's decision to turn down a half-a-million dollar book deal, in order to self-publish. In the conversation, some people pointed out that he could do this, since he'd already built up an audience. Of course, just a few weeks ago, we wrote about Amanda Hocking, an entirely self-published author who was making a ton of money, having built up her own audience with incredibly cheap ebooks.

Yet, as many people noted, the very same day that Eisler announced that he was passing on that big contract, lots of folks in publishing were buzzing about the fact that Hocking appears ready to sign a million-dollar-plus publishing contract, heading in the other direction. Some will suggest that this shows that self-publishing doesn't work. After all, if it did work, why would she sign such a deal? I'm not convinced that's actually true. There are plenty of reasons why she might be interested in this kind of deal, though, not all of them may be good reasons.

I think plenty of authors still think they need a big publishing deal to consider themselves to have "made it." Even if they're collecting tons of money elsewhere. On top of that, someone handing you a million dollars (or more) upfront sure must be difficult to ignore -- even if it comes with strings and may be less lucrative in the long run. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Honestly, though, if I were in Hocking's shoes, I'd realize that I have the leverage here, and that means a lot more than just getting the top dollar. She easily could be in a position to negotiate the key things she really wants/needs from a publisher, without giving in to the terms and strings that typically come with a publishing deal. The marketing support (if it works) could obviously help, even with the giant fanbase she's built up. But she could do a deal for just marketing, where she doesn't necessarily have to give up so much on the other side. Either way, this will be an interesting case study to follow over the next few years.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Authors Do Not Create Content In A Vacuum... So It's Too Bad Copyright Often Pretends They Do

Mike Masnick — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:25:47 PDT

The website Copygrounds, which has been interviewing various people involved in various copyright issues, has an interview with the always interesting Henry Jenkins (who we've quoted a few times in the past). The whole interview is worth reading, but I wanted to call attention to one key part, when the interviewer asks Jenkins about the European concept of "moral rights," which the US has explicitly rejected:

The current American system rewards authorship rights to corporate owners at the expense of both consumers and authors. The European tradition rewards moral rights to authors at the expense of the rest of the culture. Neither represents the most desirable system, in part because both falsify the actual conditions of authorship. Authors do not create value in a vacuum. All writers are already readers who are processing elements of their culture as the raw material for their own expressive and intellectual output, and in turn, their work becomes the raw materials for the next phase of creative expression.

That line: "Authors do not create value in a vacuum," is a good one, and deserves to be repeated. So much of the debates we have on copyright and related issues seems to center on this belief that they do. In that patent realm, it's the whole "flash of genius" concept, but it certainly applies in copyright as well. The system is designed as if people are creating things entirely from scratch, rather than pulling from the culture around them to put it together in new and creative means. Disney, of course, is famous for taking old stories and making them new again, and yet it refuses to let others do the same to its works. Authors do not create value in a vacuum. And, of course, it goes beyond the idea that authors are building on what's come before. The value piece is often added by the readers themselves, and how they interact, mold and share the content that has been created. Authors do not create value in a vacuum... but we've built up laws and institutions that seem to assume they do.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

New Zealand Authors Demanding Compulsory Blanket 'You Must Be A Criminal' Internet Charge

Mike Masnick — Mon, 9 Aug 2010 04:26:27 PDT

With New Zealand's copyright reform proposal still being discussed, we're hearing about some really ridiculous proposals to make it even worse. We already noted the idea of a full internet ban for users found to be infringing, and ~~Glyn Moody~~ Michael Scott points us to a proposal from "The Society of Authors" in New Zealand saying that there should be a blanket licensing fee for anyone accessing content online. Yes, basically they're asking for free money, backed by a government proposal. Rather than having to actually work to put together a business model, they want the government to just tell ISPs to collect a fee from everyone and then they'll figure out a way to give it to some authors.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Connecting Authors To Tangible Goods They Can Sell?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 4 Aug 2010 20:49:12 PDT

When we talk about business models for content, one question we get asked a lot is how these business models could possibly apply to authors. We're always told that such business models might work for music, but couldn't possibly work for authors. To be honest, I find this sort of response incredibly uncreative. If you look around, it's actually not hard to find authors who are making use of new and innovative business models, and even publishers who are willing to embrace that kind of thinking. This is definitely a good thing, but we're always interested in hearing new and more examples of this happening.

Ross Pruden alerts us to an LA Times story about a company called OpenSky that is apparently helping authors implement additional business models by helping them find tangible products they can sell in association with their books. Indeed, the whole concept seems to fit in with our concept of using infinite goods to make scarce goods more valuable:

A cookbook author, for example, not only sells books through OpenSky but also hawks a favorite barbecue sauce and grill. The author pockets 50% of the profit, with the rest going to OpenSky and others involved in the transaction.

[...]

David Hale Smith, a Texas literary agent, was about the only one who hadn't morphed roles since Naples last saw him. After they sat down at a table near that escalator, Smith immediately handed her a copy of a client's newest novel: "So Cold the River" by Michael Koryta. Smith mentioned that it's set in an old hotel in central Indiana known for its Pluto Water, believed to have healthful effects.

Naples lit up: "If [Koryta] was on OpenSky, the novel could be tied to a promotion of the hotel. He could have a button on his site for readers to buy the book and the water." (OpenSky would find a supplier to bottle and ship it.) She described other commercial possibilities: a sneak-peak download of a chapter of his next book, a "webinar" with him discussing his stories.

I can already hear the critics complaining about this sort of "crass commercialism" that I'm sure is "destroying" the concept of "art for art's sake," but I find it odd that those who focus on the whole "art for art's sake" argument are the same folks who also complain that the changing marketplace means content creators can't make money any more. No one is saying anyone has to adopt these models -- just that for those who feel comfortable doing so, it's now easier than ever to embrace infinite concepts -- and use them to make scarce goods more valuable.

That said, after reading about all of this, I went and looked at OpenSky, and I don't see any of this on their website. Instead, it looks like a plain old store. If they're really focused on helping content creators, it seems like they would be a lot better off promoting content creators on their site as well.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Scott Adams: The Economic Value Of Content Is Going To Zero, But Maybe It's Okay

Mike Masnick — Thu, 3 Jun 2010 09:01:19 PDT

Regular readers may recall a few years ago that I got into a short debate with Dilbert creator Scott Adams, on the issue of copyright. I usually find Adams' musings on various subjects to be interesting and insightful, but I thought he was pretty confused when it came to copyright. It kicked off with Adams trying to create an analogy for infringement, while (thankfully!) first admitting that it was different than "stealing" a physical good, the best analogy he could come up with was that it was like someone wearing your underwear all day and then putting it back in your drawer at the end of the day (cleaned and in the same condition he took it). I found that analogy to be severely lacking, and felt he assumed certain rights for creators that don't actually exist -- including the right to certain revenue. Adams shot back, in a mocking tone, again insisting that there were real economic losses in cases where a content creator failed to live up to his or her own marketing plan. Once again, I disagreed. Since then, I hadn't noticed Adams tackling this subject again.

Reader Bluejay alerts us to the news that Adams is exploring the topic again, in a slightly tangential manner. In a blog post highlighting his "theory on content value," where it seems he's reached something like the "acceptance" stage of navigating this particular topic -- though, he's doing so somewhat grudgingly. He kicks it off by noting that unauthorized copies of music represent a huge percentage of the music that people listen to these days (something that I'm not really sure is true) and that as devices like the iPad become more popular, the same thing is likely to happen for books. He's not focused on the locked down nature of the iPad, or its book store, but the fact that it has a browser, and you can find all sorts of unauthorized digital copies of books with little trouble.

From there, he's convinced (accurately) that there's little that can be done to stop this:

Every kid understands that stealing is wrong. But ask the average ten-year old about copyright law and watch for the blank stare. Students are taught to freely download copyrighted content from the Internet for school reports, which I understand is legal in the context of education. And at the same time, every school kid is learning from friends that downloading music and movies from the Internet is common practice. Paying for content on the Internet is strictly a generational thing, and it will pass.

Those of you reading this blog are already savvy enough to find and download any content you want for free. But I'll bet the average 40-something user of the Internet still wouldn't know how to search the Internet for criminally free content. At some point, I assume, a Google search for any popular book title will return an illegal source at the top of the page. When that happens, Amazon.com will primarily be selling electronics, household products, and clothes.

That sounds about right. But what does it mean? Well, Adams has a sort of good news/bad news conclusion that I partly agree with:

I predict that the profession known as "author" will be retired to history in my lifetime, like blacksmith and cowboy. In the future, everyone will be a writer, and some will be better and more prolific than others. But no one will pay to read what anyone else creates. People might someday write entire books - and good ones - for the benefit of their own publicity, such as to promote themselves as consultants, lecturers, or the like. But no one born today is the next multi-best-selling author. That job won't exist.

As an author, my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that the media content of the future will suck because there will be no true professionals producing it. But I think suckiness is solved by better search capabilities. Somewhere out in the big old world are artists who are more talented than we can imagine, and willing to create content for free, for a variety of reasons. And so, as our ability to search for media content improves, the economic value of that content will approach zero.

I'm not sure that the job of "author" will go away. "Best selling author" is a description of a type of author, so, sure, that might go away if people aren't selling books, but I'm not at all convinced the profession of "author" goes away. It's just that the nature of the job changes. I also think his final statement is just wrong. The economic value of that content doesn't go to zero. The price of that content may approach zero, but as we've pointed out over and over again price and value are not the same thing. In fact, there may be tremendous economic value in that content -- it's just that the economic value is realized elsewhere, by making something else gain a higher price. Adams mentions that authors may write books to help promote themselves, and that's an example of how that economic value is realized elsewhere, in boosting the price people may pay for authors who are also consultants, lecturers or something else entirely.

That said, however, it is nice that Adams admits that, even if his gut reaction is not to like this, he realizes that better tools may actually make sure that the results aren't bad at all (and might even be better). Going back to his earlier posts on copyright and content sharing, he's realizing that what he once thought of as a "loss," might really just be a changing market. That's good to see.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Joe Konrath Explains Why Authors Shouldn't Fear File Sharing

Mike Masnick — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:39:00 PDT

Simon was the first of a few of you to send over a blog post by author Joe Konrath discussing why he doesn't worry much about his books being available online via unauthorized file sharing avenues. The whole blog post is so reasonable and well argued that you really should just go read the whole thing, so here are a few snippets to get you interested:

People want to share files. There is this much file sharing going on for a reason. It's what people want. Fighting piracy is fighting human nature. This is a battle no one can win. Getting your undies in a bunch at the thought of someone copying your ebook is a waste of a good ulcer. Worry about some problem that eventually will be solved. Like world hunger. Or cancer. Or war. Those will be conquered before file sharing is....

There is ZERO reliable evidence that file-sharing hurts sales. A shared file does not equal a lost sale, any more than someone reading a library book is a lost sale.

The best part is a bit later in the post, where he tries to pre-empt the usual "but it's theft!!!!" arguments with a series of Q&As that read something like many of the comment exchanges we end up having here at Techdirt, by pointing out that it's not the same as stealing a tangible object, and even so it doesn't matter. He also takes on another popular argument made in our comments: but what if artists don't want to embrace new business models:

Q: But Joe, if everyone steals your ebooks, how will you make money?

A: Show me an artist bankrupted by piracy, and we'll revisit this question.

Q: No, seriously, in a future where everything is free, how will...

A: We're not in a future where everything is free. But I'll play the "let's pretend" game. Let's pretend that all ebooks are free. How will writers make money? The same way all media makes money. Advertising, merchandising, and licensing.

Q: But I don't want ads in ebooks.

A: I don't want ads in anything. But that's how capitalism works. Deal with it.

Again, the whole thing is a worthwhile read, but highlights a key point that we keep trying to make over and over again. So many keep focusing in on the whole "piracy!" aspect, and that's such a huge waste of time. Why focus on trying to stop something you don't like, when you can put your energy into creating a positive situation that you do like? Why focus on trying to punish people you don't like, when you have so many opportunities to happily engage with people you do like?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Yes, Authors Have Copyright Issues With Quoting Others As Well

Mike Masnick — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 20:33:00 PDT

We were recently writing about how there seems to be a massive double standard when it comes to "sampling" in books vs. music. But that was really only focused on fiction books. When it comes to non-fiction, it appears the story is a bit more complicated. Author Marc Aronson recently took to the pages of the NY Times to complain about how copyright is massively stifling non-fiction works, due to the difficulty of getting permission:

The hope of nonfiction is to connect readers to something outside the book: the past, a discovery, a social issue. To do this, authors need to draw on pre-existing words and images.

Unless we nonfiction writers are lucky and hit a public-domain mother lode, we have to pay for the right to use just about anything -- from a single line of a song to any part of a poem; from the vast archives of the world's art (now managed by gimlet-eyed venture capitalists) to the historical images that serve as profit centers for museums and academic libraries.

The amount we pay depends on where and how the material is used. In fact, the very first question a rights holder asks is "What are you going to do with my baby" Which countries do you plan to sell in? What languages? Over what period of time? How large will the image be in your book?

Much of his concern is how these costs will multiply in an age of ebooks, but it seems like a serious enough issue from the start. Just the fact that authors who are discussing and building on the works of others are being blocked due to copyright is hugely problematic. In this context, it hardly sounds like the new works would act as substitutes for the old works at all -- but could actually drive more interest in those original works. It's difficult to see why or how copyright policy makes sense in these cases.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Will The Authors Guild Freak Out About Text To Speech On The iPad?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:08:36 PDT

When the second generation Kindle ebook reader launched with a text-to-speech functionality, the Authors Guild freaked out, claiming that this violated a totally made up on the spot aspect of copyright law. Plenty of copyright lawyers dissected this claim in great detail and concluded that the Authors Guild was making up stories about how they wanted copyright law to act, rather than paying attention to what copyright law actually said. There simply is no copyright violation in having a computer read a book aloud to you. However, after the Authors Guild ratcheted up the threats, Amazon finally caved and let authors choose to block the text-to-speech functionality.

Now, with the iPad coming out, some are noticing that it, too, contains such text-to-speech capabilities, and yet oddly, we haven't heard complaints from the Authors Guild (found via Copycense). Have they come to their senses, or have they just not realized it yet?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

New Google Book Settlement Tries To Appease Worries

Mike Masnick — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:22:00 PST

Late (very late) Friday, Google and groups representing publishers and authors squeaked in just under the deadline and put forth a revised Book Scanning settlement agreement, designed to address at least some of the concerns and complaints raised by people over the last one. If you want a good breakdown over the changes, check out Danny Sullivan's analysis or James Grimmelmann's. Not surprisingly, the Open Book Alliance is not happy, but seeing as it's a bunch of Google competitors, they were never going to be happy in the first place (and you know that press release was probably 95% written before the actual new terms were released).

In my mind, the biggest news is the new restrictions on countries from which it will scan books. From now on, the book scanning project will only scan books that have registered copyrights in the US, UK, Australia or Canada. This was mainly to address ridiculous concerns by some in Europe that this project -- to help make all books more accessible -- was somehow a threat to European culture. I was in Europe on Friday (well, Saturday there) when the announcement was made, and it actually pissed off the folks I talked to about it -- who felt that their politicians were doing serious harm to European books by having them excluded from such a useful resource.

Separately, a lot of the focus on this new agreement, as with the old agreement, is over how Google treats orphan works. Again, I have to admit that I think most people are making a much bigger deal of this than it warrants. The orphan works stuff really covers a very small number of works. And giving rightsholders ten years to claim their rights seems more than adequate to me. I just don't see what the big deal is here. The real issue is that we have orphan works at all. Under the old (more sensible) copyright regime, you actually had to proactively declare your copyright interest. The only reason we have orphan works at all is that we got rid of such a system in the ongoing effort of copyright maximalists to wipe out the public domain.

Anyway, I think this is all something of a sideshow. I still stand by my original feeling towards the settlement, which is that I'm upset anyone felt it was necessary at all. Google had a strong fair use claim that I would have liked to have seen taken all the way through the courts. And, of course, this settlement really has nothing at all to do with the main issue of the lawsuit (that fair use question) and is really a debate over a separate issue: how to take the books Google scans and trying to turn them into a "book store" rather than more of a "library." And, in doing so, the important fair use question gets completely buried -- which I find unfortunate.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Paulo Coelho: Content Creators Will Be Punished For Not Sharing Their Ideas Freely

Mike Masnick — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:18:14 PDT

We've written a few times about best-selling author Paulo Coelho, and his embrace of file sharing and openness -- and how it helped him sell a lot more books. Reader Esahc writes in to alert us to the text from a speech Coelho gave. The actual speech appears to be from last year, so a bit out of date, but it's still well worth reading:
He talks about the success of his own projects, from "pirating" his own books, to having the community make their own movie out of one of his books. At the same time he discusses the rise of technology and the folly of pretending you can fight the technology. It's really a great overall statement on embracing new technologies for anyone who thinks they need to rely on copyright. On top of that, it again confirms the basic premise that we've stated here time and time again: for those who work to connect with their fans directly, there are plenty of ways to do well, even without specifically relying on copyright to do so.

We are facing a new era, so either we adapt or we die. However, I did not come here to share solutions, but my own experience as an author. Of course, I make a living out of my copyrights, but at this very moment I am not concentrating on this. I have to adapt myself. Not only by connecting more directly with my readers -- something unthinkable a few years ago -- but also by developing a new language, Internet-based, that will be the language of the future: direct, simple, without being superficial. Time will tell me how to recover the money I myself am investing alone in my social communities. But I am investing in something for which every single writer in the world would be grateful: to have his texts read by a maximum of people.

The Internet has taught me this: don't be afraid of sharing your ideas. Don't be afraid of engaging others to voice their ideas. And more importantly, don't presume who is and who is not a creator -- because we all are.

And the key point he makes? In the past, heretics were punished for sharing their ideas. These days, you'll be punished if you don't share your ideas.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Author Admits To Downloading Own Works: Easier Than Scanning

Mike Masnick — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:00:00 PDT

Reader Jon R. sent in a great story about author Michael Stackpole, where he talks about embracing new technologies and tools to better reach your audience, while also ignoring things like "piracy." On the "piracy issue," he notes:

"People downloading my stories from the big torrent sites were never going to buy them anyway. It's no money out of my pocket."

Following that, he pointed out that he has sometimes downloaded his own books from torrent sites because it was easier than scanning the work himself, if he didn't already have a digital copy of it. Stackpole is taking exactly the right attitude on all of this. First, he's embracing new technologies and new distribution channels, rather than ignoring them (or worse) complaining about them. Second, he recognizes that he needs to focus on his real customers (those actually willing to spend money on things) and that he needs to provide them with real value that they'll actually pay for. Finally, he recognizes that there's little benefit in caring about those who get the works by unauthorized means, since there's a pretty strong chance that they were never going to pay for anything anyway. What does complaining about them or trying to stop them really do -- other than distract from providing good value for your true fans?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Best-Selling Swedish Author Torrents Her Own Audio Book To Protest Pirate Bay Ruling

Mike Masnick — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:58:16 PDT

We've already seen that plenty of content creators use The Pirate Bay for legitimate distribution and promotion purposes, and now Dan writes in to alert us that a best-selling author in Sweden, Unni Drougge, is so annoyed by The Pirate Bay verdict, that she made an audiobook version of her best-selling recent novel and put up a torrent via The Pirate Bay, along with a "manifesto" in support of free file sharing. Apparently, this is getting her plenty of attention, as her book has jumped to the top of the audiobooks list (what were people saying, that the top downloaded lists never include authorized content?).

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Another Author Has A Book Leak, And Offers Up The 'Oopsie' Version For Sale

Mike Masnick — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:49:00 PDT

We recently wrote about how the band, The Dears, responded to its album being leaked online, and compared that with author Stephenie Meyer who decided to punish her fans by stopping work on her series of novels, after a draft was leaked. However, an even better example comes to us from Geoffrey Kidd, who points us to the news that author David Weber accidentally leaked his own latest novel. He had been sending out "snippets" of the work to keep fans interested, but at the beginning of the month accidentally sent out quite a large snippet: the entire work-in-progress quarter-million-word novel. But, rather than complaining and punishing fans, Weber and Baen Books (his publisher, who has long supported offering up content for free as a part of a larger business model) are now selling the "Oopsie" version of the book, while making it clear that this is unedited and probably not the version you want:

For those who want it--and we stress this is an early, un-edited, incomplete version--we will sell the "oopsie" now for $10. We are not asking you to buy this version, we do not recommend you buy this version, but if you gotta have it, come and get it.

What better way to respond to such a leak. They've basically made a joke out of it, in a way that's endearing to fans, and which might actually net them some additional money from fans who actually want to contribute to the cause.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story