Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books
from the creators-and-copyright dept
A few weeks ago the FBI and DOJ seized a bunch of domain names associated with Z-Library, an online repository of millions of unauthorized copies of ebooks. The DOJ also issued an indictment of the two Russian nationals (who were arrested in Argentina), who were accused of running the site. I still have significant reservations about the constitutionality of seizing domain names over copyright infringement claims, but if you’re going to run a site like that, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that eventually the US government is going to go after it.
That said, I was fascinated by a piece by author Alison Rumfitt over at Dazed coming to a defense of Z-Library, and suggesting that other authors should do the same. She notes that she supports the site, even if she did lose revenue from people downloading her books from it:
The site probably did lose me some revenue, but I don’t think it would have been all that much: I get a certain small amount for every book bought by a shop, rather than for every book actually sold. This builds up and then twice a year I get sent a cheque. That being said, even if Z-Library did lose me a large amount of income, I don’t think I’d like to see it destroyed in my name
She notes that there are perfectly good, none “theft” reasons why people might want to download such ebooks:
I think the most telling thing is the use of steal as a verb. Is piracy stealing? I know that old, quite-scary video that played on VHSs said so, but is it actually stealing? Theft? Pirating books over websites such as Z-Library is simple to a degree where I couldn’t call it that. When I worked as a carer, the 70-year-old man I worked for used the site to get ebooks of books which he already had in his physical collection but was unable to read due to disability. I’m not sure I’d say he was stealing those books, he already owned them after all.
As she notes, getting words out there and more widely available should be seen as a societal good:
Of course, specifics are specifics for a reason; the majority of people downloading from Z-Library are likely not people in that position. Mostly they’re people trying to get books they want to read for no money. But even then, I’m not sure I can call that stealing – the hunger to read is something to be encouraged, something which, in my opinion, is a societal good; even as publishing grows ever more overtly capitalist and monopolised, reading still thrives, and piracy allows it to take place despite borders and Digital Rights Management. Not everyone has access to a library, and not every library in the world is well-stocked.
Indeed, she notes that copyright is really there to help the publishers way more than the authors themselves:
I do understand the position of some authors who would disagree with me here. I get why authors who are trying to make a living inside the machinery of capitalism might feel personally affronted when people access their work for free – many of us are lacking in money and power, even if people often assume we have both in spades. But the solution, this solution, the destruction of accessibility to works and the arrests of individuals by US forces, is far worse than the problem. When we side with the idea of copyright, we side with the structure that hurts authors in a far deeper way than losing us sales; we side with the publishers who, through their endless trend-chasing, leave many brilliant writers behind in the dust. There are books currently out-of-print in the UK and America that I could access there, such as the works of subversive writer Heather Lewis or a good portion of Samuel R Delaney’s output. It’s possible to believe that authors deserve fair treatment and pay and to take a more nuanced approach to this issue; not only possible, in fact, it might well be the only way forward.
We’ve noted for years now that in the book world, while there certainly are some authors who completely go along with the copyright maximalist view, others are a lot more nuanced. Many authors are horrified by what publishers are doing in their name using copyright as an excuse. This has been true for years. Remember famed author Paulo Coelho’s discussion on why he “loves” those who pirate his works? He had even gone so far as to “pirate” his own works… and found that it actually helped sales!
Copyright is a blunt instrument, and it’s frequently used in problematic ways. In a time when we’re (1) enabling greater access to information and (2) creating new and better ways to support creators (often which don’t rely on copyright at all), it really does seem like it’s time to reconsider how copyright itself works. In its current form it is a legacy tool that supports gatekeepers (book publishers, record labels, movie studios) way more than it helps actual creators. And that’s not even getting to how it harms the fans themselves, by assuming, upfront, that they must be criminals or have criminal intent for merely wanting to share amazing creativity and artwork that they enjoy.
Filed Under: alison rumfitt, copyright, ebooks, piracy
Companies: z-library
Comments on “Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books”
I'm Lost again
I can see where US tax dollars might be spent to protect US consumers from knock-offs of trademarked products, but using the FBI and DOJ to chase down off-shore IP infringement, when the FBI or DOJ has no time to pursue actual corporate crimes e.g. Federal Laws and Regulations that have been on the books for generations.
I suspect the majority of people who read a book via a physical library will not then go buy the book, either. I see sites like Z-Library and the still-extant Library Genesis and Sci-Hub (see their Wikipedia pages for links) as the future of libraries, at least when it comes to text.
Well, the publishers been doing this for like 20 years, as have the groups buying TV/film rights. Maybe, instead of just complaining, it’s time these “horrified” authors stopped letting publishers use their names. Selling copies of books is an obsolescent business model anyway. It’s not at all difficult (and shouldn’t be) to get a copy of a book after it’s been written, so it would make more sense to collect money to fund the writing of the next book.
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The might if the book resonates with them, and certainly helps someone decide which authors they will look for when buying books.Also it can make the difference the earlier books in a series is only available in a libraries, as many people do not like to start in the middle of a series.
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I’ve discovered many new (and old!) books at the library. If I really like one, I’ll buy my own copy and often more by the same author. E-books are the Zoom version of real books, and aren’t as enjoyable to read or own. Plus you don’t really own them if you can’t make backups, or require the publisher’s permission to read them on a new phone.
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I can think of a number of books I have bought after borrowing them from my local public library – I’ve just finished re-reading one, Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear. And of course, there are the Eternal Champion books by Michael Moorcock, and CJ Date’s An introduction to Database Systems, and a fair number of other books ….
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Some people buying “a number” of books is not quite a “majority”, though. Your experience is by no means rare, but as a society, we don’t pretend that libraries are just so you can “try before you buy”, nor just for people who can’t afford books. They lend full books and book series, and many will let people borrow huge numbers of books (50+) at a time.
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“Selling copies of books is an obsolescent business model anyway”
Yeah? Says who? I sell books I’ve written all the time.
“it would make more sense to collect money to fund the writing of the next book”
And how would this work?
“Hello, I have written a book, will you pay for me to write another one? No, I don’t know how many people would want to read it, and I didn’t sell any copies of it, but I’m sure it’s brilliant.”
Would you hand over money to someone saying that? I’m thinking, no.
The only way to get money for a creative work is to either have a wonderful track record, or to sell a finished product. No one is going to fund every rando’s big tits fantasy about their manic pixie dream girl, or allow ‘authors’ to loll around on chaises longues complaining about writer’s block. You don’t have the first idea about how writing and publishing (two separate and not always related businesses) work.
Piracy is a mixed blessing for authors. Yes, those are books they won’t get paid for. But since the kind of person who pirates books etc wouldn’t pay for the books if they couldn’t get them another way, then we don’t lose much. You can convert pirates over to paying if the price point comes down low enough, which is how Apple and other companies managed to get people to pay for music instead of stealing downloads, but music is sold in volumes that most authors can’t ever dream of. A lot of self-pubbed authors have gone that route and make a little money, as I do myself, but you can’t get rich that way without spending a lot of money upfront in marketing.
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You build up a fan base by making your books available for free, and using social media, podcasts etc. to connect to fans. Set up some way that they can send money your way, such a Patreon. If you are lucky you will grow and income that you can live on, but most likely, as with most authors, you will make some extra income, but still need a day job.
That is the basic model of those who make a living on YouTube, but they have an easier time making a living, as they produce many more works that a typical author, like one or two videos a week.
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“You build up a fan base by making your books available for free, and using social media, podcasts etc. to connect to fans.”
Well, yes, you can do that. It’s a lot of work with little reward, and the real money still has to come from sales.
You’d be amazed how many readers and how many authors do not use social media at all.
“they have an easier time making a living, as they produce many more works that a typical author, like one or two videos a week.”
Yes. You’ve just made the strongest argument against your own idea. Also, a youtuber can promote and win fans in the very act of promoting their own work. An author needs to spend time writing, and the time spend tooling about on SM and promotion, is time they can’t spend writing. Most writers have a full time job. Writing time is already precious and sparse. The authors who are best at self promotion either don’t have jobs or – and this is the important point – are already successful because they’ve sold lots of books.
You also forget that a creator can spend hundreds of hours building a presence on a platform and then some giggling shitgoblin can buy that platform for, oh let’s say, $44 billion, and sweep it away from under them. Which is already happening to thousands of small creators and artists and authors on Twitter.
If what you suggest worked at any scale, authors would already be doing it at scale. I can tell you from personal knowledge, it doesn’t work for everyone, or even most authors.
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“has to” doesn’t mean it will. Not every declining business model is conveniently replaced by a similar one, and a person doesn’t have to invent a replacement to note that a business model is outmoded.
If people are willing to pay authors to make digital copies of books, given that copying is a mundane task that can be trivially and instantly performed by anyone, that’s great for authors. It would still be a mistake to pretend that the service of copying is what readers really value, or to simply assume that this is the best business model or can go on forever.
The details of how they promote doesn’t matter, but you might be surprised how much effort little-known authors spend on promotion. That might be readings and signings at local bookstores, libraries, open mike nights; radio or TV interviews; sending promotional copies to friend, families, literary reviewers; trying to get excerpts printed in magazines; even sending manuscripts to traditional publishers.
Yeah, it all takes time that could be better spent, and that’s always been true. Probably 99% of authors will never make any significant money from it. You’ll find groups of unknown and unpublished writers in any city, meeting regularly to share and critique drafts among themselves, as easily as musicians can find “drummer wanted” ads for unknown bands.
Nothing new there. People have been getting screwed by publishers for 500 years, and been arbitrarily disinvited from performance venues for millenia.
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“you might be surprised how much effort little-known authors spend on promotion”
I’m intimately aware of that, thanks. I’m also intimately aware of how unrewarding it is. Authors are not naturally good at promotion. This is why publishers make money doing it for them.
“People have been getting screwed by publishers for 500 years”
I notice you are in one part of your reply singing the praises of self-promotion, and in another part, utterly ignoring my point that platforms can disappear overnight. Platforms and publishers are different things. Do try to keep up.
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Praises? Hell no. Just the existence and apparent necessity of it. I’d love for authors to just be able to write without worrying about money, promotion, Z-Libraries, publishers, etc. I just don’t know how to get there. Traditional publishers didn’t solve those problems, self-publishing on Kindle didn’t, crowd-funding and distributed patronage didn’t.
What’s the relevant difference here? Books have gone out of print when publishers disappeared (or simply stopped caring). Authors have lost audiences when their published “platforms” like newspapers and magazines went under or dropped them. Being overly reliant on one entity is risky.
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“What’s the relevant difference here?”
A platform is how you tell the prospective customers about a product. Publishing is a suite of services – editing, printing, distribution, and marketing – to make the product from the raw material (the book draft.)
Books go out of print but the author can then claim back the right to release the book themselves with another publisher. Platforms disappear and we rebuild the audience. But it all takes time and money and talent for the game which is a combination a lot of authors don’t have. So when the latest Herr Murdoch or Oberfuhrer Musk comes along and destroys that platforms, you lose self-published authors from the market. Not so with publishers, who just take their advertising elsewhere.
“self-publishing on Kindle didn’t [solve the problem]’
Amazon has been hands down one of the most destructive forces in the book market, and one of the worst things for authors in the last fifty years. They were never going to be a solution, because like Musk, Bezos wants to own and control all the things, and doesn’t care who gets hurt or what businesses are razed in the process.
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Writing books is often a lot of work with little reward, and the number of authors who make all their living from writing are few and far between. Also, getting publish can lead to a lot of hard work, traveling the globe for book signings and similar events.
Interestingly, both sales, and support via patreon or the like, rely on the same thing, building a base of committed fans, and unless you can write a work with the appeal of say Harry Potter, the hard work of building the fan base is the route to any income.
Also, it is worth noting, with the rare exception that gains a lot of news traction, many people want to sample an authors work before committing to buying books from them.
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“many people want to sample an authors work”
That’s not an argument for not being able to sell your own books for a fair price. Samples can be review copies, giveaways, free chapters etc.
But you simply can’t give away book after book, and hope the next one you write will winkle money out of the readers’ wallets. It’s a reality that many people migrating from fanfiction to pro discovered in a hurry.
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That sound like you are making the T.P. argument, I have done the work and deserve to be paid, and for creative works, there is no guarantee that they will make any money at all.
Also, give away the book should also be linked with a way for the readers to engage with you, and you need to at least listen to any constructive criticism that is offered.
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“I have done the work and deserve to be paid”
Yes? If someone reads my books and gets pleasure from them, then why is it wrong that they pay for that? I don’t mind if they read them in a library, because taxes pay for libraries to buy books, and in some countries, authors receive a small fee for each time a book is borrowed. I don’t mind if they buy them second hand and then buy new books when they fall in love with the author’s work. Or borrow them. I’m a reader too. I’ve given away books as an author, hundreds of them. I’ve sent them for free to many readers who say they can’t afford or can’t access my works the usual way. I want people to read my works.
But I’m buggered if I’m going to listen to people drivel on about the economics when they clearly have no idea.
The ‘T.P.’ argument you think I’m making is simply that it’s demeaning and unproductive to replace royalties from sales entirely with begging the small percentage of a potential readership to send you money out of the kindness of their hearts, instead a simple exchange of goods for coin.
Read further down this discussion and you’ll see someone – by no means a unique someone – proudly proclaiming they pirate almost all the books they read because they say authors ‘bully’ them. But when I ask them how this happens, you’ll note I got no answer. They’re greedy, that’s all it is. They want everything for free. Patreon won’t touch people like this because they don’t think they should pay – ever.
All this discussion of removing copyright and how evil traditional publishing is boils down to this – like a good capitalist, those arguing that way don’t believe a good workman is worth their hire, and want everyone to exist in a tipping culture, so that artists and creators have to beg and fawn and depend on the generosity of those privileged enough to be able to consume their work.
That mentality is destroying journalism and good newspapers, and it looks like some of you can’t wait for it to destroy good writing as well.
“you need to at least listen to any constructive criticism that is offered.”
No. I have editors and beta readers for that. My books are finished when I put them out. By that time, the criticism is too late, even if it has any value (and it never does). The best feedback for an author is sales. If the book is lousy, it won’t sell. If it entertains, it will. People can and do leave reviews for other readers, but reviews are not for authors.
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For what it’s worth, the “TP” argument refers to Tero Pulkinnen, a coder from Finland who’s spent the last decade coding an inbuilt 3D engine for browsers that has… well, extremely dubious quality at best. He’s also made no secret of his insistence that the work he’s put in entitles him to ask his government for millions of dollars. The same goes for his desire to sue anyone who doesn’t agree with his extreme views of copyright, such as his belief that the public domain shouldn’t exist.
Copyright maniacs have, essentially, poisoned the well for any chances of a balanced perspective.
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There’s zero marginal cost to e-books. Everything else about the economics of “deserve” or “should” is just an opinion, and economics cannot always be manipulated to produce just results.
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“There’s zero marginal cost to e-books.”
Probably the most dishonest comment in this entire thread.
Apart from the cover art, editing, and marketing, the cost is time. After writing (which in itself is time-intensive), to make any income at all as an author involves hundreds of hours of time, whether you’re pro or self-published. The printing and distribution is only part of the cost of issuing a paper book.
You really do not have a clue, and as you don’t value anyone’s time but your own, I’m not going to waste any more of mine educating you.
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You do not understand marginal costs, and those are the costs per copy excluding the costs of creating the original work. The costs you list are the fixed costs of creating the original, and relate to selling price based on the expected volume of sales, or more often with books, what the market will bear. Your chosen genre is associated with relatively cheap books, which makes it hard to make much money from them, unless you get massive sales.
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“Probably the most dishonest comment in this entire thread.”
No, it’s the one that reveals you don’t understand the words other people use, which should be embarrassing to an author.
Marginal costs are the costs required to copy and distribute a book after it’s been written. Those costs are virtually zero for an ebook, the actual data transfer and storage required are not much different to when you load this page to read my comment.
“cover art, editing, and marketing”
Those are fixed costs, not marginal. Whether you sell 1 copy of 100,000 copies of a book, the editing and cover art don’t cost most. Marketing maybe, but that doesn’t increase the cost of distributing a copy of your book.
“The printing and distribution is only part of the cost of issuing a paper book.”
But, a print run and physical distribution of a paperback or hardback book is obviously subject to costs that don’t apply to an ebook.
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“That’s not an argument for not being able to sell your own books for a fair price.”
No, but you might not be aware of what the fair price actually is..
“But you simply can’t give away book after book, and hope the next one you write will winkle money out of the readers’ wallets”
Every author I’ve ever read did this. They did it through the media of public libraries or used bookstores rather than the internet, but I’m not sure I’ve ever bought a book by an author I’ve not read for free beforehand…
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This is not an argument against the model, because no model has ever worked for everyone, or even most authors, including the one where authors sign with a publisher who promotes and distributes paper copies of their book. In general, most models don’t work for most artists, and most artists cannot make a full time living from their art. So the argument is not that this will definitely work for you, and you can quit your day job if you try it. The argument is that it can work for some people in a long term sustainable way.
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Says an anonymous person on the internet. People still do it, which is why I wrote “obsolescent” and not “obsolete”. In terms of physical books, it’s gonna continue for a long time, though it’s increasingly associated with “old people”; “mobile phone novels” have long been popular in East Asia, and young people everywhere seem to prefer e-books (and they’re certain to discover sites like LibGen when they reach post-secondary education and are expected to spend hundreds of dollars for books, while having negative net worth).
I can’t copy physical books as well as a real publisher, so even though their popularity has peaked, there’s still some value in buying them. By contrast, any idiot on the internet can copy digital data. And the experience can’t help but be better than the official methods. The official ones will be making people sign up, agree to terms, hand over money, maybe accept DRM. But if I find a package of hundreds of e-books online—or a friend or neighbor offers me such—I can have them in a minute or two, forever, in exchange for nothing but a few hundred megabytes of space; too cheap to measure. Publishers are applying an old business model to a new world in a way that simply makes no sense, and business models that make no sense can’t help but fall apart eventually (especially when they’re alienating authors, consumers, retailers, and libraries).
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“Says an anonymous person on the internet. ”
Says someone called “Anonymous Coward”. At least I’ve signed in, and Mike Masnick knows my real name.
Publishers have been slow to work with new media, it’s true, and it’s been a source of fierce discussion and hand-wringing for over twenty years among those in the industry and those dependent on it. However, making authors work for free isn’t going to help, nor is depriving them of a legal right to charge for their own work.
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“Mike Masnick knows my real name”
Not really. He has access to the IP address you provided to his web server (which can be faked) and an email address (ditto).
“However, making authors work for free isn’t going to help, nor is depriving them of a legal right to charge for their own work.”
Every author has been forced to “work for free”. Sharing books, lending books, reading books out loud to a group have predated the internet. Introducing new copyright restrictions after they die won’t change how books are consumed, and in fact it might make them less valuable.
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It’s really quite funny whenever a copyright apologist shows up on Techdirt, whether it’s to defend draconian pricing mechanisms or copyright trolls a la Richard Liebowitz. It’s always some variation of “if you don’t agree with me you must want me to starve and culture to die”, or “we wouldn’t have to rely on the RIAA and Prenda Law if only we made more money off our work”.
What you’ll never see is these supposed content creators saying who they are. You’ll never see them point to what books they’ve written, what photos they’ve taken, what videos they’ve produced. Because the odds are quite high that what they’ve actually produced is mediocre, and copyright enforcement is the only way they can stand to make bank like Voltage Pictures. (I remember when an author defended RIAA tactics on Torrentfreak and got outed by Andrew Norton as a guy who spent 10 years to write one book on counting cards at blackjack tables.)
Of course, their immediate go-to defense is that outing themselves would invite trolls and review bombs. They (rightly, to be fair) fear what would happen if their works were tied to someone who openly advocates extortion letters based on shitty, insubstantial evidence.
The “work for free” claim often made by content creators is a strawman. It’s an assumption that allows them to paint anyone who disagrees with their stance on copyright as a lowlife who only wants content for free. It lets them justify going against people who aren’t happy with how the RIAA and Malibu Media sued the innocent.
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In a sense, such individuals are like Tero Pulkinnen – they know that they have nothing substantial to bring to the table, so shilling for an aggressive copyright regime is the best they can hope for. They believe that shouting “copyright Akbar” and demonstrating a cultish, blindly devoted faith will eventually lead to prosperity for their efforts.
The good thing is that such efforts don’t have a long shelf life. A decade ago, celebrities would not be ashamed to put their name to a copyright trolling operation, like ABBA during the Pirate Bay trial, or David Lowery during the heyday of SOPA.
But that window of opportunity has closed. Judges are no longer as willing to believe copyright plaintiffs’ claims wholesale. Eventually, the house of cards they’re standing on collapses. “Ross” used to defend Richard Liebowitz very vigorously even after Liebowitz was found to have scammed his clients out of their money, then disappeared after Liebowitz lost his licence. Same for Franziska, one of Malibu Media’s performers who disappeared after their legal team failed to make any headway after the bellwether trial of 2016, and their legal leader managed to land himself in jail.
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What you’re missing is that this is basically how it already works; we just don’t admit it. Most books sold are by well-established authors, who can therefore afford to write the next book. But how do they get popular? New entrants into business struggle with this all the time, but giving something away to build interest has always been popular, from buskers to Youtubers. Andy Weir did it quite famously and recently, taking money only because people asked for The Martian to be made available on Kindle and Amazon won’t let authors set a price below 99 US cents.
The same is true of any business. Why should I do business with a brand-new store, who might go under and leave me unable to return a product, when I can get it cheaper at Walmart anyway? Techdirt and the associated Copia institute have been talking about how to connect with fans—in ways that could lead to profit—for years.
One can always frame a payment as being for some existing media work. “If you got my stuff for free (from a physical library, LibGen, a friend, whatever) and liked it, how about giving me a dollar?” But who’s really being fooled? People pay because they want to support the person, because they don’t want that person to quit. Not because they’re unable to get stuff without handing over money.
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That’s terrible! If only your book could exist in a format with zero marginal costs so that you could sent an unlimited number of copies to book reviewers, literati, libraries, or even some of your most vocal fans to generate interest at no additional expense!
You were so close to realizing a point, but noped out at the last second.
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“I suspect the majority of people who read a book via a physical library will not then go buy the book, either.”
Some will, but other might go on to buy later books from the same author as they are published. I know that a lot of my favourite authors were ones I discovered at the library.
Another fun thing when talking about books is the second hand market. It’s a constant vibrant source of reading material from which the original publisher sees zero revenue, but pre-internet the industry just dealt with the fact that it existed rather than trying to shut it down (generally speaking, anyway).
“Selling copies of books is an obsolescent business model anyway.”
Well, yes and no. Lots of people do this, but many balk at the current pricing structure, especially on digital. I mean, I know why a new paperback copy of Dune costs significantly more than the older dog-eared copy I read in the 80s, but there’s no sane reason why the Kindle version costs more than 3x the cover price of that copy.
If you don’t want it, don’t steal it. If you do want it, pay for it. An author who doesn’t care about her lost revenue is fine, but she speaks only for herself.
Abolishing copyright would prove the need for copyright in very short order. As it is, books are already disfavored because they are so easily stolen, whereas monetized videos benefit from sharing.
The result of that is a world of people who learn from Wikipedia, TikTok, and disguised marketing copy, where truth is optional thanks to Section 230.
This is the world Techdirt seems to want. Enjoy it.
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I’m a writer (pro/fan, fic/non-fic). Copyright which exists for a hundred years after the death of the author does nothing whatsoever to help the author or their dependents. It’s all about benefitting big companies, principally the Mouse.
Copyright for forty years would be more than long enough, and perhaps some additional protections could be added for still living authors. But more than that stifles creativity and doesn’t help the people who do the work.
Piracy exists, has always existed since the first mass-produced books were made, and crackdowns never work. Piracy isn’t as harmful as what Spotify does to artists. The answer is to find a way to make paying attractive and to make sure actual creators get a proper reward for their work.
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I’ve stated many times before, but I’m in favour of a short (20 years, maybe) term of copyright with an option to renew within the author’s lifetime (but not transferrable to a corporation, and no further renewals after their deaths).
I think that zero copyright would lead to big publishers actually stealing manuscripts and making money without royalties to the original author. But, if the idea behind copyright is to enrich the culture by encouraging authors to write and publish, they have no need for that in the grave, but the culture still needs their works as it needed the works that inspired them to start writing.
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Even if works are published without the creator receiving payment, so long as they are properly attributed, they will drive people to the authors website, where they can give away extant works, and direct fans to a patreon or similar ways of supporting their creativity. Attribution should be legally protected, ad then a publisher distributing their works is helping spread the word, but has to do so in competition with an authors chosen business model
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It’s true that attribution is important, but I doubt that’s what some people are referring to. I also doubt that if copyright was removed completely that the major corporations would bother with such things.
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Attribution can be made a legal requirement, using the name that the author published the work under. Also, legal damages for plagiarism, which includes changing the name on a work. Publisher want a name on a book, as it helps dales of subsequent books by the same author.
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Then, some form of copyright still applies.
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Why would they resort to larceny when there are plenty of authors sending manuscripts to publishers unsolicited, or posting things on the internet? A publisher could copy those without payment, but copying is not theft. And then their supply of willing authors would dry up and they’d get a negative reputation, so why would readers give them money when LibGen gives them the same thing for free with the same payment to authors?
Let’s not forget that people created art long before copyright, and long before there was any kind of mass market for it. With zero copyright, it’ll still be a hell of a lot easier to make money from art than it was in the 1600s. (Which is still not “easy”; the term “starving artist” hasn’t become less prevalent as copyright’s been expanding.)
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“Why would they resort to larceny when there are plenty of authors sending manuscripts to publishers unsolicited, or posting things on the internet?”
If copyright no longer existed, it would no longer be larceny to do that, legally at least.
“Let’s not forget that people created art long before copyright”
Indeed. But, there was a reason why it was created, and it wasn’t because artists got full credit when there was no legal force to do so.
“Which is still not “easy”; the term “starving artist” hasn’t become less prevalent as copyright’s been expanding”
It really hasn’t. The focus on fame and fortune from a major corporation has been increased, but there’s still plenty of starving artists. They just don’t get shown by the media that depends on pretending that you’re one record deal away from insane riches. There’s still plenty of artists who don’t make a lot of money, some of therm very influential on the ones who do…
Re: Re: Re:3
I think you’re missing the point. Copyright has absolutely nothing to do with stealing (larceny), and if copyright didn’t exist, stealing would still be illegal. Copying a manuscript without permission probably wouldn’t be; but even now, it’s not stealing. There’s a whole Techdirt meme about this.
Correct; it was because the British government wanted to prevent the publication of “scandalous books and pamphlets”.
Re: Re: Re:4
“Copyright has absolutely nothing to do with stealing (larceny), and if copyright didn’t exist, stealing would still be illegal.”
If copyright didn’t exist, what was “stolen”?
Plagiarism might still be a legal concept, but if corporations are taking works from unpublished authors and using their infrastructure to profit, what chance would an amateur have to fight them?
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“As it is, books are already disfavored because they are so easily stolen”
That’s complete bullshit, of course, but thanks for announcing that you’re not considering any other factor than the lost revenue you imagine you’d get if only people didn’t have a choice. I suspect that if you were around 100 years ago you’d be trying to kill libraries and second hand stores, even though there’s never been better ways to form a life long reading habit.
“truth is optional”
You seem to be living your life by those words. I suggest you back off.
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Because video and audio are more immediate for most works of fiction, and technical books, where a printed or book version is needed, are famed for never making a profit. That said, there are quite a few author making some income from ebook and audio book versions, while making one or both formats available for free.
Copyright is perceived as valuable by publisher, because it allows the to gain ownership and control over the works that they publish, and for how long those works stay on the market. Hint, long copyrights are not about the few works that have a long commercial lifetime, but rather about keeping large numbers or works with a low demand from the market. Three people enjoying that old work and a few that one, is a large demand for entertainment when spread over tens of thousands of works. The publisher would much rather that that attention want to the few works that they currently have on the market, as volume of sales for an individual works is where the profit lies, not a volume of sales spread over thousands of works.
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… hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
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When is that press release happening, John Smith?
Maybe you should dedicate your resources to helping Paul Hansmeier get out of jail, then you’d have a champion of copyright in your back pocket.
Might be worth pointing out that a “pirate site” like Z-Lib may do something for the book publishers they are constitutionally incapable of doing for themselves. Namely, preserving books that are effectively orphaned, books that go out of print following an unrewarding first or third season, or so, and are later picked up and enjoyed.
When your business plans are geared towards quick returns and instant best-sellers, these books are quite unprofitable. However, that’s not how the world works.
Always good to see creatives in touch with reality. I’m personally fed up with waiting for this copyright nonsense to go away, so I pirate 99% of my content out of principle. Have for well over a decade and don’t plan to stop. (The 1% goes to artists who ask politely instead of threatening me with police.)
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“The 1% goes to artists who ask politely instead of threatening me with police”
So 99% of authors threaten you…how? By asking a purchase price? By noting they own the copyright?
Please explain this, because somehow I doubt most of the authors you are stealing from – and that’s what it is, however you justify it – threaten you in any way, any more than a restaurant does by posting prices on its menu or a shop does when it asks for payment at the cashier.
“I pirate 99% of my content out of principle”
Whatever the reasoning is, principle has nothing to do with it.
Books, printed with fanfare by publishing houses.
Remember when little shops had new ‘overstock’ from the retail bookstores, mostly at the beach. I would leave with a few hardbacks, audiobook on tape or CD. Low cost, but the publishing houses started “Stripping Covers”, killing those little shops.
I don’t care about motive. It was just greed in my opinion.
Amazon lists David Weber Audible Audiobook at $22. Clive Cussler’s new Audible book at $19. Amazon does a buy audible + ebook at discount. It’s not a wide spread.
So, my point is distribution rights rule. Ebook is just words on the screen whereas paperback is the source – it’s all automated from that finished product. Minor cost proudcing ebooks.