6 ms·

Kindles are incredible. I read so much more because it is so much more convenient. The sad truth is that these devices will do to book publishing what iPods di

Kindles are incredible. I read so much more because it is so much more convenient. The sad truth is that these devices will do to book publishing what iPods did to music publishing. Piracy will suck a lot of cash out of the market.

pragmatic 15y ago
> Kindles are incredible. I read so much more because it is so much more convenient. Yes, totally agree. > The sad truth is that these devices will do to book publishing what iPods did to music publishing. Piracy will suck a lot of cash out of the market. It's so convenient to get a new book on the kindle (literally a few seconds) that my _paid_ consumption of ebooks increased. Formatting of pdf's on the kindle is hit and miss, pirating an ebook is _inconvenient_. I believe (and this is my opinion) that a major cause of piracy is lack of access. I simply can't get a DRM free high quality digital copy of movies (used to be books, except now Amazon has DRM free mp3's) legally. As long as prices for ebooks remains reasonable (in the minds of most people) I can only see increased consumption of ebooks.
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  I believe (and this is my opinion) that a major cause of piracy is lack of access. As demonstrated yesterday, in the thread about reading Godel, Escher, Bach. A few people wished there were an ebook version of this to read on their Kindle, and a couple of others responded that there's a torrent on TPB for a PDF scan, and another linked to a direct download from one of those briefcase sites. For my tastes, a PDF just isn't acceptable on Kindle either, but obviously the lack of a purchasable ebook has driven some number of people to alternate means. I wonder if failing to open the catalog right away is teaching people how to pirate ebooks, and thus opening the door to future woes.
- Simucal 15y ago
  I don't know if you have been keeping up with the pirating scene around ebooks but there are now torrents with massive libraries of high-quality, drm-stripped mobi (Kindle) files. It isn't all poorly formatted PDFs anymore.
  - richardburton 15y ago
    Great point. It is hard to resist a lifetime's worth of fantastic reading for just a few clicks.
  - jm4 15y ago
    Paying for Kindle books is still more convenient. I can buy a book at a fair price and start reading in seconds. Dealing with torrents to steal a book is a pain in the ass. It's for cheapskates that go out of their way to avoid paying for anything. It's for people who take pride in having 2TB of pirated media, most of which they will never getting around to looking at. In other words, it's for people who will almost never become paying customers no matter how friction-less the purchasing process is. There are some people that are just into that kind of thing. They are not anyone's problem. Piracy will become more widespread only because the ability to do so with ebooks is more practical than with printed books. In the end it probably means some people will get something for nothing instead of nothing for nothing. I don't think this is a situation where people who were previously buying printed books are now pirating ebooks.
    - evgen 15y ago
      Everything you just said about books was once said about music. The difference is that the addressable market for books is much smaller and there is no alternative revenue stream like live events or related merchandise to prop up the revenue decimation that is rolling downhill towards authors. If I were to make a prediction it would be that decreased production/distribution costs will increase the amount of mediocre crap cluttering up the marketplace by an order of magnitude (leaving an opening for good filter/recommendation services) and the better authors will retreat to essays and short-form works that are kept behind a paywall.
- DanBC 15y ago
  The UK situation is a bit frustrating. Paper books do not have VAT, but ebooks do (and it's 20%). I recognise that authors and publishers deserve a fair price for the product, but it's frustrating to find an ebook at £14 and the same print book at £11. I agree about the convenience. I can either pirate a high quality movie and play it on whatever I like. Or I can wait for it to be released in my region (if ever), buy it on one format to watch it on TV or another to watch it on a laptop. (And watching some optical disc formats involve e breaking a different law about circumventing copy protection measures.) So, I pirate the movie and then rent it (if I didn't enjoy it that much) or buy it if it's good. Rather than following the market -and the money- people are using weird measures to protect their product, not realising that they're doing nothing to prevent rampant pirates (who will always pirate, even if the product was a dollar and had no DRM) but they are also alienating some existing customers.
  - richardburton 15y ago
    Great insight - thank you!
- richardburton 15y ago
  I agree that it is really convenient. My worry is that my peer group of students and recent graduates have almost no disposable income and therefore make different cost/convenience calculations.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    So people who wouldn't buy something don't, how does that affect revenue?
- RexRollman 15y ago
  Access is indeed an issue. For example, there are several Spanish and Italian comic artists who's stuff I absolutely love. I bought every printed book I could find by them but they have many books that are unavailable in my home country. My only option for reading these books are what is known as scanlations, which are pirated comics that have been scanned and translated by amateurs. This irks me for a few reasons: 1. I prefer to read paper comics. 2. There is no way to pay the authors. 3. The quality of translations may be questionable. 4. The scanning may not be very well done. I believe there is a lot of money to be made out there if companies would just wake up and realize that the old regional models are costing them money.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
I think we are slated to see a renaissance of writing due to the ability to self-publish with much less overhead and a much higher share of revenue.

pragmatic 15y ago

> Kindles are incredible. I read so much more because it is so much more convenient. Yes, totally agree. > The sad truth is that these devices will do to book publishing what iPods did to music publishing. Piracy will suck a lot of cash out of the market. It's so convenient to get a new book on the kindle (literally a few seconds) that my _paid_ consumption of ebooks increased. Formatting of pdf's on the kindle is hit and miss, pirating an ebook is _inconvenient_. I believe (and this is my opinion) that a major cause of piracy is lack of access. I simply can't get a DRM free high quality digital copy of movies (used to be books, except now Amazon has DRM free mp3's) legally. As long as prices for ebooks remains reasonable (in the minds of most people) I can only see increased consumption of ebooks.

CWuestefeld 15y ago
I believe (and this is my opinion) that a major cause of piracy is lack of access. As demonstrated yesterday, in the thread about reading Godel, Escher, Bach. A few people wished there were an ebook version of this to read on their Kindle, and a couple of others responded that there's a torrent on TPB for a PDF scan, and another linked to a direct download from one of those briefcase sites. For my tastes, a PDF just isn't acceptable on Kindle either, but obviously the lack of a purchasable ebook has driven some number of people to alternate means. I wonder if failing to open the catalog right away is teaching people how to pirate ebooks, and thus opening the door to future woes.
Simucal 15y ago
I don't know if you have been keeping up with the pirating scene around ebooks but there are now torrents with massive libraries of high-quality, drm-stripped mobi (Kindle) files. It isn't all poorly formatted PDFs anymore.
- richardburton 15y ago
  Great point. It is hard to resist a lifetime's worth of fantastic reading for just a few clicks.
- jm4 15y ago
  Paying for Kindle books is still more convenient. I can buy a book at a fair price and start reading in seconds. Dealing with torrents to steal a book is a pain in the ass. It's for cheapskates that go out of their way to avoid paying for anything. It's for people who take pride in having 2TB of pirated media, most of which they will never getting around to looking at. In other words, it's for people who will almost never become paying customers no matter how friction-less the purchasing process is. There are some people that are just into that kind of thing. They are not anyone's problem. Piracy will become more widespread only because the ability to do so with ebooks is more practical than with printed books. In the end it probably means some people will get something for nothing instead of nothing for nothing. I don't think this is a situation where people who were previously buying printed books are now pirating ebooks.
  - evgen 15y ago
    Everything you just said about books was once said about music. The difference is that the addressable market for books is much smaller and there is no alternative revenue stream like live events or related merchandise to prop up the revenue decimation that is rolling downhill towards authors. If I were to make a prediction it would be that decreased production/distribution costs will increase the amount of mediocre crap cluttering up the marketplace by an order of magnitude (leaving an opening for good filter/recommendation services) and the better authors will retreat to essays and short-form works that are kept behind a paywall.
DanBC 15y ago
The UK situation is a bit frustrating. Paper books do not have VAT, but ebooks do (and it's 20%). I recognise that authors and publishers deserve a fair price for the product, but it's frustrating to find an ebook at £14 and the same print book at £11. I agree about the convenience. I can either pirate a high quality movie and play it on whatever I like. Or I can wait for it to be released in my region (if ever), buy it on one format to watch it on TV or another to watch it on a laptop. (And watching some optical disc formats involve e breaking a different law about circumventing copy protection measures.) So, I pirate the movie and then rent it (if I didn't enjoy it that much) or buy it if it's good. Rather than following the market -and the money- people are using weird measures to protect their product, not realising that they're doing nothing to prevent rampant pirates (who will always pirate, even if the product was a dollar and had no DRM) but they are also alienating some existing customers.
- richardburton 15y ago
  Great insight - thank you!
richardburton 15y ago
I agree that it is really convenient. My worry is that my peer group of students and recent graduates have almost no disposable income and therefore make different cost/convenience calculations.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  So people who wouldn't buy something don't, how does that affect revenue?
RexRollman 15y ago
Access is indeed an issue. For example, there are several Spanish and Italian comic artists who's stuff I absolutely love. I bought every printed book I could find by them but they have many books that are unavailable in my home country. My only option for reading these books are what is known as scanlations, which are pirated comics that have been scanned and translated by amateurs. This irks me for a few reasons: 1. I prefer to read paper comics. 2. There is no way to pay the authors. 3. The quality of translations may be questionable. 4. The scanning may not be very well done. I believe there is a lot of money to be made out there if companies would just wake up and realize that the old regional models are costing them money.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

I think we are slated to see a renaissance of writing due to the ability to self-publish with much less overhead and a much higher share of revenue.