5 ms·

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 m

by 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.

by Simucal 15y ago

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.