5 ms·

Author John Birmingham on eBook Piracy

63 points by Tsagadai 14y ago

damian2000 14y ago
One of the most rational discussions of piracy and DRM I've ever read.
iRobot 14y ago
I am one of those people who have been "corn-holed" over the last 30 years and I seriously don't care how many publishers or retail outlets I put out of business by buying electronically. The Internet selling model is here to stay and as long as the artist or author gets their fair cut for creating the work, the model is fine by me. The fact this author is tied to his publisher is between him and the publisher and not my problem. I've read some rubbish by established authors with ridiculous e-book prices and some fine stuff for $0.99 by authors quite happy with the e-book format, Amazon does not need to apologise to anyone IMHO in fact I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job and the Karma value will be immense, I suspect this is the feeling of a lot of authors (yes there is a lot of shit ebooks to wade through but its worth it when you find a gem!) If there isnt an ebook and the price is too high I go to the library or dont read it (seriously how many people would seriously read a photocopied book)
- pemulis 14y ago
  I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job I've been working with an author-run e-publishing group for the past few months, and this is an attitude I see a lot. I understand where it comes from, but it's not really good for readers or the literary ecosystem. Amazon has no real stake in any of the books they publish. They own the platform that sells all of the content, so as long as they're selling something, they're fine. There are no publishers giving books the criticism and support they need, and no passionate booksellers to promote them to readers. If even the authors don't care if a book sells, where does that leave us? I don't know. But I'm going to keep buying traditionally published books until someone figures it out.
  - hessenwolf 14y ago
    He's just preparing himself emotionally in case it flops, is my guess. (or she) (and maybe that's what I do)
    - impldefined 14y ago
      Given how big the upside could be (10 million people buying your book?), one almost has to do something like this to prevent the imagination running wild and having a massive let down later on.
- jnorthrop 14y ago
  I'm preparing an ebook launch in July. I am self-publishing and distributing the ebook DRM free in multiple formats via Gumroad. I looked at Amazon and others as outlets but I didn't see much advantage. BTW, I have a day job as well and don't expect to make much money but at least I will have full control over my product including the ability to send out updates to customers as well as refund if someone isn't happy with the product.
  - runevault 14y ago
    Amazon gives the advantage of visibility as with a few exceptions they seem to be where most people (at least in fiction, if you're doing non-fiction I don't know) have had the most success (I hear romance does way better on B&N for indies, no clue why). And Amazon lets the author/publisher choose DRM or not on KDP, though you can't change it without losing all sales rank etc.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
robryan 14y ago
If ebooks are currently priced to cheaply at some point you would expect the content produced to slow down, at which point prices would rise because books that people want aren't being made. I assume this author is trying to have it both ways, letting amazon sell their stuff cheap and get some volume while trying to make a far better margin off the Australian market.
shadowmint 14y ago
Reading this sort of thing makes me want to go and buy this guys books. I own perhaps a dozen books I've bought from amazon, and it vexes me continuously that they come drm locked and I can't do simple things like, swap them to a different device. I've regretted it every single time. These days I get the free sample off of amazon, and if I like the book I go out of my way to find a way to get it DRM free, or buy a physical copy.
- Tsagadai 14y ago
  I suggest you do, his books are awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham
  - tallanvor 14y ago
    Funny thing... I didn't recognize his name, but the first book of his Axis of Time series was available for free when I got my first Kindle. This can be a great way to introduce people to an author or series, and I've bought books by an author based on the free one I got. Unfortunately for Birmingham, Weapons of Choice just didn't convince me he was a great author, or at least not one that I want to spend more money on right now. Of course, I haven't pirated his books either, but the only reason I've ever done that is if the book isn't legally available electronically.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Done. Got the first book in the Axis of Time trilogy, if it passes muster I'll get the other 2.
- tytso 14y ago
  So break the DRM. Amazon actually has one of the easier systems to break; actually at this point they are all easy with the exception of Apple's. One of the things which hasn't been talked about as much is that the vendors who providing DRM (i.e., Apple, Adobe, B&N, etc.) have at best a mixed incentive towards improving their DRM to protect against its being breakage. On the one hand, they know it's technologically impossible to provide a truly secure DRM, and "fixing" DRM to protect against the latest hole costs time in development, QA and deployment costs. They also know that there are people (perhaps only a small minority, but growing) that will only buy digital content if they can break the DRM. So when upgrade their DRM, they lose customers. So from Amazon's perspective, whose main goal it is to increase market share and minimize costs, there is minimal reason to fix their DRM, even though they must know it's been broken. (Perhaps not in a legal sense, since there are probably contractual obligations, but the technological surfs employed by Amazon weren't chosen for their stupidity; quite the reverse, actually.) The flip side of the picture is that if you want to keep the digital content publishers on your side, and if you want them to agree to new forms of content and distribution, and especially if you want all of the members of the oligopoly which is, say, Hollywood, to sign a contract all at the roughly the same time, you need to keep your DRM secure. Unlike Amazon, B&N, and Adobe, who pretty much have a stable situation with respect to the markets they want to service, and/or who aren't willing to play the long game, I hypothesize that Apple is trying to do new things with TV shows and Movies --- and while the Book Publishers may be at best ambivalent to DRM, Hollywood hasn't had their lunch eaten by Amazon or Apple (yet). So Apple needs to stay on the good side of the MPAA. This explains why the ebook-only DRM schemes haven't changed in a while, even though they've all been broken, while Apple is still religiously patching iTunes and IOS with modified versions of Fairplay, trying to stay a step ahead of Requiem. It's also why I rarely buy digital content from Apple; it's too much of a hassle to determine whether or not Fairplay's DRM is broken this week. The bottom line is that with the possible exception of the most book publishers, who are acting like deer stuck in headlights, most of the rest of the economic vendors (i.e., the DRM vendors, Apple, et. al.) are acting completely rationally, even though on the surface the way the DRM game has been played seems to be quite the opposite.
_feda_ 14y ago
The author is a little contradictory in that he seems to simultaneously hold up drm as an author's last stand against piracy aswell as freedom denying. But I think the contradiction is just his own conflictedness about drm. He has to make a buck somehow, and if drm is the only way in this day and age then it might be his only option.
_feda_ 14y ago
"They are all available on the torrents. For free. Go out and steal them now if you want. Call it ‘copying’ and argue the semantics if you like. Just don't expect me to be your friend anymore or, eventually, to write another goddamned book. I’m not a complete idiot. I got better things to do with my time than give away free tricks." I was entirely on the author's side up until he said this. He deserves to be paid for what he does, but if he isn't willing to do it for free if that's the only way, then he probably shouldn't bother.
- josephagoss 14y ago
  Whoa, are you sure about this stance? No creative task should ever be done unless your willing to work for free? By your logic, I would be condemned to waiting tables for the entirety of my life whilst providing every line of code I write for free. I don't think this is fair to people that want to pursue a creative path in life.
- woe 14y ago
  No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. - Samuel Johnson
- roel_v 14y ago
  What do you do for a living?
grannyg00se 14y ago
DRM is seriously still happening? How hard would it be to setup some software that inspects the video driver output and copies it after each page turn? Or if not at that level, some kind of device that takes a scan of the display, OCRs it, and saves all the scans into a new, unlocked PDF. I can understand some of these players being hell bent on having control of their product even after they sell it to someone else, but it seems inevitable that it will not last. If you sell me a painting, you can't expect to stop me from taking photos and copying it. Or if I'm a painter, I may even modify it and resell it as a fork of your initial design. Seriously, who (within a certain age bracket) has never copied a friend's audio cassette?
- lucian1900 14y ago
  It's not even that hard, you can get the original files from Kindle on windows (because the decryption key is in memory), and you could script the reader UI and take screenshots anyway. Perhaps even find the text strings in memory.
- roel_v 14y ago
  Please show me the software to not only do OCR, but also that will reflow these what are essentially bitmap-representations of books (or, at best, 'PDF-like representations') to a format such as epub which is required to get the full 'e-book experience'. For the record, I've tried my hand (and failed) on software to do just this. It's a Hard problem, Hard in the CS and engineering sense, and sufficiently hard that I don't see it happening reliably in the first years, and there is to the best of my knowledge no software available that even comes close. To anyone who is going to suggest Calibre, please don't, lest you make yourself look like you know nothing about the issues I'm talking about.
  - bornhuetter 14y ago
    > To anyone who is going to suggest Calibre, please don't, lest you make yourself look like you know nothing about the issues I'm talking about. Can you please elaborate on this. I've never tried, but I thought Calibre could strip the DRM from kindle ebooks. Or do you mean that Calibre can't handle the general case of arbitrary DRM (via OCR methods)?
nailer 14y ago
John Birmingham's publisher, where you can buy his DRM-free books: http://momentumbooks.com.au http://momentumbooks.com.au

63 points by Tsagadai 14y ago

damian2000 14y ago

One of the most rational discussions of piracy and DRM I've ever read.

I am one of those people who have been "corn-holed" over the last 30 years and I seriously don't care how many publishers or retail outlets I put out of business by buying electronically. The Internet selling model is here to stay and as long as the artist or author gets their fair cut for creating the work, the model is fine by me. The fact this author is tied to his publisher is between him and the publisher and not my problem. I've read some rubbish by established authors with ridiculous e-book prices and some fine stuff for $0.99 by authors quite happy with the e-book format, Amazon does not need to apologise to anyone IMHO in fact I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job and the Karma value will be immense, I suspect this is the feeling of a lot of authors (yes there is a lot of shit ebooks to wade through but its worth it when you find a gem!) If there isnt an ebook and the price is too high I go to the library or dont read it (seriously how many people would seriously read a photocopied book)

pemulis 14y ago
I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job I've been working with an author-run e-publishing group for the past few months, and this is an attitude I see a lot. I understand where it comes from, but it's not really good for readers or the literary ecosystem. Amazon has no real stake in any of the books they publish. They own the platform that sells all of the content, so as long as they're selling something, they're fine. There are no publishers giving books the criticism and support they need, and no passionate booksellers to promote them to readers. If even the authors don't care if a book sells, where does that leave us? I don't know. But I'm going to keep buying traditionally published books until someone figures it out.
- hessenwolf 14y ago
  He's just preparing himself emotionally in case it flops, is my guess. (or she) (and maybe that's what I do)
  - impldefined 14y ago
    Given how big the upside could be (10 million people buying your book?), one almost has to do something like this to prevent the imagination running wild and having a massive let down later on.
jnorthrop 14y ago
I'm preparing an ebook launch in July. I am self-publishing and distributing the ebook DRM free in multiple formats via Gumroad. I looked at Amazon and others as outlets but I didn't see much advantage. BTW, I have a day job as well and don't expect to make much money but at least I will have full control over my product including the ability to send out updates to customers as well as refund if someone isn't happy with the product.
- runevault 14y ago
  Amazon gives the advantage of visibility as with a few exceptions they seem to be where most people (at least in fiction, if you're doing non-fiction I don't know) have had the most success (I hear romance does way better on B&N for indies, no clue why). And Amazon lets the author/publisher choose DRM or not on KDP, though you can't change it without losing all sales rank etc.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

robryan 14y ago

If ebooks are currently priced to cheaply at some point you would expect the content produced to slow down, at which point prices would rise because books that people want aren't being made. I assume this author is trying to have it both ways, letting amazon sell their stuff cheap and get some volume while trying to make a far better margin off the Australian market.

shadowmint 14y ago

Reading this sort of thing makes me want to go and buy this guys books. I own perhaps a dozen books I've bought from amazon, and it vexes me continuously that they come drm locked and I can't do simple things like, swap them to a different device. I've regretted it every single time. These days I get the free sample off of amazon, and if I like the book I go out of my way to find a way to get it DRM free, or buy a physical copy.

Tsagadai 14y ago
I suggest you do, his books are awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham
- tallanvor 14y ago
  Funny thing... I didn't recognize his name, but the first book of his Axis of Time series was available for free when I got my first Kindle. This can be a great way to introduce people to an author or series, and I've bought books by an author based on the free one I got. Unfortunately for Birmingham, Weapons of Choice just didn't convince me he was a great author, or at least not one that I want to spend more money on right now. Of course, I haven't pirated his books either, but the only reason I've ever done that is if the book isn't legally available electronically.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Done. Got the first book in the Axis of Time trilogy, if it passes muster I'll get the other 2.
tytso 14y ago
So break the DRM. Amazon actually has one of the easier systems to break; actually at this point they are all easy with the exception of Apple's. One of the things which hasn't been talked about as much is that the vendors who providing DRM (i.e., Apple, Adobe, B&N, etc.) have at best a mixed incentive towards improving their DRM to protect against its being breakage. On the one hand, they know it's technologically impossible to provide a truly secure DRM, and "fixing" DRM to protect against the latest hole costs time in development, QA and deployment costs. They also know that there are people (perhaps only a small minority, but growing) that will only buy digital content if they can break the DRM. So when upgrade their DRM, they lose customers. So from Amazon's perspective, whose main goal it is to increase market share and minimize costs, there is minimal reason to fix their DRM, even though they must know it's been broken. (Perhaps not in a legal sense, since there are probably contractual obligations, but the technological surfs employed by Amazon weren't chosen for their stupidity; quite the reverse, actually.) The flip side of the picture is that if you want to keep the digital content publishers on your side, and if you want them to agree to new forms of content and distribution, and especially if you want all of the members of the oligopoly which is, say, Hollywood, to sign a contract all at the roughly the same time, you need to keep your DRM secure. Unlike Amazon, B&N, and Adobe, who pretty much have a stable situation with respect to the markets they want to service, and/or who aren't willing to play the long game, I hypothesize that Apple is trying to do new things with TV shows and Movies --- and while the Book Publishers may be at best ambivalent to DRM, Hollywood hasn't had their lunch eaten by Amazon or Apple (yet). So Apple needs to stay on the good side of the MPAA. This explains why the ebook-only DRM schemes haven't changed in a while, even though they've all been broken, while Apple is still religiously patching iTunes and IOS with modified versions of Fairplay, trying to stay a step ahead of Requiem. It's also why I rarely buy digital content from Apple; it's too much of a hassle to determine whether or not Fairplay's DRM is broken this week. The bottom line is that with the possible exception of the most book publishers, who are acting like deer stuck in headlights, most of the rest of the economic vendors (i.e., the DRM vendors, Apple, et. al.) are acting completely rationally, even though on the surface the way the DRM game has been played seems to be quite the opposite.

_feda_ 14y ago

The author is a little contradictory in that he seems to simultaneously hold up drm as an author's last stand against piracy aswell as freedom denying. But I think the contradiction is just his own conflictedness about drm. He has to make a buck somehow, and if drm is the only way in this day and age then it might be his only option.

_feda_ 14y ago

"They are all available on the torrents. For free. Go out and steal them now if you want. Call it ‘copying’ and argue the semantics if you like. Just don't expect me to be your friend anymore or, eventually, to write another goddamned book. I’m not a complete idiot. I got better things to do with my time than give away free tricks." I was entirely on the author's side up until he said this. He deserves to be paid for what he does, but if he isn't willing to do it for free if that's the only way, then he probably shouldn't bother.

josephagoss 14y ago
Whoa, are you sure about this stance? No creative task should ever be done unless your willing to work for free? By your logic, I would be condemned to waiting tables for the entirety of my life whilst providing every line of code I write for free. I don't think this is fair to people that want to pursue a creative path in life.
woe 14y ago
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. - Samuel Johnson
roel_v 14y ago
What do you do for a living?

grannyg00se 14y ago

DRM is seriously still happening? How hard would it be to setup some software that inspects the video driver output and copies it after each page turn? Or if not at that level, some kind of device that takes a scan of the display, OCRs it, and saves all the scans into a new, unlocked PDF. I can understand some of these players being hell bent on having control of their product even after they sell it to someone else, but it seems inevitable that it will not last. If you sell me a painting, you can't expect to stop me from taking photos and copying it. Or if I'm a painter, I may even modify it and resell it as a fork of your initial design. Seriously, who (within a certain age bracket) has never copied a friend's audio cassette?

lucian1900 14y ago
It's not even that hard, you can get the original files from Kindle on windows (because the decryption key is in memory), and you could script the reader UI and take screenshots anyway. Perhaps even find the text strings in memory.
roel_v 14y ago
Please show me the software to not only do OCR, but also that will reflow these what are essentially bitmap-representations of books (or, at best, 'PDF-like representations') to a format such as epub which is required to get the full 'e-book experience'. For the record, I've tried my hand (and failed) on software to do just this. It's a Hard problem, Hard in the CS and engineering sense, and sufficiently hard that I don't see it happening reliably in the first years, and there is to the best of my knowledge no software available that even comes close. To anyone who is going to suggest Calibre, please don't, lest you make yourself look like you know nothing about the issues I'm talking about.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  > To anyone who is going to suggest Calibre, please don't, lest you make yourself look like you know nothing about the issues I'm talking about. Can you please elaborate on this. I've never tried, but I thought Calibre could strip the DRM from kindle ebooks. Or do you mean that Calibre can't handle the general case of arbitrary DRM (via OCR methods)?

nailer 14y ago

John Birmingham's publisher, where you can buy his DRM-free books: http://momentumbooks.com.au http://momentumbooks.com.au