4 ms·

First off, I support LendInk and think these authors behaved like children. Heck, I was outraged I even blogged about it. However, I'd like to play devil's adv

by hluska 14y ago

First off, I support LendInk and think these authors behaved like children. Heck, I was outraged I even blogged about it. However, I'd like to play devil's advocate for a moment. A few weeks ago, the Ryan Holiday fiasco went public. If you don't remember this, he was the guy who lied his way into coverage in mainstream media (ie - ABC, MSNBC, the New York Times, etc.) This was a situation where journalists didn't check their own facts (in this case, they didn't vet their expert) and they printed lies. A few months ago, ABC tweeted that Hosni Mubarak had died. Turns out he was still alive (and it took journalists about twenty minutes to figure that out). Journalists are in the business of fact checking, yet they've been caught many, many times unknowingly spreading hoaxes. Social media is incredibly powerful (now), but it will become useless if we don't teach civilians how to check their facts before they start lynch mobs. Anyone have any ideas how we can guide users towards showing some restraint in similar situations?

nollidge 14y ago
I'm not sure, besides posting a giant "WE'RE REALLY NOT PIRATES, HERE'S WHY: (link)" at the top of your page, but then it might be a "doth protest too much" sort of turn-off to potential users.
- Splines 14y ago
  I've never used LendInk (or any other e-book lending sites), but they could have a "For Authors" section prominently visible on the site, telling the authors why their work may be on the site, what they can do (it probably doesn't hurt to comply with take-down requests), and why it is to their benefit (I hope) that their work is shared with others in a platform-supported fashion.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    >it probably doesn't hurt to comply with take-down requests // That would look like some notional acceptance that they were doing something illicit whereas they were merely providing, it seems, a matching service for people wanting to legally lend books to one another. Where's the RoI for complying with false take down notices?
    - Splines 14y ago
      You can fight it to a point, but that just ruffles everyone's feathers. As stated elsewhere along this topic, sometimes author's have a moral viewpoint that lending books to complete strangers using the internet violates the spirit of the feature. Look at it from their point of view - they want readers' family and friends to benefit from the lend, but not the wider internet. Sure, there isn't anything legally wrong with lending books to complete strangers, but working with the author and respecting their wishes can (maybe) generate goodwill that could have avoided getting LendInk taken down in the first place. That said, I don't operate an e-book lending site, so I may be way off base here. Considering that many authors wanted LendInk taken down (and later apologized for it), that's certainly possible. Anyways, at a minimum, you could provide them with a direct link to their book's admin page on Amazon (if that's possible), instructing them how to disable the lending feature, re-iterating that you'll of course remove their book from the site when they do so.
Pfhreak 14y ago
They could have started with the name. The service they were providing was really all about matching people together to lend books to one another. They didn't actually do any lending. But the name LendInk could definitely be interpreted to mean that they, in fact, lent ink. It's a small thing, and may not have mattered, but names carry a lot of power.
- ktizo 14y ago
  If some authors are outraged about the idea of ink being lent, then what do they think about libraries?
  - gwillen 14y ago
    Presumably the authors that got lendink taken down are the same ones that hate libraries and used bookstores, and complain about lost sales. It's unfortunate that there are such authors, but what can you do?
    - kefs 14y ago
      Libraries: Pioneers in the P2P sharing space since 323 BC.
    - ktizo 14y ago
      Perhaps we could reanimate the corpse of Kurt Vonnegut and send him to go and eat whatever brains they have between them. I am sure he would approve.
Jun8 14y ago
Well, they don't want to show any restraint, AFAIK. The saga of clueless/greedy/whatever authors against technology is much larger than this particular case, e.g. just two days ago it was reported that the Author's Guild is seeking $2B from Google for book scanning and making snippets available, that's $750 for each book! Many authors back these efforts. My (optimistic) feeling is that a small circle of businesses is brainwashing the authors, citing music piracy and the "success" of RIAA in suing pirates and the authors are taking the bait.
- anthonyb 14y ago
  Why is $750 per book so outrageous? Books on average would make far more than that, so it doesn't seem completely out of the question.
  - noonespecial 14y ago
    $750 isn't outrageous... For the authors to pay to Google for that kind if publicity/advertising.
    - anthonyb 14y ago
      It's not specifically publicity or advertising though, is it? They're indexing the entire text and making that available publicly.
  - beedogs 14y ago
    $750 for book excerpts seems pretty outrageous to me. They're not putting a complete copy up.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    Most books don't break even. Also, many books scanned by google are not easily available, out of print, or out of copyright, so I would be very surprised if google is costing authors anything like $750 per book. In fact I would suspect, if anything, it will help drive book sales.
anthonyb 14y ago
No idea myself - Sam Harris had some choice words about the degeneration of online debate a few days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4358376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4358376

by hluska 14y ago

nollidge 14y ago

I'm not sure, besides posting a giant "WE'RE REALLY NOT PIRATES, HERE'S WHY: (link)" at the top of your page, but then it might be a "doth protest too much" sort of turn-off to potential users.

Splines 14y ago
I've never used LendInk (or any other e-book lending sites), but they could have a "For Authors" section prominently visible on the site, telling the authors why their work may be on the site, what they can do (it probably doesn't hurt to comply with take-down requests), and why it is to their benefit (I hope) that their work is shared with others in a platform-supported fashion.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  >it probably doesn't hurt to comply with take-down requests // That would look like some notional acceptance that they were doing something illicit whereas they were merely providing, it seems, a matching service for people wanting to legally lend books to one another. Where's the RoI for complying with false take down notices?
  - Splines 14y ago
    You can fight it to a point, but that just ruffles everyone's feathers. As stated elsewhere along this topic, sometimes author's have a moral viewpoint that lending books to complete strangers using the internet violates the spirit of the feature. Look at it from their point of view - they want readers' family and friends to benefit from the lend, but not the wider internet. Sure, there isn't anything legally wrong with lending books to complete strangers, but working with the author and respecting their wishes can (maybe) generate goodwill that could have avoided getting LendInk taken down in the first place. That said, I don't operate an e-book lending site, so I may be way off base here. Considering that many authors wanted LendInk taken down (and later apologized for it), that's certainly possible. Anyways, at a minimum, you could provide them with a direct link to their book's admin page on Amazon (if that's possible), instructing them how to disable the lending feature, re-iterating that you'll of course remove their book from the site when they do so.

Pfhreak 14y ago

They could have started with the name. The service they were providing was really all about matching people together to lend books to one another. They didn't actually do any lending. But the name LendInk could definitely be interpreted to mean that they, in fact, lent ink. It's a small thing, and may not have mattered, but names carry a lot of power.

ktizo 14y ago
If some authors are outraged about the idea of ink being lent, then what do they think about libraries?
- gwillen 14y ago
  Presumably the authors that got lendink taken down are the same ones that hate libraries and used bookstores, and complain about lost sales. It's unfortunate that there are such authors, but what can you do?
  - kefs 14y ago
    Libraries: Pioneers in the P2P sharing space since 323 BC.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    Perhaps we could reanimate the corpse of Kurt Vonnegut and send him to go and eat whatever brains they have between them. I am sure he would approve.

Jun8 14y ago

Well, they don't want to show any restraint, AFAIK. The saga of clueless/greedy/whatever authors against technology is much larger than this particular case, e.g. just two days ago it was reported that the Author's Guild is seeking $2B from Google for book scanning and making snippets available, that's $750 for each book! Many authors back these efforts. My (optimistic) feeling is that a small circle of businesses is brainwashing the authors, citing music piracy and the "success" of RIAA in suing pirates and the authors are taking the bait.

anthonyb 14y ago
Why is $750 per book so outrageous? Books on average would make far more than that, so it doesn't seem completely out of the question.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  $750 isn't outrageous... For the authors to pay to Google for that kind if publicity/advertising.
  - anthonyb 14y ago
    It's not specifically publicity or advertising though, is it? They're indexing the entire text and making that available publicly.
- beedogs 14y ago
  $750 for book excerpts seems pretty outrageous to me. They're not putting a complete copy up.
- ktizo 14y ago
  Most books don't break even. Also, many books scanned by google are not easily available, out of print, or out of copyright, so I would be very surprised if google is costing authors anything like $750 per book. In fact I would suspect, if anything, it will help drive book sales.

anthonyb 14y ago

No idea myself - Sam Harris had some choice words about the degeneration of online debate a few days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4358376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4358376