Marco Tech Blog

December 22, 2008

Fighting Books Piracy

I hate when it happens and it is happening more and more. I've found several copies of my latest ebook on the web, mostly on one specific file share site, and many blogs linking to it.

posted by marcocantu @ 11:24AM | 25 Comments [0 Pending]

Fighting Books Piracy 

 This is NOT a rant, since you are completely right! 
The people who are sharing illegal content to 
Rapidshare or similar sites are the bad guys. Those 
sites must be closed. You can try to contact 
www.bsa.org to hand over them the illegal sites, so 
BSA can DELETE them from the internet.

rm -fR sites_containing_illegal_stuff

Merry Christmas and a happy 2009
Tom

Comment by Tom van der Vlugt [http://www.tomvandervlugt.tk] on December 22, 11:54

But dDoes it really hurt your sales? 

Comment by Thomas Mueller [http://www.dummzeuch.de] on December 22, 12:23

But does it really hurt your sales? 

I mean, if your stuff is available on these sites, 
some people may hear your name for the first time and 
may decide they want the book in printed form, 
because they like what they read in the pirated 
ebook. So, basically this is free advertising for 
you. Also, these people might buy some consulting 
from you because they read the pirated ebook and 
found you knowledgable.

I am not saying it is so, I am saying you might 
consider this.

Comment by Thomas Mueller [http://www.dummzeuch.de] on December 22, 12:26

Fighting Books Piracy 

That's very annoying indeed.

But IMHO you're drawing the wrong conclusions. As 
you've mentioned yourself, any book will be available 
for download anyway, even if you've never released it 
as an ebook. Not selling ebooks yourself puts you in 
a lose-lose situation: there'll be illegal pdfs 
anyway, and you don't have anything to offer for 
people who want an ebook version.

Ebooks have some advantages over paper books: you can 
start reading within minutes after buying it, and 
they're a bit cheaper. And an ebook reader isn't as 
heavy as a paper book ;-)

O'Reilly's Safari sometimes let's you read parts of 
the book well before the author has finished the 
book, that's also pretty cool.

Anyway, I've read quite a bit already of the paper 
version of your 2009 book. Thanks :-)

Comment by Giel on December 22, 12:26

Fighting Books Piracy 

This is one of the reasons why I removed the PDF 
versions of some of my recent books from Lulu.com, 
and only sell the PDF editions direct (including the 
name + e-mail of the buyer at several places in the 
PDF file; automated using Gnostice PDF toolkit). This 
can still be broken, but at least it's a bit harder.

And people who didn't buy the books directly from me 
don't have to bother asking for support either ;-)

Promising regular updates of PDF files also helps - 
that way, people with an illegal copy will have a 
version that will become outdates in a few months 
time (and real buyers will automatically get an 
updated PDF file in their mailbox). A bit like the 
software subscription model, but then without a 
difficult login/download process.

Personally, I prefer hardcopy, so I can take it with 
me (like your Delphi 2009 handbook, which I often 
read in the train when traveling to seminars or 
events).

Comment by Bob Swart [http://www.bobswart.nl/blog] on December 22, 13:21

Fighting Books Piracy 

I think your worries are a bit silly. I have
downloaded illegal eBooks, in fact, I have huge piles
of them somwehere on the vast binary fields of my HDD
- however I haven't read a single one of them. At
least, not from the screen. What I do is download the
book, scan a few chapters diagonally and if it's good,
order it from Amazon. I consider reading from screen a
troture, frankly.

So if your complaint is "I'm losing customers who
would otherwise buy the book just to find out if it's
any good" then you might be right. Otherwise...

Comment by Azeroth on December 22, 13:33

Fighting Books Piracy 

@ the "piracy = free publicity" people:

You've obviously never found pirated copies of your 
own products. How about making all your code 
available for download at the end of every week? Then 
everybody can see how good it is and they'll all want 
to buy your products or hire you as a programmer.

Comment by Giel on December 22, 13:58

Fighting Books Piracy 

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2008-12-08/

Comment by Luigi D .Sandon on December 22, 14:20

Fighting Books Piracy 

I think there are a lot of people out there who are
like Azeroth, they all have a huge amount of ebooks on
their drives but never uses them.
Ever tried to read a book as a pdf? as long as you are
not in possession of an external book reader (like the
kindle) it makes not fun. And even thos blocky devices
are sometimes hard to handle. What happens then? If
they are interessted in the book, most of them buy the
printed copy. 

If you find copies for your work on the net, try to
close them, but I don't think there is a big impact on
sales amount because of this.

Comment by Dennis on December 22, 15:22

Fighting Books Piracy 

Yes, you are right about ranting but unfortunately 
you're trying to use an old kind of business model 
with new technologies. An eBook can be copied millions 
of times without any costs, just like movies and 
music. Basically, there's no way to stop these kinds 
of "illegal trades" since it's an endless good that 
you're dealing with.

The trick is to give away endless goods but combine it 
with some scarce goods that people would be willing to 
buy. A printed book is way more valuable (and scarce) 
thus make sure the eBook lists all your printed books 
and some addresses where people can buy them. Maybe 
add some more advertisements to your electronic books. 
Just add something to your endless goods that would 
encourage people to buy the scarce goods you're 
offering. Maybe put a note in your eBook telling 
people that your printed version contains a lot more 
additional information and reading material.

If you would give away your eBook for free but add a 
link to amazon.com for your printed book, you might 
amaze yourself with the number of people who are 
willing to buy it. In the meantime, the free eBook 
will make your name better-known amongst those who are 
interested in it. Basically, free advertisement.

Also, wonder if those pirates who pirated your books 
would be willing to buy it. In most cases, people just 
want to quickly browse it to see if it's interesting 
and if it's no good for them, they'll discard it 
again. 

And to be honest, I like hardcopies too. An eBook is 
an appetizer, the hardcopy is a full meal. And I like 
big dinners... :-)

Comment by Workshop Alex on December 22, 16:09

Fighting Books Piracy 

Dear Marco,

As somebody who supports your efforts, I went out to 
see what was being posted on your book.  Wow, I found 
a lot of downloads to its illegal distribution.  The 
good news is some have been terminated.  Bad news, 
some have not.  I hope somebody is contacting this web 
site and explaining what is going on.  I have a link 
of one that is still active.  If you send me an email, 
I will reply it to you.  I am very sorry that this is 
happening.  I don't use D2009 yet.  But I am going to 
buy your book, as a show of support.  Since, we are 
hard pressed to get books written on Delphi anymore.  
You should have my email on record.  I bought the 
D2007 book.

Comment by Brett Graffin on December 22, 16:59

Fighting Books Piracy 

Hey, don't give up Marco. I'd ordered your last 2
books as books ;) but sometimes it's nice to get the
book as pdf and search it with a pdf-reader when you
don't have the big thing in your hand. Sure i'd like
to read on trains so i need the real thing.

So. Please don't stop writing Delphi Books. When they
are good i will order more. :)

Thanks, murphy

Comment by murphy [http://www.dev0.de] on December 22, 17:07

Fighting Books Piracy 

 Piracy in general needs to be fought but it is such
an uphill battle. If you make anything available via
an electronic media, ie. a pdf book or some other
format of eBook, it is going to get shared and shared
openly! These guys don't care. AND most of these
websites are generally in countries, (or it is my
belief), that have few laws or little enforcement of
copyrights.

But Does it really hurt your sales? YES! It does hurt
sales.

Just take a look at some of the numbers that some of
these sites show as to the number of downloads or a
particular copyright eBook or software program! 

I thought I had some pretty good software for sale and
provided a demo version that could be unlocked with a
reg key. It was hacked, of course (at least the
hacking "took some thought" on the part of the
hacker), and put out on the ever popular Warez sites.
If I could have gotten paid for half of those that
were downloaded, I would gripe so much... maybe.

Some of my stuff I gave up on and now offer it for free.

Whether it is an eBook or software, you can't win!

John

Comment by John J [] on December 22, 17:39

Fighting Books Piracy 

 And people complaine about the existence of DRM.

Comment by Adrián Avila on December 22, 18:24

Fighting Books Piracy 

There is people who buy the legal copy of something
after downloading the illegal version of that (because
they like it much and want to have a hard copy of that
or even just for support to the creator), but lets be
realistics, most of people dont.
By the other hand, it is also true that if they dont
get the illegal copy, may be they wouldnt know your
work at all. Sometimes the illegal copy is useful, for
example M$ benefits with the illegal copies of their
operative systems installed in machines where a linux
should be in other way. But its pretty sure you dont
have the same financial structure than M$... so, your
menace of not writing anymore if this affects your
economy is totally understable, sad for us -your
readers- and a big loss for the whole Delphi world.

Lets hope your sales dont be affected. But, just to be
sure by the moment, may be the suggestions of Bob are
the best choice. They sound interesting.

Btw, I also prefer paper books, PDFs are only good to
search on them or to find/copy something quickly -as
reference-, but for long readings they are a real pain.

Comment by Javier Santo Domingo on December 22, 19:11

Fighting Books Piracy 

I'm sorry John J, but I disagree with you. There's no 
proof that those who pirate eBooks and other digital 
material would actually be willing to pay for the same 
material if they had no other option to get access to 
it. The RIAA and MPAA use the same excuse about 
pirated music and movies but truth is that people 
aren't always willing to pay for something, unless it 
provides them a lot of additional value.

But a simple question, and answer honestly... Who 
hasn't made illegal copies of a piece of software, 
movie or music-CD? Even I do have copied some digital 
things illegally since I first want to check if I like 
it or not. The things I like, I buy. The things I 
don't like, I forget. The thing I don't want to do is 
to buy something and then find out I don't like it. 
Have done that too often already.

Comment by Workshop Alex on December 22, 21:04

Fighting Books Piracy 

People... this is ridiculous. All that "illegal"
(really?) copies of your ebooks do is give you free
advertising. Without even taking into account what
Azeroth says - what is your biggest problem as an
author? As Eric Flint, chief editor of www.baen.com
says, your biggest problem are the people who don't
even SEE your book. Go in a library that carries your
book and count how many people enter the library in an
hour but do not even look at it.

Read Flint's editorials and see how he helped a lot of
authors become successful by releasing their books for
free. As an example, ALL of David Weber's books except
maybe for the last two are freely available from baen.
As another example, Flint's first book, Mother of
Demons, sold *better* after he made it available for free.

Think about it: if you sell ebooks and people don't
buy them, but they do read them if they're given for
free, maybe the price is too high. Yes, one way of
getting a higher price of a product is limiting
supply; just ignore that part, the whips aren't making
a comeback.

Comment by Marcel Popescu on December 22, 22:24

Fighting Books Piracy 

Well, I will admit people who think like this are
probably in the minority but I try to 'vote with my
dollars' as often as possible.  Case in point, just
today my copy of the "Delphi 2009 Handbook" showed up
from Lulu.  However I don't even own Delphi 2009,
although I will probably upgrade to it soon for the
same reason as I ordered the book.  I purchase these
products because I appreciate them and want them to
continue (even though it is not clear that I will end
up using Delphi 2009, since 2007 works for my needs).

So while I would recommend you look into some ways to
better secure your PDFs (I too like the Gnostice PDF
toolkit and it works well as a 'branding' tool) to
discourage illegal distribution, I hope you 1) don't
give up on writing about Delphi and 2) don't give up
on the ebook because I too like the search-ability of
the format, the usually reduced cost and zero-shipping
low turn-around time of getting the information you need.

Comment by Leonard Gallion on December 22, 23:05

Fighting Books Piracy 

If someone like Marco authors work that is valuable 
then they deserve to be paid properly for it.
If not everyone who uses it and finds it valuable is 
paying for it then either (a) some people are paying 
too much or (b)Marco is being underpaid.

As neither a or b are equitable options then it 
follows that :
everyone who uses something and finds it valuable 
should pay for it according to the value derived.

So it seems to me that some sort of DRM is a 
necessary evil.

Comment by NotAnExpert on December 23, 02:10

If you can't beat them, join them 

Just one more thought: Since I bought Delphi 2009 I 
also got your ebook for free. I downloaded it weeks 
ago, just in case, but I have not even opened the 
file yet, because my Delphi 2009 use currently is 
rather limited due to compatibility issues (which are 
probably described in the book).

So, there you go: One download that did not hurt your 
sales. Of course this is not evidence, but I don't 
think I am the only one. (Yes, I am aware that 
Embarcadero paid for the "free" ebook, but I could as 
well have downloaded it from an illegal source.)

I will probably end up using Delphi 2009 more and in 
that case I will also read the book. But I doubt that 
I will read the PDF, so you will get a hard copy sale.

As for figthting piracy: You can't win. As long as it 
is easy to copy stuff, it will be copied. Any copy 
protection scheme in history so far has failed. So 
you might as well try to cash in on it. Maybe make 
the electronic version available for free yourself 
and add advertising for your services and links on 
how to buy the hardcopy versions of your books, as 
somebody else suggested.

As for the books in the Baen free library and the 
reason for it: Yes, it never hurts an author to have 
his name known. But maybe tech writing is different 
because the market is much smaller. I don't know.

Comment by Thomas Mueller [http://www.dummzeuch.de] on December 23, 09:15

Fighting Books Piracy 

 You only make the PDF version book available to
REGISTERED Delphi/C++ Builder users and that's very
very fair. If they want it, they can print sections of
it to their printer or they can even purchase the
complete book from you.

Comment by Tom van der Vlugt [http://www.tomvandervlugt.tk] on December 23, 16:10

Fighting Books Piracy 

I also think you should worry less. The Delphi
community is quite loyal, and people who want to read
your book mostly will buy it as they respect you.
Those who try to get a warezed version would not have
bought it anyway.

Yes, "even if they could get it for free, they'll buy
it" may not apply to kids who want to get some mp3s.
But I think it most likely applies to all developers
who would be able to afford buying it.

I agree with you however that rapidshare and all the
other pay-for-warez-sites (usenext, firstload are
common here in Germany) should be closed - simlpy
because these are companies that make money on SELLING
access to warez. "Funnily" enough, while the MAFIAA
and friends are sueing end-users and non-commercial
P2P systems, they never target those real criminals.

Comment by Simon Kissel [] on December 23, 21:51

Fighting Books Piracy 

 .. why You don't use PubliShield system for your
publications? It's quite complex but cheaper and secure..

Comment by dusko [http://www.publishield.com] on December 29, 20:19

Fighting Books Piracy 

Marco I like your attitude, it's worthless to complain
about book piracy in general but it's a shame if some
actually publish a link to pirate material in a blog.

If possible I try to buy all my ebooks but if not
available on pdf form I know where to download them.

For me ebooks make 3 points: 
1) I can bring 100Kg of them on the airplane and read
them well with my iliad.
2) I can easily search through them for a particular
phrase or code sample
3) (in some case the most important) I can have them
in minutes. Sometimes I have to understand something
to fix a bug or design a subsystem, I cannot afford to
order by amazon and wait 3 days. This is for books
different from your obviously, but being able to have
a book in minutes, search for the solution to the
problem and fix it in a couple of hours makes a huge
difference.

Comment by 100% on December 30, 17:32

Fighting Books Piracy 

As far as the "Illegal downloads give exposure"
argument goes. You could try releasing only a sample
chapter or two of your books via eBook media. That way
you get exposure on the sites you've mentioned but you
don't give away the whole book.

I think reading on a screen instead of paper SUCKS!!!
So, I don't buy ebooks, but I'm sure many people do.

BTW, your books are very good and I don't like to see
criminals making money off your hard work. But then
again every aspect of the world reeks of criminals
making money off the innocent.

Comment by Rich on December 30, 22:21