[cinisajoy]

Excellent points about your usage and number of devices. My thoughts really are specific to the scenarios I mentioned, and as an example: 10 devices, 10 users on 1 account all simultaneously having access to the same 1 purchase. To me, that is unfair use, if I have not expressly allowed it.

Now I will agree that if someone has stripped your book and put it on all their friends kindles, ipads etc then yes that is unfair use.
I will ask you one little question. Did you or did you not agree to Amazon's terms when you signed with them? If you agreed to their TOS then yes you have expressly allowed me to put your book on as many devices as allowed.

 

[Robert Stanek]

Craig's point about devices is spot on. My 'zon account is activated for an old kindle, an old phone and and and an old laptop. I'm removing them now, but without this thread I'd never have even looked.

I think other content providers have dealt with this reasonable well - Sony with the PSN, or Netflix with tiered subs for multiple concurrent devices. They set a limit, and ask the end user to manage active devices if they want to download new stuff once they've hit the concurrency limits. I'm all for people reading stuff they bought in any way they want to. I don't use DRM for that reason. For DRM to work, it needs to be cultural rather than technological. We simply don't have strong enough DRM to stop a determined pirate. Someone needs to draw a line between what is fair to the readers, and what is fair to authors... but that line is a blurry one.

With books, readers could lend them, sell them, and give them away. With eBooks, this isn't true. They can create DRM-locked copies in specific circumstances, but it comes down to the nature of an eBook. We sell licences, not products. Some of the issues with that are pretty obvious - divisibility for one. If a couple breaks up, they can divvy up the books easily enough but only one gets the Amazon account. I personally don't mind if they both keep a copy if they buy one of my books, but the kindle licence doesn't cover that.

Inheritance is another. These are personal licences. We're all amassing digital portfolios, and very few countries have laws to deal with that.

We're in a 'make it up as you go along' system, and the people making it up are those at Amazon. Their interests in keeping customers happy, and our interests in maximising our income, don't always converge. As long as that remains the case, authors are going to have to put up with a certain level of piracy and hope that it doesn't dent the bottom line too much. By all means, play whack-a-mole with the pirate sites if it makes you feel better, but lots of these guys are based abroad, use peer-to-peer or operate on darknet sites. It's a cost benefit thing, and with huge sales it becomes much more viable to spend the time or to hire someone... but for most of us, we're best off leaving it well alone, adding a tip jar to an author website for any repentant pirates, and hoping that the extra visibility helps.

Excellent points. The package I have on Netflix limits us to 3 devices currently and that absolutely makes sense. Even though all the members of my family often would like to watch Netflix at the same time, we can't and that's understandable at $9.99 a month or whatever. Is it really fair use for 10 people with 10 devices on 1 account to share a $2.99 ebook? IMHO, no.

 

[Robert Stanek]

Now I will agree that if someone has stripped your book and put it on all their friends kindles, ipads etc then yes that is unfair use.
I will ask you one little question. Did you or did you not agree to Amazon's terms when you signed with them? If you agreed to their TOS then yes you have expressly allowed me to put your book on as many devices as allowed.

Thanks for following up! I haven't expressly agreed, but my publishers may have, though they likely did not have a choice. Again, Amazon already allows exceptions to these rules, they are just restricted to an elite class.

 

[Robert Stanek]

In addition to what everyone else has already said, you're forgetting the "Transfer via USB" method. When I first got my Kindle, I didn't have Wi-Fi, so whenever I bought a book, I'd download it to my computer, connect the Kindle via USB, and move the file to the Kindle. I have Wi-Fi now, but I still use this method. In fact, since receiving the Kindle from Amazon, I've never turned on Wi-Fi. I prefer that Amazon not know what's on my Kindle, what I'm reading, and how far I got into a book. All Amazon ever knows is that I bought a book and downloaded it.

I do agree that there are some common sense methods Amazon could implement. For example, if someone buys a book from an author, returns the book, then buys another book from the same author, then returns it, etc., that's something Amazon could easily detect and purchases of books from the same author could be suspended for a time. I'm sure there are other suspicious behaviours that Amazon could catch and handle.

Amazon absolutely knows what's on which of your Amazon devices. Amazon also absolutely knows how far you are in any book on your devices, how many times you've read them, etc. -- all this information is synced periodically back to Amazon whenever you use your devices and accessible to Amazon tech services.

Good points about returns like that!

 

[Sarah Ettritch]

Amazon absolutely knows what's on which of your Amazon devices. Amazon also absolutely knows how far you are in any book on your devices, how many times you've read them, etc. -- all this information is synced periodically back to Amazon whenever you use your devices and accessible to Amazon tech services.

But I never synch my device by connecting to Amazon, so in my case, Amazon has no information about what's on my Kindle, etc. My Kindle's Wi-Fi is always OFF.

 

[cinisajoy]

Thanks for following up! I haven't expressly agreed, but my publishers may have, though they likely did not have a choice. Again, Amazon already allows exceptions to these rules, they are just restricted to an elite class.

I owe you an apology. I guess my question to you should have been did a person/company acting on your behalf agree to Amazon's terms. If so, then that is a different kettle of fish. I thought you had actually read and signed the contract with A. I did not realize that you had given some of the control of your books over to others.

Now I do not know for sure because I don't work for Amazon but I would bet that all contracts at Amazon are primarily to benefit Amazon, second benefit is to the customer and lastly to the vendors (big and small). So yes you are probably right on the exceptions.

 

[CraigInOregon]

Is it really fair use for 10 people with 10 devices on 1 account to share a $2.99 ebook? IMHO, no.

My viewpoint differs slightly.

Are the 10 people in question family members? If so, I'd be fine with that.

If they were 10 guys who are on the same college dorm floor? Probably not.

 

[AngryGames]

Interesting. I think some level of DRM can be helpful as a deterrent. Amazon DRM is fairly good, I think, at performing its purpose and you can still use the e-items you've purchased across devices.

I disagree, and I'm coming from the video game / tech industry before I decided to write full-time.

DRM is a terrible answer. The only thing DRM does is limit the legitimate user. Pirates and unscrupulous users have already cracked/defeated any DRM that will ever be implemented. The sooner everyone on Earth realizes this (do yourselves a favor and look back as far as you can in history at attempts to limit the copying of anything, and see how often it has worked...exactly. Never.), the sooner we can move on to the next argument that someone will bring up where they think their livelihood is being trampled on by evil pirate-customers.

I've read this whole thread, and I'm not sure why anyone would want to place a restriction on how many persons can read the books after it has been purchased legitimately. I've loaned out The Forever War by Joe Haldeman at least 50+ times over the last twenty years. If I wrote a book that good that someone would annoy others to read it and loan it out that much, I'd be a very happy person.

Maybe I've spent the last two decades dealing with piracy in one form or another, from both sides, and so my viewpoint is different. I have to laugh at some of the threads/posts here and at other forums because of how pirates are viewed or imagined.

But 10 people sharing an Amazon account and all reading a $2.99 book? Why wouldn't I be fine with that? Even if they were 10 college kids on different dorm floors but had all banded together to have a single Amazon account...good for them. Share the book amongst yourselves. Share it with the entire campus for all I care. That $2.99 book is going to lead to some sales if that many people are interested in reading it.

I also suppose I see it differently because I feel like the day I start squinting down at the ledger sheet to count my pennies is the day I'll stop writing. It's great to make a living at it, and it's greater (I assume) to have made such a living that money is no longer a real worry. I'll also assume that when one author sells a million copies of anything, that author is now in the 'money is not really a problem' category (foolish authors and foolish pro athletes that can't keep a handle on their finances get no sympathy from me).

As for the DMCA notices...they only 'work' in the USA. The DMCA notice has zero jurisdiction outside of America's borders. Like I've said a million times, 99% or more of all 'pirate' sites reside outside of American jurisdiction. And all they really do is annoy whoever you sent them to, which generally makes them want to pirate more of your stuff (to the point they'll bundle EVERYTHING you have ever produced into a single collection and then upload it / torrent it / whatever it). If you are paying for someone to send them out, you are wasting money that could be spent on much more proactive or useful things. Do DMCA notices ever work? The only time they work is when an ISP suspends or shuts down one of their customers because of it. How often does this happen? Almost never. How often are DMCA notices bogus and are sent out in bulk by services such as the one you describe? So often that ISPs typically ignore them unless it is from the MPAA or RIAA, and even then, companies like Verizon tend to ignore them. Might as well throw a glass of water on a 5-alarm blaze (and piss off the (potential) customer in the meantime).

Anecdote: I received a DMCA notice once about the movie "The Hangover." I called the cable company and told them to stop wasting my time with their nonsense, and if I ever received another one, I'd close my account and move to Century Link (DSL). The rep apologized and said it was automated, but they'd make sure it didn't happen again. They never even questioned whether or not I'd downloaded the movie. I've never received another one. Our roommate's brother now works for the cable company, and he's confirmed the futility of DMCA notices. You might scare one or two old ladies that have their pot-smoking grandson living in the basement racking up 30TB of pirated downloads, but you aren't going to scare anyone that has a brain or has a friend/relative that is tech savvy.

Worse, you'll send them off to get new tools like PeerBlock, white/blacklists, filters, or they'll just move to a different format. Oh, you don't like Napster? Fine, we'll use WinMX. WinMX getting too hot? No problem. There's BearShare and Kazaa. Oh, they getting sued/shut down too? Fine, we'll go back to Usenet. Or BitTorrent. Or FTP. Or VPN. Or private torrent sites. Or private download sites. Or IRC. Or P2P-direct software. Or we'll just mail the stuff to each other via the good ol' USPS. Heck, even though MegaUpload got shut down, there's at least 50+ other sites that do the exact same thing. Or there's private websites that only give out the direct links to friends.

As a side note, you'll be happy to note that I think this is the last time I'll try to explain this to anyone. I'm sure there are a good number of forum users that have had to skip entire posts by me because I always say the same thing when it comes to piracy (i.e. you cannot win against pirates, and trying to treat legitimate, paying customers like pirates is the worst kind of bad juju).

Amazon absolutely knows what's on which of your Amazon devices. Amazon also absolutely knows how far you are in any book on your devices, how many times you've read them, etc. -- all this information is synced periodically back to Amazon whenever you use your devices and accessible to Amazon tech services.

They have no clue what is on two of my devices, since the devices have only ever had items transferred via USB. They do not sync. They never will sync.

Customer-centric businesses care more about the customer than they do the producer of goods. This is a good thing, even if you believe it is bad for you (or for everyone).

 

[CraigInOregon]

Travis,

Your post is basically one that employs a fear/intimidation strategy of discouragement. I say that because the essence of your argument is, "Pirates are too numerous and too powerful to ever defeat... Give up."

That sort of argument has existed for a long time, been applied to many other illegal endeavors, and has exactly zero bearing on whether something is legal and/or enforceable.

The trouble is: you're not exactly correct. Granted, enforcement of law against average citizens is rare and often on the level of "make an example of one random person to scare/intimidate everyone else," but woe to the person selected.

I present the case of Jammie Thomas-Rassett:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas

No matter how many appeals have been filed, (it's been before courts of law six times, so five appeals so far, and may end up before the U.S. Supreme Court before all is said and done), the courts have ALL levied judgments against her, even though at the time of the incident, it appears she was a single mom whose son was the actual responsible party.

While the fight now seems to be over the amount of damages, the 24 songs she was sued over (which would have cost her a mere $24 in iTunes) has run no lower than $2,250 per song, and as high as $80,000 per song.

The music industry has made her a martyr in their fight against music piracy, destroying her life financially, even if the only reason is she was randomly selected to be "made an example of."

I wouldn't want to be in her shoes, is all I'm saying. Granted, one might get blessed and never be randomly selected for such legal terrorism... but I know of no one who'd want to be Jammie Thomas-Rassett, either.

So, the law IS on the side of rights-holders. One can talk about random enforcement and "for every Jammie Thomas-Rassett, there are millions who never even get an email (like you did)," but that doesn't make everything "hopeless and meaningless" when it comes to where the law stands, either.

I mean, who wants to gather off pirate sites a bunch of books that range from $0.99 to $2.99, when the result could be a Jammie Thomas-Rassett-like nightmare scenario? Paying reasonable eBook prices is a no-brainer on the same level as paying an iTunes or Google Music or whatever sort of fee.

And yeah, the legal argument is also a "fear and intimidation" argument, just like the case you laid out, clearly. Both sides try to scare the other into giving up. That part will never be solved.

 

[Betsy the Quilter]

I think other content providers have dealt with this reasonable well - Sony with the PSN, or Netflix with tiered subs for multiple concurrent devices. They set a limit, and ask the end user to manage active devices if they want to download new stuff once they've hit the concurrency limits.

Amazon actually has the same policy -- in most cases the max is set at six concurrent devices. After that you have to remove it from a device to add it to a seventh device.

Betsy

 

[DarkScribe]

Amazon absolutely knows what's on which of your Amazon devices. Amazon also absolutely knows how far you are in any book on your devices, how many times you've read them, etc. -- all this information is synced periodically back to Amazon whenever you use your devices and accessible to Amazon tech services.

Good points about returns like that!

Not so. Many people (almost certainly those who will deliberately pirate books) will not use WiFi. I don't, not because I pirate, but because I use Calibre and only download new purchases to a Kindle app on one of my computers. I see no point in having WiFi turned on and reducing battery life unnecessarily. I own at least one of each device/model made by all manufacturers, and with the Kindles and Kindle apps alone I exceed a dozen devices - all of them have the same content. Amazon has no clue as to how many devices I have with the same purchases.

My wife has her own account (she has some tastes that I don't) but I will side load anything from my account that interests her. Our daughters also like some of the same authors and I will load any books of interest onto their devices. It does not concern me how many read a particular book (we have seven daughters and their partners) or whether they take advantage of the digital form of books read them simultaneously. It would be possible that up to twenty people could be reading the same purchase on different devices on the same day, though I doubt that will happen often. It is little different to the days when a paper book would be bought and passed around the family - just simpler and faster. The earnings of any author from whom I have purchased books from will not vary whether their book is read simultaneously or contiguously by members of my family. I do not lend books - eBook or paper - outside my family.

Piracy will never be controlled, and suggestions regarding DRM will only exacerbate the problem, not alleviate it. DRM serves only to annoy honest people and challenge pirates.

 

[CraigInOregon]

I don't use DRM. Don't believe in it.

I do send out DMCA Takedown Notices when I notice something. They tend to work. I don't obsess over it, but if I know something's going on, I do take reasonable steps.

I know nothing will shut down piracy altogether. If anything was gonna stop it, EVERY pirate site would have disappeared shortly after the Jammie Thomas case first happened.

I have no doubt piracy will continue; but I'll oppose it when I notice my stuff is in the mix, and no, I don't see it as being the same as making your book "perma-free" on Amazon.

The idea, though, for me as an indie author is that I'll try to minimize the appeal of piracy by offering my work for prices that are reasonable compared to trad-pubs.

So that's my personal mix of decisions and convictions. Those will vary for others. That's fine. We're all individuals, doing what we personally think is right for ourselves. Different people can come to different conclusions, convictions, and decisions in terms of what works for them. That's life.

 

[56139]

I'm with Robert 100% on this. That's pretty much all I'm gonna say about it because for some reason, this forum thinks piracy is no big deal. But whatever to them. I think Pirates are scum and I use DRM and Muso. People read the books once. Twice, maybe, if they are big time fans, three times on three devices? Right.

Thanks for the great thread, Robert. Keep on it.

 

[Guest]

I'm with Robert 100% on this. That's pretty much all I'm gonna say about it because for some reason, this forum thinks piracy is no big deal.

I'm pretty sure I NEVER said it wasn't a big deal. I said I'm not about to treat my honest customers like criminals. Shoplifting is a big deal, but the last time I checked the police didn't pat down every person leaving Walmart looking for stolen goods simply because some people steal. Drunk driving is a big deal, but the last time I checked I don't have to take a breathalyzer test every time I leave my house before driving to work simply because some people drive drunk. I don't abide by punishing everyone simply because some people are scum.

I much prefer to simply bring the hammer down on the scum.

Robert's initial post assumes two things:

1. The majority of readers are scum (i.e. actively looking for ways to cheat)
2. Amazon is run by idiots that don't do anything about fraud

Well, I don't believe the majority of readers are scum. My returns are less than 1%. The vast majority of people who buy my books keep them. They don't read and return them. And if one or two people a month think they are 'getting over' by reading and returning my book, what sense does it make to punish all of the other people who are being honest?

I also don't believe Amazon is stupid. Amazon does what is in Amazon's best interest. Losing money on fraud is not in Amazon's best interest. Remember, even if Amazon refunds the book and saps the money out of your account, they still have costs associated with that return. So to assume that Amazon does nothing about repeat offenders assumes Amazon is stupid. There is zero reason to think Amazon allows serial returners to run unchecked. Just because Amazon doesn't explicitly tell us something doesn't mean stuff isn't being done. Ye gods know Amazon rarely tells us ANYTHING going on behind the scenes.

The other thing is that there are two types of piracy. There are the "true" pirates (the guys who make it a point to pirate material either for some deluded philosophical point or for outright theft) and "soft" piracy (the people who let their friends "borrow" an ebook or who stumble across pirated material while looking for what they want to buy. There is NO amount of DRM that will stop a dedicated pirate. None. Such DRM does not exist. It can all be stripped by a pirate committed to doing so. And the more restrictions and DRM you place on a product, the more you actually INCREASE soft piracy because you push people to look for material in formats that let them do what they want to do.

For example, Disturbed often has hidden tracks on their albums, and the tracks will vary based on region. I really wanted a specific track, because I heard the song on Youtube and HAD TO HAVE IT. But it wasn't available on the U.S. version of the album. It was on the German version, but I couldn't by the German version because at the time regional restrictions prevented me from being able to legally obtain that version in the U.S. After several weeks of digging, I finally found a copy on eBay. I got my legal copy. But I only kept at it that long because I am committed to respecting copyright. The average person isn't. The average person, upon hitting the first wall, would have just downloaded the first available copy they could find...which would have been from a pirate site.

This is what DRM does. It pushes otherwise honest people into the shadowy world of piracy. The truth is most people are still surprisingly naive about the internet and think if it is on a site it must be legal. Most people do not understand the nuances of international copyright law. (Heck, most WRITERS don't for that matter!). If I can't get what I want at point A, I just go to point B. And if point B is a pirate site, I might not even realize it is illegal. Many of these look like legitimate sites.

The best way to combat soft piracy is to offer products at a fair price in as many formats as possible with the fewest restrictions on use. Because most people are inherently honest and would prefer to have a "real" copy of something over a fake one.

We can also educate our readers. This discussion about people returning books after reading them, for example, has been going on for a while. A bit ago in another forum I frequent (for bargain shoppers where people share saving ideas, discount codes they come across for various stores or links to online coupons) someone had actually suggested that a way to save money on books was to read them and then return them. I pointed out, nicely (I know, people may be shocked that I do anything nicely), that when you do that, you aren't "getting over" on Amazon because Amazon just sucks the money out of the author's account. The person who suggested it didn't actually know that. People still think digital content works like physical content and that the retailers pay us up front. She was mortified (and PM'd me later to let me know she had repurchased the books she returned because she felt awful about it).

But this is a woman who was "pirating" and didn't really understand that was what she was doing. We can argue that she should have known what she was doing was wrong. But educating her was more helpful than all the DRM in the world.

 

[cinisajoy]

I'm with Robert 100% on this. That's pretty much all I'm gonna say about it because for some reason, this forum thinks piracy is no big deal. But whatever to them. I think Pirates are scum and I use DRM and Muso. People read the books once. Twice, maybe, if they are big time fans, three times on three devices? Right.

Thanks for the great thread, Robert. Keep on it.

I do believe I said I read across three devices not read it three times. I put it on my kindle touch, my kindle fire and my kindle for pc. I read part of it inside on the fire, then had to take the dog out so synced it on my touch, when I went back in, I resynced on my fire. And because the pictures were all older, they were hard to see on the fire and the touch so looked at all of them on the k4pc.

Now as far as re-reading books goes I have read the original Cheaper by the Dozen and also Belles on their Toes at least 6 times over the years. I read Autopsy by Michael Baden at least 4 times.
So yes some people do read books more than twice.

 

[Rick Gualtieri]

I'm pretty sure I NEVER said it wasn't a big deal....

Awesomely said, Julie.

I will add one additional point to this, those who sample via pirate sites and then go on to buy afterwards / become loyal customers. It happens. I've been contacted by people who've gone down this route.

There is no blanket statement you can put out that covers all downloaders.

Sure some are in it for the free stuff. It stinks, but these people weren't going to purchase anyway so I won't lose sleep over them.

Some do as you say, Julie, resort to pirate sites because they simple can't get something easily in a legal format. (Likewise, I've had a few readers in countries where I'm not sold contact me via this way. All that tells me is to stop underestimating which markets to be in and get off my butt to ensure as wide of a distro as possible)

etc etc.

The reality for me is the only ones I'm about to condemn are the ones profiting off of me / selling goods that aren't theirs to sell. As far as I'm concerned they're the true problem.

The rest is annoying at worst, harmless for the most part, and can even be helpful at times.

 

[Rick Gualtieri]

Now as far as re-reading books goes I have read the original Cheaper by the Dozen and also Belles on their Toes at least 6 times over the years. I read Autopsy by Michael Baden at least 4 times.
So yes some people do read books more than twice.

I re-read Stephen King's IT at least once a year. Getting to the point where my paperback copy rains confetti when I open it up.

 

[Betsy the Quilter]

I'm with Robert 100% on this. That's pretty much all I'm gonna say about it because for some reason, this forum thinks piracy is no big deal. But whatever to them. I think Pirates are scum and I use DRM and Muso. People read the books once. Twice, maybe, if they are big time fans, three times on three devices? Right.

Thanks for the great thread, Robert. Keep on it.

Sorry, I don't see "the forum" thinking piracy is no big deal. I see some members who have posted thinking it is quite a big deal, including the OP, and others who have posted thinking it is not.

JanneCo, sorry you don't think anyone would be a big enough fan or your works to read them three or more times. I read many of my favorite authors' books multiple times. Some of them more than three times, even more than five times, on more than three devices, because I pick up whichever of my 8+ devices is handy and charged. I suppose it could look like three people are reading them at the same time as I switch between devices within the same reading. I've picked up works by my favorite authors that I already have in paper so that I can have them with me on my Kindles. Some of them are downloaded to each of the Kindles I currently have in my possession. We have members who read certain works every year. It's not that unusual.

I have do not pirate (or bootleg as many call it) software, music, books or videos. Never have. Know people who do, unfortunately. But I do not see Amazon's policy of allowing multiple Kindle users on a single account as the same thing as piracy. Amazon's customer-centric policies are one of the main reasons people buy from Amazon. We hear it again and again and again in the other parts of the forum that many of you don't visit. People buy Kindles and Kindle books because of Amazon's customer service reputation. People are willing to take a risk on authors that they've never heard of because of Amazon's policies. I've no doubt that there are people who abuse Amazon's policy. But to decry the policy because there are some people who abuse it is like saying the Internet should be shut down because some people use it to do bad things. IMO. YMMV. WWJD.

OK, shoot me down. 'Sokay.

Betsy

 

[Jennifer R P]

I have books I've read six, eight, even ten times. Maybe not "on different devices" but the implication that no legitimate reader is going to read a book more than twice bothers me.

I see four kinds of pirates:

1. People who have some kind of moral objection to paying for stuff. I actually once knew somebody who thought copyright should be abolished and who said that copying a book was "as much work" as writing one. I told her to try it then. You'll never make a sale to these people.

2. People who can't afford to buy anything right now. And before you say "But it's a $2.99 ebook" I *personally* know people so poor they scrounge food from dumpsters. If somebody can't afford food, they can't afford an ebook. These people may turn into paying customers when their circumstances improve. Libraries are the only thing that reduces this kind of piracy.

3. People who want a free sample - which is why providing a few things for free is a good idea. I always make sure there's stuff linked to my website readers don't have to pay for. Free samples are good, but in electronic goods, if you don't provide them people will steal them.

4. People who just want a DRM-free copy.

You'll never stop 1. You can't help 2. 3 will go away if you provide them with a legal way to get a sample. 4 will go away if you give them the DRM-free copy.

If there's DRM on anything I wrote, then a publisher or distributor put it there. Some distributors do insist on putting DRM on all books regardless of the wishes of the publisher. I do not like DRM.

As for device limits. Nah. People will get around that in five seconds and you never know when somebody lending a book to their friends might lead to sales.

I'm not saying I don't think piracy is "a big deal". I'm saying more that the current methods for stopping it actually breed more of it. And that I don't worry about it that much.

 

[CraigInOregon]

Jennifer, I don't have any major disagreements with you, but wanted to counter a couple points, even so.

1. People who have some kind of moral objection to paying for stuff. I actually once knew somebody who thought copyright should be abolished and who said that copying a book was "as much work" as writing one. I told her to try it then. You'll never make a sale to these people.

I know people who think this way, too. That doesn't make their rationalizations correct, though. Often, such folks work a day job, so I simply ask them to start volunteering 100 percent of their time, rather than accepting a paycheck. It's hard to counter that and still sound sane and rational. (Though some don't care about that, either.)

2. People who can't afford to buy anything right now. And before you say "But it's a $2.99 ebook" I *personally* know people so poor they scrounge food from dumpsters. If somebody can't afford food, they can't afford an ebook. These people may turn into paying customers when their circumstances improve. Libraries are the only thing that reduces this kind of piracy.

On one level, yes, I understand this.

On another level, if they can afford to acquire a PC and/or a Kindle in order to read eBooks to begin with, they obviously have SOME resources.

There are plenty of "legit-ly" free eBooks available, so there's not a lot of reason to pirate books that are not. Maybe they don't like the much-higher prices (generally speaking) of trad-pubbed authors... maybe they're currently broke because they're in between paychecks or jobs or whatever... but with all the legit free books out there, again, they could just wait.

Being unable to pay TODAY is not a legit rationale for stealing content TODAY. We don't have to be an "immediate gratification only" society.

3. People who want a free sample - which is why providing a few things for free is a good idea. I always make sure there's stuff linked to my website readers don't have to pay for. Free samples are good, but in electronic goods, if you don't provide them people will steal them.

Again, understandable... but there's a huge difference between a SAMPLE and an entire work.

Even big authors often offer free samples of significant length. I don't think there's many books James Patterson has published in the last three years where he didn't have a "The first 20 chapters FREE" sort of release out there... and his books are "spendy trad-pub" titles.

So I don't agree with this category as a legit excuse for piracy. There's way too many ways out there to get free samples without resorting to piracy.

4. People who just want a DRM-free copy.

Which is part of why I don't use DRM. You gotta pick your battles, and even I don't like DRM, so I never use it. My feeling is, I'll pay once for something. Not once per device. Just once.

I generally agree with your breakdown on types. I think 3 & 4 are easily satisfied... most every eBook site I know provides a free sample automatically, and some authors provide longer free samples by their own choice, as in the Patterson example.

Category 2 needs to exercise some patience... If they own a Kindle, they have some resources. There's plenty of legit free stuff out there, so buy the free stuff that's out there on Amazon, and hold off on the paid stuff when you have some money. It's a pretty sad excuse for piracy.

And category 1 is completely self-serving, the sort of "committed pirates" who will embrace any sort of rationalization that makes them not feel like the "book thieves" their actions reveal them to be.

I don't think that category is huge, though. I know they're out there. I'm not gonna try to fix 'em. But they should know that if they end up as the next Jammie Thomas-Rasset, it'll be hard for me to weep for them....

I mean, it's one thing to say "I can't afford a book I really want right now."

It's another thing to say, "Authors are *expletives* because they're all rich *expletives* and I have a moral right to own whatever they produce simply because I want it. It's wrong for them to want to be paid for their labor."

Yes, there's no curing that, any more than there's a way to cure those who go on Discovery Channel's pot-growers show and say, "Yeah, what we're doing is against the law, but it's a B.S. law, so yeah, I'm breaking federal law (not Washington state law or Colorado state law) on national television. So what? I dare the feds to arrest me!"

There's no curing that. But it doesn't make the behavior right or legitimate, either.

I mean, what if someone committed a murder and said, "Hey, I have a moral problem with the laws against murder. Some people NEED killing, and all I did was act on that, which is my sincere belief."

Yeah, but that person will still be charged with murder... I'm far more libertarian-minded than statist, but that doesn't mean we all get to decide for ourselves what's legal and what's not...

P.S. Someone above stated that people "only" read a book 1-2 times. I'm not at all in favor of the idea that one should limit how many times a book can be READ. That's worse than even the most restrictive DRM stuff out there! If I've paid for a book, and it becomes a favorite book, I should be free to read it as many times as I want... whether someone thinks "people never re-read favorite books" or not!