How to deal with Pirates

http://blog.liberwriter.com/2013/12/10/how-to-deal-with-pirates/

by davidw • 13 years ago

18 30 13 years ago

blog.liberwriter.com

res0nat0r• 13 years ago

Sounds like the moral of the story is: Before pirating something online, ask the author for their permission first.

squozzer• 13 years ago

You give 'em a broadside from your 74, board their vessel, and hang the survivors.

davidw7• 13 years ago

A lot of self published authors would love to do that, but don't quite have the means to do so.

JetSpiegel• 13 years ago

Aye, but Tortuga has a lot of desperate people.

GrinningFool3• 13 years ago

I like what the author did here - it was a more-than-reasonable response.

But the blog post author's response is interesting to me, particularly:

"Actually going after one of these sites legally is not likely to work out well for most self-published authors: It’s like playing whack-a-mole: another one will spring up in its place if you manage to get one.You don’t have the resources big publishers do, and those guys still aren’t able to shut this stuff down."

What he seems to be missing here is that whether your response is to try to shut these things down, or whether you're going to each site and humanizing yourself - the cost is the same: you're spending time doing things that aren't writing, and aren't working.

It seems to have worked out (possibly) for the author in this case, but it's not scalable as we like to say here. You're still playing whack-a-mole, you're just doing it with a feather duster instead of a sledgehammer.

davidw7• 13 years ago

Fair point, but the 'nice' approach seems like it may be a little bit more of an investment, in that the author at least got herself listed on the 'authors to support' list of that particular site, and maybe changed a few minds. It's probably still a drop in the bucket, but at least she came away feeling like she did something, rather than sitting still while someone was ripping her off.

(I'm the one who wrote the blog post, by the way)

GrinningFool3• 13 years ago

Thanks for responding.

"It's probably still a drop in the bucket, but at least she came away feeling like she did something, rather than sitting still."

Valid point. This is just something that's always frustrated me as someone who creates work with value (to those who need it), but which is also easily copied. Since sometime in my mid-teens, I've consistently failed to understand the entitlement mentality that allows people to justify the behavior that compels authors and publishers to spend time and/or money combating the behavior.

I suppose, ultimately, efforts like the one the nearly-pirated author made are the probably the most effective as they at least have a chance at educating people as to the effects of the actions they take.

Doesn't make it less frustrating though

chongli• 13 years ago

No, the outcome is not the same. Going around with a feather duster, as you call it, can have positive effects. In the most general sense, it's a form of grass-roots marketing.

you're spending time doing things that aren't writing, and aren't working.

People spend a lot of time doing things that aren't directly related to putting source code into the repository. That is pretty irrelevant to this issue.

GrinningFool3• 13 years ago

Agreed on both counts, on further thought. Speaking mostly out of frustration - see reply to original author (above) for a more detailed response, but the gist was: yes, education via feather duster is going to at least have a chance at changing behavior, whereas splattage via sledgehammer will have the opposite effect.

davexunit2• 13 years ago

Please stop using the term "piracy". It is a loaded term.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

mildtrepidation• 13 years ago

So is "hack." So is "terrorism." I share your frustration, but the way people use the language changes it; just look at the recent "because Internet" crap. Asking people on the internet (which I'd say is what most 'journalists' have now become as well, incidentally) to stop abusing and overloading terms is painfully futile.

runarberg• 13 years ago

See, copyright violation has a well defined term, namely "copyright violation". Piracy means something completely different (an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea).

Despite negative connotations "hacking" still means expanding the usage of an object and "terrorism" still means enforcing ones ideals through violence.

So these comparisons are not valid.

EDIT: To make my point clear. When clicking the link, I thought the article was literally about pirates, that is sea criminals (or perhaps the political party). If only the author would have used the more descriptive, and more correct term "copyright infringement" I would have been less confused. So usage of the word "piracy" in this context is both damaging, wrong and confusing.

soperj• 13 years ago

That's pretty much my argument for the "Don't use the word 'gay' in a pejorative way" crowd. Doesn't come across as well...

snorkel2• 13 years ago

.. Or you could give the freeloaders the special edition for free which happens to contain random passages from Alice in Wonderland, pointless diagrams, and lengthy rants about your neighbors inexplicably weaved into the original work.

VLM4• 13 years ago

That's a Richard Gregory book allusion who is probably more famously known for being the grandpa (uh, sorta) of the Exploratorium in SFO because aside from writing books about perception (hits on two things, donno about the neighbors comment) he founded an ancestor of the Exploratorium in the UK. I believe he was first, the the SFO site is a very friendly derivative copy of his work, which is humorous in a discussion about piracy.

bluntly_said• 13 years ago

I know right? Some scum in India liked her books, but can barely afford the original price, much less the mistaken x2 price. Fuck that guy for enjoying her work and trying to better himself by expanding his knowledge of other cultures and opinions. Who does he fucking think he is, trying to read her work without paying $x american dollars to Amazon for the privilege. Fucking freeloaders man. /s

snorkel2• 13 years ago

You're right. Authors should price their works according to how sobby the sobbiest sob story is per consumer. At least with my approach they would get the book plus bonus material.

VLM4• 13 years ago

Both sides seem victim of a middleman, the author's not getting sales because the middleman set a ridiculous price, and the reader isn't getting to read her book.

The correct (not necessarily legal) way to solve the problem of an inaccurate or inherently wrong price is to apply a smooth scale. Sure download my book and if you liked it please visit my cafepress site and buy a tee shirt or bumper sticker or post on facebook / social media about how awesome my book is... or provide a nice positive review on amazon even if you don't buy it. If you really want to annoy your middleman, such that your middleman might never sell anything of yours again, ask pirates to paypal you whatever they think its worth if they're overcharged by the middleman.

Most of the drama comes about because some people create to eat and some people eat to create, and making assumptions about who fits in where is a big issue.

davidw7• 13 years ago

Both sides seem victim of a middleman

She entered into an agreement with Amazon that she was happy with. She was not a 'victim' in that arrangement, and actually gets a pretty good deal in terms of revenue sharing. Yes, there was a problem with the international pricing in India, but that may be something she can fix. She got to set the price for her book, though, and is happy with the arrangement of getting paid for the book itself, rather than t-shirts, bumper stickers, or other unrelated knick-knacks.

VLM4• 13 years ago

OK I agree victim might have been kind of harsh. Some other term for a monopoly middleman not perfectly meeting a fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns for anyone, not themselves or her.

There is no monopoly provider in the knick-knack space, or at least its not the same monopoly provider, so she could try to use them as a strategy to bypass the somewhat ineffective monopolistic middleman.

kens• 13 years ago

A while ago I came across an amusing article about an author who ended up helping a pirate translate his book into Russian.

The author found the rogue translator through a message board where the translator was asking for help with obscure English phrases. It's surprising both how much effort the translator went to, and how confused he was. For example, he thought "white-liberal guilt" might be guilt about using cocaine (since it's a white powder).

Eventually the author decided to help the pirate achieve an accurate translation, since he seemed to be actually interested in the book.

Check out the article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/steal-my...

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

Oh, this just so pisses me off:

a lot of people on these sites don’t think of authors as actual human beings

Maybe author's that peddle vendor locked-in DRM crippled stuff via Amazon to an audience unable to understand how they are getting shafted should try seeing their readers as actual human beings first.

davidw7• 13 years ago

If you don't like it, don't buy ("rent"?) it. But don't rip it off, either!

The book has lending enabled, and if you were to ask nicely, perhaps she'd disable DRM on it too, if it is enabled. She sounds like a very reasonable person, inclined to discussion before getting in an internet rage about some detail of the book.

proksoup• 13 years ago

Why do you feel it is "ripping off" when people copy?

How to deal with Pirates

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