“Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.”
― Douglas Adams
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Fox Censors Cory Doctorow’s “Homeland” Novel From Google
Copyfighter, journalist, sci-fi writer and Boing-Boing editor Cory Doctorow has fallen victim to the almighty content empire of Rupert Murdoch. In an attempt to remove access to infringing copies of the TV-show Homeland, Fox has ordered Google to take down links to Doctorow’s latest novel of the same title. Adding to the controversy, Doctorow’s own publisher has also sent DMCA notices for the Creative Commons licensed book.
Doctorow’s latest novel Homeland tells the story of an infowar, the suppression of information and the fight against censorship.
The setting of the fictional book is a realistic scenario according to activists, and on a small scale the book itself has now become the center of a censorship row.
Published by Tor Books, Homeland is available for sale in most book stores, but because of its Creative Commons license people are also free to share the book online. After all, obscurity is a much bigger problem than piracy for most authors.
As a result copies of the novel are shared for free on hundreds of sites, and this attracted the attention of a Hollywood studio. For a few weeks none other than 20th Century Fox has been sending DMCA takedown requests to Google for Doctorow’s novel.
I woke up with 8,058 books in my nook library: The Case of Schrodinger’s eBook
So here is the question: If you have 8,058 ebooks on your ereader that you never intend to read - and they cost the publisher $0 and the author was never going to get a royalty for them in the first place - did a crime actually take place? Do these ebooks actually exist or are they just literary packing peanuts? What if this person reads Carl Sagan’s Cosmos soley because it showed up unexpectedly and then seeks out Sagan’s other work legitimately in print because of it? Is this now marketing? What if this person decides to rent Girl With A Dragon Tattoo from Netflix because of this? Is this now promotional?
Before the torrent download none of these works may have even been in the consciousness of the reader. Since the download the latent potential for a positive commercial impact has been increased 8,058 times. Withing this torrent file the infinite vastness of the internet that competes with a book like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 for attention shrank to just 8,057 competitors. For this reader has this torrent just become one of the greatest book discovery engines available today? ~ eP
I torrented a kindle library final and I had no idea how much was in it. Wow what, I could never read all these books in a lifetime. Like I have my own personal library. I checked my nook and it has about two thousand of them on it and they all work, I feel like I’m in a dream…
Music sales are not affected by web piracy, study finds
A report published by the European Commission Joint Research Committee claims that music web piracy does not harm legitimate sales.
“It seems that the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in our sample would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them,” wrote the researchers in their report,
Should we worry ebooks are becoming more like music?
This is a very good piece from the WSJ on piracy and the difference between music and books when it comes to digital transition. http://on.wsj.com/JPYJ42
Of course both products are very different. Over the 400 years we have been trained to think of books as a self contained artifact and a physical product acquired and lovingly shelved in your home or library. Music’s “product” is the sound emitted invisibly from a speaker, often enjoyed communally and broadcast for free, turned on at will pouring from speakers like water from a tap. Vinyl, cassettes, and CDs were packaging and since the demise of the album cover just soulless containers. Training us to buy digital music by the download is like training us to buy bottled water. Convenience and prestige help but if you’re thirsty you can always find a water fountain or turn on the tap. The closest thing books have had to a public fountain are libraries.
That is the big question in digital book’s future. Will we see book’s content become a utility like water pouring/streaming to our screens like tap water? As we move away from native apps and the internet becomes the entertainet will we stop thinking of books as artifacts themselves and consider the words like music or television images - something we pay for monthly for unlimited access like cable, electricity, or water?
The Piracy Threshold
Music Piracy Continues to Decline Thanks to Spotify
A new report looking into online music consumption habits shows that since 2009 the number of people who pirate music has dropped by 25 percent in Sweden. The sharp decrease coincides with a massive interest for the music streaming service Spotify. One of the main reasons why people switch to legal services is the wider range of material they can find there.
» via TorrentFreak
I suspect the same is true (to varying degrees) in countries other than Sweden.
So I guess that settles that…
