LATE Breakfast with the Bookie - E-Book Piracy: A Felony

 
Breakfast with the Bookie is a semi-weekly feature here @ Badass Bookie which is making a reappearance in 2012. Every other Wednesday morning, let's all grab our teas and coffees to gather and discuss and share our opinions! Everyone is welcome to join and make sure you leave a comment to state your opinion. Don't be shy! 


This Week's Topic - E-Book Piracy: A Felony

I could rant for three days straight about this but unfortunately I don't think anyone would read that so I'm giving you the "shortish" version. It's a fairly long post but I hope you would all read it because E-Book Piracy is affecting everyone. If you could tweet, Facebook, blog a link to this post it would be great! Let's fight E-Book Piracy together!

Firstly, piracy is just a fancy word for stealing. E-Book Piracy in theory is the same as going into your local bookshop, pulling a book off the shelf and walking out. The only difference is that you're doing it anonymously behind the safety of your desktop.

Respectively speaking, piracy of any kind is bad but I honestly think E-Book Piracy is the worst. Authors under no circumstances have a fan base as large as members of the music industry or the film industry (of course for every circumstance, there are few exceptions but let's face it not everyone can be J.K. Rowlings or Stephanie Meyers) this means that they aren't paid as much.

Your run-on-the-mill author's annual salary probably matches the salary of an everyday accountant. Add that to the fact that they get a pay check twice a year and mere 3% ( or less) in royalties for every book they sell. They can't afford to lose money. They have families to support, children to feed, bills to pay and every time you click download without paying, you're making that harder for them.

Here the bottom-line, authors want to do what they love most but if they couldn't support themselves with a measly pay check - they would give up writing and take up a steady job in a heartbeat. Every book that's not being bought but pirated is making it harder for them to continue doing what they love. Think budgeting fortnightly is hard? Try getting a pay check every six months. If you wouldn't steal from someone you meet on the street, then don't pirate books because you're stealing from these authors.

Also keep in mind that Piracy is a felony. If you're caught distributing or downloading works of fiction under copyright laws then you're looking at 5/6 digit fines and maybe even jail time. If this isn't making an impression maybe these statistics will -


- Twenty-nine percent (29%) of all e-readers surveyed, admitted to piracy. That's almost 3 out of every 10 adults!
- In the U.S., it is estimated that e-book piracy costs the industry $3 billion dollars every year
- One in eight women over 35 who own an e-reader, admitted to downloading illegal copies of e-books.
- At the end of 2011, an estimated 20% of all ebooks downloaded on to e-readers were believed to have been pirated.
- In the United Kingdom, the Publishers Associated issued 115,000 legal notices to websites who were offering free pirated copies of books, an increase of 130 percent from the number of notices sent out in 2010.


( Statistics Courtesy of Havoscope and All on Writing)

  What Authors Have to Say? - 

I understand the urge to take advantage of "free" books when you can't afford them or they're not available in your area, or even not yet released. And in the short run, that may be very satisfying. Free books! (Sometimes with viruses attached.) But if the ethics of pirating books doesn't bother someone, the long-term consequences should. Authors can write all they want, but if a publisher looks at their sales numbers and sees there aren't enough SALES (this is a business), then they're not going to buy and publish more books from that author. They won't be able to afford to do it. Of course, this is about people who download and read the books, not the people who just want to have them and wouldn't buy them anyway. The best way to get free/cheap books is in the library, from a friend, or wait for a used bookstore. Waiting sucks, but it's less harmful to an author's career. And people who want more books in the future should consider that. - Jodi Meadows ( Incarnate)

Special place in Hell for people who pirate books. There is a building that gives you them for free. It's call a LIBRARY. Pirating books hurts EVERYONE. But especially authors. It can actively prevent them from being able to publish more. - Victoria Schwab ( The Near Witch )

Creativity comes from a love of the work, of the art, and piracy belittles that. - Katherine Longshore ( Gilt)

If someone cares about my words enough to steal them, I consider that a compliment. Caring enough to pay for them is a bonus. - Jay Kristoff ( Stormdancer) 

Authors want to be paid for work and piracy's illegal. But it also seems inevitable—wish there was a way to harness it for good, not evil. - Elisa Ludwig ( Pretty Crooked) 

Alternatives to E-Book Piracy -


The Library: In some countries like Australia and Canada under the Public Lending Right - authors get compensation for the potential loss of sales from their works being available in public libraries. It's not as much as royalties but authors still get something out. Therefore every time you borrow a book from the library, authors are getting a little back.

Giveaways: The Blogosphere is filled with generous bloggers who giveaway books and ARCs! On any given day - you will find literally hundreds of book giveaways open internationally! You might not win but it's definitely better than e-book piracy.

Netgalley/ E-Galley Grabs: In exchange of a review, there are many sites that allow you to read e-books without charge. A good one is Netgalley but publishers also have their own e-galley programs - I know Simon and Schuster does! Edelweiss is another one, there are LEGAL ways to read e-books FOR FREE.

What's your opinion of E-Book Piracy? Are you fighting it? Do you encourage it? Let's discuss!

Badass Bookie xx