It’s time for another Open Tuesday while our blogmate, Kathryn Lilley, is on medical hiatus. Bring us your questions, comments and discussions. If you have a question about writing, publishing or any other related topic, ask away in our comments section. We’ll do our best to get you an answer.
And don’t forget you can download a copy of FRESH KILLS, Tales from the Kill Zone to your Kindle or PC today.
Much has been discussed across the internet regarding changes in the publishing industry (E-books, etc). One of the things that has always been difficult but seems to be getting harder is getting people to understand intellectual property rights. I am absolutely astonished at the # of people who don’t think a thing about copying something as a “freebie” without any consideration whatsoever of the creator of that work, regardless whether it’s music, books, or what have you.
It seems the lines are blurring and the problem getting worse than before.
While everybody is talking about all the industry changes, what consideration if any is being given to this problem?
BK – (not answering for TKZ folks, just weighing in) I don’t think there’s an answer to this. Honest people will do what comes naturally, pay for books, music, etc. The “shoplifters” will do what they do. When an author does make his work available for free, I like to show my support by purchasing their other titles. I also buy rather than copy music. But that’s just me.
I get annoyed at all of the internet sites inviting writers to submit work for ‘publication’ for free (or peanuts) with the promise exposure & ‘pub credit’. It’s one thing to have your work pirated but no one should be foolish (desperate) enough to work for free.
You’re so right about that, B.K. The ethics of propery rights are not being taught anymore. I wonder, however, if some inherent sense of fairness might overcome a bit of this, i.e. that the author deserves something for his/her labor. This sense perhaps increases as readers grow older.
There are those who contend, too, that with right pricing and reliable delivery, e-book revenue will not be significantly impacted.
Because of the way the business/download structure of the music industry has changed, I read that a major artist recently said that “it doesn’t pay to make albums anymore.” Hope the same thing doesn’t happen with books.
I did not intend to write such a long post, so I’ll apologize ahead of time.
—
A basic principal in security is the 10-10-80 rule, which states 10% of all people will always be honest to a fault, 10% of all people will be dishonest if given the chance, and 80% of the people will think about it and may or may not be honest as the circumstances allow.
In the retail outlet, product loss by employees makes up over 45% of all shrink (usually as theft). This statistic is true across the average of retail industries. The remainder falls into customer theft and about 20% “other” which may be either customer or employee.
In retail outlets, the business has measures it can place to prevent theft. They are not always effective, but the 80% of us with questionable morals see those deterrents and think better of stealing physical merchandise because there’s less chance of walking away cleanly. We can measure shrink by knowing the stores inventory and subtracting sales. The remainder is damaged merchandise (which can also be counted) or theft.
With the online/electronic market, I foresee a huge boom in theft of e-books. There was already a market for this out there, even before e-books had hit the scene – photocopied books in PDF formats flood online websites, if you look in the right places. The epidemic already exists in the video, music, and computer gaming industries. Why should e-books be any different?
I don’t oppose e-books, but there are no measures a computer genius can put in place that a hacker or other industrious character won’t find a way around. The “faceless” environment of the Internet is an encouragement to many who might normally be honest to get away with that “one little book – no big deal.” And, the worst part is, unlike the physical book industry, we’ll never know how many illegal copies are out there.
There are people who know that what they are doing is wrong and do it anyway, but many people steal intellectual property out of ignorance. When technology becomes available that enables people to copy something, they do so without realizing they might be breaking the law. It takes time for education to catch up to technology. But we also have the Walmart mentality. People have the belief that getting something at a cheap price is next to godliness, even if it is an inferior product. Many people seem to believe that the more they can get with less money they better their situation and never stop to think that there’s someone who needs that money. Given an opportunity to obtain something without paying for it people think, “I’m getting a great deal,” instead of considering that they aren’t paying enough. If they would lay aside their greed long enough to think about the other guy, commonsense would tell them that they shouldn’t be making free copies of intellectual property.