Howard Hughes Against the World Crime League

[greygirlbeast]

Nobody knew what to do with Buckaroo Banzai. There was no simple way to tell anyone what it was about — I'm not sure anybody knew.

Yesterday was. Sometimes, isn't it enough to say no more or less than that about any given day? After all, this is what most days of any given life are. That day....was. A life is a compilation of days that mostly just are. So, yes. One of the pitfalls of a blog that's being written for other people to read is that there's the feeling you have to make each and every day, in some way, interesting. Though most of them truly aren't. Most days just are.

That said, I spent yesterday tweaking Phase One. The oscillation overthruster was running a little fast, too many RPMs and all that. Someone could have gotten hurt. Oh, and speaking of secret and cool things, I am told that sometime in late November or early December, the cat will likely be allowed to leave the bag. So, we only have to wait that long.

---

The last couple of days, I've been engaged (along with several other authors and agents) in what ellen_datlow described to me as an endless game of "whack-a-mole," trying to stop various pirate sites from illegally selling copies of our ebooks. Or, as I would prefer to say, electronic copies of our books. Yes, not giving them away, but selling them. And every time we whack one, another pops up. But, like Mr. Jefferson said, eternal vigilance is the price.

No, it's not like buying an analog book and then, when you've read it, selling it back to a used bookstore (or anywhere else). Not unless it's a magical book that endlessly produces identical copies of itself, or unless you have some sort of magical book-pooping device that performs the same function. If you are selling copies of my books, which you have made, you are in violation of US Copyright Law (which, I admit, I am often not fond of, but it still applies) and, more importantly, you are stealing from me. You're not taking a quote. Or a few lines. Not even a preview chapter. But a whole goddamn book, which likely took me a year or two to write and edit.

And that's money my publisher loses, and when my publisher loses money on my books, they lose interest in publishing additional books by me. And if I can't make a living off my writing, the novels and short stories will, I assure you, cease to be created. Oh, there might be one or two very short stories a year, maybe. But I'd be too busy trying to get by with some other shitty job to write. And that, kittens, is why, if you actually enjoy what I write, you should never, ever steal one of my books.

Oh, and if you steal my books, I'll cut out your motherfucking heart and feed it to you, still warm and beating, if I ever get my hands on you. I will not even use a knife. But that's just a trifle, compared with all the other possible consequences. So, pretty please. Don't do this shit. People who pirate books waste the time and money of people who write those books.

And don't even get me started on Amazon and Google again.

Actually...to answer a question posed in yesterday's comments (and thank you, thank you, thank you for all those comments, even if I wasn't able to respond to all of them): lilith_333 asks, "I try to consume ethically when I can and I want to make sure authors get their fair due when I buy their books; what do you suggest?"

There is no easy answer. Like most authors, I live off advances, not royalties. I have seen only a tiny handful of royalty checks (one, to be specific) from the novels Penguin has published, beginning with Silk. This is over a period of time spanning most of two decades. One check. But set that aside a moment, because that's not the question being asked. The question is one of ethics, and there is nothing ethical about Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Penguin or any of those corporations, not when the bottom line is involved, the bottom line being profit margins. They fuck us all over. No, really. These are evil empires, even the ones which, like Penguin, are struggling to stay afloat. Still, the most ethical thing you can do (if I skip a lot of caveats) is buy the books from a legit online bookseller (Amazon, B&N, Powell's, etc.). Here, I mean the novels. As for the subpress books, I'd say buy them directly from Subterranean Press. And, by the way, Subterranean Press does a pretty damn fine job of actually behaving ethically towards authors, and, in this day and age, that's a rare and precious oddity.

I am, occasionally, called "greedy" for worrying about being stolen from. But, consider, is an author, a writer, who feels guilty for buying books, is that a greedy person? If so, fine. I'm greedy. I expect to be paid for work, as do you.

But now! I must away! There are...things to be done.

Hardly Ethical,
Aunt Beast

Comments

[opalblack.livejournal.com]

I expect to be paid for work, as do you.

Hear, hear.

Oddly, I and many of my e-book owning friends have encountered situations where we've bought a book in hard copy, and wanted to buy an e-copy for the reader, but been unable to do so because of geographic drm bollocks and other stupidity.

The ebook exists, we *want* to pay for it, but the publisher refuses to sell it to us. The book has been released and is globally available in hard copy, but for reasons unfathomable to normal humans, the electronic version is restricted.

In some instances it's been because of location, in other cases it's been because of proprietary reader restriction (which is to say, only available on whichever particular, proprietary brand e-reader, and if you don't own one of those exact models then FUCK YOU, NO BOOK FOR YOU!).

The only solution we've come up with is to find a pirate copy and send the author a dollar or five on paypal or whatever. Which we do. But, of course, that doesn't help with your sales figures.

It seems some of the anti-piracy measures being used at the moment are turning out to be anti-legitimate-purchase measures. They don't even slow pirates down, and they push people into piracy who actually want to purchase. Converting sales into piracy seems counter-intuitive to me. Wouldn't it be better to go the other way, convert piracy into sales? Maybe?

As the shallower parts of the internet might say, HERP-A-DERP-A-HURR-DURR.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

As the shallower parts of the internet might say, HERP-A-DERP-A-HURR-DURR.

That is one I have never heard.

In some instances it's been because of location, in other cases it's been because of proprietary reader restriction (which is to say, only available on whichever particular, proprietary brand e-reader, and if you don't own one of those exact models then FUCK YOU, NO BOOK FOR YOU!).


This is, for now, one of my arguments against ebooks. I can read a real book without any device other than them what Nature provided. Period.

That said, it's very complicated why some books are available as ebooks here and not there. And it's no worse than the wankery that leads to foreign translations, etc. But the best solution, always, is to bite the bullet and, no matter where you are on earth, buy the book from Amazon (not uk, etc., just the main Amazon site) or order it from a US retailer/publisher. No, you don't get instant gratification, and you'll have to read an analog book, but you will get it, and there will be no piracy.

To quote Arcade Fire, "We used to wait." Whatever happened to that?

[opalblack.livejournal.com]

I can read a real book without any device other than them what Nature provided. Period.

I confess to a fondness for my e-reader, but I will always prefer real books (see above).

it's very complicated why some books are available as ebooks here and not there.

I know there's a whole licensing bollocks affair underpinning georestriction. I think perhaps that these are aspects of the industry that do need reappraisal, rather than an electronic-vs-paper conflict. I just don't think it's that simple.

It's not the fact of new tech and its uses and abuses that is causing all the doom in and of itself. Digital is in many respects a very different business/information ecology from the physical, and I think (for my two cents worth) that the survive and thrive strategies for each are not entirely interchangeable.

The needs of the industry in the digital environment are not entirely being served by the strategies of the physical environment.

Before ebooks, if a book was not to be released in a country, you still had copies being shipped over in small quantities, but that was it, and those copies were [mostly] bought and paid for. Digital georestriction isn't the same as physical.

Hacking a georestricted ebook and uploading it isn't anything like importing copies of a book that's not been released in your country. But that's what happens. As well as physical copies being bought and sold across borders, digital copies are being stolen and given away. This eats into the number of physical copies being traded across borders, perhaps not a lot, but it would be foolish of me to say it doesn't. Georestriction rules out legitimate cross-border digital purchases such as would be made physically, losing those sales and arguably encouraging piracy.

In this respect, I think there needs to be a ground-up reappraisal of some stuff. Yep, technical term.

New tech definitely presents a threat to a lot of industries and business practices, but it's here now. For now. Trying to act like nothing has changed will not protect them.

You are of course absolutely correct, nobody needs to pirate a book. But people will, and do. And not everybody thinks it's fair to send the author some compensation for their work when they do it. People with e-readers are affluent enough to buy the damn book, by definition. But should and is are very different countries, and I think a lot of approaches to piracy are based in the land of should, rather than the land of is.

Tangentially, my favourite anti-piracy message on a DVD was on Suck (and probably others I don't own) which said something to the effect of "by purchasing this DVD you are supporting the film industry. THANK YOU!" It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling thoroughly unlike the OH GOD SHUT UP that I get at the piracy funds terrorism/you wouldn't steal a handbag/we hate you filthy untrustworthy consumers type messages.

Because, you know, pirate DVDs and torrents totally leave those messages in. And people who buy legitimate copies of movies they like are totally pirates waiting to happen and just don't know it. And need to be sternly warned against succumbing to their inherent evil every single time they watch a movie at home that they legally bought and paid for.

Ok I'm ranting now. Sorry, I'll stop.

To quote Arcade Fire, "We used to wait." Whatever happened to that?

Indeed.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

As the shallower parts of the internet might say, HERP-A-DERP-A-HURR-DURR.

That is one I have never heard.

Is it OK if I imagine "HERP-A-DERP-A-HURR-DURR"'s being said by the Swedish Chef with a speech impediment?

[opalblack.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!