Comments on Nathan Bransford, Author: A Matter of Ethics

Anon- Like I said, I don't think anyone shoul...

2010-05-02T10:53:42.544-07:00

Anon-

Like I said, I don't think anyone should go busting down doors over situations like this one. At the end of the day this is pretty mild. But I still don't think this is ethical, nor do I think that me saying it's not ethically justified is going to drive people to go pirate more just to spite me. This is what this is coming to?

I'm an avid reader and so read a lot of author...

2010-05-02T08:38:15.988-07:00

I'm an avid reader and so read a lot of author/literary blogs, and must say that I am disheartened by the every penny, not matter what, bottom line taken here and many other sites I read. I agree with the earlier poster who said that the fighting for every nickle and dime, at the cost of alienating customers, is a huge mistake. At a time when many, many people download illegal ebooks with no intention of ever paying the authors a single cent, the reader in the original Ethicist post did all he could, given what was available, to pay the author. And yet he is still attacked by many here as a pariah. Instead of saying - look, this guy wants to pay his fair share, most folks are probably like him, let's work with these well-intentioned readers and give them the paying options they want, there is still such a huge undercurrent, here and at most literary blogs, that any reader who doesn't want to go along happily with the limitations set by publishers is a BAD PERSON, that they are as evil as folks uploading hundreds of ebook files for sharing online. Yes, Nathan, you made the distinction between levels of piracy, but your overall tone for the length of this discussion leans much more toward anyone operating outside the status quo being terrible.

I go to a lot of reader blogs, too, and I can tell you that this attitude is turning people into pirates as fast as anything that technology can come up with. Many readers are struggling to do the right thing, they WANT authors to get money for their works, and they come up with ideas like the Ethicist reader did because it is the best they can do. To be bashed by authors, agents, publishers and other readers as no better than the pirates who pay NOTHING, EVER is enough to send many in that direction. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, right?

Nathan, I am not promoting a culture in which peo...

2010-04-23T01:59:34.341-07:00

Nathan,

I am not promoting a culture in which people feel they never have to pay for anything, but one in which an artist's material returns for his endeavours (eg money) does not necessarily come directly from selling digital copies of them. We need to look at this in a different way to the sale of material objects, because it is different. I did use 'immaterial' as in 'Having no material body or form', not as 'inconsequential'.

It is interesting that in a recent study of free downloading (one of the rare ones not actually controlled by the music industry) it was discovered that the motivation was rarely to save money. Top of the list was convenience. Free stuff is just easier to get and use than the DRM-crippled 'only allowed to use 4 times in one room on a Thursday' products. http://7-books.net/pirate-party-is-shape-of-things-to-come/

If someone has paid a huge sum for a CD, they feel they should be allowed to listen to it on the beach or in a plane without having to drag along their household music system and a generator. So I think the idea mooted by a number here of bundling an e-book download with paper books is a good one, and the sort of move that would certainly begin to 'win the hearts and minds of the people', so cretinously discarded by the music barons. If people see the publishing industry reaching out to accommodate them, they will probably reciprocate.

I have no pat answers in the longer term, although I am attracted to the simple idea of a small 'media tax' on our internet connections which is shared out among artists according to the number of recorded downloads. Others can work out the details, but it does seem to me to have much the pros and cons of the BBC TV licence, which has worked OK for many years. If you don't pay, you don't connect, and you get nothing; but having connected everything becomes very simple - help yourself to what you want; extra charge for premium content perhaps.

Anyway, I hope there is some food for thought here. I shall seriously consider attaching a complimentary PDF to every email acknowledging payment for a paper book. If someone has bought my book and wants to take it and ten others on a long journey, why should I expect him to drag along a suitcase full of squashed pine trees? It is the story that he has bought, after all.

sleepyjohn- I understand that stealing a physical...

2010-04-22T17:20:31.290-07:00

sleepyjohn-

I understand that stealing a physical good and depriving someone of a sale is not the same thing. At the same time, depriving someone of revenue they have rightly earned is still a form of theft. I really don't buy that oh well, it's just digital and so we should just all get used to not paying for anything. The time authors and editors and e-booksellers put into an e-book are not "immaterial." Just because you're receiving it in the form of electrons instead of paper doesn't mean that you should get it for free.

One free download from someone who wasn't going to buy a book anyway may not harm the author that much. A culture where people think they don't have to pay for anything most definitely harms authors.

Just came across this post today. I know it is a ...

2010-04-22T17:13:24.276-07:00

Just came across this post today. I know it is a bit old but it made me think, so here is my two penn'orth. I may incorporate it in a post on my own site:

I think the current hysteria over free downloads of intellectual property is getting a little out of hand. Whatever the morality of it, as perceived by present-day standards, it is clearly quite disingenuous to equate copying intellectual property with stealing material property. If I steal your vehicle I prevent you from using it. If I copy your pop song I do not. There is a significant difference.

The argument is then presented that I am stealing from you the money that I should have paid you for it. But if I would not buy it anyway, due to greed, laziness or penury, then you are not being deprived of that theoretical sum of money.

There is increasing evidence that many who download intellectual property without paying for it then go on to buy associated merchandise - tee-shirts, higher quality recordings, live shows, other works by that author and so on. The likelihood of vicious lawsuits, disconnection from the internet and public floggings encouraging people to do this is probably fairly low. The offer of free digital downloads is more likely to create a warm, let-me-get-my-wallet glow in a prospective buyer's heart.

I recently described the attitude of the music business to free downloaders as being like a guerilla war, in which the most basic golden rule is to 'win the hearts and minds of the people'. The music moguls have failed catastrophically to observe this, and will suffer greatly for it. The book world should try to avoid doing the same.

It is beginning to seem to me that the very concept of paying for most immaterial objects is going to vanish. They will become loss leaders, adverts, tasters, encouragement to buy the associated material possessions such as tee-shirts, posters, paper books, branded MP3 players and so on. My neighbour writes and illustrates childrens' books and she tells me that most of her income derives not from her books directly but from lectures, school visits and such. I believe the same is true of successful musicians, with live shows and merchandise.

In the meantime there will be much heartache as we all try to cope with the tremendous changes going on, not only the material, practical ones, but also the immaterial, moral ones. For morality, surely, is simply about not harming others. And if a free download does not harm the author then it cannot be immoral. If it can be made to benefit the author then it will benefit everyone.

The Digital Revolution has released a magical genie from her bottle and we must not try to push her back in just because she challenges our concepts of the acceptable norm.

I stopped reading The Ethicist when he told an emp...

2010-04-18T20:01:06.053-07:00

I stopped reading The Ethicist when he told an employee who found child porn on his boss's computer not to turn him in. His rationale was "Even if your boss were acquitted of criminal charges, the accusation itself imperils his job, his reputation and the company. If convicted, he faces years in prison... Since you have no reason to believe your boss has had improper contact with children, you should not subject him to such ferocious repercussions for looking at forbidden pictures."

Anyone who can make such an argument does not deserve to be in print. This only further illustrates the point.

2010-04-13T06:45:03.207-07:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Anonymous, I think I love you. Artists and employ...

2010-04-11T03:01:45.889-07:00

Anonymous, I think I love you.

Artists and employees: pick your battles more carefully.

Ethics is always a difficult concept. It requires ...

2010-04-10T19:34:09.839-07:00

Ethics is always a difficult concept. It requires not only knowing the current law but also what the law could be: And the law is not always, as it is established, what is best. But often it is. Against all one's ideas. The law seems often too religious. Right now, I am most concerned w/what lies outside of current custom: could I insert a passage of Chopin or Mozart etc into a novel into an e-book?????

I couldn't agree more, Nathan. I realize that ...

2010-04-08T08:39:12.368-07:00

I couldn't agree more, Nathan. I realize that we're trying to navigate our way through a lot of gray areas, but the Ethicist's advice really stunned me. It's a slippery slope.

Libraries buy their books. They are an importan...

2010-04-08T07:23:26.206-07:00
Libraries buy their books. They are an important market for the publishing industry, especially for things like literary fiction. Libraries are part of the book market, not an exception to it. I would still encourage people who truly want to support authors to buy new books when they can afford them, but it doesn't mean that someone who goes to the library is subverting the system. Your condescension on this point is unbecoming.

People who buy a hardcover because there is no way to buy an ebook still buy their books. They are an important market for the publishing industry, especially since no ebook is available. They are part of the book market, not an exception to it. I would still encourage people who truly want to support authors to buy the ebook versions when they become available, but it doesn't mean that someone who goes to trouble of buying the harcover in place of the ebook is subverting the system. Your condescension on this point is unbecoming.

Not only does e-book revenue go toward paying t...

2010-04-07T17:46:41.521-07:00
Not only does e-book revenue go toward paying the authors and publishing infrastructure (editors, production, etc.), but you're depriving legal e-book vendors of infrastructure costs as well.
That's why I chose to incorporate the fact that the ebook that you download must NOT have been made by a publisher who wishes to sell the ebook. Publishers who sell ebooks pay infrastructure costs, but those who type the ebook up themselves for free do not want pay for their infrastructure.

If you're downloading a publisher's ebook, then you should still pay for the infrastructure.
(This is still assuming you have rights to the consumption of the book.)

And I also don't believe you are paying simply for the reading experience when you buy a print book.
I must say that you are right here. If you lose the book, you no longer have the right to the content. But if you have a backup, you still have the right to the content. And you are legally allowed to use third-party services to backup your book. So you are legally allowed to download the ebook (just the text, nothing else), as a third-party backup service. Ethically, I'm not so sure.

Ironically, when you buy e-books you are buying pretty much perpetual text rights.
Unless Amazon finds out that it doesn't have the rights, and deletes it from your devices.;) And when they beam it to your head, if you can find someone who's willing to convert it for free, then you're allowed to do it. But everyone will still want the leatherbound tomes anyways. Because nothing can replace them.

anon- See, while I think you make some good point...

2010-04-07T17:33:31.384-07:00
anon-

See, while I think you make some good points, I think your comment betrays an opinion that e-books are essentially valueless. You're making one distinction for print books, in part because of infrastructure costs and physical printing, whereas an e-book is just electrons. But e-books have infrastructure costs. Not only does e-book revenue go toward paying the authors and publishing infrastructure (editors, production, etc.), but you're depriving legal e-book vendors of infrastructure costs as well. You may not be "stealing" a physical object, but that object only costs a few dollars to make. All the other costs are still there with e-books.

And I also don't believe you are paying simply for the reading experience when you buy a print book. You're buying a physical object. When you pass that print book onto someone else you don't retain the right to read the book. You aren't entitled to read it in perpetuity if the print book breaks down. If your book breaks down you have to buy another one. Nothing in buying a print book entitles you to perpetual text rights.

Ironically, when you buy e-books you are buying pretty much perpetual text rights. If you bought a Kindle book you can now read it on your iPad, and you have access to it in perpetuity. But when books evolve again and they're beamed directly to your head in a hundred years I'll bet you still have to pay to legally convert your e-book library.

My opinion is buying a book does not grant you imm...

2010-04-07T17:20:51.830-07:00
My opinion is buying a book does not grant you immunity from ever having to buy the same book in another form ever again, except as an ebook.

Ebook, as in a text document, containing the exact words of the version that you have purchased.

It does not entitle you to other material forms of the book, because you must pay for the material to create it, as well as transportation, marketing, etc.
It does not entitle you to a movie rendition, because it is not the same content.
It does not entitle you to a formatted ebook, unless it is the same format as the version you have purchased, and only if the version is not derived from a paid version.

The baseball bat analogy does not work, because you are not stealing the baseball bat, you are receiving a baseball bat from somebody who is willing to "carve" baseball bats for free. Whether or not he has the right to "carve", or if he even "carved" them at all, is a different matter. Carving another baseball bat yourself for yourself is an example of "fair use", and receiving one from someone who is carving them for free would still be fair use in the sense that you are paying someone a sum of $0 to copy an object for your own use.

If you are buying a ticket for a movie or play, you are buying the right to a one-time uninterrupted consumption of the material provided, at the date agreed upon. You are not purchasing the right to the consumption, but a limited right to consumption.
(Although that could be applied to books as well, as the right to the consumption of content in the media form provided, though with my baseball bat analogy, it would fall under "fair use".)

You cannot steal the DVD of something you have the VHS of, as you are stealing material, transportation, marketing, etc., as well as the cost to do the transferring, as well as possible touch ups and special features, especially with blu-ray.

You are allowed to transfer it yourself for yourself, as it falls under "fair use", which takes away all of the above criteria.

And Oreos. Great analogy.
However, when you purchase Oreos, you are purchasing the "Oreo" itself, which is a one-time enjoyment of Oreo, which may be divided into as many pieces as you wish, as long as the sum of the pieces does not exceed the initial Oreo. It does not entitle you to the unlimited consumption of the feeling that Oreos provide, but the physical medium that is consumed once the feeling is experienced.

I think the main argument is what you actually purchase when you buy a book. Do you purchase the book as a physical entity? Then you "fair use" should not apply, as you did not purchase the use of the content. I believe that purchasing the book gives you the right to consume the contents of the book, which allows you to pay people to reproduce it as long as you are the only one who will be using the reproduction.

But I still say that the ebooks should only be available to people who have purchased the books, and anyone who makes it available to people who did not purchase the book should be fined.

Books, movies, and media in general has moved into...

2010-04-07T16:00:21.414-07:00
Books, movies, and media in general has moved into a bizarre pattern. Gone are the days of owning a library (or even visiting a library), and welcome to the days of quick reads and easy access. I don't believe myself to be an old-timer, at the age of 35, but my outlook on books is unique. I believe in owning and re-reading my books. I have a collection of books numbering in the thousands.

I think that naivety is to blame here. Already people can resell their books and movies without the author or publisher seeing a dime, and now people want more for free. This instant gratification is abhorrent to artists throughout the world. Years are spent in the creation of a book or a movie and the essence of it is quickly discarded as soon as the last page or credit has passed. Only other fellow artists truly understand this pain and frustration.

These loopholes are killing the artists (who make very little to begin with). I am a strong supporter of the artists themselves, and not the concept of getting as much as I can for as little as I have to spend. I also support entrepreneurs and mom and pop shops. I think that this new generation may start to get fed up with disposable ideas and merchandise soon, and start to see that quality is always better than quantity. Which ultimately leads to saving money anyways.

anon- A lot to respond to, so I'll just choos...

2010-04-07T12:43:50.107-07:00
anon-

A lot to respond to, so I'll just choose a couple:

You've said you're standing up for artists, and their right to compensation, but if the reader's desire to read the book convinced him to go out and buy it in hardcover (because no legal eBook was available), and then download a pirate eBook copy, then didn't the author and publisher get as much compensation as possible? (The hardcover book was probably the only, and most expensive, version available.)

This really boils down to the "all platforms" argument. Pay for it once and you should get it everywhere. What I'm saying is that if you buy a hardcover you don't then get the right to it in e-book form no more than you get the right to it in paperback or mass market. If a book is available in hardcover and the paperback edition isn't available, you don't then get to go by a pirated paperback edition off the street and call it ethical.

If you truly believe in an author's absolute right to control who does what with their work, then you should be protesting the existence of libraries

Libraries buy their books. They are an important market for the publishing industry, especially for things like literary fiction. Libraries are part of the book market, not an exception to it. I would still encourage people who truly want to support authors to buy new books when they can afford them, but it doesn't mean that someone who goes to the library is subverting the system. Your condescension on this point is unbecoming.

My opinion boils down to this: Buying a hardcover does not grant you immunity from ever having to buy the same book in another form ever again. If you want another edition you can make it yourself out of the one you bought or you should pay for it.

Copyright law exists to encourage innovation, by m...

2010-04-07T12:33:19.495-07:00
Copyright law exists to encourage innovation, by means of establishing intellectual property rights. It protects the creators right to be compensated for their efforts. Like all rights in society this right must be balanced against other rights. In the US copyright is not absolute, there are explicit laws covering "Fair Use" (allowing for use in journalism and educational settings) and "First Used Doctrine" (which allows things like library's and video rental stores to operate).

The creator's right to his or her work is not a moral absolute, and I'll prove it to you.

Can we agree that a human life is more important than convenience?

If that is a moral absolute, if it is always true that a human life is more important than convenience, then why, as a society, have we agreed to trade between 2,000 and 4,000 lives each year so that we can all get to work a little bit faster each day.

The number of fatalities per passenger mile increases by about 28% when you increase the speed limit from 55 to 65 MPH, and a National Academy of Sciences study found that the 55 mph limit saved between 2,000 and 4,000 lives each year.

So given that we do not live in a society of moral absolutes, what are you really worried about?

How about making sure those responsible for making the book are financially compensated.

What would you find acceptable? How about if he bought two hardcover copies and threw one away after downloading the eBook version? Is that OK? Three copies? Four?

Or should he just not buy it at all? He wants an eBook version, there's no eBook version available for legal purchase, so he's out of luck? End of story.

If he can't do it legally, he can't do it at all, no matter how hard he tries to compensate those involved in making it. Is that it?

Author loses, publisher loses, reader loses. That's your solution?

I don't believe that downloading an ebook version of a book for which you own a hardcover copy is the moral equivalent of stealing a DVD, and I don't believe driving 65 MPH is the moral equivalent of murder, and neither do you.

What is the real issue?

You've said you're standing up for artists, and their right to compensation, but if the reader's desire to read the book convinced him to go out and buy it in hardcover (because no legal eBook was available), and then download a pirate eBook copy, then didn't the author and publisher get as much compensation as possible? (The hardcover book was probably the only, and most expensive, version available.)

Didn't the publisher get exactly what they wanted, more hardcover sales?

If you truly believe in an author's absolute right to control who does what with their work, then you should be protesting the existence of libraries. Libraries not only deprive an author of potential sales, they do so at taxpayer expense. As a society we've decided libraries are a moral good, despite their potentially adverse effect on authors.

Do you really fail to see that in life there is the need to compromise between competing moral goods? Do you really want to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH? (That, at least, is a life and death issue, rather that just a matter of money.)

I'm incredibly lucky. I have many options. I can buy books whenever I want. I don't hurt for money and I don't begrudge giving the author their due coin.

I don't think people with the means to buy eBooks would bother pirating them, book consumption patterns are very different than music consumption.
(I'll make an exception for college textbooks, those publishers should be terrified of eBook versions, but that's the perfect storm of compulsory need, lack of disposable income, and technological know-how.)

If this disrespect for your intellectual property rights still offends you, as a matter of principle, go to your local library and smack around those ingrate five-year-olds with their government funded library cards of pure evil.

I feel I'm entitled to any format for free and...

2010-04-07T10:19:24.672-07:00
I feel I'm entitled to any format for free and that it's the ethical obligation of society to make this special exception because Cutsauce Peckwater said I'm cool.

Cory, William Shakespeare's works have never b...

2010-04-06T21:13:48.918-07:00
Cory, William Shakespeare's works have never been copyrighted.
Nathan, you mean there's no law against breaking the universe? Great! I can't wait for the weekend!

Anon-addendum None of the above reflects on Natha...

2010-04-06T19:29:50.438-07:00
Anon-addendum

None of the above reflects on Nathan.
He runs a clean site and boards and obviously doesn't assault people with
the pornographic level of advertising
that makes many if not most sites malignant to the process of acquiring
worthwhile information that's usable and retainable.

The phrase I could sum the whole pro and con argum...

2010-04-06T18:43:17.360-07:00
The phrase I could sum the whole pro and con arguments up with is the old folks.

Penny wise and pound foolish.

People go nuts chasing nickels dimes and quarters never realizing that customer loyalty is more valuable than a mountain of gold diamonds or silver.

My example is Sony.
I bought a 600$ elaborate DVD recorder
that still records from cable television just fine. The down side is that new DVD's are now purposely not supported. When I rent a movie from Netflix it won't play on my top of the line DVD recorder.

LEGACY.

That's the key word.
When Kindle or IPad starts deciding your book and its encryption coding is compromised "long enough" and they switch to a new format for your old Kindle or IPad to make sure that thousand of new titles are not pirated onto market before the release date.

Also authors shall have legacy books that aren't supported by subsequent editions of the encryption and presentation software codes.

So sooner or later the same writer who
promoted strict procedure in copying law and forms shall lose sales when the company doesn't update them to the same code.

I am a pirate and I have been pirated many times. It's about the ideas that are channeled through the art form called "Writing". Let the corporate writer wanna bees count the pennies and keep writing so the poor buggers have something to distract themselves form their corporate induced misery.

It isn't capitalism that sucks its unbridled greed and personal disrespect for consumers and a lack of a code of honor on both sides of the fence that makes for a toxic environment.

As example; there are many places that sell modified DVD recorder that strip all embedded code and most of them pride themselves on their Better Business Bureau rating. These places also sell transfer devices to strip code. So what it all adds up to is the real heart of defeating the various levels of the "Cult of Personality" culture we live in and delivering hard won hard fought truthfully inspired stories to any one kind enough to spend their most precious asset; their own time and energy reviewing and trying to absorb what you have postulate should be considered as art.

Most of the best books are already public property and available on project Guttenberg. I learned from getting stiffed by software makers its best to break the law test the product and then pay the slimey rats if it actually delivers as promised.

I pirate first then I pay the honest
person their honest wage as stated.

"I'm not saying someone should chop down ...

2010-04-06T17:29:49.560-07:00
"I'm not saying someone should chop down the tree with you in it..."

(but if they do, they could make a baseball bat out of it!)
;-)

Excellent post, excellent points. Thanks for wavin...

2010-04-06T17:19:05.947-07:00
Excellent post, excellent points. Thanks for waving the banner for those whose livelihood is attached to the royalties for these creative works, no matter the format. I'm intrigued by the bundling idea...

Dude, Cory, just stop with the analogies. You went...

2010-04-06T17:15:27.164-07:00
Dude, Cory, just stop with the analogies. You went overboard with that one. It didn't even make sense.

In a lot of ways you're right. I for one agree that publishers should e-books at the same time as the hardcover, and bundling sounds like a good idea too. I will never agree that illegally downloading material is ethical.

We know where you stand. Just let it go.

cory- Ha. Well, no one breaks the law in my novel...

2010-04-06T17:15:02.223-07:00
cory-

Ha. Well, no one breaks the law in my novel, but they do break the universe. You can get into plenty of trouble without breaking the law.

I guess I'd ask you the reverse. Would you want everyone around you behaving like characters in novels?

So no, I don't think what we read should reflect our buying choices. Being ethical is boring, but that doesn't mean we should discard it.