You know, look. I used to think web piracy was a joke and supported The Pirate Bay and agreed with Cory Doctorow. I would look at an album that I’ve purchased on Vinyl and then purchased again on iTunes but had reached my sharing limit because I have it on my work and several home computers and wouldn’t think twice about finding a pirated copy of it online to copy over to my netbook for a trip. I know it’s illegal but I didn’t care because it was far removed from me, I never saw the effects of this kind of activity first hand. But those days are in the past.
Loyal readers might recall that Morgen and I just published a free ebook. Actually my publishing company used lulu.com to publish the free ebook, but you get the idea. (It’s available as a free download from this link but in case you want another opinion before downloading it for free here’s a review of it. That I wrote.) This free ebook has been available for a few days and we’ve been basking in the glory of post-self publishing bliss enjoying reading and rereading the sevens of positive posts to twitter about the book. The review itself even received positive reviews from the critics.
This was all well and good until I saw this:
Can you fucking believe that? I never thought this could happen to me, but there you go.
Look, I mean, I guess I should be flattered that someone thought so much of my free ebook to pass it on to their friends, but I’m not some running some charity organization over here. Do you know how much I make off it when someone emails my free ebook to someone else? NOT A GOD DAMN CENT that’s how much. Sorry for that out burst but do you know how much it costs me to live what with rent and food and a pregnant wife? Well let me tell you it’s a lot more than nothing that’s for sure. Do you see the problem here?
And poor Morgen, that guy barely understands how email works in the first place to trying to explain to him how he’s getting 50% of nothing since some dick thought it would be a barrel of laughs to email our free ebook to everyone in his address book is no party.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that my eyes have been opened to a whole other side of this argument and some things I’ve said in the past might have worked against me. But I’m trying to correct that now, and I’d like to ask that please, if you’d like to read a copy of ‘Hi Hollywood’ you just do the stand up thing and download it for free yourself rather than sneaking around and stabbing me in the back.
Thanks.
I’m not downloading it for free without knowing whether it’s any good or not. I’ll wait till I can borrow it from my local library first thanks.
I appreciate your frustration. Can you maybe explain a little more, for those of us who are ignorant about such things, about why/how on your side it is different to have readers download it for free instead of emailing it around? It’s not at all intuitive that you benefit from readers doing the official free download, while taking food from the mouth of your pregnant wife when readers email it.
You said: “Do you know how much I make off it when someone emails my free ebook to someone else? NOT A GOD DAMN CENT’
I’m confused, do you make money when someone downloads the ebook for free to begin with?
I’m confused. Do you make money when people download a free ebook? How is getting the free ebook by email any different than downloading the free ebook from the links you posted? Or am I missing the sarcasm here? I’m honestly curious how you can make money from offering a free ebook.
Alen, I understand your concern, and I too wouldn’t want to take the chance of downloading a free ebook only to find out it sucks. Which is exactly why I provided this review to help you make an informed decision:
http://la.metblogs.com/2009/10/21/book-review-hi-hollywood/
As you can see that review is all positive so you have nothing to worry about and can download and begin enjoying it immediately without fear of suckage.
I never realized the publishers/authors of free e-books actually made money off it. I am downloading your book now just to help out. ;o) I guess I could read it, as well.
What are your opinions about downloading other things, such as TV shows and the like?
Alan, It’s a free download, who cares if you think it’s good or not by the time your downloading it- you didn’t pay for it.
I agree with Sean, there are two sides of this argument and it’s easy to see both sides once you’ve been on them.
after i’m done with it, can i re-upload it back to the free e-site for free for others to enjoy freely?
Bikejuju wrote: “Can you maybe explain a little more, for those of us who are ignorant about such things, about why/how on your side it is different to have readers download it for free instead of emailing it around?”
Sure, sorry I didn’t make that clear. So in one option I put the file up on a site and people can go there and download it for free. This is the official and proper way. The other option, which is what I’m pissed about, is that someone who already downloaded it for free then just attaches it willy nilly to an email they send out to god only knows who and then that person gets the file without ever going to the free download I provided.
See the problem here? This is not OK people.
Someone emailed your ebook and I immediately deleted it because I don’t have time to read anything. But I did go to the link above and then not download the book from there, because I don’t have time to read anything from the official source.
On the strength of that very favourable review I thought I’d give this another chance. Although I was unable to look at the rear cover of the book I did find a preview option that let me look at the first few pages.
I just dismissed the fault that the first two pages were the same as it was a minor error and unlikely to be repeated. However after being suckered into completing this transaction I find I’ve downloaded a faulty product.
The last half of the book is entirely composed of copies of the same page and they are ALL blank. Further to this my printer is now asking for my credit card number for some sort of replacement part.
A stealth charge Mr Bonner ! I thought better of you.
I still don’t understand the problem.
Scenario 1) User1 downloads the free ebook from the “official site” Thinks it’s cool & tells a User2. User2 downloads the free ebook from the “official site”. You get positive word of mouth and, probably, stats of download count from the “official site”
Scenario 2) User1 downloads the free book from the “official site” Thinks it’s cool & sends a copy to User2. You’re still getting the word of mouth which User2 will probably pass on as well. Only thing your losing are the download stats. This is assuming you receive no monetary compensation from offering the free book.
Additionally a lot of free ebooks that I’ve seen actually encourage readers to share with friends. I don’t think it’s that uncommon of a practice
Digital is a bitch, you can’t possibly stop people of sharing a free (or not) item the way they want. It comes down to education -I can see that not everybody understands the internet economics- and fairness. It’s lacking.
I have the same problem releasing my music for free. It ends up on portals like beeMP3 or KOHIT.net and nobody asks me anything. Maybe I provide them a lot of traffic, maybe not.
Sharing should be more easier and streamlined with/from creators.
Alan, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I accessed the book just fine through the link & dowbloaded, beautifully, and free of charge. If you are getting charged something, it’s not Sean’s fault, but has probably something to do with the pribter you are using.
(PS – Please forgive the spelling errors, all. I hit “Submit” before re-reading.)
There is something called the proper channel here people. I torrented The Wire once and they were always talking about “proper chain of command.” This is kind of like that.
Thomas, but The Wire is something that is being sold either via a for$ cable channel, or DVD box set.
christopher j, Sorry about the confusion. I was pissed off and wrote the above post while in a snit but seeing your comment I understand some things are vague which wasn’t my intention. To clarify, lulu.com where the official free ebook is hosted does not provide any stats as to how many times it’s been downloaded, they only track sales. So if I was selling the book I could see how many people had bought it, but since I have it listed as a free download I don’t have any way to know exactly. My guess is about 100.
Hope that makes more sense.
Best anti-piracy treatise to date. Thank you, Sean, for exposing the Internets’s dirty little secret.
Free e-book piracy is teh SuXxorz!
People, we have not even started to address the “analog hole” issues related to free ebooks.
Dear Mr. Bonner,
I owe you a sincere apology. I did in fact email your free download ebook to an associate of mine. After receiving your attorney’s letter I broke into his house and threw his computer into a ditch. I don’t believe he had time to read the email. I deeply respect all the work you have put in to creating this free book, and my emailing it for free was selfish and an act of weakness. I am truly sorry.
Autumn, yes as you know by now the book is licensed under a creative commons share a like license, so as long as you keep that license intact it’s perfectly OK.
Sorry Christopher, I wasn’t trying to bring the idea of money into the conversation I was just trying to introduce the concept of a proper channel. I admit that I may have left some holes in my argument so I’ll try another tact.
It’s like when people use services like Brizzly to view the pictures I post to twitter in line. I took the time to send you on a wonderful journey to a new page, did you ever think about that. Maybe that second when the page is loading is necessary for the comedic timing. While I am giving the lulz away for free Brizzly is still effectively stealing my lulz.
Sean, I feel terrible – a colleague of mine actually printed out your ebook and left a copy on my desk. I didn’t even know that it was available as a free download until I read this. Could you add a Paypal donation button to this post so that I could pay you nothing for the printed version of the free download?
Am I still missing this as a great big joke that is generating hits? It’s making me want to DL the ebook and email it to all my contacts and then delete my original FREE copy without ever reading it.
I was about to email this book to Hollywood producers. Now I realize I was off my rocker so I sent them each a download link to the book on Hulu.com instead. And instructions for installing Adobe Reader.
Ok, it is obvious to me now that I am a literal jerk and I left my humor box at home.
I am going to print this out and mail it via usps to all my friends
Um…so I just checked twitter for this tweet (I figured the username was faked, but I checked for the tweet). Lo & behold, nowhere to be found. I feel like some gullible probably got splattered on my face. This all seems pretty much like a joke/satire now.
Have been reading the comments. Dear God, I’m ready. Take me home to Mommy and Daddy. My time here is done.
Much like you reviewing your own book this is little more than a publicity stunt (but a good one)
Well since you’ve taken my avatar without permission for your blog post, I guess we’re even. Pirate.
The last comment from GodDamnPirate is an imposter. I would not allow Sean to post my free tweet here. Everyone needs to go to Twitter and see my actual tweet for free there. When you view my free tweet here, I don’t get ANY money!
Hmm. I’m not sure “piracy” is the right term here. Setting aside the fact that your ebook is free, and let’s also drop the “e” in ebook – I’ve bought many books in my life, and I’ve given many away, lent many out, not to mention many books that I’ve read during the last 5 years were books people gave to me as a recommendation.
I’m just not so sure an author would be justified to come knocking on my door because a book of theirs that I bought 4 months ago is now at a friends house because I thought they’d enjoy it as well. Simply because something is gifted, or lent out electronically to a friend… doesn’t by default make it piracy or stealing.
I know that, yes, it would be nicer for you if *every* single person who is or has ever read your book did so through your free download link… but that just doesn’t seem very likely to happen in any case
To get to the bottom of this mysterious (and unlikely) controversy, I downloaded the book to find the license.
It’s on the last page, not the first. And those who would refuse to download a free book as a statement of principle might miss the “surprise attack”:
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
That contrasts with what lulu.com says:
Standard Copyright License
All of your rights under copyright law apply to the work.
In which case it would be reasonable to say it is the author who can distribute the work and how. But which license do I trust? Lulu’s or the one on page 31?
–The Fork
P.S. the people who do script coverage at movie companies will not even look at one which does not conform to the courier font, spacing conventions, or 8 1/2 x 11 black-on-white page format.
SO what you’re saying is, someone liked your free ebook enough to send it to a friend rather than download it for free from that website?
Dude that makes no sense. Free is free, doesn’t matter whether they get it from the friend of the download site unless you get some sort of advertising share? – Is that the case?
If the ebook was paid for by user1, then yeah fair enough, but I don’t see the point in complaining if it’s free anyway.
What he is saying, if I’m not mistaken, is that we should all eat babies.