Meh, people say it like you're not losing any money to pirates. You ARE. Yeah, it's not as bad as it seems, but a hell of a lot of those free copies would have been bought.
Not making money is not the same as losing money.
Meh, people say it like you're not losing any money to pirates. You ARE. Yeah, it's not as bad as it seems, but a hell of a lot of those free copies would have been bought.
Meh, people say it like you're not losing any money to pirates. You ARE. Yeah, it's not as bad as it seems, but a hell of a lot of those free copies would have been bought.
I've thought about this and IMHO the smartest way to recoup the losses from piracy is to upload your own work on a "pirate" website behind an advert. Everyone who clicks through gets you some money. You can't stop these people stealing your books but you can sure as hell make SOME money from them
Unfortunately I'm sure there are all sorts of legal issues involved with this so it's probably not very practical... but it's a thought xD
I've thought about this and IMHO the smartest way to recoup the losses from piracy is to upload your own work on a "pirate" website behind an advert. Everyone who clicks through gets you some money. You can't stop these people stealing your books but you can sure as hell make SOME money from them
Unfortunately I'm sure there are all sorts of legal issues involved with this so it's probably not very practical... but it's a thought xD
I have no idea if it's legal, and it's of questionable morality, but in terms of something that would really deter pirates?
How about seeding a lot of 'books' on pirate sites with viruses/malware/whatever?
Malware is of course software that's destructive in one way or another (even a keylogger violates the trust that what someone types only goes where the computer says it's going), so causing or allowing it to get on someone else's computer is unethical.How come it's ineffective? Like, technologically, or psychologically?
ETA: And if you wanted to elaborate on the "unethical" part, that'd be nice too. I agree that it's grey, but is it actually black?
Malware is distributed most any way that can be thought of. There's enough malware "out there" that the FBI can't stop or investigate everything. A lot of these things are on servers that are out of reach of US laws or of many international agreements....
But malware is still distributed via porn, apparently? So... I don't know how to respond. This seems like a contradiction in your theories - I guess we can say that the FBI investigates, but doesn't manage to deter?
How do you quantify "a hell of a lot"?
No one has been able to verify any actual financial damages from ebook piracy, and it's not for lack of trying.
There are all sorts of technical issues as well. I'm not quite sure how you envision this working.
Alternatively, you could completely legally decide to give your book away for free from the get-go and distribute it with ads in it.
I think that's a horrible idea, but whatever.
So, yeah, practically, pricing things... can we call it "as the market expects" rather than "fairly"? I think it's the moral implications of "fair" that's pushing me into wanting to make ethical arguments... pricing things as the market expects is a good practical aspect.