Interviews with Writers and Self-Publishers
THE WRITERS I SPOKE WITH, many of them publishing their own books, echoed a similar refrain. They had discovered their books had been pirated, often by doing a search of their own name on the Internet to see what turned up, and then they discovered it had been uploaded somewhere or multiple places without their permission. They certainly weren’t getting any money for it, though often the website was charging a subscription fee or featured ads. But after this discovery, they felt there was little they could do. They reported that their own income had been dropping, so now they were struggling financially, and they attributed much of this loss to the pirating of their books. But they felt helpless, and even if they were able to get the books removed from one place, they had already suffered the loss from books of their own that didn’t sell since someone else could get it free. And then even after a book might be removed from one site, it could easily be uploaded again, by the website owner or by one of its subscribers or readers, and the book could be on so many other sites, the process of doing something, anything, seemed daunting, and the cost of trying to pursue the pirates legally was too high to even consider. The one upside was at least they had more readers, more people who knew their name, and perhaps maybe could buy some of their other books, if they had any.
It was a refrain I heard again and again from many writers I spoke to personally or encountered on writers’ forums. In the face of piracy of their books as an electronic file on the Internet, what could they do other than face the loss, along with the many other losses writers now faced from lowered advances and royalties, fewer book deals, millions of other writers publishing their own books or writing for free, and other problems in a dying industry?
The interviews with a writer of books on magic and a writing team of a book on marketing one’s music reflected these themes. The feeling of helplessness, frustration, and discouragement in these interviews was palpable, but the sad fact is there was little they could do individually to combat piracy. It can feel much like identity theft, except here ideas turned into words are stolen, not one’s whole identity, though the victim can experience the same kinds of feelings of loss of something that has been close to them. And this feeling of loss goes beyond just losing money; there is a sense of being violated, of having property taken, as in any theft, and of helplessness and lost trust. They feel there is little they can do, and even a successful takedown notice won’t remedy that sense of loss.
The experience is very different from when there is a pirate of a physical book that is copied and published under another name. For then, one can more readily go after the pirate, once discovered, and variously get the book removed from publication or get some compensation. But with electronic books on the Internet, it’s not so easy or could prove impossible to stop or get any compensation.
Following are the two interviews that reflect these themes.
An Interview with a Writer and Self-Publisher of Books on Magic
One of the writers and self-publishers I interviewed was Roger Pierre. Roger has a small publishing company for his books on conjuring magic, based on using cards and coins, usually in a one-on-one close-up encounter with one or a small group of observers. He has been writing and self-publishing books since 1975, when he published a book on the magic of Francis Carlyle. Then, in 2010, he discovered on the Internet that the book had been pirated. As he describes it:
“I always check up on how the old copies of my books are doing, and about five years ago, while I was surfing the Internet, someone listed on Google said, ‘Well, I like this book, but when’s the CD coming out?’ I was surprised, since as a publisher, I wondered what CD, since I had never planned to bring one out. So I started following the comments trail backwards, and I back trailed it to someone who was coming out with a CD that had a beautiful scan of my book in it.
“Luckily, because I had taken the precaution of getting a proper full copyright on the book and the man producing the CD was in the United States, we were able to negotiate something that was acceptable to both of us. He agreed to pay me an advance as a licensing fee and a royalty of future sales.
“But I think what often happens in this case, as with other older books, is there are a lot of magicians who have passed away and the family members don’t really follow through properly to assert their own rights in the book, since this is part of the inheritance or estate. This is especially true for the older books that have come out of copyright or are close to coming out, unless the copyright is renewed. So there are many disreputable publishers of magic or of anything else out there that are searching these books out and taking advantage of the fact that there’s nobody who’s protecting the copyright. So you don’t really know if they are making an honest mistake of thinking they can now publish the book, or they’re trying to sneak something around on you or not.”
As Roger pointed out, if he hadn’t been able to negotiate a deal, the publisher could have been subjected to high statutory damages as well as actual damages. As Roger noted:
“You have up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in statutory damages in a copyright infringement case if you have registered your copyright, and are more likely to get that or more if you have a track record and can show high damages. Like in my case, my book sold out twice, so it would have been an easy case for me to show that if I had put out as many books as he had put out CDs, I might have made a certain amount of money and gotten my money back that way.”
Then, too, the Internet had helped him both in tracking down the offender—who was US-based, so he was in a better position to enforce his rights and collect fees for the publisher’s infringement—and in facilitating the piracy and the sale of the pirated work. As he explained:
“I think the Internet is a double-edged sword. First of all, it may be where they’re taking your material. At the same time, it’s the perfect place to go to find out about copyrighting. The government has a site with information on how and why to do it, along with the forms you need. And if you even go to Wiki, the online encyclopedia, the Wiki displays this information about copy in five sections and explains pretty well what to do, so you can do this by yourself. I didn’t go to a lawyer when I copyrighted my book, since all the materials are available from the copyright office. But it’s definitely important to do this when you publish or produce anything, since you shouldn’t let this slip by. Whether you’re doing a digital movie, a digital book, make sure you get copyright so you get some protection.
“Also, the Internet enables you to check on whether anyone is copying your work. When I do my own searches for myself, the search finds me and everything I’ve done. So, I think the best way to protect yourself from anyone taking your work is to check yourself out on a regular basis, even if it’s only once every six months. Check yourself out to protect your work.”
An Interview with the Authors of a Book on Music
Another interview with writers and self-publishers was with Seb Jarakian and Randy Schroeder, former partners in a music licensing company called Musync, which represents musicians, indie bands, and music labels. The company licenses their music to films, television, advertising, video games, and other users. Then, after they wrote a book called Music Licensing Insider’s Guide to help musicians protect themselves, their own book was ripped off repeatedly through downloading, substantially curtailing sales.
Randy described the paradox:
“We felt a strong need to provide musicians with the ability to know and understand how to get their music in the hands of people that actually license their music. The problem currently is that musicians have very few ways to make money, such as through CD sales, where people license their music and make some money if they’re good enough. But there’s been so much piracy in that industry that what happens is that people lose much of this money they could legitimately make this way. So that’s what our book focuses on—how to protect their material against piracy.
“So our book is available on Amazon and on iBooks and Apple. And then we have a CD version that contains directories of contacts in the industry. But the irony of the whole thing is that here we are helping musicians because of the piracy issues that have thwarted their ability to make money, and then we have people that are pirating our own book. So it’s this crazy cycle that hopefully our book will prevent for musicians, while it is happening to ourselves.”
So how did Randy and Seb discover and deal with their own piracy problem? Basically, they used the takedown notice approach used by other writers and publishers. This usually results in compliance, though in their case they ran into one pirate who was more elusive, so they did bring in an attorney to help them, which is less common. But in their case, their book was earning enough after five years of being on the market, so it was worth using an attorney to help scare the pirate into compliance and getting some compensation. Seb continues the story:
“When our book was pirated, we found out from a Google alert that it was hosted on a social sharing site and basically contacted the organization to pull down the book. A couple of them were fairly easy. They were actually companies based out of San Francisco so it was very easy to contact them to have them pull it down. One of them was a little more complicated. I believe it was a company in Europe and they were kind of giving us a little run around and actually gave us a notification saying that we have to abide by some kind of international law or something. I don’t remember what it was. So basically, we had our attorney contact them and scare them to take the book down.”
For most writers, the amount lost to piracy may be small, since the average self-published book sells only about 150 copies and usually the advance is the only money the writer sees from traditional publishers. Although collectively, the earnings of millions of writers combined is in the billions of dollars, though the actual amounts are hard to determine. But in some cases, for books with expectations of good sales, the earnings could be high. In these cases it is worth it to hire a lawyer to gain compensation or seek to destroy the piracy site so others don’t become victims, too. As Randy explains:
“There’s no real way of knowing how many books would be pirated, because once a book goes up on a piracy site, it’s a new item. And a new item is the hot thing because it’s usually at the top. And there are millions and millions of musicians that want this material. So it’s highly likely that they could’ve taken thousands of books. And the book on Amazon is $9.95, so you can do the math, and see that it’s not a small amount. At the same time, you’re at a loss of what to do, other than contact the company that’s hosting it to ask them to take down the book.”
In turn, this loss of income can lead to many writers and other creative people dropping out of the industry—a concern of others in these industries and in society generally. Randy notes:
“One of the sad parts to me about the whole piracy issue is that it starts thwarting creativity. That’s happening with musicians, with photographers, with any creative producers, because the things they create just become another commodity and they are not compensated for the value of their work. The result is that this situation keeps people from wanting to make the effort to protect their work and to be creative and put things out there. So there’s a loss of that creativity to our culture.”
So if writers individually can’t do much about the problem, what might be done? One solution is the need for an attitude change. Since so many people have come to expect the ability to get things for free, education is needed to change that mind-set. Or maybe technology could help by placing limits on what people can see for free, requiring them to pay to gain access to the rest. As Seb describes it:
“I think everybody is really into getting things for free, and that is what has happened here. They don’t think of the creator who is losing money; they just want to get something for free.
“I think one solution might be to restrict free access. For example, maybe there might be a future technology where if you download a digital book, only a certain amount of that book is available, and then when you pay for it, it unlocks the rest. But I’m sure many people will figure out ways to unlock the restriction, so they get the book for free anyways. So I think it’s a tough one to try to control piracy that way.
“I think another approach is to provide more education about piracy, especially in countries that don’t know that taking copyrighted work is piracy. So we have to educate people that they can’t share copyrighted items. A lot of people steal a lot of things without understanding that what they are doing is stealing. For example, people think that once you own music, you can take that music, so if you’re producing your own film, you can take that music and use it in your film, because you bought the CD. They think it’s yours, that you have the rights to it. But you do not really have the rights to that music. So I think education is necessary to put that information out there to inform people, so they don’t post things that do not belong to them.
“As for what should be done about book pirates, I think more education is definitely in order. But a big problem is how do you find a book pirate? Is it the person that’s putting up or sharing these books on the sharing sites, or is it the companies that are hosting the material? I think the education should be to not share these materials, and we have to expose the people who are providing the sites to share these materials.
“At the same time, it is difficult to impose fines. For example, in the last ten to fifteen years, only a relatively small number of people have gotten fines for sharing CDs, and I wonder if the government will try to do something similar for sharing books. But the problem is really tough, because you have to both find the people who are involved in sharing what isn’t theirs to share, and then you have to try to collect money from them. And this can be hard to do, especially if those sharing are from another country, and how do you get all the world governments involved? It’s a complicated process to try to use enforcement to deal with the problem, so I think the main approach should be more education to explain that people don’t have the right to share what they don’t own and show how they are harming others, and just go from there.”