Neil Gaiman on Ebook Piracy and the Debate on Using DRM

[@cariyaputta]

It's true. Knowledge, information, and instruction should be free and openly accessible everywhere without restriction.

[@ParadoxalDream]

Wise words

[@rawwnrecitestales835]

Publishing my first book "The Satanic Rhapsody" and needed an actual advice and here he is, King Gaiman. My master 💜

[@alibertarian3792]

So, how did that go for you? Did you end up being someone's favorite author?

[@rickgagliano176]

Good stuff. Very impressive, and provocative.

[@craigwarner6156]

Yep exactly.Same for me with books,audiobooks and music.If i hear some music and then download it free and i like it i will then go and pay for a physical copy because i prefer physical media and i think its better quality sound on cd and vinyl but that physical sale came from me essentially illegally downloading it in the first place.If i like it i will go and pay for a legal copy,not sure everyone is like that

[@rosestanley9606]

I was lent some books in 1996 by someone after i read them i had to go out and buy my own copies of Jean m auel books the last one back than was plains of passage i had to wait till 2001 for the next one. i got a lot of my books after borrowing them or being lent them made me buy my own set to keep with a number of books being no loner in print it is harder to get hold of them i think out of print books should be put up as ebooks without the ecrption

[@UnknownBoss007]

Sandman is seriously have legend story

[@AdityaPrasad007]

This makes sense for the best authors. I'd expect only the best to survive in a world where piracy was rampant. Most people would have a strict criteria for what books they love enough to want to buy.

[@day7550]

The world is already rampant with piracy, as the prices go up and wages go down, piracy will grow more. Yes making a book free for a month isn't something every author can afford to do. But the rest of your comment doesn't have a point. Of course people have a criteria for what they want to read. That's true for all readers, buyers or not. If I like thrillers I'm not going to be buying *or* pirating a high fantasy series, I would probably not even know or care about what new book the genre has to offer. This has to do with taste rather than how the book is being read. There's no money to lose here because I didn't owe the authors money just because they published a book. People who pirate books are basically standing in a bookshop browsing through the book or reading a borrowed book, if they like it they'll try to buy it if it's available. Buying a book, hating it, and then selling it back hurts the author a lot more. Most people who pirate a book, can't otherwise buy the book or borrow from a library and there are many reasons behind that. Publications not paying the authors enough shouldn't be blamed on readers. And piracy is already rampant in the world, not because people are evil they want to take money away from authors but because people want to read. Curbing it would hurt the authors a lot more, and honestly would you want to pay for a book then find out you hate it? Or would you pay for a book you already liked? If you're in the reader community you know that the online library systems have become a lot more popular lately, because these are available to more people now. If publications progressed, if libraries were available to all, if online books were priced fairly, piracy would still be there because there are a lot of aspects to this than just the narrative that boils down to "only the rich should read". I see you are a Kpop fan, so are you buying all their albums or at least the singles in order to enjoy them? You're watching fanmade lyric videos which is a huge problem in music piracy and the people behind those *are* in fact evil, as in making money off of someone else's work and you've supported them. Do you buy each game you play with your own money? Do you very strictly only read the books you've bought and refuse your friends if they want to lend you a book because by capitalist logic that should be illegal too. I don't know man, you just don't sound like a reader yourself. Even the most prolific buyer would know the problems of unavailability, having a greater appetite for books than the salary can afford, not having enough space to keep all the physical copies, the failing library systems in most countries and so many other things that prevent all of us from swimming in books... But maybe you're bourgeois who never has to think about all this.

[@AdityaPrasad007]

@@day7550 my point was readers have a lower bar for books they would read and a higher bar for books they would buy. You said "if they like it, they will try to buy it". I don't think that's the case. I like many books but I love few and those are the ones I buy the hardcopy of. I've noticed this is true for most readers I know. Not sure why you feel like I said "only the rich should read". You seem awfully triggered 😂 I was pointing out problems that I thought this video didn't adequately address. I pirate most of my books and I don't feel any guilt. It costs near nothing to create or distribute ebooks but they cost so much. It's not fair. Like I said I don't care about piracy personally, I download songs, games, books all the time. I buy books that I feel are masterpieces for my long term collection, to gift them. I'd rather read in my eink reader. I buy games because I do think piracy is a service side problem. If Amazon priced ebooks like steam priced games, and if amazon was an ethical company like steam I'd buy them. Steam makes it so convenient to play games across systems, share games, multiplayer games, has great discounts, etc. Also pirating software/games is risky since most have viruses. That's why I prefer to buy. I'm laughing so hard dude... It's like you misunderstood me so completely. I read a lot...Personally I love the fact most books are free online. I personally have bought books, stripped it of DRM and given it to friends to read. The positive sides of piracy are too good. But it's important to acknowledge the negative sides of it. You should look into the effect of piracy on the porn industry. How it reduced quality like anything. I still stand by my original comment. What Neil is saying is applicable to the best authors. Mediocre authors will struggle. Most authors suck. Some authors are good but don't write books worth owning. Few, a handful write books with a dedicated fandom who buy enough books to cover marketing and publishing costs. The solution? Don't publish and market until you get good. It's cheap to publish ebook only, build a fandom and then sell hardcopy. Accept donations like on your website. See cut out the middle men. I love web novels, check out mother of learning. So many amateur writers are coming up. Same thing happened with porn, porn stars started earning ridiculous amounts when they started onlyfans. Direct payment from fans. So piracy is good, but it has issues specifically Neil is wrong, it's not "just lending" because you are copying the book and sending it across the world in a microsecond. It's possible for me to give every human with an email id on earth a quality copy of his book within the next few minutes. It's disingenuous to claim it's totally fine and doesn't hurt the industry. It does hurt. But we can find other solutions. One solution I like is crowdfunding books. Like how youtubers are motivated to produce content which they release to the public domain. Authors can write and give supporters early view or just thank them. We shouldn't always be selfish and demand a physical object in return for giving money.

[@CourtneyDixonDesigns]

​@@day7550 What you fail to mention is for indie authors on Amazon, they will BAN us if they find out our books are on another site. They don't care if it's a pirate copy or not. You are stealing. End of story. No matter how you justify it. We work HARD for what we do. Indie authors crank out 80 hour work weeks and it takes forever to make money. YOU all steal that from us. Theft is theft is theft. It's NOT MY fault or MY problem books aren't sold across the globe. Even if they were people would still steal, so stop making it like this is acceptable because a certain country doesn't have access. That's al lie. People just don't want to pay for something, so they justify in the theft.

[@Goldfire345]

@@CourtneyDixonDesigns indie authors being banned is a problem with Amazons backwards policies and exclusivity deals that disadvantage the little guys not people pirating books aka something the author cannot control. the solution is to put your on more than just Amazon if you have the option. I am in a discord with a self published author who had used Kindle unlimited and had her book blocked from sale because people put it on zlibrary. however she didn't back down she fought Amazon to get her book back up and once did and she she got the rights to her book back she went wide and put her books on many many more platforms so that Amazon couldn't completely stop her book from being sold again. Because of this i believe that authors shouldn't limit themselves to a platform like Amazon that doesn't care about them as an author

[@monoracional]

"the best" by who standards?...

[@alibertarian3792]

So, why did Gaiman go through you to post a KZbin video?

[@FirstCommandmentRigorist]

This is a very simplistic and optimistic view of the situation. Author royalties are going down for a reason.

[@pmjdk]

I'm not a reader of the legendary Neil Gaiman's books, I would like to read 'American Gods'. It's supposedly a classic, written by a supposedly great author. I would pay the price of the book to read it and make up my own mind about that, and perhaps make Neil Gaiman my favorite author. But it's not going to happen. Here's why: I don't "read" audiobooks, since I can't keep my concentration while listening to a droning voice. I also don't read physical books. That's not on principle, just an observable fact. Since I got my eReader several years ago I haven't read a single physical book. Apparently I don't do that any more, so I've stopped buying them. That leaves only ebooks. The only books I buy and the only books I read are DRM-free ebooks. Why DRM-free? Because I'm vehemently opposed to DRM, considering it a fraudulent practice. Tricking people into paying good money for something which, if like me they understood the implications of it, they would know is next to worthless. Unfortunately all of Neil Gaiman's books are published with DRM. So, lost sales, to me and probably to many others like me. I'll probably never find out if he is in fact a great author. He expresses some really sensible thoughts in this video, but he doesn't walk the talk. So: lost sales.

[@zebjensen4251]

this is what people call a text book case of irony.

[@CourtneyDixonDesigns]

you know stealing work from others costs them money. As an author, I have my work pirated all the time. I lose so much money. I barely make anything as it is. Talk like this is why we have so many rampant pirate sites. And Amazon punishes authors who are exclusive to them. If they find your work on another site we get banned from Amazon. I use DRM on all my books. They are still stolen. All of them. When every single one of my books is pirated, no one is going to go out and buy my book. This is utter nonsense. A best seller may be okay with this because they can afford it. Us indie authors cannot. I'm sick to death of being pirated.

[@Goldfire345]

Well perhaps you should remove the drm Drm doesn't stop people from pirating your books it only punishes the people who actually go out of their way to pay for them You cannot stop piracy all you can do is make buying your book more convenient and less of hassle than pirating it. Personally buying ebooks on Amazon is one of the worst experiences I've ever had. it's so annoying because of the drm that i cannot take the books i buy out of that ecosystem easily to read on my preferred apps despite paying money to have the book. To the point where i pirate a second copy of just about every Amazon book i buy just so i have a version with no drm that i can read however i want.

[@CourtneyDixonDesigns]

@@Goldfire345 And do you know what Amazon does when we don't make an effort to stop piracy of our books? Do you? They ban you. Amazon will delete ALL your books. How's that fair. So, piracy is literally destroying careers.

[@Goldfire345]

@@CourtneyDixonDesigns then use another platform besides Amazon. I'm literally on a discord with an author who had go through crap with Amazon blocking sale of her books last year because people pirated her books. what did she do once she resolved it? She put her books on just about every other major digital book platform so that Amazon giving her grief her wasn't a problem. And this is a self published independent author by the way not some big name. Piracy isn't something you or anyone can stop no matter how much you hate it. You can only adapt to it as best you can by making buying your books more convenient than pirating them.

[@CourtneyDixonDesigns]

@@Goldfire345 No

[@Goldfire345]

@@CourtneyDixonDesigns then what happens is on you. when you pick a platform you have to deal with the good and the bad. I still believe that author made the smart move to go wide and make her books multi platform it saved her alot of stress in the long run. If you can't pick another platform because you don't have the distribution rights to your book (that's how i understand kindle unlimited works.) or because the region you live in limits your options to get your book out there i understand. But i find it counter intuitive to subject yourself to Amazon's crap if you do have an alternative.

[@budclark9496]

This doesn't make sense for small independent publishers and is suggesting theft of intellectual property. Shame on you!

[@monoracional]

a moralist is present!

[@rickgagliano176]

Copyright is protected by whom, exactly? The government, and the courts. It's an antiquated system which is failing on many levels since the advent of the internet and nearly instant communications. The same is true of patents. Inventions get copied all the time. If one wishes to protect intellectual property, the onus should be on them to provide the protection, not some arbitrary laws (they change all the time) and a court system based on old thinking and judges and juries who barely understand the concepts with which they're dealing. In case you haven't noticed, governments suck and they're obsolete. It's everybody for themselves.