So I am simultaneously horrified and flattered that several of my books are being pirated digitally. Of course, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Google Books already carried out the greatest theft of intellectual property in the history of humankind, and it was barely even covered in the press, much less discussed as a political issue.
People are stealing my books, which is simultaneously awesome and absolutely disgusting.
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The obvious outcome, eventually, will be that those tech-aware types who sympathize with the “creatives” will finally turn to the issue. I don’t see how difficult it would be to embed a virus that would send a pingback when someone downloads a pirated file. Get the IP address, file the necessary paperwork, and then go after that person. I don’t care if it’s a kid, a senior citizen, whoever. Go after them with every single legal method at your disposal. Freeze their assets, have the sheriff come to their place of work and hand them a subpoena instructing them that they are not to go near a computer until their court date. File discovery demands for information about all their finances.
Destroy them utterly. And then have people come to your booksignings specifically to ask you, “Is it true you drove a 30-year-old woman into the poorhouse?” And then smile and say, “Absolutely. She was stealing from me, and that’s what I do. So steal from every author you want, but if you take my stuff, and I can prove you did it — which I can — I will ruin your entire life.”
Ted, the people who do this shit have no morals, no concepts of how to behave. Stop applying any notion of a Judeo-Christian ethic. Drag them into court, and fuck them up.
Alex, I have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever from a moral standpoint. For practical standpoint, however, you are talking about a considerable drain of time, legal fees, and energy tracking down someone who will almost certainly never be in a position to pay me anything as a result. Not to mention, these sites sprout like weeds.
If I dedicate myself to tracking down these assholes, I will never have any time to draw or write. Not really much of a choice for me.
Agreed. There is a difference however, between knowing that and being one of the asshats who try to excuse it.
It is, to me, remarkable because the only good parts of capitalist democracy (the idea that one’s creative work was a protected commodity) are now the portions under the worst attack.
How much longer can the whole thing hold together?
Yes I get that you don’t have the time to deal with these assholes, but the one thing you do have to spare is fans. I know these sites sprout up like weeds, but if anytime you happen to learn about one on your travels of the net, if you just put up the link here, you are likely to get a small amount of fan based harassment headed their way. It probably won’t be enough to stop things, but it doesn’t cost you anything more then the time it takes to put up a link under a visible “current thieving asshats” heading maintained somewhere on the site, and it can’t hurt.
I would be a lot more comfortable with the argument that art should be free if we could also agree that artists should be healthily subsidized. Ya know, like banks.
Yah the modern piracy of small starving artists is something that bothers me. I mean I agree with Miep that all art should be free SO LONG AS we are heavily subsidizing artists. But while we are wishing for that we might as well wish for a pony too … fuck it a unicorn since this is all fantasy anyway.
But yes it is a very serious and open question of what to do about this. This is one of the only problems that I can not even begin to conceive of something that seems (even to just me) like a reasonable answer.
Unfortunately I worry that the solution here will resolve itself much like the political situation in the states. Only after the last starving artist starves, and people hunger for an art which they can’t obtain, will a long overdue revolution begin to occur and a reasonable approach present itself. I hope I am wrong.
@Alex: “It is, to me, remarkable because the only good parts of capitalist democracy (the idea that one’s creative work was a protected commodity) are now the portions under the worst attack.” While I mostly agree with your statement here I have an interesting anecdote to the contrary. My mother works for VLA, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, which provides free legal assistance to artists (unfortunately the amount they have to provide relative to what artists need is a drop in the bucket.) One of the jobs she was assigned to was a bunch of poets in Vietnam. You see back when it was a communist country, these poets spent all day writing poetry, and got compensated for it. When capitalism came they stopped getting compensated for being poets, and indeed people freely started stealing their work and publishing it as their own as the poets themselves had little or no idea how copyrights work or what to do about them – they were poets not lawyers, or manipulative scheming capitalists. So, while this is admittedly just an anecdote, it strikes me that the “Lets steal from starving artists” attitude actually seems to somehow be a capitalist thing and not a socialist one, in spite of the “art should be free” aspect that is used to justify it and appears superficially socialist.
Along those same lines, I can tell you from personal experience, that is how a lot of patents work. There are tons of patents out there where the people who worked on them are actually getting fairly compensated for them. There are, however, far more where that is not the case. I can tell you I have never seen a single cent from any patent I have gotten listed on to date, no mater how much money those things generated. Looks like “information should be free” type socialist attitude, and yet I only ever see it in capitalism. How else would the capitalists make their money if they couldn’t steal or at least skim off of the work of others? Just like how else would the people stealing Teds books make money if they couldn’t offer something of value on their website for free to increase traffic enough that they can profit off of adds and deploying spyware on the behest of others on visitors. These individuals all justify it with an “art/information should be free” and like to talk a good socialist game, but they really are the biggest capitalists of all, just like Google and its big book grab.
However, those Vietnamese poets were paid at the time, and understood, while they were creating, that they weren’t going to be “keeping” the poems, copyright wise.
This is different. The rules we’re all told about say that it’s your stuff, you hold the copyright, and others can’t distribute it without your permission. But then, the president drops bombs on children anyway … I mean, then people steal the work from you (and the money from your pocket).
About 15 years ago, I saw a poll that asked people their opinion about the Internet (which was just starting to become ubiquitous). And about 4% said “It’s just a fad.”
I’m thinking those 4% were just a little too far ahead in their thinking. How much longer before everyone just collectively gives up because “Well, I won’t make enough money to live on doing this because some thieves will just put it online for free.” So no more music, no more books, no more films. Just horribly amateurish shit that is more ordeal than enjoyment?
And we’ve seen amateurs have the ability to drive traffic for free, so the owners love them. There’s always someone new who desperately wants to be famous and is willing to work for free.
someone: Interesting and insightful comment. Yes, capitalism only works as long as someone is getting ripped off, because it is based on the concept of de facto slavery (“You do the work, I get paid for it”)
People who criticize socialism fail to note that every time anybody tries to do it right, the CIA or some other bunch of corporate affiliates declares war upon them.
It’s a tough situation. If you see each pirated copy as a “loss” then you are losing. If you see each as a potential new customer for this site, your writing, and your other products, then the free promotion done by others might be a trade-off worth considering. The question becomes how to turn those new fans into revenue. Is there something you can do to reach out to them, thank them for their interest, and offer them something that both of you can enjoy? Maybe they can be allies.
I certainly don’t read books at Google. I like the hard copy. Do continue to speak your mind on the company, but go easy on the downloaders. Perhaps they are poor artists, too. They might be able to help you in some way unexpected.
Speaking of which, I hope you are seeing some added revenue from having this spiffy new site. : )