Are you as weary as we are of doomsayers sounding the death knell of print books? The latest comes via a blog on Huffington Post by Dan Agin, editor in chief of the online journal ScienceWeek. You would think that with a Ph.D. in biological psychology and three decades of lab research experience in neurobiology, Agin would be smarter than to make categorical statements like “Requiescant in pace, big print publishing.The run is finished.” Aside from his solecism (it’s Requiescat), he has buried print books and declared Game Over.

Agin has made the mistake that so many other Print-is-Deaders have done, condemning the medium when what we really hate is the system that supports it. We’ve said it many times but it bears reiteration: there is nothing wrong with printed books – just that the way they are distributed, which is appallingly stupid and wasteful. But does that mean print is finished? Not even close. However, Agin is entitled to his opinion and goodness knows there are a lot of people who share it.

What surprises us, though, is how willing this credentialed neurobiologist is to exalt Kindle and other e-readers when there is an impressive body of scientific evidence suggesting that reading on a screen may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. Some researchers have suggested that readers – especially young ones – are easily distracted by e-books, fail to immerse themselves the way they do in print, and do not retain information as well as they do with words on paper. In a posting last fall called The Medium is the Screen. The Message is Distraction, we quoted Sandra Aamodt, former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience: “People read more slowly on screen, by as much as 20-30 percent… Distractions abound online — costing time and interfering with the concentration needed to think about what you read.”

And Maryanne Wolf, a professor of child development at Tufts and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, points out that “No one really knows the ultimate effects of an immersion in a digital medium on the young developing brain.” But “my greatest concern is that the young brain will never have the time (in milliseconds or in hours or in years) to learn to go deeper into the text after the first decoding, but rather will be pulled by the medium to ever more distracting information, sidebars, and now, perhaps, videos (in the new vooks).”

Read Agin’s article, Kindle Armageddon: How the Publishing Industry Is Slitting Its Own Throat, and form your own opinion.

Richard Curtis

• He’s ripped off hundreds of books.
• He can rip yours off in five minutes. It’s so easy even a caveman can do it.
• He painstakingly proofreads the books he steals.
• He has ethical and moral standards. And a conscience…of sorts.
• Though piracy’s toll is in the billions of dollars, he thinks the crime is overrated.
• But he admits it’s a crime.

That’s a thumbnail profile of a book pirate. I’ve condensed it from an astounding interview with one conducted by C. Max Magee on his website “The Millions”.

After pondering the phenomenon of book piracy, a crime estimated to drain over $3 billion annually from legitimate copyright owners, Magee decided the best way to understand it was to ask a practitioner. “Who are the people downloading these books? How are they doing it and where is it happening? And, perhaps most critical for the publishing industry, why are people deciding to download books and why now? I decided to find out. After a few hours of searching – stalled by a number dead links and password protected sites – I found, on an online forum focused on sharing books via BitTorrent, someone willing to talk.”

The perpetrator’s handle is “The Real Caterpillar” and, as is so often the case, he is far from a noble Robin Hood. “He lives in the Midwest,” writes Magee, “he’s in his mid-30s and is a computer programmer by trade. By some measures, he’s the publishing industry’s ideal customer, an avid reader who buys dozens of books a year and enthusiastically recommends his favorites to friends. But he’s also uploaded hundreds of books to file sharing sites and he’s downloaded thousands.”

Here are a few revelations in his own words:

• I generally only upload content that I have scanned, with some exceptions. I have been out of the book scene for a while, concentrating on rare and out of print movies instead of books because it is much easier to rip a movie from VHS or DVD than to scan and proof a book
• I do not pretend that uploading or downloading unpurchased electronic books is morally correct, but I do think it is more of a grey area than some of your readers may
• Just because someone downloads a file, it does not mean they would have bought the product I think this is the key fact that many people in the music industry ignore – a download does not translate to a lost sale
• In truth, I think it is clear that morally, the act of pirating a product is, in fact, the moral equivalent of stealing…however, I feel the impact of e-piracy is overrated, at least in terms of ebooks
• I’ve spent anywhere from 5 to 40 hours proofing the OCR output

And, finally: “In truth, I think it is clear that morally, the act of pirating a product is, in fact, the moral equivalent of stealing… although that nagging question of what the person who has been stolen from is missing still lingers.”

Two persons mentioned by Caterpillar as having been stolen from are Mark Helprin and Harlan Ellison. Both have published privacy or anti-piracy statements on their websites. You may read Helprin’s here but it says in part: “You agree to comply with all copyright laws worldwide in your use of this site and to prevent any unauthorized copying of the materials.” Ellison’s is an all-caps fist-shaking no-prisoners Jeremiad which you may read in its entirety here. Here’s a taste:

A HOST OF SELF-SERVING INDIVIDUALS SEEM TO THINK THAT THEY CAN ALLOW THE DISSEMINATION OF WRITERS’ WORK ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION, AND WITHOUT PAYMENT, UNDER THE BANNER OF “FAIR USE” OR THE IDIOT SLOGAN “INFORMATION MUST BE FREE.” A WRITER’S WORK IS NOT INFORMATION: IT IS OUR CREATIVE PROPERTY, OUR LIVELIHOOD AND OUR FAMILIES’ ANNUITY. WHY SHOULD ANY ARTIST, OF ANY KIND, CONTINUE CREATING NEW WORK, EKING OUT AN EXISTENCE IN PURSUIT OF A CAREER, FOLLOWING THE MUSE, WHEN LITTLE INTERNET THIEVES, RODENTS WITHOUT ETHIC OR UNDERSTANDING, STEAL AND STEAL AND STEAL, CONVENIENCING THEMSELVES AND “SCREW THE AUTHOR”? WHAT WE’RE LOOKING AT IS THE DEATH OF THE PROFESSIONAL WRITER!

Caterpillar laughs at them. “One thing that will definitely not change anyone’s mind or inspire them to stop,” he says, “are polemics from people like Mark Helprin and Harlan Ellison – attitudes like that ensure that all of their works are available online all of the time.”

For the full flavor of Magee’s interview read Confessions of a Book Pirate in its entirety here.

We are Harlan Ellison’s literary agents. Our e-book company is publisher of some thirty of his books. Though we cannot express ourselves as colorfully as he, we support his position completely. His work and property, the work and property of countless other authors, our own labor and investment and that of all legitimate, reputable publishers worldwide are being stolen. Those who file-share copyrighted books are receiving stolen property. We ask those who take and those who receive to consider whether there is any difference between having your literary property robbed and your purse stolen. For one victim’s answer, read Are Pirate-site Downloaders Better Than Muggers, Pickpockets and Shoplifters? This Victim Doesn’t Think So.

Richard Curtis

The one figure we neglected to mention in reporting December ’09′s record-breaking sales is – what was the total for all of 2009?

The answer is $166 million.

This figure is more than three times the $53.5 million posted by the industry in the prior year.

RC

With all the gold medals being handed out at the Olympics, let’s reserve one for the e-book business. The International Digital Publishing Forum and Association of American Publishers have released stats for December 2009, and sales set the bar for E-Books’ greatest month ever, $19,100,000. That figure more than doubles the previous December’s mark and tops the best month to date, October ’09 at $18,500,000.

How high on the podium are e-books standing? The industry reported more sales in the fourth quarter of ’09 ($55,900,000) alone than the total sales for all of ’08 ($53,500,000).

And let’s not forget that these are stats just for the downloads. Add sales of Kindle and other e-reading hardware in the holiday season and you have a performance nothing short of dazzling, in this or any other economy.

The true sales numbers may be even higher than the above chart indicates. Michael Smith, Executive Director of IDPF reminds us that:

* This data represents United States revenues only
* This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.
* This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
* This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
* The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
* The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is “All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices”

RC

“In a year when the iPod moment for books looks increasingly likely to happen,” writes journalist Danuta Kean, “failure to pass the Digital Economy Bill isn’t a lost opportunity, it’s a tragedy.”

What’s the Digital Economy Bill? It’s a piece of legislation aimed at regulating the nascent British e-book business. A key provision is a three-strikes-you’re out clause aimed at terminating Internet access for file-sharing e-book pirates. Copyright theft has contributed to a 30% drop in music revenues over the past six years and the bill’s framers want to nip it in the bud before it does the same to books.

Slam dunk, right? Wrong. The House of Lords is not happy with it. It seems that libraries, businesses and other institutions are worried that they will be culpable for the felonious behavior of individual users. The British Library, for instance, noted that “Because public institutions often provide internet access to hundreds or thousands of individual users, the complexity of our position in relation to copyright infringements must be taken into consideration.” Which is a civilized way of saying the Brits are afraid to punish e-thieves.

Kean expressed her frustration with milords this way: “Well, hello! If it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be a punishment.”

“Those who claim file-sharing is a blow against big business that does not harm small, independent players, should think again,” she says citing plummeting music sales in nations lax on piracy. “Ah but books are different, you might think. Well, no. A study released last month by Attributor, whose FairShare Guardian service monitors the internet for pirated content, provided startling data on the impact of file-sharing on books. It estimated that publishers were losing as much as $3bn to online book piracy. You didn’t misread that: it said three BILLION dollars, more than the total value of the UK book market. As more readers move to digital formats, that figure will only get worse.”

What happens in UK could well affect what happens in US, so we’ll be following this unfolding story with keen interest. Here it is in detail: If the Digital Economy Bill fails, we’ll all pay.

Richard Curtis

International Digital Publishing Forum reports that November e-book sales were $18.3 million, compared to sales for the prior November, $6.1 million. The leap is triple, and though we must not get jaded about these astonishing monthly postings, triple digit leaps have become routine with no end in sight.

IDPF reminds us that:

• This data represents United States revenues only
• This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.
• This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
• This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
• The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
• The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is “All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices”

Richard Curtis