Pirates and LendInk and Lies, Oh, My!!

The Dreaded Scourge of the Internet

Pirates and piracy periodically dominate the headlines, as the government attempts to pass new laws supposedly to protect the consumer, as the RIAA takes a teenager with clueless parents to court over alleged file sharing for outrageously large amounts of money, or most recently as a bunch of idiots decide a legitimate business is secretly a pirate site.

Last week, someone in the publishing industry noticed a website called LendInk.com.  This little business venture hooked up people willing to lend out their e-books with people who wanted to borrow e-books.  Started by a disabled vet, Dale Porter, LendInk only handled the initial exchange, sending both parties to the appropriate vendor - either Amazon or Barnes and Noble - to do the actual lending of the e-book.

It seems that the notion that a person can lend an e-book to another person, in a manner similar to the public library lending a book to a patron, is too radical, too new, and too close to piracy for a lot of authors out there.  What began as a misunderstanding on one person's part turned into several cease and desist notices to the website host and several lawsuits threats.  By August 8th, the website disappeared from the cloud.

Now, of course, comes the backlash from the rest of the world.  Indie authors who support LendInk cry foul at those who brought the website down, since people who borrow books tend to buy the ones that they like.  Readers wanting to try out new authors and authors trying to attract new readers - both groups lost out here.

But as people focus on this event, I think we need to step back and take a good look at Internet piracy.

First, let's use some common sense.  Some people will steal creative works (regardless of form factor), no matter what.  No law will stop them, nor will threat of prosecution.  It's a fact of life.  But the vast majority of people will pay money for creative works, be it books, movies, music, or art.

There is a catch though, and the catch for electronic purchases includes the following conditions:

• The item needs a reasonable price point.
• The buyer has the right to move the purchase from one digital device to another without hassle.
• The buyer can lend or give the item to a friend without jumping through hoops.
• The distributor needs to treat the buyer with respect, and not assume the person is a thief (see the image below).

There's a story among game developers about a man who purposefully did not stop pirates from getting free copies of his games.  Why?  Because the pirates wrote reviews and discussed the games that they liked online, generating more than enough revenue for the man to balance out what was lost to the pirates.

Neil Gaiman released his book, American Gods, online for free back in 2008 with no DRM.  All of his print book sales went up.  All. Of. Them.

In 2009, Wil Wheaton published a DRM-free pdf of his book, Sunken Treasure, on Amazon for $5.  Not only did sales of this electronic book explode, but the print version also began to sell again, as well as some of his other books.

There are more stories out there of people who reject DRM and trust people to be nice and who made money doing so; there is even a grassroots movement called Defective by Design that aims to rid the world of DRM.

So why are we so worried about pirates and piracy that a group of misanthropes shut down a legitimate business because of a supposed piratical threat?  Especially since pirates actually help sales and therefore the bottom line?

New NPR Kids' Book Club

I came across a link tonight that made me almost giggle.  NPR now has a kids' book club, called the Back Seat Book Club.

Why did I want to giggle?  Because of pure happiness.  With all the adult book clubs out there, I have been looking for something for my children.  They love reading, but it's hard to get recommendations for them.  Yes, I do research at Common Sense Media and Scholastic websites, but what I want is something more.  And more is what a kid (and a parent) gets with this latest NPR offering.

The book club hooks into All Things Considered.  Parents and kids aged 9-14 are encouraged to read the book, either separately or together.  Then the young readers (i.e. the kids) can send questions in to the author, who appears on the show at the end of each month to chat about their book and answers some of the questions.

October's selection is "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman.  I love this book!  After reading the book, you can go to the submission page, and send in your thoughts and questions to Mr. Gaiman.  He is scheduled to be on All Things Considered this Friday.  Plus, Mr. Gaiman reads the book in videos and offers a fan kit at his own website.  

For those who have never read "The Graveyard Book", the protagonist is a young boy whose family is murdered by a man named Jack at the beginning of the book.  The young toddler escapes to a graveyard, where the inhabitants (ghosts as well as a few other creatures) raise him.  

Review: "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book on the recommendation of a local bookstore employee, and I am quite glad I listened.

"The Graveyard Book" follows the growing years of a young boy who wanders into a graveyard as a toddler. Someone just murdered his entire family, and wants to kill the boy as well. The ghosts in the graveyard must protect the boy, and teach him how to live.

Personally, I like the irony in learning to live from the dead.

Neil Gaiman provides more than entertainment here. He stretches his imagination (and the reader's) to envision a world just beneath our world. The shades of the living seem more alive than the living, though in the end the ghosts remain outside of time, unable to change and grow the way the living people do.

I found this book thought provoking, enticing, and almost addictive. I recommend this book to anyone over the age of 9 who likes a good story, and can suspend their disbelief.


View all my reviews