

David Flanagan (JavaScript Definitive Guide author) on piracy - telemachos
http://www.davidflanagan.com/2011/04/javascript-the-1.html

======
kkowalczyk
What I found in this article: unrealistic suggestion that Google should decide
which page on the internet contains or doesn't contain copyrighted material.

What I didn't find:

1\. A single piece of data, even of the anecdotal variety, that piracy is
responsible for his declining royalties. By his own admission: he doesn't know
and there are other trends that might explain decline in print sales.

2\. A description of how he tried to find new ways of making money in the
world of declining dead-trees sales.

I've bought several technical, self-published books as PDFs. I believe some
people (e.g. HN regular Amy Hoy) make decent money doing that. Has the author
tried that? No.

I bough 30+ books on my kindle. Did the author try to self-publish on kindle
in order to get higher royalties (70% vs., say, 15% from print) hence more
revenue (even with lower price)? No.

His books would be perfect for such an experiment because he already has an
audience thanks to 4 popular books he wrote in the past.

~~~
Natsu
Also missing is the fact, pointed out in one of the comments to his post, that
Google already filters suggestions:

[http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-censoring-
bittorrent-r...](http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-censoring-bittorrent-
rapidshare-and-more-110126/)

Essentially every page on the internet contains copyrighted material. Which
pages contain copyright infringing material is another matter entirely.
Because copyright is based on permission, you have to know who has given whom
permission to do what, and that data simply isn't available. You can guess,
but if third parties became legally liable for being wrong, things would get
ugly fast.

For example, just the other day, the book "Basics of Compiler Design" was up
on HN. The authors are giving a PDF of it away for personal use and at-cost
reprinting. If one naively assumed that everyone giving away PDFs of published
books was some sort of evil pirate, they'd have been banned from Google for
their generosity.

------
6ren
The _joie de vivre_ of Flangan's concise writing is a joy to behold; it's
awful to think the modern world can't support that level of craftsmanship.

It may not be piracy, but that the free resources have become good enough,
combined with programming becoming easier to lower the bar for support
materials like books. i.e. he's been disrupted. For example, Stackoverflow
contributes to this.

I think he's right that the size of his markets means dropping the price
wouldn't recoup enough via volume. He can easily get work writing tech
materials for proprietary languages and systems (in-house and for-sale e.g. at
MS or Oracle) - but what a loss for him and us!

uhhhmm... maybe google could "hire" him? Giving him the same freedom as
royalties, and just release his work for free (because it grows the web, which
helps google) - perhaps in collaboration with O'Reilly, because authors still
need great editors. Though Google might want _Android in a Nutshell._ Google
might also be able to target his work more precisely, with their data on
searches, and whether people seem to be happy with the public resources they
find, and what particular aspects. Data-driven writing...

------
patio11
I'm totally, 100% with you on piracy. Your work should not be stolen.

However, if your goal is a business as a full-time technical author, piracy is
not your major enemy. Can I _strongly_ suggest looking at the self-published
ebook versus traditional published book choice as if you were offered it for
the first time today? The first gets you on Amazon, puts you in full control
of your marketing, let's you experiment with pricing and message, gives you
post-launch opportunities for improvement, and bumps your "royalty" to 70 ~
95%. The second gets wee little advances. If you look at those advances as
buying equity in your book, they're the equity equivalent of a personal loan
from CapOne.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I agree with you on the general point, but the deal with the publisher _can_
get you quite a bit more than "wee little advances." The publisher lends
credibility/gravitas to the enterprise (which may or may not be important,
depending upon the type of work), and can (if they choose) bring a large
marketing budget (and sophisticated marketing apparatus) to bear on your
behalf.

I'm not arguing that self-publishing isn't the more lucrative option in many
cases; I'm just saying that going with a traditional publisher is not
_necessarily_ a sucker bet.

~~~
anthonyb
Agreed, but you should at least try out the non-traditional route before
dismissing it, especially since he's already got a blog and decent search
traffic. eg. No, no downloads here - just a 4.95 javascript e-book with a
couple chapters for free.

------
naner
_I do not know whether or to what extent piracy is responsible for my
declining income. I suspect that the internet and the transition from print
books to ebooks has more to do with it than piracy does. But I also suspect
that piracy has a non-trivial impact, too._

There's also the recession, other legal free sources online (which he mentions
later), and possibly more competition in his publishing field.

I do feel bad for people whose livelihoods get thrown out of whack and are
forced into an uncomfortable position, but it is to be expected with
technological advances and is actually happening all over the place (tech-
related or not). I wouldn't want to be a teacher in the US these days, either.
Take nothing for granted. Don't count on anyone looking out for you, no job is
a promise. You basically are on your own in our modern economy.

------
yakshaving
Also posted this in the comments on the site, thought I'd join the discussion
here.

I appreciate David's perspective on piracy, but I also embrace and understand
where Tim O'Reilly is coming from (Far worse to be irrelevant . I think I have
the solution. Why not create an entirely new genre of content that offers a
greater level of utility than static digital eBooks?

Knowledge is getting created faster than it can be certified, and we need
early-adopting gurus like you to light the path forward to new technologies.
I'm particularly happy to pay for content on its own, particularly if I
perceive that the original content creator is taking a lion's share of the
profit.

I know that may not even cross many author's minds, but if there were messages
like "95% of the profits from this eBook will be contributed to the author, so
that they will continue producing high value content", I believe more people
would be inclined to purchase.

Also I won't mention the name of my company here and get flamed for self-
promoting, but I will say that I think there's a huge opportunity for
publishers, authors, and content creators to disrupt a much larger, adjacent
industry, education and its steady "diet" of certifications.

~~~
protomyth
> I know that may not even cross many author's minds, but if there were
> messages like "95% of the profits from this eBook will be contributed to the
> author, so that they will continue producing high value content", I believe
> more people would be inclined to purchase.

I doubt it. If they don't have the character to buy the book normally, an
appeal to the authors needs won't help. You do know it takes more than an
author to make a quality book (editor, typesetting, etc).

~~~
forensic
People aren't that black and white.

Little statements like that definitely make a difference.

A lot of pirates do it to avoid buyer's remorse, and finding a message inside
appealing to them to support the author is hardly unnoticed.

~~~
protomyth
I find it very interesting that the pirate would care about the author but not
care about the other people who put in the effort to get the book in a clean
and readable form.

------
dman
For any authors reading - how do royalty rates compare for paper books,
international paper editions, ebooks and subscriptions on things like safari?
Maybe people are buying books through mediums that make lesser money for the
author? Also maybe people are buying more used books ? (I regret to say that I
mostly buy used books)

~~~
petercooper
I've written about it at <http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-
learned/> in the past.

But the Cliff Notes version is that with Apress I'm meant to get anywhere
between 10% and 20% for paper copies (sliding scale depending on # of copies
sold) and _double the print rate_ for e-books (so between 20% and 40%). With
Pragmatic Programmers I _believe_ the rate is 50%.

~~~
bphogan
Yes. With PragProg it's 50%, but it's 50% profit sharing really. There's no
advance up-front, but you split the profits with the publisher. It's pretty
awesome because in a way, it's a lot like self-publishing, but you get all the
support that comes from a publisher, including copy editors, indexers, and
development editors.

So you can win on that deal or lose. If you sell 400 copies, you'd have been
better off taking a $10,000 advance. If you sell 4000 copies, you're gonna be
much happier with this situation.

------
brlewis
David Flanagan looking for a salaried job? My first thought is, that's a sad
end of an era. My second thought is, I wish I were hiring right now.

~~~
dman
Its the best of times, its the worst of times!

------
BitMode32
Ok here's my take on your situation. First of all I don't see why getting a
salaried job would be so bad for you. You're an MIT Grad, that alone will get
you a high paying job anywhere in the field. Second you know your stuff and
you seem like a pretty smart guy. Sorry about your royalties being cut short
and I really do understand the "I have to provide for my family" situation.
But here's where I stand, I'm actually glad people pirate ebooks. Let me tell
you why. Consider my situation, I'm a CS Student with a part time job and my
source of income sure enough is not even half of what you make in royalties. I
simply don't have the money to pay for most of the books that are required for
my classes. So anytime I find a pirated book on the internet that otherwise
would cost $60/$100 I jump up with joy. After all I'm saving my cash. This
last statement sounds a little selfish to most, but I believe is not. You have
a degree David (From MIT) I've might add and I don't. If resources are
available online, that are going to make me a better programmer and give me a
chance to better my future from learning these skills I'm sure as heck going
to download the book. Plain and Simple. I believe information should be free
for those that are striving to achieve something. Lastly If anything that I
said offends or ticks you off, I would simply advise you to look at things
like this. Maybe your royalties are decreasing but your book is helping this
individual secure a better a life for himself. So I would like to Thank you
none the less for a wonderfully written book.

------
marcusbooster
He makes a good point. Since Google recently went after the content farms that
hurt their search results, it would be nice if they extended that to authors
and legitimate content producers.

~~~
dman
The content farm issue has different incentives from the authors and content
produces. In the content farm the user is usually landing onto substandard
content and the click is basically a user search that has "failed" because it
has not produced a high quality response. For the ebooks its likely that the
user is looking for precisely the book, and not providing the book would in
fact be the "failed" search.

------
esw
When I find a technical book that I want to buy, the first thing I do is
search to see if it's available as a download. I'm happy to pay - I just don't
see any need to own a physical book that consists primarily of extremely
tangential technical knowledge. I have tons of outdated technical ballast
(e.g. "The SQL 2000 Bible", "The IIS 5.0 Pocket Guide") gathering mold in
boxes in my basement already.

~~~
dexen
You've touched on an important issue: some books (or texts, in general) are
much related to the current state of art, and won't be very useful in 10
years. Contrast SICP -- pretty much transcendental, every other hacker
recognizes those four letters -- with jQuery reference. jQueries of this world
come and go.

Now the question is, what is the value added of having a hardcopy of SICP, and
what is of having a hardcopy -- or e-copy -- of jQuery?

Another issue is bit rot of e-books. With no common long-lived e-book format
(perhaps beyond HTML and PDF), you can't readily expect an e-book to be handy
with technology in 10 years. It's a fast changing market, as of now.

So, in the end, what is a realistic price for a short-lived e-book?

------
SoftwareMaven
You need to be really careful how you "motivate" people in these kinds of
situations if you want to have a positive effect. A study was done at
Petrified Forest National Park comparing the rates at which petrified wood was
stolen depending on whether signage said people had stolen petrified wood in
the past. Turns out 4x more people were willing to steal if they knew other
people had done it before them.

Unfortunately, I think the method used in the post falls into the "4x more"
category. David may have unwittingly increased piracy rather than reducing it.

[1] <http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/cialdini.pdf> (see the section on
Environmental Theft).

------
anthonyu
Just for independent verification purposes, I tried to find a free copy of
this book using his search terms, and didn't come up with anything in a few
minutes of clicking after results.

It appears that there is a 5th edition of his Javascript book and a 6th
edition of another author's HTML book easily reachable from those terms, but
no free electronic copy of a 6th edition Javascript book.

Google will remove links to pirated copies of books, one needs only submit a
DMCA request. I doubt that DMCA requests will drive publicity for your book
launch like an entitled blog post, though.

~~~
tomjen3
Not just that, but there seems to be no sixth edition available from anywhere
at all, with the possible exception of a torrent that I didn't bother to look
closer at.

Why are we talking about this issue at all?

------
pmccool
I wish people would stop calling this sort of thing "piracy". Proper piracy
-robbery, abduction and so forth on the high seas - is a continuing problem.
This is hardly in the same league. May I suggest using "theft" instead, which
at least is more or less accurate.

~~~
socillion
general definition of theft (not legal): the dishonest taking of property
belonging to another person with the intention of depriving the owner
permanently of its possession.

When I go to Youtube and listen to an extremely good song by Twilightning or
Edguy, what am I taking from the band? Due to a few different reasons (money,
I don't have to) I have never run across anything I will pay money to listen
to or watch, books being a small exception since I like well made hardcovers a
la Practical Common Lisp. I _will_ , however, refer others to the good movies
or music I stumble upon.

Unlike many proponents of torrents, I heavily disagree that all music should
be free; that simply is not sustainable in my opinion. Not enough people will
then go out of their way to pay for it and I have no idea how well bands do
when it comes to concerts/merchandise. I do think that free music benefits
bands but that overall benefit increases exponentially with how hard it is to
obtain it, because those of us who would never have listened to a band's music
before the internet (finding obscure bands via radio is nigh impossible) will
often refer them to friends, while the rest who are willing to pay take the
_easier route_ \- this is important - and buy music.

Currently, torrents, youtube (amusingly, even the official youtube versions
are often worse to listen to due to censorship - VEVO is a good example) and
other avenues are the better choice for anyone with loose morals, after taking
into account risk and ease of access.

tl;dr those of you who will pay for music should subsidize the rest of us.

------
quandrum
I almost want to pirate this just to see if his "nagging pirates to buy the
book" section has been stripped out.

I always think these things are funny, because the only people who tend to see
them are paying customers.

