If Amazon inserted a few random extra spaces in a full ebook’s text, I could see that being something that wouldn’t change the author’s words, would only briefly impinge on the reader’s experience, and wouldn’t be something easily caught by pirates (unless they do a full “spell check” on the doc).

I would prefer something like that over “random” word replacements!

by Lee Rowan November 1st, 2009 at 1:24 pm
@A ReaderAnd I certainly wouldn't continue to upload books if they can be traced back to me-I'm a branch manager for a bank, being caught stealing wouldn't really work for me.:

Well, if you are uploading books, I hope they do find a system that can trace you. You're stealing from writers just as surely as a person who comes into your bank to hold it up.

Uh-oh. Be careful. Now people will throw in to explain to you why copyright infringement isn’t “real” theft, no evidence of economic damage, U.S.S.C. ruling, etc..

In any event, none of these devices mean anything unless the pirates are prosecuted.

Well, if you are uploading books, I hope they do find a system that can trace you. You’re stealing from writers just as surely as a person who comes into your bank to hold it up. I

Changing some small detail – a word in a blurb, author bio, page-number font … there are lots of invisible ways to alter a file to make it identifiable.

Changing the words in the text?

NO. Not if it meant cutting piracy by half.

As Mark Twain said, there is a world of difference between a lightning bug and a lightning bolt. So also is the difference between doing something secretively or discreetly or surreptitiously. I don’t expect Amazon’s profit-obsessed minions to understand the difference, because they are not the author of my books and they are not my editor. I signed no contract permitting them to change words to which I hold copyright.

As Carroll’s Humpty-Dumpty said in another context, the question is who is to be master. Amazon is not my master and I don’t intend that it ever will be.

Nobody’s rejecting an opportunity to stem piracy. They’re rejecting an opportunity to stem piracy that includes changing words in texts.

There are many, many other ways of watermarking texts without changing their actual content without the author’s permission. I’m seriously not seeing why people who are not themselves writers aren’t seeing the problem in that.

Nobody’s rejecting the idea of inserting an extra space with a tag-character that doesn’t show up on the screen, but that can be indexed. Nobody’s rejecting the idea of inserting metadata that makes each copy a unique, trackable entity. Nobody’s rejecting the idea of a unique, trackable “fnord page,” with indexable nonsense words a la Captcha, as an endpage.

What people are rejecting is having their words changed. Their text changed. Their content changed. Without any input or recourse.

Yes, writers think about every word, including “the” and “a”. Obviously, “Refer to me as Ishmael” is an extreme example, but automatic synonym generators render lots and lots of equally nonsensical prose right now.

You know all of those weird websites with “news stories” that are things like “Astrological body Lindsay Lohan develops nascent parallelogram of apparel with engineer Karl Lagerfeld?” Those are synonymized versions of articles someone wrote.

I don’t want Amazon doing that to my writing under the guise of “helping me.” I don’t need them doing that to my writing under the guise of “helping me.”

And as has already been said, I don’t need to give them carte blanche to change my words without my permission or review.

NO!!! Watermarking is a great idea. Changing words in a text is NOT a great idea.

Nobody’s against watermarking. They’re against CHANGING WORDS as a way of watermarking.

“Lolita! Light of my existence, burning in my groin” is not the same. “Refer to me as Ishmael” is not the same.

Authors on the whole are not supportive of booksellers changing random words in their texts. Why does this surprise anyone?

I guess my point is that if piracy is killing the industry and Amazon has a way that could reduce piracy and thereby not kill the publishing industry, it surprises me authors aren't more supportive.

I’m surprised too, it’s actually a great idea. Books are still going to be pirated (of course) but it will cut down on the casual sharer. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve been sent by someone who’s doesn’t know how to create a torrent or doesn’t want to put books up in their own name but wants to share books they’ve bought. And I certainly wouldn’t continue to upload books if they can be traced back to me–I’m a branch manager for a bank, being caught stealing wouldn’t really work for me.

The second thing this method has going for it is it will probably force the formatting of ebooks to be stripped in order to be sure any marked text is removed. The days of typed or badly proofed scans of books are pretty much over. The books being shared today are the exact same version being offered by the publisher only better, there’s no DRM to contend with. Just having the legitimate version of an ebook be a better product–no DRM and professional formating–goes a long way to discourage the casual pirate as well.

If I was an author I would be all over this.

Thanks, Ros!

(Monty Python week last week.)

In the context of your link, yes, they seem to be saying that the txt-to-speech Amazon thing is a developing contractual issue and don’t rush into granting erights at this time, and if you do, specifically address Amazon as part of any contract for erights.

In the meantime, we recommend that if you haven’t yet granted your e-book rights to backlist or other titles, this isn’t the time to start. If you have a new book contract and are negotiating your e-book rights, make sure Amazon’s use of those rights is part of the dialog.

and they have issued announcements but probably can’t do much more than issue warnings (at least in this regard):

July 17, 2008. Simon & Schuster has recently sent a one-page letter to many, perhaps thousands, of authors with unspecified e-book royalty rates in an attempt to set those rates at 15% of the “catalog retail price” of the e-book. (This is the typical e-book royalty rate for S&S.)

In older publishing contracts, many still in force, there is no mention of digital or ebook rights, because they didn’t exist, and so there’s a possible question now of whether those rights were conveyed or not.