Fighting the Flood of Digital Piracy

The UK Publishers' Association is reported last week in the Bookseller as having recorded around 800 illegally uploaded texts and successfully helped to remove almost 90% of them from the web in February. The PA’s infringement software adopts the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) approach of issuing take down notices and tracking the files removal and offenders.

The one thing that is certain is that relying on take down notices is akin to Hans Brinker sticking his finger in the dyke at Haarlem to plug the hole, but this time it doesn’t work, is too much effort and we only have so many fingers.

The problem we have written about is that this is based on a safe habour approach for the services hosting the files and is reactive and not proactive, so acts after the cat is often out the bag. Service suppliers can only go so far in vetting files being loaded before their safe harbour status can be brought into question.

Sites like Scribd and Wattpad, that potentially offer so much, are caught between a safe harbour and a hard place. However they are only the tip of what is and remains a big iceberg. We have been shown a pirate copy of a highly expensive and prized work which the publisher had not digitised for fear of being pirated. Some may say an open invention to the pirates and one which they have taken. The quality of the pirated work was impressive and amazingly it was being given away by the pirate for free.

So we now have the altruistic pirate who is not even after the money and will spend considerable time to create a near perfect digital rendition of a complex work. This is a digital cover made from the physical book being scanned, OCRed, and then text over image and links being applied to match any digital rendition. This cat is certainly out the bag and having kittens.

So like rabbits you shoot at one and ten more appear all over the place all in different sizes and shapes!

The UK government look set not to follow the French ‘3 strikes law’ and move instead to a half way house where ISP have to slow the pirates down by reducing their access speed. It’s akin to condemning a driver to the slow lane because they broke the speed limit. We can’t see the music industry liking it, nor the ISPs, so it’s a perfect compromise and will leave all unhappy. Importantly it fails to address the cause and merely sticks yet more plasters on the patient.

There doesn’t appear to be an answer or a route that at least mitigates some of the risk? Some would argue that the problem is small, on a similar level to store shrinkage and maybe not worth any extra effort. We would disagree.

Today the book industry is ill prepared for the potential risk. On one hand everyone is jumping up and down heralding the digital dawn and ebooks and ereaders and getting more publicity than previously dreamt of. On the other hand the digital content is for many reasons only slowly materialising, which fuels the appetite of the pirates. We have exclusive device deals which restrict and marginalise the market. We have a lack of clarity on pricing which confuses the consumer and again is a green light to pirates who can make their offer simple and uniform. We have DRM.

Exposing the Pirates

We applaud the UK Publishers Association for their development and free members access to a powerful new tool, which simplifies the process of having infringing content taken down. The tool effectively distributes the workload and leverages the benefits of information sharing between members. Members simply log, enter the details of the infringement. The system identifies the ISP, checks for repeat infringers, and automatically drafts and serves an appropriate notice.

More info at http://www.publishers.org.uk/en/home/enforcement/copyright-infringement-portal/

This is a great start. Unlike many of the other media sectors book publishing is not consolidated and there are thousands of publishers and copyright owners. Asking them all to police this is unworkable. But it goes past publishers and also impact agents and authors and they should surely also have access and share the same resource. Then we have the global position and yet more fragmentation. Finally we have the orphan works which will be unable to be defended. Who will protect them, or are they fair game for all?

If we are to have any hope in suppressing the pirates we must move from reactive measures to proactive ones.

We would go further and suggest that industry papers such as the Bookseller and PW should publish the statistics, a worst offenders top ten and raise the profile, such that it becomes uncomfortable for those merely waiting for take down notices and not doing anything to avoid them. Naming and shaming could work both ways, but we would suggest that it should also start to raise public awareness now before it becomes an epidemic. The public conscious must be raised and as proven this week in Sweden, many will wish to live within the law. The key is not to go after the individual’s but to stop their source of distribution and close down their visibility.

UK PA to Hold Google Seminar

Straight off Book Brunch Today...

Great news the debate has started in the UK. We don't know the format, speakers etc but at least the debate and enlightenment has started!

The Publishers Association is to hold a seminar outlining the terms of the deal struck between Google, the Association of American Publishers and the US Authors Guild. The seminar will explain the fundamentals of the deal, and will be an opportunity for UK publishers and rights holders to explore options for next-step decisions in time to meet the 5 May deadline. All industry stakeholders are welcome. The seminar will be held in repeating sessions throughout 14 April at the Victory Services Club, London. PA member publishers are entitled to two free places, all other attendees will be charged £100 +VAT. For more information, contact Claire Anker at "CAnker at publishers dot org dot uk".