Debating Book Piracy with an Author! (ft. Brian) | 2 To Ramble
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- Опубликовано: 28 май 2024
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He's a hell of a guy. You can find him on his channel @B.LEE.DbrianleedurfeeREVIEWS after he has recovered!
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
1:06 - Introducing Brian!
1:39 - Why Brian is Here
3:59 - Piracy & Consent
7:50 - Funneling Sales
9:54 - Why Piracy Hurts
12:34 - 'Reasons' To Pirate
14:33 - Pirates VS Viewers
18:10 - Author POV (Neil Gaimen continued)
21:38 - Criminals in pirson for pirating
27:53 - What the options are when you're pirated
30:54 - Results of piracy on sales
37:29 - Is piracy modern day lending of books?
41:07 - Does piracy benefit the author?
47:45 - Why do people pirate?
57:54 - Free versions
1:04:32 - Backlash for speaking out
1:07:50 - Piracy VS Stealing
1:11:04 - AI & Originality
1:21:55 - What's the answer?
1:24:45 - Advice for authors?
1:26:12 - Piracy is an HONOR?
1:27:42 - Wrap-up
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Hey! I really liked the piracy episode. However, I think you didn't really push back as much as I'd like.
I feel like this was more of an interview rather than a debate, which is totally fine and understandable.
Brian's perspective on this is very interesting to me, and I do understand how it might make someone feel violated and stolen from, but I do think his perspective on this is somewhat limited.
And so, as an actual pirate, I'd like to share my perspective as well. I'm not just someone who has pirated stuff on the internet; no, I actually hosted piracy websites and actively participated in the community.
Now, this was a long time ago-some 16 years ago now-but I think I still have a somewhat unique perspective to share here.
I started out with hosting a DC++ server (the thing people were using before torrents) and then switching to torrents when that became popular. Neither I nor anyone else I knew of earned any money from it, and I personally knew quite a few pirates, some of whom were quite influential in the space. I grew up in Eastern Europe in the early 2000s, and my parents barely had enough money to buy school books for me. If you had told my 14-year-old self that my pirating books and other entertainment is immoral or wrong, I would have laughed in your face. I had no place for moral justifications. I had exactly 0 sympathy for some (to my then perspective) decadent rich content creators losing a sale or two.
Brian portrays pirates as money-grabbing scammers, and for the people uploading transient stuff on RUclips, that may be true, but I'm absolutely certain that, even today, the vast VAST majority of people who share books and other stuff on the internet are not earning any money from it at all. They are just doing it for the gratification they feel for other people enjoying their efforts and the community they are a part of.
Now I'm not sure whether piracy is financially beneficial or not for content creators, as there are so many factors to consider, but one thing I think most people are leaving out is that many people (myself included) would never have even started reading books at all if we weren't able to pirate them to start. I really think there are millions of active readers like that. Sure, I may not be buying the books/series I pirated way back when, but I've bought a lot of other books since, and they wouldn't have gotten that sale if not for piracy.
I actually think piracy is in a pretty good state these days. It is much more convenient to just buy stuff than to figure out how to pirate it (it used to actually be the opposite), but you still can get stuff for free if you put in the effort.
These days I have a stable job in a local IT firm, and I can't really justify pirating, and I'd feel wrong doing it. I have an Audible and other subscription services, and I mostly just use those. I couldn't even imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn't had access to the thousands of books/movies/games piracy enabled me to experience.
While I do think you have a fair point, and I too pirated plenty when I was a broke kid, I think you’re missing the point.
Piracy isn’t good (or fine) because of people like you, but it’s bad because of the people who do use it to harm.
We have rules and laws for a reason, and it’s not because the average person would turn into a maniacal animal without them, but to keep the outliers in line, with force if necessary.
Does than mean all the people who wouldn’t do harm are unnecessary impacted, yes, but we as a society have decided that we must sacrifice some things to others in line.
I think you’re also discounting how easy it is to monetize traffic these days.
It takes less than a week to monetize a RUclips channel or to set up ads on a website. There’s malware you can purchase to order if you know where to look.
If you want to make money from web traffic it’s almost scarily easy. Getting the traffic is the hard part, which is why internet piracy is such a big business. When you pay nothing for the content that brings your traffic, your costs go to almost zero and you’re making pure profit.
Was the piracy you did harmless?
Yeah probably.
But we can’t allow it or endorse it because of all the harm it also does.
Love the perspective - thanks a ton for sharing
Another great video lads. Let's hope Brian makes a speedy recovery.
Blaming piracy for lack of output from Hollywood is crazy.
Warner Bros are out here binning finished films for tax write offs.
I’m sure it does have negative effects on the industry but to argue it’s a driving factor is over sugaring the pudding
You touched upon this sort of thing in the video. In the UK, the final book in Brian's trilogy, The Lonesome Crown, there is no Kindle version....there's the audio version and the paperback, but the paperback costs twice as much as a normal paperback. In this situation I'm waiting patiently for a kindle version to be released, but if it never does get released, I guess I'll have to pay a ridiculous price for the paperback. Someone who doesn't want to pay that inflated price might try and pirate a copy, sometimes the publisher doesn't help things. I really want to read Brian's trilogy and I have the first 2 books, but playing the waiting game on the 3rd book.. Speedy recovery Brian!
As far as I know Ryan Cahill benefited a lot from giving a novella for free, so that people get a taste of the series (The bound and the broken) and buy other books
This was really fascinating!
One thing I notice with a lot of the "perks of piracy for the writer", a lot of the benefits from the writers side aren't doing well because of pirating, they're doing well Compensating for the downsides of pirating.
It sounds to me like there's blatant benefits for the reader (more books, less cost), but there's almost no benefit for the author UNLESS the author goes out of their way to combat it. It almost begs the question: why should an author HAVE to sell supplementary or loss leaders just to get back what money the initial book was supposed to be worth? It sort of comes back to value for me, I've often seen free books as a taste tester but this makes me realise it's quite devaluing to the author even if you weren't going to buy it anyway and buy one after the fact. Part of paying for a book is taking a risk on buying/reading it because the author took a risk selling/writing it. The risk of not liking a book is part of the fair trade?
That said I buy books from second hand book stores A LOT, that point about there being no second hand financial benefit for the author is a good point. Any product suffers from the idea that each tangible product can only be sold once and if that tangible product is easily scanable/cloneable then it instantly loses capitalistic value. Like you said, each hard copy is worth whatever its sold for only because of the quality of it BEING a hard copy, but digitally its infinite.
The hard part isnt that theyre stealing stuff out of your house, theyre DUPLICATING YOUR HOUSE and never feeling the need to visit. So how do you entice them to visit when theyve already experienced a 1:1 elsewhere? And this leads to forced 'house dress up' where you do something physically to your house they CANT replicate.
Love your last paragraph analogy
I have "pirated" ebooks in the past, but not for a long time. What lead me to pirating was differences in contracts leading to ebooks either not being released in my country (a western, english speaking country) or being released months after countries like the US. I kept a list of books that I had pirated and have either brought the ebook when it came out or in a few cases purchased the physical book and donated to the library. This was around the beginning of ebooks, when contracts were in their infancy, I have found in the last 5-10 years that all books I want are released at the same time as the US and I have not had a reason to pirate books.
The only thing that I can see in the future pushing me to pirate is if a company holds monopolies on a book that I want to read and I can't get it in the format that I need for my e-reader (I'm thinking about 1 well-known company in particular that might share a name with a large rainforest and river). For me, it would be a similar situation, I would purchase on the monopoly website and pirate to get in the file format that I want, but I could see other people not paying in such circumstances.
I think a different revenue stream would be awesome, for consumers and authors. After walking in Barnes and Noble and picking up Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne based on the cover art alone, I was disappointed that I couldn’t find any merch with the same art. A deal with Displate made perfect sense for me. Or a mouse pad. I think authors have a lot more to offer other than their written works, things that fans would love to pay for and couldn’t be pirated.
Author Durfee DESTROYS piracy supporters with FACTS and LOGIC!!!!!
Glad to read that Brian is making a full recovery. Blessings to him and his family, thankful for great work by hospital staff.
Hooe he gets enough support for paying for the procedures in the coming months
Most of the problems pointed out are not because of the pirating itself but because of other bad things.
Haven't even watched the video yet (definitely going to today) but just wanted to say I'm so glad you gave a link to the gofundme. I've donated and really hope others do. Durfee's not just a talented author (really hoping you review his series one day!) but his youtube channel has given me hours of entertainment and chuckles. Makes me sad that the gofundme is nowhere near the target amount, esp if the US medical system is as expensive as we here in Australia keep hearing it is. Thanks again
Thank you for donating to him!! He sent us copies of his books and we are excited to dive in one day
@@2ToRambleha you are lucky. I bought all three books in eBook format, audiobook format, physical copy and set up the wiki page for the series and even I don't have signed copies. Then again I am one of the bad people who read the entire series in the "free format" the first time before buying them all... Great video as always by the way. I actually sent Brian a link to it at the time of hia video but he probably already knew about it 😂
I actually own Brian's audiobooks since black Friday, have been wanting to read them for some time now, hope he gets well soon, he seems a very nice person
Great discussions.
Thanks for spreading the word about Brian. He's a top bloke.
For some context here's some foreigner math:
In my country the average worker makes $800-1000USD p/month(converted currency). Rent is in the $300-500USD p/month range. groceries are in the $200-350USD range. a paperback in a bookstore locally costs around $15-25USD. So lets say i decide to buy ebooks from amazon instead. well thats like $9.99 BUT the average person here only has access to around $200USD forex p/month from their bank(to do online shopping). I dont know how to tell young ppl that "no, you're not allowed to read as much as you want because food and rent is more important and piracy is bad". As a working adult who reads 1 book a month, even I find it weighing on me whether to purchase that new Sanderson or Abercrombie or Whoever book when it comes out.
Piracy is also in large part a people vs corporation war with artists & authors being the collateral damage and it sucks.
ruclips.net/user/shorts44Do5x5abRY
No libraries where you live? I’m not challenging you, I’m genuinely curious.
@@wilmerdramos great question! Yes there are and as with many under developed nations, the speculative fiction section is woefully small and rarely updated. In fact the few libraries here have pivoted to being more like public cyber cafes. Also note our libraries do not have an ebook/audiobook system either.
i do not know his stance on it now but neil has literally said before he does not care how people read his books as long as they read them
Brian is such a legend, his videos always make me smile
Loved this discussion guys.
Thank you!
Wishing Mr. Durfee a speedy recovery!
Strongly disagree with the argument around 1:19:00 in the video that AI models are learning and copying the same way we humans do, it's bollocks. I'm quoting this from another article just because I couldn't phrase it more succinctly:
'Machine “learning” is a kindergarten level analogy, like a camera “seeing” or an engine “running”. Human learning is reciprocal, embodied, embedded. The other is a large excel sheet. There is no similarity whatsoever in any legal sense, nor any other sense that matters.'
Artists in Art Academy learn and "copy" while doing it in many different ways - still life compositions, busts (from ancient Greece and Rome), anatomy, models (who are being paid) and en plein air are the bulk of that process (and in all of those you interpret perceived reality and try to translate it into 2d). A master copy is usually just a small part of your practice unless you are a conservator-restorer and even then this exercise serves completely different goals - the closest analogy I can come up with is reverse engineering something, a clock, for example. You analyze and deconstruct a mechanism (painting) and put it back (copy it) while learning how it all works in the process, trying to understand why this or that decision was made when the engineer (artist) was creating this piece.
AI art does nothing of the sort, its "learning" from the source hinges on copying what was fed to it (absorbing at scale no human ever can) with ability to reproduce any piece of that absorbed data, often 1:1. It doesn't develop any skills as it's not AI at all in the sense of the second part of acronym, meaning it's not intelligent and doesn't create anything really new, just regurgitates what was fed to it. Ted Chiang some time ago proposed to rename it into 'applied statistics' which is much more fitting in my opinion. So don't let cleverly weaponized semantics to dictate your understanding of the thing, learning and intelligence in regards to AI are not accurate descriptors at all for what it is.
As for how you decide who you will pay it's rather simple - you pay the artist when you decide to feed their art into your AI, if they are willing to sell their work for this purpose.
Thank you for the thoughts!
Best wishes to Brian and his family!
Plz make a tier list for books y’all read🙏
Im so glad Brian is making a full recovery.
Praying for my lad Brian!🙏🏼
1.) Speedy recovery and best wishes
2.) Unrelated to the video but I read Red Rising bc of this channel. The first book disappointed me. I liked Golden Son. I LOVED Morning Star. I just want it to be known that something deep within me stirred with rage when I listened to Austin’s review of Morning Star after my night shift.
Damnit we had almost opposite experiences, but hey we both love some books of RR 😎
Best wishes for a speedy recovery! #durfeestrong
Speaking of Brandon and Free - Both ebook and audiobook of Dragonsteel Prime are free on his website now.
Get well soon Brian! ❤
I really really really want to get all 3 books that Brian has published but man oh man Australian Amazon doesn't have the 3rd book on Kindle plus the physicals are all sold out! Like once the 3rd book finally hits kindle in Australia I will dive in and buy all 3 plus their audiobooks because Brian is also one of my favourite booktuber since he covers a large variety of books and his recommendations have been bangers.
Sucks how art is looked at as “free” and a victimless crime. Art should be cherished and held into greater respects.
I am glad that I can find free audiobooks available on the YT platform because I don’t always know if I will enjoy the book. I do mostly use audiobooks, so if I end up enjoying it I will be purchasing it (kindle or physical copies as well)
Thought of your piracy video when watching his.
It's an interesting topic. I listen to free books on youtube now and then. Didn't think much of it. I saw Brian's books for free on youtube and was bothered by it. It's easy to not care if you don't know the person.
Get well Brian
Just some feedback for me. This might just be me.
Brian has some good knowledge and makes some good points, but it also was just an episode where Brian seems to lecture you two instead of having a discussion. Software of implies like you both don't know how the internet works or the effects of piracy. I feel like he could have opened it up to a discussion more often instead of not really listening to what you said half the time. The times he did let you guys say something, he almost immediately shut it down and brought back up a point that we had moved in from already. He really drove the conversation on YOUR PODCAST. It is just a little disrespectful to take control like he did. Especially since AI have done some reports on piracy in the past and some of his points don't stand. I am sure he is a great person and he is just passionate about this. I hope he heals and gets better, etc. I just had to point this out
I dont know if people do this but part of me wonders if authors could offer free versions with sponsors putting adds in the ebook or audiobook. Obviously with adds would be an inferior product but maybe its good enough?
Oo Thats a great thought
To be honest I pirate books a lot. I live in turkey where I don't have access to many of the books that I wanna read. Plus even the ones we have here are super expensive. I'm a college student and I need every lira I can save. We are not poor by the standarda of our country but I read 4 to 12 books a week + some manga volumes. I can't afford to buy single one, sorry.
I buy one book per the author that I love for collection purposes tho.
I meant month
For the Brazilian movie. Using a VPN may help.
What have you done now. Put Lightbringer complete disorder..
What do you think you are doing? Is your dislike for order so strong you must always have a disorganized shelf. I hope your family loves you
2toramble and Brian Lee Durfee in a video?? Goodbye divorce lawyers!
honestly i dont see a good argument for whats wrong with just pirating a book just to read it (not to distribute it or make money off it). People look at people's art all the time online and you don't pay to look at picture of X painting online. How are ebooks any different?
You have to think why are you writing the book? If it’s to benefit the people who read it then you should be happy when more people can read it, especially poorer folk
Piracy is simply a by product of overcharging for a product. If a actor was willing to make 1million per movie rather than 50million per movie, and the studio was happy to make 10million in Profit rather than 1Billion profit piracy would be cut by 80%. But capitalism wont let that happen, so pirates will always be around
Great point with overpricing - I (austin) definitely agree that more pirates will come when getting the actual product is monetarily crazy/inconveniently unavailable
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse.
There’s so much content that’s pirated that’s already available for *free* that it makes your point very questionable.
Will more people pirate something if it’s more expensive, of course, but that doesn’t mean that piracy is caused by a product being expensive.
Also that’s not at all how movie budging and actor pay works.
Also piracy predates capitalism. People have been counterfeiting and copying and reselling for as long as there’s been things to buy and sell.
I can only speak from my own experience, but as a book collector, I find it very frustrating to purchase the first book in a series, only to discover that I hate it and won’t be purchasing the rest of the series. I don’t want a lone book from a series on my shelf so I end up dumping it off to a used bookstore for 1/10 what a paid for it. Instead, I often pirate the first book in a series, and if I like it, I buy physical copies of the entire series, including the book I’ve already read, to add to my collection. Also, I’m far more likely to buy a special edition if I pirated first, since I know it’s a book I enjoy and I don’t already own a physical copy.
If I buy a piece of artwork, I get to look at it first and see if I like it. I like having that right with books too. If I like a book, I will ALWAYS purchase a physical copy, even if I will never read said copy, because the author has earned my money.
Haha thus will be like the third comment i bring up the same book. But the wandering inn by pirate aba built their own website where you can go and read the whole series for free. And its over double the length of the wheel of time series so that alot of content for free
Get better soon Brian! One point not brought up is that I think we all want drm free products, but the reason they are so prevalent is piracy.