Amazon / Google survey

Background

Amazon's Search Inside and Google Print are two technologies that display the actual images of book pages. Authors currently have books put on display without their knowledge, including their short stories in anthologies (for which exclusive electronic rights have sometimes been sold elsewhere). Some authors are enthusiastic about these technologies, some are vehemently opposed and want control of their copyrights. Some authors want all of a book visible to customers (meaning pirates can steal copies fairly easily), some want none of a book visible, some want part of a book visible to entice buyers to buy but not be able to read the whole thing for free.

I've been working with Amazon and Google on this issue. The goal is to provide copyright owners with control over how much of a book can been read for free, and to get Amazon, Google, and others planning similar systems to be all on the same page in what they display.

Advances in digital ink and digital paper technologies mean it may not be long before a majority of people find it pleasant to read books in digital form (5-15 years), at which time pirated books may pose a significant threat to incomes of authors.

To guide negotiations with Amazon, Google, etc., SFWA needs your input on how much of a book (or short story in an anthology) you'd like visible on Amazon for free to make a purchase decision. Please fill out the short survey below -- thanks!

Andrew Burt
(VP, chair of SFWA's Electronic Piracy Committee, and computer science prof. at the U. of Denver)

Survey

Your name:

Your email address:

Where did you hear about this survey?:

If you were considering buying a NOVEL for sale on Amazon, how much of it would you need to be able to read for free to make a purchase decision?

None of the book - 0%

All of the book - 100%

The first % of the book

Any pages but not more than % of the book

(Note that a problem with "Any __%" is that it means the whole book would have to be available, and pirates could assemble the whole thing as a group. We've already shown this can happen. To prevent this, some percent could be blocked from all viewers; what percent would you consider acceptable to block to deter piracy?-- )

If you were considering buying a SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY for sale on Amazon, how much of EACH STORY would you need to be able to read for free to make a purchase decision?

None of the story - 0%

All of the story - 100%

The first % of the story

Any pages but not more than % of the story

Given that the goal is to sell copies of the anthology, not to allow reading stories in it for free, what percent of a story would you consider acceptable to block to deter piracy?-- )

If you were considering buying a REFERENCE or TEXTBOOK for sale on Amazon, how much of it would you need to be able to read for free to make a purchase decision?

Bearing in mind that that copyright owners legally have control over how much of their work is readable for free online, if an author didn't like the amount of their novels/stories that Amazon let readers read for free (either too much or too little), should authors have the ability to specify how much of the work is shown for free (per options like the above), or should authors only have a binary show/don't show option?

Authors should have a FINE level of control of what is visible for free on Amazon
Authors should have only a SHOW/DON'T SHOW level of control over what Amazon chooses to show for free

Comments? After you've read the FAQ below (please please please read the FAQ first, thanks!) please share any comments you have by posting them to the sff.publishing.piracy group on sff.net.

Frequently Asked Questions

[All replies are the personal opinion of Andrew Burt]

Don't you know that free e-texts sell more books?

It's possibly true, though there's no scientific data to support it. Cases like Cory Doctorow prove nothing conclusively, since (a) he has a wide non-SF related readership on his blog and thus much free advertising that can't be separated from the free e-book (which isn't applicable to other SF writers, who don't have the time or background to run a popular blog); (b) when only a handful of people do it and it's a unique thing, it says nothing about what happens when most authors do it -- the novelty effect will wear off, and it may turn out that most of the effect was just the novelty; (c) it isn't scientifically verifiable -- you need to run a control group on the same book to gauge sales with and without a free e-text (an experiment Amazon could conduct). Same applies to the Baen Free Library.

We'd love to see some hard, scientifically valid data and I'm hoping Amazon can conduct the necessary experiments to supply it.

These are innovative approaches, and I think all authors would love to find out that free e-texts make them more money; but we need hard evidence, not a few anecdotes that can be explained by other factors.

We also need to be cognizant of what happens when a majority of readers read digitally (as seems likely within 5-15 years), at which point the free versions are identical to the pay versions. Why pay when it's available free? This is a debate that has no clear result today with music. It would be extremely useful to settle the debate scientifically today with books, while we have this opportunity.

I'm personally not opposed to providing things free. For those who don't know, I founded the world's first free Internet service (Nyx), and I run a free online writers' workshop for SF, Fantasy, and Horror writers to help improve their writing. I put a huge amount of time into providing quality products for free, so I think I put my money where my mouth is when it comes to "free." I hope folks will trust me a bit when I say that we can't force authors to give their books away free. Force isn't the way to do it.

My personal goal is to see more books in the Search Inside program, but the way to get there is to allow authors the choice how much to display, not to force it on them. Authors fiercely resist being forced into things, especially ones that tread on the core protection that enables authors to make money writing -- copyright. On the other hand, when authors have the choice of what to show, trust me, they will be much more receptive to working with the program. The net effect will be for more books to be visible in the Search Inside system, especially certain types of books (such as anthologies, text books, reference books), and I'd venture more authors putting up free e-texts voluntarily.

But it's an authors choice, both legally and ethically.

Is piracy such a big deal?

Two answers:

1. Whether you view piracy as a problem today or not, it may be in the near future, with the advent of digital paper and digital ink (such as Philips, the inventor of the CD, is already making). It seems highly like that in the near future most reading will be done via digital content vs "fixed" ink or toner on tree paper (regardless which technology gets us there, digital ink on tree paper, digital paper, books bound up using same, cell phones, PDAs, whatever -- it seems highly likely something will cause us to quit using static text and move to dynamically generated text for most reading).

Today only a small percent of people read e-books digitally instead of on paper. But that's likely to change.

At the point when we read most things digitally, the free versions become identical in value to the for-pay versions, so it will no longer make sense to distribute 100% of a book for free digitally if your goal is to get paid for it. (Shareware models haven't proven they work to earn the same income, nor would patronage be a good idea for society, etc. See the e-piracy FAQ for more details. All these and more are worthy experiments, and should be experimented with -- but with an author's permission.)

2. Ultimately, though, this issue is not about piracy but about authors' rights: Do authors control their copyrights, or can a big company just come in and usurp control? (Even if it's "good for you." If you need a heart bypass, should Kaiser have the right to break into your house some night and give you one? :-) Our goal is to restore control to the copyright owner's hands how much is visible on Amazon/Google/etc. Then those who want more can have more, and those who want less can choose less. We'll see more experimentation then, not less.

Can you include a "First N pages" option in the survey?

That would be useful in practice, agreed; and likely would be an actual choice in any real implementation (likewise other algorithms, such as "block every Nth page" or "show only this specific list of pages" and so on). However, for the survey, what I really need are percentages so I can do statistics on them (avg., std.dev. etc.).

Are we talking about Look Inside or Search Inside?

We're talking about Amazon's Search Inside feature, where they scan all the pages of a book and allow a visitor to see any page of a book (and pirates to easily grab all the pages). Nobody's complained about Look Inside, where they show only the first few pages.

Don't you want to adapt to new technologies? You're science fiction writers!

Indeed so! Most of us love new technology, and adaptation is absolutely necessary. However, creators are entitled to a hand in the process, not merely to be treated as bystanders swept along by users -- after all, creators are half the equation. We're not trying to stall technology (personally, I abhor DRM and think it a huge negative, and I'm opposed to the anti-circumvention element of the DMCA) but to allow each author the choice to work with free e-texts as they personally feel comfortable, not to have it forced on them.

See the e-piracy FAQ for more info.