Bit Torrents
I've been offline for a while (and there are a flurry of posts about that coming up), but I had a very strange thing happen yesterday. Earlier this year, I published the Facebook API Developer's Guide. It seems to be selling reasonably well on Amazon...even broke the top 100 computer books for a couple of days.
Being it's a book on Facebook, I've had a few folks add me as a friend and shoot me messages and ask some questions. It all seemed pretty cool, until yesterday. I got a note from a person in Tunisia who added me as a friend and asked a question. I sent a response thanking him for purchasing my book, and this is where I was a little taken aback. In fact, this was his exact response:
well, to be honest with you i got your book from a torrent site, i would have bought it if i wasnt living in Tunisia, I hope this won't affect anything :)
I didn't quite know what to say. He was nice enough to send the link to the torrent site, and apparently there are 41 seeders and 3 leechers.
At first, I was thinking of trying to get the site to remove the link, but I've been around long enough to know that doesn't really stop anything. I have say that I'm still scratching my head on this one. I'm not sure if I'm flattered that there are people that think its worth stealing, offended that someone would under the pretense of purchasing my intellectual property ask a question (could have just asked, I'm a pretty nice guy), or mad that he stiffed me a 20% commission on a book.
Still trying to figure this one out...
a) we live in an age where someone in tunisia can download a book
b) that person can then say hello to it's author
it seems it's sold well... and the person is honest. so yay. just be proud.
what's that quote - 'for an author, obscurity is a far greater fear than plagarism or theft
I personally prefer paper versions, but saying this, I like the idea of having an electronic version to look through. Again, maybe if someone buys the electronic version very cheaply, give them a discount on the paper one.
Finally, don't Amazon deliver to Tunisia? I think there serious cheek here. The guy may have call you his a friend on Facebook, but I guess their definition of friend does not include the non-electronic etiquette version - "don't f*** your friends over". Maybe a polite email suggesting it would be nice if he purchased the book knowing you were a nice guy...
I guess I'm a techno-optimist. I know it would frost me if people were stealing $4 each out of my pocket, but I'm not sure that most of the folks who grabbing the book via bit torrent would have actually purchased it. Maybe the buzz will pay off in some nice speaking gigs that will more than cover the loss of the royalties. At least that's what we tell the bands who are getting their music ripped off.
I actually heard back from my editor. He pointed out that the e-book version is in fact available in Tunisia. He also said that computer books are plastered all over torrent sites, and there's not a whole lot they can do to stop it.
This is probably karma coming back to me for my indiscretions with Napster in my college days...before it was technically illegal (did I just date myself?).