: Re: How to prevent ebook piracy from stealing your livelihood? I'm a part-time writer, still working on my novel (with a long term goal to make a living as a writer). My partner is also a writer,

@Ann1701686

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I've been giving this some thought, and while I don't have a complete answer to this problem here are my current thoughts as a fellow IP creator (different industry, same problem):

Bear in mind that DRM can (counter-intuitively) result in lost sales. If an author isn't willing to give me a permanent, fungible, standards compliant, and infinitely transferable copy of their work in exchange for my hard-earned cash, then I refuse to pay them anywhere near what their work would normally be worth. I don't care how good that work is, I'll find a way to get it that doesn't involve paying more than the few pennies a rental is worth (e.g. via a library.) Then, if I can't find it that way, I'll find another author -- copyright is already restrictive enough, and ideas are rarely so unique as to justify paying you and your great grandchildren leasing fees in perpetuity.

NOTE: I take a hardline stance on this largely due to the information hole that the 120+ year copyright term plus DRM has created. From my perspective, you absolutely should be paid for your work, but that work must become a permanent part of society, beyond you or your publisher's ability to recall. Basically, by creating and publishing a work, you have actually removed something from society as a whole -- specifically, there is no way to "delete" your work from the minds of people that read it, and you have prevented others from creating that type of work for over 120 years.

This, in turn creates a sort of debt to society that copyright has attempted to balance (fairly successfully) in the dead-tree era (think rare book shops for the most valuable works), but that balance has been massively upset with the introduction of DRM to the point where many authors are no longer satisfying this societal debt. Remember, copyright is effectively a (old and very long-standing) contract between consumers and producers, and the rise of piracy in the modern age is partly due to perceived breach of this contract in favor of the content creators.

tl;dr on this section: Your readers have rights too. Piracy can be looked at as a reaction to perceived violation of their rights, and DRM can actually make the monetary situation worse as a result.
Stepping back and looking at the dead-tree era, unauthorized copies existed there too. One could argue that the specialized equipment needed to produce the fakes made prosecution easier, but this is hardly a new problem.

In that era, a fake would be worth less than an authorized copy as anyone picking it up could (theoretically) tell it was a fake, and then be liable for infringement. What if we replicate that model using blockchain technology; that is, each authorized copy is made unique and has a permanent, verifiable "provenance"? The idea being, you release the basic rights people have with dead-tree copies, but at the same time you are the only person that can generate real, authorized copies, and anyone receiving a copy can easily check if it is genuine or not. Essentially, this makes the whack-a-mole of copyright enforcement somewhat easier since anyone can check if a copy is pirated or not.

Going down this hypothetical route, you would watermark each official copy of your work to make it unique, then record that in the blockchain as being created in exchange for currency. This becomes a permanent record of the fact that you have created an authorized copy, and the current owner can prove that they are authorized to own that copy. That owner can then sell it to another person, losing their right to own that copy (again, publicly recorded). Essentially this prevents you or your publisher from recalling the work, while still retaining the concept of a copy of a work that has some intrinsic, unremovable value, and is therefore worth paying for.

tl;dr on this section: Don't fall for the existing, centralized DRM model that is making people angry and encouraging piracy. Look for a non-intrusive DRM solution and use the extensive legal options in place to stop piracy on a large scale.
Make purchase easy, and offer value adds! Extending on the above concept, with parallels to the dead tree era, why not offer a "signed" edition for more money? Surely enough people will enjoy a good work enough to want a personal touch from the author -- this costs you very little and helps the bottom line.

Purchase should be as easy as "select item, send money, get license to use item". It should not include additional steps like "purchase authorized reader hardware, agree to restrictive EULA, install insecure reader software", etc.

Consider a sale every now and again -- e.g. 25 standard copies at a discount, when they are sold out you have to pay full price again.

tl;dr on this section: Make it easier to pay for your work than to pirate it. Offer a product that is more valuable than the pirated version. Make the work accessible even to those that don't have a lot of money.

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