Piracy in the Go industry.

[Redundant]

Looks like the pirates have won.

Lol. I can guarantee it's not because of piracy. I just checked to see if I would be able to pirate one of your recent books "Meijin's Retirement Game", and the answer is no. If I can't pirate something within a couple minutes, the ordinary person won't find it at all.

TL;DR Go books are mostly too niche to be pirated.

[oren]

Looks like the pirates have won.

No, the Pirates are 72-90. They haven't won much in many years.

[amnal]

Looks like the pirates have won.

Lol. I can guarantee it's not because of piracy. I just checked to see if I would be able to pirate one of your recent books "Meijin's Retirement Game", and the answer is no. If I can't pirate something within a couple minutes, the ordinary person won't find it at all.

TL;DR Go books are mostly too niche to be pirated.

I have no idea to what extent piracy affects the go book market, but I think the evidence for your conclusion is insufficient. Whilst it may be difficult to pirate the specific go book 'Meijin's retirement game', many other go books are easily obtained. I know several people who have done so, apparently thinking little of it, and a quick search for 'go book torrent' returns several large torrents.

[Redundant]

Looks like the pirates have won.

Lol. I can guarantee it's not because of piracy. I just checked to see if I would be able to pirate one of your recent books "Meijin's Retirement Game", and the answer is no. If I can't pirate something within a couple minutes, the ordinary person won't find it at all.

TL;DR Go books are mostly too niche to be pirated.

I have no idea to what extent piracy affects the go book market, but I think the evidence for your conclusion is insufficient. Whilst it may be difficult to pirate the specific go book 'Meijin's retirement game', many other go books are easily obtained. I know several people who have done so, apparently thinking little of it, and a quick search for 'go book torrent' returns several large torrents.

All of the easily pirated go books are what one would consider classics. In order for them to be pirated, you need someone interested enough to scan the entire thing and compile it. This won't happen for just any go book. In fact, the only go books I've seen available in these formats are what one would consider classics. Those books became so by word of mouth and what I'd assume to be worthwhile sales.

On another topic, I mostly wanted to just poke a small hole in John's persecution complex when it comes to piracy. I'm annoyed with him blaming difficulties in the go book market on piracy.

[John Fairbairn]

All of the easily pirated go books are what one would consider classics. In order for them to be pirated, you need someone interested enough to scan the entire thing and compile it. This won't happen for just any go book. In fact, the only go books I've seen available in these formats are what one would consider classics. Those books became so by word of mouth and what I'd assume to be worthwhile sales.

On another topic, I mostly wanted to just poke a small hole in John's persecution complex when it comes to piracy. I'm annoyed with him blaming difficulties in the go book market on piracy.

This really is remarkably silly. Even I have seen almost every modern English go book easily available as a pdf download, and I even know the name of the person responsible.

I very recently mentioned here that I had apparently underestimated the role of piracy in book sales - knew it existed but thought that 99% of go players could be trusted - but I was persuaded by others in the book business that it was indeed a problem. I hardly think that's a persecution complex. Even now, whether it really does affect the market I still don't know. I do know that a properly printed go book written by me has appeared in Russian - kindly brought to my attention by Alexandre Dinerchtein. Even though this was without my prior knowledge or approval, and of course without royalties, the site advertising it uses my name as a selling point. I do know that my Shogi for Beginners book has been sold in other languages and without my approval. So piracy exists in both paper and digital form. I still have no idea what effect it has on the market, but common sense - not a persecution complex - suggests an answer or two.

The only sensible reason that occurs to me without thinking deeply why someone should be "annoyed" because I suspect piracy, is that they have a guilt complex. I'm sure that's wrong here and I expect, as an L19 frequenter, the anonymous Mr Annoyed has bought every go book. But rather than bar-room psychologists like him and Helel spouting drivel about my motivations, could they perhaps devote their great intellects to to explaining to the rest of us why the book market is so dire?

[Redundant]

This really is remarkably silly. Even I have seen almost every modern English go book easily available as a pdf download, and I even know the name of the person responsible.

And I just showed that this is false. It's not easily available if it's not something one can find in a quick google search, a quick library.nu search and a quick search on some private bittorrent sites.

The only sensible reason that occurs to me without thinking deeply why someone should be "annoyed" because I suspect piracy, is that they have a guilt complex. I'm sure that's wrong here and I expect, as an L19 frequenter, the anonymous Mr Annoyed has bought every go book.

I'm annoyed because you jump to piracy and blame it when free availability of ebooks has a track record of actually improving sales (see Cory Doctorow, Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker, and the time when Neil Gaiman's American Gods was free on his website).

Don't attack me for having some anonymity, but if it matters to you, my name is Travis Nell, I was born in Port Washington, Wisconsin. I'm 20 years old, turning 21 this month. I'm a mathematics major at Carnegie Mellon University. Not sure how that makes anything different.

Also, there's no way in hell I'm every buying anything from you. Your contributions to the go community and this forum may be impressive, but reading some of your posts makes me realize that I simply do not like you as a person and do not wish you to have any of my money.

But rather than bar-room psychologists like him and Helel spouting drivel about my motivations, could they perhaps devote their great intellects to to explaining to the rest of us why the book market is so dire?

Not my responsibility. You claimed that the pirates have won. The burden of proof lies on you. I raised what I consider to be a good objection.

[daniel_the_smith]

I actually think John is right. The pirates will win, even if they haven't quite yet, because the universe is now stacked in their favor. The marginal costs of spreading information are simply too low; people realize this and are coming to expect information to be free. The current system is optimized for a world in which we no longer live, and we won't be able to change the universe back. The only reason there's still some question about this that some (many? most?) people feel an obligation to reward the originator of good information. It's a tragedy of the commons.

Obviously if we want people like John to keep writing books, eventually we will have to find some other way of rewarding them for it. One possible model would be for content creators to accept donations towards their next book/album/etc, and when they feel they have enough, release it freely. Or perhaps release a chapter at a time when enough people have made a contribution since the last one. People who donate enough get an actual hardcopy, or something like that. If I were creating book-like content, I'd try something like that.

[tchan001]

I can certainly say I have bought many many physical go books and have supported the go book market.

As to an alternative way to reward go book authors, perhaps something like kickstarter?

[tchan001]

Obviously if we want people like John to keep writing books, eventually we will have to find some other way of rewarding them for it.

I mostly agree with you but I think you're actually wrong in this. Human creativity is unstoppable.
You can throw people in prison, persecute them, and commit all kinds of atrocities.
They will still create!

You still need to find a way to feed them first.

[daniel_the_smith]

Obviously if we want people like John to keep writing books, eventually we will have to find some other way of rewarding them for it.

I mostly agree with you but I think you're actually wrong in this. Human creativity is unstoppable.
You can throw people in prison, persecute them, and commit all kinds of atrocities.
They will still create!

Sure. And my point is, people capable of creating stuff I want to read shouldn't have to have a "day job", it slows them down. It seems that society will have to switch from paying to consume material, to paying for the creation of material. John doesn't like it, record companies and publishers don't like it, either. Kindle and nook users are paying for the convenience, not the content. But the writing is on the wall. The universe changed. Actual physical books will not go away, but they will become much rarer, equivalent to today's collector's edition of DVDs and video games.

[John Fairbairn]

And I just showed that this is false. It's not easily available if it's not something one can find in a quick google search, a quick library.nu search and a quick search on some private bittorrent sites.

As a budding mathematician you may wish to learn what proof means. I have just typed in two words (obviously I won't reveal them) into Google, and it gave me 4,095 hits in 0.19 seconds. The relevant sites appeared at the top of the list, and clicking on the first gave 114 go books all with covers and all offered as a free pdf download. This is far from the only site, of course.

I mostly agree with you but I think you're actually wrong in this. Human creativity is unstoppable. You can throw people in prison, persecute them, and commit all kinds of atrocities. They will still create!

I think there is a germ of truth in this, but will they create go books? I am no longer working on go books, and I know others who have essentially made the same decision. I and those people are likely to work on something else, hopefully creative - and quite possibly in go, but then maybe not. I can't imagine too many new people trying to produce printed go books, no matter how creative they feel.

As it happens, I accept the the world has changed irrevocably, which is why use computers, for example, also why I made my decision. But pirates are still pirates even if they win. As I've said previously, I'll keep an eye on e-books instead but I don't expect much there for quite some time, on the basis of early returns. Some of the slowness appears to be due precisely to concerns of publishers about piracy. A lot of time is apparently spent the product locks tamper-proof. The self-hyping stories about authors who sell cheap or give away free on the internet and still make a killing probably belong to the same fantasy business-school models as the guy who built a better mousetrap, but they are certainly not likely to apply to the western go world.

[amnal]

All of the easily pirated go books are what one would consider classics. In order for them to be pirated, you need someone interested enough to scan the entire thing and compile it. This won't happen for just any go book. In fact, the only go books I've seen available in these formats are what one would consider classics. Those books became so by word of mouth and what I'd assume to be worthwhile sales.

To a go book publisher, what you just said may sound more like 'If your book is popular, it will be pirated. But don't worry, the less popular books will be unaffected!'.

As a separate point, it isn't obvious to me that your assertion is true.

I'm annoyed because you jump to piracy and blame it when free availability of ebooks has a track record of actually improving sales

This is also a dubious argument. It isn't clear to me to what extent this effect is due to the extremely high profile of the event, along with its (currently) rare occurrence.

I'd like to reiterate that I have no idea to what extent piracy really affects the market, and I'm not saying you're wrong, just unjustified (and perhaps a little naive) in these cases.

[Redundant]

And I just showed that this is false. It's not easily available if it's not something one can find in a quick google search, a quick library.nu search and a quick search on some private bittorrent sites.

As a budding mathematician you may wish to learn what proof means. I have just typed in two words (obviously I won't reveal them) into Google, and it gave me 4,095 hits in 0.19 seconds. The relevant sites appeared at the top of the list, and clicking on the first gave 114 go books all with covers and all offered as a free pdf download. This is far from the only site, of course.

A proof of a well formed formula f in a system F from a set of hypotheses H is a sequence of well formed formula f_1,f_2,...,f_n such that f_n=f and for all i, either f_i is an axiom of the system F, a member of H, or f_i can be derived from the set of f_j with j<i by a rule of inference of f.

I define a title easily available if a search of the title on a popular site gives a download link. Anything else requires more effort to find. Most people will give up before reaching that point.

The statement I wished to show with my example is: "the set of not easily available go books is nonempty". (In fact I showed that your most recent book is not easily available in pirated form.) The statement you showed is: "the set of easily available go books is nonempty". These are not at all the same statement, so you should really not lecture me in propositional logic. I would contend that the set of not-easily attainable books is large compared to the set of easily attainable books, with the latter containing mostly well known and popular titles, but I do not have proof of this, as proving it is O(n) in the number of go books available.

As you started by flaming me, I'll include my own little flame.

As a supposed writer, you may wish to learn not to create straw men.

EDIT: I'll respond to Amnal after I go hand in my algebra homework.

[mlund]

It really comes down the the gap between what a hobbyist will produce vs. a professional. In some cases the gap between hobbyist and professional in a field isn't significant enough for the consumer market to care about. In other cases it is a huge gulf. Ever tried to make a cars-and-explosions action movie on an indy budget? It isn't going to happen.

Yes, people will create, but most people create absolute garbage. Just look at the wasteland of unfinished novels, draft manuscripts, and fan-fiction that floods the internet. We take the quality of professional work for granted and it disappears without patronage.

The model before the age of easy electronic piracy was corporate patronage sustained by a commercial market. The post-piracy model is going to have to be something else. It'll probably evolve into a neo-Renaissance model. In the classical Renaissance model a professional artist existed at the pleasure of a rich patron, following his orders and delivering commissioned work. The unwashed masses got no say since they didn't pay. In the new Renaissance model you'll probably see (ugh) state patronage of media and "patronage circles" forming out of fan-bases that are still willing to pay-for-play. You'll see corporate patronage only through secure streaming ports. Encrypted media streams will be common and owning your own physical or digital copies of professional works will become a "premium" option you can buy on back-end of a product's life-cycle. It'll definitely change the complexion of bookstores, and eventually libraries.

- Marty Lund

[Solomon]

Mostly using this thread as a placeholder to put all the piracy debate from another thread since it's derailed. Hopefully things remain civil.