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kaigouETA NOTE: yes, yes, yes, I know the legality already, and I understand that there are "people out there" who would gladly send of eighty PDF-copies to various broke friends. That's not really my issue, nor the real point of my rant, otaykthx.
I purchased three ebooks from Fictionwise a few nights ago, but what I got delivered were two books I wanted and a third I'd removed from my list (and no sign of the third that I had wanted). So much for customer service, people: not a peep out of those bastards, despite their "we'll respond in 24 hours, no srsly!" Look, I know it's an ebook, but I didn't want it, and I certainly hadn't had any reason to think the system would get whacked somehow and send it to me anyway. What do I do, promise to delete it? It's not like I'm going to read it, which would be the point of traditional brick-front stores (and hardcopy books): to sometimes take it back and say, "I'm sorry, I thought this was a different book, I'd like to exchange this for the book I do want."
Meanwhile, I came across this in the Fictionwise pages, while trying to find some address somewhere for who to contact about their screwed-up shopping cart.
Except that when I purchase a book, it's a fair possibility that down the road I will GIVE THIS BOOK AWAY. At the very least, I will loan it out (and that's assuming I ever get it back). Book readers, especially those who devour at top speed, have a long and satisfying informal tradition of book exchanging. You can't help it. It's like people who sew and hand over patterns without a second thought, or people who loan out CDs so friends can listen and see what they think.
The notion that when I purchased a book, and now have a paid-for copy, that I cannot then say, "here, I thought it was only okay, but you might like it, have it" -- the notion that this is abruptly illegal really pisses me off. Because y'know what? I BOUGHT THAT COPY. If you want to be treated as a honest-to-dog book publisher, then don't go changing the rules of the game on me: I buy with the knowledge that some amount of my money is an investment in being able to give the book to someone else down the road. Otherwise, you'd damn well better charge me even less than the pittance you're charging me now.
See, to clarify: the reason I brought up the absolute silence from Fictionwise AND their ultimatum about OMG Illegal! is that I'm assuming all the risk here, folks. I can't GIVE the book away if I don't like it, and I sure as hell can't RETURN it. This is not, in my opinion, the way you treat a customer. At some point you do have to assume good-faith. Maybe, I dunno, allow people a maximum number of returns/mistakes, with explanation. "The book freaking sucks." Or, "it's not the one I wanted." Or whatever.
If I purchase a book and then discover it's so horrendously bad that I turn around and send it back within, say, AN HOUR of download, either I read so blazingly fast that I'm part-machine or I'm genuinely serious that I figured out immediately that the book is THAT BAD (or that it's just plain not the one I thought it was, or that it was a system error).
More to my actual issue: I put in my order, got the download notification and within two minutes put in an email saying, "this isn't what I wanted, could I exchange or something?" No reply. I sent a follow-up the next day. Still no reply. HELLO MORONS your customer service is so bad it's making some of the tripe you're selling actually look GOOD. If I had waited a day, yeah, I could see someone being skeptical: but two minutes of timestamp between purchase and complaint? Hello? I'm just SAYING.
But, nooooo. As long as the distributor insists on assuming I'm a criminal mind from the get-go, though, then obviously they're justified in their own minds in refusing to give me back my money even if it was their system's screwup: because then they're letting me scam them. And clearly that's my only purpose in trying to pay only for what I do want and trying to not-pay for what I don't want. AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGHHHH.
This business model's attitude pisses me off.
Almost as much as -- or maybe the same amount as -- some scanlation groups. I get that it's work, I get that it money- and time-eating to find someone who can get the Japanese, Chinese, Korean copies, scan them, translate, remove the original language and photoshop in the translations, bundle and distribute. You are certainly welcome to a page that says, "here are the folks involved in doing this."
You are not necessarily entitled to eight pages of advertising about your group, demands for volunteers, reminders of how this is YOUR scanlation and don't distribute elsewhere, random large images with "Happy Xmas!" or "Have a Great Fourth of July!" often with random too-cutesy comments about the image being used, along with the obligatory "this is our fourth anniversary!" or "happy birthday to this person!" additional pages as well... so I have to flip, flip, flip through eight, nine, sometimes more pages of stuff that has no bearing except to irritate me and then?
The stupid chapter is TWELVE PAGES LONG.
See, this is what I call FILLER, people. And it's not necessarily making me like you much. Honestly. If it's not bad enough that some groups have to have additional images tacked onto every distribution -- look, fanart! look, holiday announcements! look, at least THREE reminders that you spent time and money and how DARE I even CONSIDER letting anyone even KNOW I have a copy let alone forwarding to a friend to read! (and we're back to that who-has-the-right issue...)
Really, put it all on one page. Please, and then cut to the chase and let me read the freaking story you claim is actually buried in there. Somewhere.
(Not like I care too much. I get a file these days, and I automatically unzip. Then I do a macro-search on a number of terms: every known scanlation group, unusual characters like # and ~ and !, the words "credit" and "recruit" and "help" and "want" and "day" and so on. Everything I find, I DELETE. Then I re-zip, and look at that, I have just the freaking signal and none of the noise.)
But you want to know why I find it particularly annoying, enough that I don't give a damn anymore whether I'm deleting all credit for the folks who worked so hard?
Because group after group puts in reminders that this is THEIR WORK and I should GIVE CREDIT and I should NOT CHANGE A THING and I should NOT TRANSLATE FURTHER without THEIR PERMISSION and WAH WAH WAH...
And yet -- here's the kicker: every single one of these messages is its own JPG or PNG and each reminder has at least one image from a manga.
WITH NO CREDIT ATTACHED.
Yeah, I see just how freaking responsible you are, people. It's one thing to use an image that's from the actual manga that follows the two, four, eight, TEN pages of whatever noise. It's another thing altogether when it's four or five pages in a row with these illustrations from other manga, by other artists, and there's not a single bleeding line like:
"Image from _____, artist is _____."
This credit thing's gotta work both ways. That goes for the ebook publishers -- who need to recognize that I can feasibly hand over a copy of my purchased book, regardless of format, to someone else and never read it again myself, and that this option is one of the reasons I purchase books rather than just check them out from the library. And that also goes for the scanlators -- who need to realize that if you want me to respect the work you've done, then don't throw it in my face that you'll commandeer someone else's work, without credit at all, for the purposes of your own hypocritical reminders to me that I should never ever distribute your work without crediting you.
Yeah, right. I got yer freaking credit RIGHT HERE, baby.
I purchased three ebooks from Fictionwise a few nights ago, but what I got delivered were two books I wanted and a third I'd removed from my list (and no sign of the third that I had wanted). So much for customer service, people: not a peep out of those bastards, despite their "we'll respond in 24 hours, no srsly!" Look, I know it's an ebook, but I didn't want it, and I certainly hadn't had any reason to think the system would get whacked somehow and send it to me anyway. What do I do, promise to delete it? It's not like I'm going to read it, which would be the point of traditional brick-front stores (and hardcopy books): to sometimes take it back and say, "I'm sorry, I thought this was a different book, I'd like to exchange this for the book I do want."
Meanwhile, I came across this in the Fictionwise pages, while trying to find some address somewhere for who to contact about their screwed-up shopping cart.
Am I allowed to email an eBook to a friend of mine?
Sorry, that is not allowed by law. These stories are copyrighted. If you email a file to a friend, you are making a copy of it. You would be committing a crime. The file is licensed to you and you alone. It's not like a physical book that you can loan to a friend. When you purchase and download an eBook from Fictionwise.com, you alone are authorized to read it. You can download it onto multiple devices, for example a Palm and also your home PC. That's allowed by your personal license. But you cannot send copies to any other person.
Besides being illegal, making an unauthorized copy of a work deprives the author of their fair royalty, and makes it harder for us to acquire more content in the future. If we catch a violator, we will prosecute him or her to the fullest extent of the law, which can include heavy fines and even imprisonment. So please don't do it. We charge reasonable prices, don't steal from us and our authors.
Except that when I purchase a book, it's a fair possibility that down the road I will GIVE THIS BOOK AWAY. At the very least, I will loan it out (and that's assuming I ever get it back). Book readers, especially those who devour at top speed, have a long and satisfying informal tradition of book exchanging. You can't help it. It's like people who sew and hand over patterns without a second thought, or people who loan out CDs so friends can listen and see what they think.
The notion that when I purchased a book, and now have a paid-for copy, that I cannot then say, "here, I thought it was only okay, but you might like it, have it" -- the notion that this is abruptly illegal really pisses me off. Because y'know what? I BOUGHT THAT COPY. If you want to be treated as a honest-to-dog book publisher, then don't go changing the rules of the game on me: I buy with the knowledge that some amount of my money is an investment in being able to give the book to someone else down the road. Otherwise, you'd damn well better charge me even less than the pittance you're charging me now.
See, to clarify: the reason I brought up the absolute silence from Fictionwise AND their ultimatum about OMG Illegal! is that I'm assuming all the risk here, folks. I can't GIVE the book away if I don't like it, and I sure as hell can't RETURN it. This is not, in my opinion, the way you treat a customer. At some point you do have to assume good-faith. Maybe, I dunno, allow people a maximum number of returns/mistakes, with explanation. "The book freaking sucks." Or, "it's not the one I wanted." Or whatever.
If I purchase a book and then discover it's so horrendously bad that I turn around and send it back within, say, AN HOUR of download, either I read so blazingly fast that I'm part-machine or I'm genuinely serious that I figured out immediately that the book is THAT BAD (or that it's just plain not the one I thought it was, or that it was a system error).
More to my actual issue: I put in my order, got the download notification and within two minutes put in an email saying, "this isn't what I wanted, could I exchange or something?" No reply. I sent a follow-up the next day. Still no reply. HELLO MORONS your customer service is so bad it's making some of the tripe you're selling actually look GOOD. If I had waited a day, yeah, I could see someone being skeptical: but two minutes of timestamp between purchase and complaint? Hello? I'm just SAYING.
But, nooooo. As long as the distributor insists on assuming I'm a criminal mind from the get-go, though, then obviously they're justified in their own minds in refusing to give me back my money even if it was their system's screwup: because then they're letting me scam them. And clearly that's my only purpose in trying to pay only for what I do want and trying to not-pay for what I don't want. AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGHHHH.
This business model's attitude pisses me off.
Almost as much as -- or maybe the same amount as -- some scanlation groups. I get that it's work, I get that it money- and time-eating to find someone who can get the Japanese, Chinese, Korean copies, scan them, translate, remove the original language and photoshop in the translations, bundle and distribute. You are certainly welcome to a page that says, "here are the folks involved in doing this."
You are not necessarily entitled to eight pages of advertising about your group, demands for volunteers, reminders of how this is YOUR scanlation and don't distribute elsewhere, random large images with "Happy Xmas!" or "Have a Great Fourth of July!" often with random too-cutesy comments about the image being used, along with the obligatory "this is our fourth anniversary!" or "happy birthday to this person!" additional pages as well... so I have to flip, flip, flip through eight, nine, sometimes more pages of stuff that has no bearing except to irritate me and then?
The stupid chapter is TWELVE PAGES LONG.
See, this is what I call FILLER, people. And it's not necessarily making me like you much. Honestly. If it's not bad enough that some groups have to have additional images tacked onto every distribution -- look, fanart! look, holiday announcements! look, at least THREE reminders that you spent time and money and how DARE I even CONSIDER letting anyone even KNOW I have a copy let alone forwarding to a friend to read! (and we're back to that who-has-the-right issue...)
Really, put it all on one page. Please, and then cut to the chase and let me read the freaking story you claim is actually buried in there. Somewhere.
(Not like I care too much. I get a file these days, and I automatically unzip. Then I do a macro-search on a number of terms: every known scanlation group, unusual characters like # and ~ and !, the words "credit" and "recruit" and "help" and "want" and "day" and so on. Everything I find, I DELETE. Then I re-zip, and look at that, I have just the freaking signal and none of the noise.)
But you want to know why I find it particularly annoying, enough that I don't give a damn anymore whether I'm deleting all credit for the folks who worked so hard?
Because group after group puts in reminders that this is THEIR WORK and I should GIVE CREDIT and I should NOT CHANGE A THING and I should NOT TRANSLATE FURTHER without THEIR PERMISSION and WAH WAH WAH...
And yet -- here's the kicker: every single one of these messages is its own JPG or PNG and each reminder has at least one image from a manga.
WITH NO CREDIT ATTACHED.
Yeah, I see just how freaking responsible you are, people. It's one thing to use an image that's from the actual manga that follows the two, four, eight, TEN pages of whatever noise. It's another thing altogether when it's four or five pages in a row with these illustrations from other manga, by other artists, and there's not a single bleeding line like:
"Image from _____, artist is _____."
This credit thing's gotta work both ways. That goes for the ebook publishers -- who need to recognize that I can feasibly hand over a copy of my purchased book, regardless of format, to someone else and never read it again myself, and that this option is one of the reasons I purchase books rather than just check them out from the library. And that also goes for the scanlators -- who need to realize that if you want me to respect the work you've done, then don't throw it in my face that you'll commandeer someone else's work, without credit at all, for the purposes of your own hypocritical reminders to me that I should never ever distribute your work without crediting you.
Yeah, right. I got yer freaking credit RIGHT HERE, baby.
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no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 12:09 am (UTC)I understand that you may want to give a book away and not read it again. I really do--it's one of my main gripes too. But at the same time, I can see how publishers think they would minimise the piracy issue by saying you cannot do it at all. I don't know about you, but I believe that until/unless some sort of system is sorted out for giving away ebooks, that allowing such trading is going to be subject to a lot of abuse.
By the way, I remember seeing an LJ notice that you friended me. Would you happen to remember how you found me? I was just kinda surprised, because you friended me at a time when I wasn't blogging very much.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 12:21 am (UTC)I just don't think it's good business practice to treat your customer like s/he is automatically going to be a thief if you don't slap eighteen different "don't you dare!" signs all over the place.
Actually, I think you friended me awhile back, and I reciprocated. Hrm, I'm not sure, but it might've been after I did the post on Anne Rice and LK Hamilton? Somewhere around there? Not sure.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 12:31 am (UTC)Huh. I could have sworn it would be the other way round--especially since I have no idea what Rice/Hamilton post you're talking about. Thanks for indulging my curiosity anyway!
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:08 am (UTC)Well, my cynical side says that ebook publishers do their best to slant ebooks in under CD/DVD copyright law rather than hardcopy-book law, because that way they never have to give you a refund for having sold you a book that truly absolutely STINKS. Or, like two different PDFs I've gotten from Fictionwise, so badly and thoroughly mangled on the formatting that entire paragraphs, even scenes, were unreadable -- and I mean that in a very literal, "all the letters are run together and there's no punctuation" sense. But, hey, no refund! You bought the license!
It takes caveat emptor to a degree way, way beyond what I'll willingly suffer, as a consumer.
And yes, I have returned books for reasons other than just "a friend gave me this and I already have a copy" or some other no-fault reason. Like... "This book had more spelling errors than a second-grade paper on upper-level physics. This house-design book had the exact same first paragraph in three different chapters; I think the editor was on crack."
I have even returned a book with the explanation of, "I got a chapter into the book and realized it's absolute, complete tripe and I patently refuse to let my money support any author who'd think that's worth my cash -- let someone else buy the book who doesn't have my standards, and maybe we'll all die happy."
And I used to own a bookstore, for crying out loud.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 07:34 pm (UTC)Plus, at this point in my life (I'm probably going to moving once a year for at least another two years), ebooks cannot compare with print.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 12:41 am (UTC)I don't know for sure, but I think that there are some files out there with Digital Rights Management that allow a certain number of copies to be made, so you could send one to someone, but because this is making physical copies of the book instead of using the original file and having it be read by friends, it definitely goes against copyright to just allow anyone to copy as much as they want.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:02 am (UTC)Most people are already aware that xeroxing a book and distributing the xerox (or a PDF of the xerox or scan) is illegal. I don't think that's really in question -- because those who'd scan/distribute a book (and there have been those, in the past) are those who'll continue doing it regardless of original format.
It's the rest of us, who genuinely act with a reader's best interest, who may chafe at such restrictions... or, in my case, chafe more at just plain being treated like I'm OMG! Stealing from the author! Being bad! Going to JAIL! for wanting to be able to give away a book that I'm finished reading, didn't finish reading, or had wanted to give as a gift in the first place. Whatever.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:04 am (UTC)If you want to lend the book to someone, why not put the file on a CD and give that to them? That would be the same as borrowing. Creating a duplicate file and sending to someone would not.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:09 am (UTC)It's like spaghetti: do you put the sauce on the side, or on top? Because it all ends up in the same place...
If I send you a file, and then I delete it from my hard drive (sometimes with great glee), is this more, or less, to the spirit of the law than if I burn a copy and mail it to you, instead, and then delete it from my hard-drive?
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:16 am (UTC)What I'm saying is that if/when I don't WANT the book, normally, I can give it to someone else. That person now has the 'ownership' of the right. Being told I could never, ever, EVER give someone else ownership of a PDF is basically saying: you bought it, you can't do anything with it except read it in limited formats, you can't print it out, you can't let anyone else read it, and oh, if you don't like it, we won't refund it anyway because we just KNOW you're keeping a copy and trying to scam us.
What do I have to do, sign a freaking affidavit that says, "no, honestly, give me back my $5 or let me sign a transfer-of-ownership paper because THIS BOOK SUCKED and I do NOT want a copy remaining on my harddrive kthxstfubai."
Although to some extent, it's really academic. I will damn well do what I please with what I spend money on, within the bounds of the law, per what seems reasonable to me. Besides, I've got to find a way to recoup my losses from stupid-ass wastes of time and money, even if that amounts to giving those losses away so at least someone can enjoy them..!
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:18 am (UTC)And this is the reason most publishers really don't touch eBooks.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:12 am (UTC)It's the same as if you buy a CD and say, I can't stand this... but JF would like it, so you toss it her way when she's over. That's what I dislike being told I can't do, and further implying that if I even consider it, oh noes it's a criminal act!
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:21 am (UTC)There's the other side of this too, and that's how exactly they'd ever find out you gave a friend or two an ebook. That's a complete other story though.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 04:56 am (UTC)In other words, it's possible to recoup your losses in one way or another if the product is unsatisfactory... but not with ebooks. They won't allow for deletions/credit, and they won't allow transfer of license. That boils down to: we got your money and if we catch you doing anything that we say you can't do, we'll come after your ass!
It's just annoying.
(And besides, it's a distracting rant from bigger current issues, and isn't that the entire point of indulging in a good rant, so I don't have to actually pay attention to important stuff?)
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 01:43 am (UTC)(this from a dirty rotten scanlator, though*cough*)
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 05:00 am (UTC)That's the theory.
I think, though, there's something to be said for the fact that when someone finds an author they really do like, they do support that author. For someone who's limited income, or in a part of the world that can't get the book, whatever, what I've seen is that they choose other ways to 'expand' the author's scope, as a sort of moneyless pay-back. They'll blog about it, they'll rave, they'll whine about not having the money to "have their very own copy", etc.
You may scanlate and I may download, but the stories that really impress me are ones I go buy when they're licensed. The ones I don't buy?...well, I wouldn't have bought them anyway, then. The ones I do buy? I buy only because I had exposure to them in some other -- specifically riskless -- venue.
When the risks outweigh the benefits, for me as a consumer, then suddenly I find other places to risk my money. (Not to mention places where I won't get treated like I'm a scammer from the very start.)
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 05:57 am (UTC)Well, that's the difference between you and 95% of those who download scanlations. Most leechers will not buy the licenced versions even when they do become available because they're "poor high school/college/graduate students" or, my favorite excuse, because they "simply can't support a licensor who doesn't use the original san/sama/kun honorifics and so I won't give them my money, because they clearly has no respect for the original work/Japanese language/culture etc. etc."
As for the ebook company's policies - the hardline stance they take is not just to deter the Thems of the world, but also a CYA to placate the authors who choose to distro through them. If I were an author who sold my book through that company I'd want that assurance that they'd go to bat for me to the fullest extent of the law in the unlikely event that someone rips me off. It's entirely your choice if you don't want to shop where you're treated like a potential thief from the start, but that's sort of like saying you won't shop in stores that have CCTV surveillance or those weirdly angled mirrors. ...maybe you don't. I dunno.XD Point being, it would be great if we lived in a world where everyone could be trusted to do the right thing, but we don't, *especially* where the Internet is concerned. And so everything necessarily has to be geared towards treating everybody as a potential criminal. I guess the trick is not to take it personally.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 06:17 am (UTC)As for shopping in a store with CCTV -- it's the tone that's bugging me, and the attitude, not the actual business practice. Every store has security. Every online shop is going to do its best to protect its product from scammers.
But for crying out loud, at least the CCTV-operating businesses will still let me RETURN an unsatisfactory product. There may be specifics of when and why and where and how, but it's still possible. They don't expect me to assume the entire risk.
If you do, as a business, expect me to shoulder all risk for purchase, then you'd damn well better expect that I may retaliate by breaking each and every single rule you lay down. Maybe that's ornery, but I betcha that's a good chunk of the human nature that drives such pirating. The distribution/licensing company takes forever to translate and publish, or doesn't ever deliver on the day it says a product will be released, or delivers a badly-translated product: well, screw them, I'll keep distributing the old fan-translations! The ebooks company repeatedly delivers a badly-formatted, mispelled, editorially-whacked product, or has teasers that don't match the actual story, or won't refund when it's an honest mistake? Well, screw them!
It's like being pissed off by a bad meal at a restaurant. What can you do, except tip less? This doesn't have any real impact on the cook (the publisher); the waiter (author) must bear the burden, but how else can you -- as a consumer -- demonstrate your ire at bad service?
I'd think an author would be equally bothered by that, enough to ask, "while I want them to protect my work as part of their distribution license, do I really want them alienating my potential market in the process?" -- because a pissed-off customer will always, always do ten times the damage that a pleased customer could do good. That's one of the first rules of a customer-geared business. I just find it baffling (and infuriating) that the ebook industry is so caught up in terrors of pirating behind every freaking rock that it seems to have forgotten that fundamental rule.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 06:28 am (UTC)and a no return/no exchange policy is standard practice in shops here. Especially in bookstores. In fact when I went to the US I was quite shocked to find that I could, in theory, buy a book, read it, and return it afterwards and get all my money back, no questions asked. (I once overheard a couple of bookstore clerks talking about a girl who made a practice of buying a stack of manga and returning it all a week later.) Not that I ever took advantage of it though.
no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Apr 2008 05:03 am (UTC)I would spend a lot less per year on texts if I knew that I could never, ever return a book, and if I knew that the book could never be sold nor given away, either. It's like, I dunno, the ebook industry needs some kind of lemon law (how the hell would you do that?) -- or at very least, a window of grace: if you put in an order and need to cancel, you have an hour to do so. That would at least allow for issues like mine, where the book that showed up for download wasn't what I'd wanted -- whether because of system error, or similar title, or confusing whatever.
Just saying if you're going to force a consumer to take on all the risk, then don't freaking threaten me with legal action on top of it. Fer crying out loud.