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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 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.