How to "break the problem" of the vicious circle of e-book infringement?
◎Intern reporter Sun Mingyuan
It is precisely because e-books are more easily pirated that some authors and editors are reluctant to license electronic versions, and the popularity of scanned copies and leaked archives is a result of the absence of e-books.
Rather than saying that readers "have to read pirated copies", it is better to say that pirated copies have affected the normal chain of digitization of books, causing a vicious circle.
According to data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2022, the resilience of the development of new cultural formats in my country will continue to increase.
The digital publishing industry, one of the 16 industry sub-categories with obvious characteristics of new cultural business forms, achieved double-digit growth.
However, as one of the main product forms of digital publishing, the problem of e-book piracy and infringement still brings many troubles to the development of the industry.
At the end of 2022, Z-Library, a pirated e-book website, was shut down by relevant U.S. authorities. This incident aroused the attention of many reading lovers around the world for a while.
Undoubtedly, the dissemination of pirated books is an illegal act of infringement of intellectual property rights, but there are currently a large number of platforms and channels providing support for the dissemination of pirated e-books, many of which are sought after by users.
At the same time, e-book authors and publishers who have been victimized by piracy rarely have the opportunity to speak out, and there are not many voices defending them.
Piracy is supported by some users, and publishers are "suffering to say the least"... The problem of piracy of e-books is complex, and it is necessary to discuss the solution of it with multiple voices.
Pirated e-books are popular due to their advantages in distribution
For Ding Ning (pseudonym), a doctoral student in history studying at a university in Tianjin, reading is a "just need" for his study and work.
In order to conduct research and broaden his horizons, he reads a large number of Chinese and foreign books every year, some of which are pirated e-books he found.
University libraries, public archives, and open source materials on the Internet can meet most of Ding Ning's reading needs, but there are still many books that are not easy to obtain through formal channels.
When encountering the problem of "can't find the book", Ding Ning will choose to search for pirated e-books on the Internet.
Ding Ning said that many books do not have genuine e-books for sale, and the e-versions that can be found on the Internet are archives leaked from databases, or scanned versions made by the people.
If you want to read e-books, you can only choose pirated copies. Even if you want to spend money to read genuine books, there is nowhere to read them.
In addition, many out-of-print and foreign-language books can only be read as pirated e-books, unless readers are willing to pay extremely expensive prices for physical books.
A resource exchange website has an active user with the screen name "Beihai".
Beihai has been an active user of the book section of the website since 2016.
Beihai said that most of the sources of e-books he knows are legal e-book databases or sales platforms, and some e-books are scanned by book lovers themselves.
Some high-privilege accounts were able to obtain files from e-book databases and eventually leaked them online.
Many genuine e-books sold on e-book sales platforms can also be cracked, and users can copy and read them at will after cracking.
Therefore, in general, "e-books are not difficult to find", especially books published before 2015, most of which have scanned versions and are distributed online.
Beihai said that many people spread e-books just to help those in need, not to make a profit.
"People want to obtain information, but they have to face many unreasonable thresholds. Many books are overpriced, and there are even no genuine copies to buy, which cannot meet the needs of readers."
In Beihai's view, most of the money people pay for genuine books does not flow to the authors or translators, but falls into the hands of some publishers who own the copyright.
Beihai pointed out that this phenomenon is especially common in European and American academic publishing circles, and this phenomenon has boosted the popularity of scanned and pirated e-books.
"Although my country does not have the severe copyright monopoly as in Europe and the United States, the problems of expensive genuine books and inconvenient access and use still exist, not to mention that many books are still 'just needed' by everyone. In this case, pirated e-books came into being .” Bei Hai said.
"Piracy is certainly wrong, but when the development of genuine e-books is still imperfect, the ecological niche of piracy may be difficult to eliminate. In my opinion, piracy is a product of history. With the development of society, the rules will become more and more perfect. When With the further prosperity of information, piracy may disappear. Many years later, when we look back at today’s pirated e-books, it may be like watching pirated video games more than ten years ago.” Ding Ning said.
The cost of genuine e-books "cannot be underestimated"
Contrary to the cognition of some readers mentioned above, Qiu Yu (pseudonym) said two words "no" in a row in the face of the views that "e-books are worthless" and "publishers sit on the ground and raise prices".
Qiu Yu has been working in the book publishing industry for 6 years, and has been engaged in both physical book and e-book publishing.
Qiu Yu said that the public's perception of e-book publishing is often biased, especially the cost of e-book publishing is easy to underestimate.
Qiu Yu told reporters that the cost of publishing a genuine e-book is very high.
The first is the copyright fee paid to the author. Copyright is intellectual property, and the author's intellectual labor will not be devalued because the medium of the book is changed from paper to digital.
Copyright costs are often relatively high, especially for famous works.
Secondly, e-book production also requires a lot of investment.
Whether it is manual typesetting or computer conversion typesetting, text editors, art designers, and program developers must pay for it.
E-books have costs to produce, just like paper books.
Finally, publishers also need to pay distribution costs for e-books, including publicity and promotion costs, platform docking costs, and after-sales service costs.
These "last link" contributions are easily overlooked by the public, but they are essential.
Qiu Yu emphasized that the description of "publishers sitting on the ground and raising prices" does not apply to my country's current publishing industry.
Generally speaking, the prices of books in our country are more in line with market rules.
Many e-books are priced close to the paper version, which matches their cost.
"I hope readers can realize that the value of a book comes from the content, from the labor of the author and the publisher, not from the paper. After understanding this, you should no longer be concerned about the price of e-books. Doubtful."
In response to the impact of pirated e-books on the original version, Qiu Yu commented that the problem raised by some readers that "there is no electronic version of paper books" is actually caused by piracy.
It is precisely because e-books are more easily pirated that some authors and editors are reluctant to license electronic versions, and the popularity of scanned copies and leaked archives is a result of the absence of e-books.
Rather than saying that readers "have to read pirated copies", it is better to say that pirated copies have affected the normal chain of digitization of books, causing a vicious circle.
The e-book industry ecology still needs to be built
The lack of genuine editions leads to piracy, piracy affects the development of genuine editions, and readers lack understanding of publishers... The problems behind the popularity of pirated e-books can be described as interlocking.
Guo Jing, director of the Editing and Publishing Department of the School of Journalism and Communication of Henan University, said that the sound development of my country's e-book industry is inseparable from the joint participation and active coordination of the country, industry and society.
Guo Jing believes that there is still room for improvement in my country's copyright collective management system, and digital copyright and related laws and regulations still need to be improved.
Copyright protection technology also has to keep pace with the times to provide support for e-book copyright protection.
In addition, my country's e-book industry still has overlapping upstream and downstream businesses and vicious competition in the industry.
These situations have also had a negative impact on the protection of e-book copyright resources.
All parties in the industry chain should work together and share resources in order to promote the sound development of my country's e-book market.
Ding Ning hopes that our country can pay attention to the digitization of old books, ancient books, and various archives, and unblock the public's access to knowledge.
"If people can smoothly obtain high-quality electronic publishing resources in a legal way and at a reasonable price, pirated e-books with poor scanning and typesetting quality, difficult retrieval, and lack of supporting services will naturally be eliminated."
Qiu Yu hopes that Chinese readers will continue to raise awareness of digital copyright protection.
As a practitioner, he believes that the improvement of the publishing industry is inseparable from the understanding and support of readers.
Beihai told reporters that in recent years, the copyright protection of e-books on the Internet has been significantly improved.
"Books published after 2019 are not easy to find. In fact, we don't advocate piracy, and we are willing to spend money to support genuine ones. We just hope that the book market in China will get better and better, so that everyone can read more books conveniently. Books." Bei Hai said with a smile.