I had another piece on commercial art planned for today, but after the astonishing explosion on Twitter yesterday regarding this article on ebook readers in the New York Times, including an alleged quote by Shayna Englin at the end of the article that she and a friend share Kindle books on the same account, my plans changed. That article was all it took for authors across the Twitterverse to condemn Englin as a dirty rotten book stealer, despite the fact that what she’s doing is not only perfectly legal, but also explicitly allowed under Amazon’s terms of service. Terms, I must add, that have been negotiated with the publishers, since all of these distribution rights are contractually negotiated as part of those rights of distribution that are typically granted between authors and publishers, and publishers and booksellers. And the subsequent fallout brought out a lot of important issues for me, not the least of which is the latent, persistent suspicion aimed at ebook readers.

As a book reviewer and blogger, I have become accustomed to earning the wrath of authors. I have learned to look past the comments that have been made by authors about me and my friends/fellow bloggers in semi-private lists and board environments (and if you don’t think we find out about a lot of this stuff, well, think again). And it takes a great deal for me to find an author or publisher’s off-page comments or behavior egregious enough to keep me from buying and reading a great book. But one thing that will push me to that point is having a fellow reader who is reading ebooks perfectly legally and perfectly within copyright laws accused of stealing.

Yes, I realize that book piracy is a serious issue, but honestly, authors are in much greater danger from me, at least, of losing my reading loyalty because of the many things said yesterday than they are from piracy, in which I do not engage. Accusing Shayna Englin of piracy, theft, shady ethics, or the like, is, as far as I am concerned, the equivalent of accusing every law-abiding ebook reader of the same.

More disturbing even are the undercurrents through which book sharing is associated with piracy, in the same way that used book sales are sometimes viewed as depriving the author of legitimate royalties. Without tracking through a long discussion of why copyright must and does protect the public as well as the artist, I will say that one of the most fundamental concepts in copyright law is the First Sale Doctrine, which provides that once a copy of a book is sold, it becomes the property of the reader, who can, within certain limits, do what she wants with it – whether that be selling it to a used book store, giving it to a friend, or shredding it and throwing it in the recycler. We can buy as many copies as we want of a book, used and new, and share those copies with as many people as we want.

With ebooks, readers sacrifice a number of rights traditionally granted under copyright law for the convenience of reading electronically. We can’t return them to the bookstore; we can’t resell them; we can’t trade them or share them with just anyone. The only way the Kindle readers in the NYT story were able to share a book is because both of their Kindles are authorized under the same account, which means that either reader can charge books on that account (in other words, you really have to trust that other person!). Under the DMCA, it appears that it’s not even legal to back up an electronic copy of a book for personal use (although this issue has not yet been settled by a court). There are geographical restrictions and inexplicable difficulties in purchasing gift certificates for digital books. We routinely endure format and device incompatibilities, and, in the case of Kindle books, can have books we believe we have purchased erased by the bookseller. But I, and many, many other ebook readers are willing to make these sacrifices because we like reading digitally. In fact, as the NYT article pointed out, the convenience and portability of ebooks means that readers who choose digital often purchase more books than other avid book readers. Many of us have copies of the same book in digital and paper, and I can say from personal experience that it is much easier to make an impulse buy of a digital book than of a paper book, especially since I can do it virtually anytime, anywhere, without getting dressed, getting in the car, relying on an open bookstore with a certain book in stock. I have purchased a boatload of books (seriously, I’m relatively certain that all of my books would take up a rather large boat), and my ability to purchase more ebooks without sacrificing space for more bookshelves is an incredible incentive. That ability feeds my already strong book-buying instincts.

In the main, we ebook readers are loyal to the books; we’re the readers whose loyalty authors should want to cultivate. And thank you to all those authors out there who recognize that and who are gracious and supportive of those of us who enjoy digital books; your efforts are recognized and appreciated among readers. But for those authors who see piracy behind every ebook mention, and who believe that file sharing and/or digital piracy is ruining careers, I ask you to show me how, where, and in what numbers that’s actually occurring. Even beyond the evidence amassed from the music industry that file sharing has had numerous beneficial effects, if readers who obtain free books are ruining careers, shouldn’t those authors who give away books be the first to be ruined? And for those authors who point to tens of thousands of downloads of pirated books and ask me to acknowledge the grave damage of piracy, do you seriously equate each download with a lost sale? Do you really believe that all of those people are your readers? Or are they doing illegally what I do legally – checking out free books to see if they are any good?

I understand that many authors are not ebook readers themselves and that some greatly fear digitalization. But are those hypothetical worries more powerful than the legitimate, law-abiding, loyal readers you already have or are trying to cultivate through various promotional strategies? Because when you lash out at one of us, you indict all of us, and that, even more than the myriad difficulties I accept to purchase and read ebooks, will discourage me from buying any books, digital or paper.

This entry was posted by Robin on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 6:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.