speaking of piracy.....I bought some old hindi movie vcd's in a store in California, made by a company called Sadaf. It looked all authentic, and even had a "do not copy" logo and all that.

I was pleased that I was resisting piracy, but wondered how they had movies that had just hit the theaters the day before.

Then I find out that over 80% of Sadaf's vcd's are pirated...they're the kings of piracy, and have the audacity to put on a "copyright" logo :-)
They sell legally in stores in pakistan, AND have an online store!

Ofcourse, low cost Indian editions of books and cd's (official ones, from penguin or any one else) will do a lot to curb piracy....

the publishers of harry potter actually did a good job holding the pirates at bay. frequently best-selling books, software and music turn up on the illegal market well in advance of their publication day. by that measure, 48 hours after is no big deal...

peace

I am not advocating piracy by any means, but I wonder what the impact would have been on education in the developing world, had their been no piracy AT ALL? How many books would have been read, or how many people would have had a chance to use MS Word ? Or maybe I should be asking 'How many less people' ???

...one gentleman with a succesful business once told me that the western world should consider a moderate form of piracy to be its gift to the developing world !!!!

Sheez, Anna, enough with the Harry Puttar crap.. Sheez...

purely social brings up an interesting point. however, i think it's awfully pollyanna to assume that the piracy lends itself to educating the disadvantaged without serious repercussions. while providing the access to literature and software to individuals can help develop their skills and awareness of the world, i don't think there's a viable argument to be made towards illegal dl'ing of music and video games.

just my $.02. (yes, i do work in copyright, but i felt that way before too).

daycruz,

if you're sick of it, keep scrolling. there's plenty of identity politics you can get mired in, instead. :)

personally, i'm not a fan of j.k. rowling but i still think this stuff is news. i'd be without if i didn't learn what i did from siddhartha et al about piracy, etc.

besides, it's either hari puttar or MIA. now that i've thrown down THAT gauntlet, do you still want me to stop? ;)

Ummm... Anna, since you mentioned MIA... did you hear about Arular's being nominated for a Mercury Prize?

:) Just trying to annoy everyone as much as I possibly can.

Ha! Brimful, have you listened to Shatner's new CD, Has Been? Genius!

books, software and music turn up on the illegal market well in advance of their publication day. by that measure, 48 hours after is no big deal...

Yeah, it seemed a little slow. I assumed it was because it was a book and came up with some rationalizations in my mind, but now that I think about it, it doesn't make any sense that it didn't come out earlier (other than that the boxes were all wrapped up tight).

i don't think there's a viable argument to be made towards illegal dl'ing of music and video games.

d/ling's not illegal, right? I thought it was only distribution that it was illegal. I also don't think it's really and truly wrong for now--if anything, it might stop put music companies in the bind of living up to their rhetoric in terms of how much their artists (in addition to broadening methods of distribution so lesser known artists get heard). I haven't come across any good articles that actually engage this issue from the standpoint of ethics and the effect on the economics of the various industries and the artists and the such rather than legal arguments or company interests or "let's get some free music" or "OMG the internet will change everything, Havent y9uo heard?!? ."

How many books would have been read, or how many people would have had a chance to use MS Word?

Excellent point. The answer is, maybe 10%. What I mean is, for the average teenager/graduate student in India, most books/software would not be accessible without piracy. I know for myself that of the 40 people in my engineering class, only one had a licensed copy of Windows - and that was only because it came bundled with the PC. If he had choice he'd have said "Chetta, put in a pirated version and knock the price down a couple of thou." . Thats about the OS itself, so I dont really need to say anything about the "frivolous" stuff - games, utilities, antivirus....Serials 2000 is an Indian Engg Student's bestest friend. Hell, I'd say most of the desi FOB Geek Squad has Mr Malaysian Pirate to thank for them being in the US pounding out code now. They never paid a paisa for anything other than hardware.

About books.... sure, the rich kids in school always had their authentic copies Tintin/Famous Five/Hardy Boys ..... the rest of us just borrowed. Or saved up for years to buy that beloved copy of Asterix in Egypt. Then we grew up , got our Comp Sci degrees, went to work in Bangalore, and discovered the booklovers' treasure house that is MG Road. All the (and only the) popular paperbacks were available for an eighth of the price the big stores were selling it for. 2ndGen-ers might think that this is just mean stinginess - but look at the relative prices. Lets take a standard paperback copy of 'The Godfather' . Here in the US it would cost only as much as a burger-and-fries, right? In India, what the bookstorewallahs do is open that days newspaper, get the exchange rate , and multipy it by the dollar price. Thats a cool 350 rupees - good for 5 luxurious eats at the koramangala McD's. Needless to say, I bought my copy from the street for rs 55.

I do realise I am abetting piracy and maybe therby financing a whole lot of more un-savory activities, but sort of think of that as a book-lover's license. Man, I'd have had to take a loan to build up my Grisham collection, otherwise. As commenter #1 said, more realistic pricing is the only way out.

Anna.. Deal.. let's go with Harry Puttar... :)

Pirated Harry Potter copies started appearing on Monday, following the worldwide release in the early hours of Saturday.

At almost every major traffic junction the book was being offered by hawkers.

The same thing is happening in Dhaka streets. I saw pirated paperbacks (slimmer than the actual volume as seen on TV) in the hands of the hawkers on Monday morning and was really thinking how these piracy thing works so fast.

I think that "what you pay for is what you get" when you are buying a pirated book. If you get a chance, compare an original book with a pirated version, and you know what I am talking about. It is always the case that the paper is not of the same quality and the print is also not good.

But why do people buy a pirated version of a book?

1. They do not have enough money to buy the original one.
2. They have the money but they think that the book is priced unfairly. People who read books are not stupid.
3. They are not sure if they would like the book and is worth spending so much.
4. They cannot obtain an original copy anywhere, and pirated ones are available on every street and corner.
5. When everybody is a thief in our country, and Politicians, Govt. Officials, Police, Judges and everyone else is running scams and looting crores, then what is the harm in buying a pirated book. After all the person buying the book is the reason for the parallel economy, and is thus contributing to the country's growth!

Any takers?

As a consumer of low price edition (or eastern economy edition) textbooks, which I think are not pirated but do lack in quality when compared to the American editions, I can say I am pretty satisified with what I get. Aside from the reduced quality in the paper, and in the rare case the print, the books aren't that bad. And I would rather buy the LPE (or EEE) version than pay a ridiculous amount at the campus bookstore.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute people, I am so confused. A book is not a CD or a movie. It's not freakin' digital What did they do, photocopy the whole damn thing?! Rip it up and photograph it and make plates to reprint?! And you're complaining that 48 hours is slow?! I am in awe!

What did they do, photocopy the whole damn thing?! Rip it up and photograph it and make plates to reprint?! And you're complaining that 48 hours is slow?!

usually advance copies leak out. there are so many copies of a book circulating before its actual publication date (reviewers, foreign sales, publicity, etc). better yet, if you can get someone in the publishing house to leak out a galley copy, you may have the not-quite-final version of the book but you have the market to yourself for months...

business is about trade-offs!

peace

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute people, I am so confused. A book is not a CD or a movie. It's not freakin' digital What did they do, photocopy the whole damn thing?! Rip it up and photograph it and make plates to reprint?! And you're complaining that 48 hours is slow?!

That's what I was thinking at first, but then I thought, "well, the publishing business must be digital too at this point." Is that the case, or is it operating in the 19th century for some reason?

What did they do, photocopy the whole damn thing?!

The guys doing the e-book, at least, scanned and OCR'd it.

That's what I was thinking at first, but then I thought, "well, the publishing business must be digital too at this point." Is that the case, or is it operating in the 19th century for some reason?

it's largely electronic but not completely so. copy-edits and galley edits still take place the old way, using pencils of different colors.

Hey Randhir,

"Original" books were very expensive when I was growing up. I used to look forward to my trips to Mumbai so I could specifically pick up street versions of all the fiction I wanted to read. There is no way I could have built my collection of hindi/english classics on the originals.

Inappropriate pricing is the dealbreaker. If legal versions were even double the street price, I might have bought at least some of them. But its ridiculous to pay like Rs.500 in 1988 for one Sherlock Holmes book of 4 mini-novels. I remember they were selling it for about 65 rupees at Churchgate in Mumbai.