Download The Pirate's Dilemma

Now, I know I've mentioned Matt Mason quite a bit on this blog over the last few months but I don't want to stop doing that just yet because he's announced that his publishers have agreed to release his book, The Pirate's Dilemma, for free.

It’s been in the works for sometime now, but today is the day we have finally been able to make the book available for free online. Both my English language publishers (Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Penguin in the U.K.) agreed we should release the book free online after the UK launch was out of the way, and that time is now.

Click here to be taken to his site.

I say 'free', but you are given the option to reimburse the author and the publisher for his work. The checkout defaults to $5.00 which is a fair price for an easy and enjoyable read. You will have to provide your name and an email address before you can access the downloadable file.

I think Mason has got the courage to stand up for the position he advances in his book. It would have been hypocritical for him to advocate that intellectual material is information not property and then not be supportive of the electronically distributed version. He makes this clear:

By treating the electronic version of a book as information rather than property, and circulating it as widely as possible, many authors such as Paulo Coelho and Cory Doctorow actually end up selling more copies of the physical version. Pirate copies of The Pirate’s Dilemma are out there online anyway, and they don’t seem to have harmed sales. My guess is they are helping. To be honest, I was flattered that the book got pirated in the first place.

If his sales are doing well then he must feel vindicated. He took a chance and it seems to be working out for him.

I have to admit I already have an electronic version of the book as I found it on The Pirate Bay. Strange, I can't seem to find the ebook on there now ;-) No need for that now anyway, but it did make me wonder if that original pirated version on TPB was an advance leak as part of a promotional drive.

Just to be clear, I also own the dead tree version too. The electronic copy is for convenience. II will be drawing from some of this work when I teach on MAC301 next year, so any students out there would be doing themselves a favour by getting a hold of this now.

BitTorrent + books = new distribution model?

Not really a new post, but more of an update. TorrentFreak are carrying a story on how authors are increasingly turning to the BitTorrent distribution platform as a way of generating interest which may equate to sales. There's a nice little mention of the difference between the book publishing industry's business model post web-piracy boom in comparison to the music industry's response which is relevant to my MAC281 students doing the first essay on piracy.


I found it a little funny (and not at all ironic) to see Matt Mason's book, The Pirate's Dilemma, appear over on Mininova the day after I ordered a copy of the paperback from Amazon UK (released on May 1st, or May Day, the day often used by protest movements following its association with International Workers' Day and pagan celebrations). Be warned: using the torrent to access copyright material may not be legal in your country.

I'll grab the torrent as well I think. It's the reverse of the new mantra where torrents are meant to stimulate hard copy purchases - I've bought the book and now I'm going to download the torrent. By the way, you can read Chapter 1 of Mason's book legitimately over on his site. If you like what you read, it's always worth a purchase especially at about £8/$16.

NB: MAC281 students attempting the aforementioned question may want to check out this article by Mason too. It deals with the crisis in the entertainment industry post-piracy. It's also where Mason suggests his book may appear as a torrent a full 3 months before it actually happened.

Free Culture and Free Content

I am always interested in getting something for nothing - who isn't? It seems that advocate of the Free Culture movement, Lawrence Lessig is offering a free e-version of his book on the subject here. It's well worth a read.

If that wasn't enough, the Pirate Bay is (legitimately) hosting two e-books which might interest Apple fans. The Cult of Mac and The Cult of Ipod are written by Wired editor Leander Kahney and are being distributed by No Starch Press. Why are they doing this you might ask? This if from them:

It's no secret that content providers have mixed feelings about file sharing. But rather than worrying ourselves sick over it, we're experimenting with something different here: Free, publisher-provided torrents. So enjoy the book, seed the book, tell your friends about it even. And if you like what you read, please consider buying the dead-tree version. The book looks great in print, and it's available for purchase just about anywhere.

It's seems a similar philosophy is at work in both these offers - if you like go buy it. It's an idea often toted by music pirates who claim to try before they buy, and seems to have something similar to what Matt Mason identifies as the Pirates Dilemma. If you can't beat them join them? Well, not quite but Mason claims businesses should be paying attention to what pirates are doing, not to penalise them, but to learn from them so as to best compete.

You will need a BitTorrent client like Azureus, Transmission or µTorrent to download the ebooks.

Danah Boyd has discussed her objections to the locked down nature of academic writing on the basis that not many people will ever get to read work in obscure journals in this blog post.