New run of Guru Book cancelled due to pirate copy in circulation

[HopperJF]

I'm incredibly frustrated that the Amiga platform has managed to lose many talented and valued users since 1994 yet the pirates clearly remain involved  :-x  :madashell:   :pissed:

[Boudicca]

This thread smells of some hypocrisy too...

Shall I let the hypocrites into a secret.......

It doesn't matter two hoots if a book/game/video/music or software is pirated. Because in the end.....someone has to pay to get it. Either by sucking leccy from the grid, Paying Taxes, Eating bandwidth, paying the mob......somebody gets paid, and in the end rich people end up with most of it and everyone else can swing.

I might not be the author...owner or person who came up with the idea. It may not be fair, but life isn't fair. There are no morals beyond your own self esteem. Whinge as much as you like as other humans on the whole are inherently selfish and no amount of moaning helps. People will Pirate/Steal bread from babies mouths if conditions are right.

H.G Wells had it about right in The Shape of Things to Come. Pity his ego couldn't see the wood from the trees later on tho....Personally Aldous Huxley also was about right too and I'm reasonably sure "Colonel George Taylor" is going to be right soon or later !.

Endth the 41yrs lesson of life so far......and arn't I a miserable sod I need a chill pill

Shaz

[Crumb]

I want that book, and even if I had the electronic version I would buy it because a properly printed book is sooo much better than any PDF or crap printed version.

[Firedawg]

There have been studies done on the impact of pirated materials (i.e. music, books, bags, watches, etc. ,and yes this included counterfeited items) on various industries, which showed very little impact on market share and earnings of companies examined.  Basically, illustrating that people of means ($$$) and real product interest will buy the products they want.  Sure there are a few losers out there who will try to obtain something for nothing, but the real consumer of that product will pay for it.

This can be debated to the cows come home.

Do Pre-orders on the book and count me for one!

[cv643d]

Turn something negative into something positive instead. Find new markets instead of rely on an old market.

-Create a PDF of the Amiga book and sell it for $5.95.
-If you are paranoid add DRM protection to it (although last year when I researched DRM it was a fairly costly solution).
-Give it away. Yes give away a FREE Amiga e-book and place links inside the book for products. You get a piece of the cake whenever a sale coming from someone reading your book happens.
-Set up Print on demand but release e-book for free. Free version is simple print-forbidden PDF. Off course most users can crack this (one version is to print screen inside OS running PDF with Vmware) mention many time in e-book that printed book is only xx euro. People will want proper book at good price.

[Hans_]

I've already added my name to the list of people that would buy the book if it were printed. I didn't even know about the bittorrent version. Regardless, a printed version that's even been updated would be worth so much more than a pdf.

We need to collectively convince Andreas & co. to change their mind.

Hans

[webmany]

I asked "Any chance of doing a pre-pay, and if enough orders come in then print the book?"

but the response was "i think no"

[Hans_]

@webmany

If enough people said that they would buy it, he'd be an idiot to continue to say no.

Hans

[Terse]

Nobody has actually mentioned what this book does yet.  I did a web search and found the English-language page of the developer that does not say what the book is (though I now know it has a black and red cover) and another link to a thread on this website where a bunch of people praise the decision to make an English language version of the book (without mentioning the function of the book)

www.amazon.com has a ton of books that may be suitable for our use, if just owning a book is the end goal.

[koaftder]

This has nothing to do with collecting amiga related stuff. The end goal is to get good documentation and reference material in the hands of developers. Those of us who are interested in writing software for Amigas know about this book and have wanted it for quite a while.

[Golem!dk]

@Terse

Look here.

[Matt_H]

@ Hans_

I already emailed Andreas affirming my commitment to make a purchase, but apparently it was Ralph Babel's decision to suspend the project. I'll probably email him as well to see if there's anything that can be done.

[the_leander]

There are many print on demand services on the internet (lulu.com being a particularly good example), so the cost to the author is zilch, to cancel it on the basis of a torrent is to cut off what would otherwise be a perfectly good business model.

All this chap has done, is guarantee that the torrent will be used. If he'd kept quiet, chances are most of the Amiga community would never have even known of it's existence.

Well played.

[murple]

That's just asinine. "I'm going to force people who want to buy my book to get pirate copies because there are pirate copies on the internet." I suppose it's easier to just whine and insult your potential buyers by insinuating they'd just steal it online rather than buy a copy.

I wonder if the extended edition actually exists.

[CodeSmith]

Yeah, that's what I don't get.  I got the email basically saying "there's a torrent out there of the old version, so we're never going to release the new one".  The first thing through my mind was, "sooo... you're saying that because there's a torrent out there, my only option now is to break the law and download that torrent?"  It puts me in a position I don't like by denying me the ability to do the right thing, and it doesn't make a lot of sense either.  I can understand him being upset at the torrent, but just cancelling the book (especially if, as he said, the new book is already finished) doesn't make any sense to me.  As others have already said, there are many avenues open to him that carry very little financial risk.  I'm much more inclined to believe that he changed his mind for some other reason and the torrent is just an excuse.  If he decided he didn't want to publish it that's fine, but I don't like being treated like an idiot.  A simple "after consideration we've decided not to publish after all" would have been enough.

[Retro_71]

I had a look at that torrent (BTW i would never have known it existed unless Ralph said so) it ok, BUT as a few have already said i want the book in front of me in paper form i don't like ready doc/pdf or large text file on the computer screen. I don't see why he would cancel everything just because of a torrent unless he realised that he couldn't make a big profit on the book (as a few people already have said) which means it's just an excuse to cop out.
(BTW i would have bought the book even though i know where the torrent is now and can download it if i choose...)