Lem Fugitt, who is largely responsible for pushing me into buying an iPad (well, Steve Jobs has to take some of the blame, and I must share the remainder) has made an interesting comment on my Facebook page.
This is all to do with Flipboard, a very pretty aggregator service for the iPad that allows you to scrape content from online sources into pages arranged like a magazine. Tap on an article and you get the first paragraph, tap a bit further and you get to the Web site itself, to read the full article. You can post links to the article through Twitter, and indeed, you can add your Twitter and Facebook accounts as feeds to your “personalized” magazine (I remember speaking about this as a concept at a conference in Yokohama some 15 years ago).
The question is, does this constitute “fair use”, or are the users of this service getting something for free (i.e. the ad-free content without the distractions)? I use an ad-blocker on my browser, and I also use the Safari 5 Reader feature a lot. Is this any different?
Over a few (public) messages, Lem made these points:
One concern I have with Flipboard is that they are scrapping content from websites rather than using RSS feeds. For example, I limit the amount of post content that goes out on my RSS feeds because unless the reader visits my sites I have no opportunity to generate any ad revenue.
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From my experience, people that are interested enough to really read content in detail and engage with the author are less likely to click on ads. People that have more of a casual interest, that ‘browse’, tend to be the ad-clickers.
I’ve taken the decision not to put up ads on this site, other than the ones for my own books. Facebook irritates the hell out of me with the endless FX Ponzi scams, though I dismiss them and write comments about them, so the ad question doesn’t really concern me, but he asked how I would feel about a few chapters of my novel being scrapped and put up on-line (a very fair and valid question). My answer:
As far as my novels are concerned, I wouldn’t mind, because your example assumes they’re providing parts of a whole, which would be incomplete. People would have to buy the whole book to find out what happens next
But if it was non-fiction, and the chapters were standalone, I’d feel differently.
Reply to this:
Have you ever seen figures on the book publishing supply/consumer chain? My impression, though it could be way off, is that a significant % of the books that are printed never get purchased, and that more than half the people that purchase a book never finish reading it.
The reason that I’m bringing this up is that ever since I started using the Kindle software on my iPhone/iPad/PC my book purchases – even e-book purchases – have dropped by at least 30%, perhaps more. The reason is that with the Kindle I can read a sample chapter before making the purchase decision. Actually being able to sample the writing quality has turned me off on many purchases I would have previously made.
Again, good point. But you know, I think I would sooner have my books bought by people who actually read them than who allow them to sit on the shelves and rot. Or, more to the point, who buy it, don’t like it, and take out their frustration on what they see as a waste of money by writing a 1-star review on Amazon. Isn’t it better to have a few contented readers than a mass of malcontents?
I am pretty certain I am not going to get rich out of this independent publishing game (I may, but it’s not something I’m counting on to see me through my old age). Nor do I realistically expect to lose money – I am confident of this, at least. On the other hand, I feel I have written (so far) a couple of well-crafted novels that will give some people quite a lot of pleasure (one of the first purchasers of At the Sharpe End wrote a really nice comment on Twitter the other day about the story he’d read so far), and I’d far sooner that the readers were ones who really enjoyed the book, rather than people who felt they’d been conned in some way into buying it.
So yes, I stand by my words, at least for fiction. A couple of chapters, even if reproduced without my consent (of course, I would prefer it if people did ask first) could lead to more sales. After all, I post most of a chapter on the book on the sites, and I distribute a 50% teaser of the books through Smashwords (I wouldn’t do this for non-fiction). Certainly, it will lead to more interest. But if anyone rips off the whole book, I shall be upset. I do want people to buy the whole thing to be able to read the ending.
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