Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: goom on November 28, 2009, 03:54:49 PM
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i've been talking with dino..
..anybody think it might be a good idea to (temporarily?) take down the ebooks when 2.0 is released?
i wouldn't want it to hurt sales (or cause a lawsuit, for that matter).
any thoughts?
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I'd say keep them up anyway, but if Richard is asked to remove them then by all means, he should comply, lol
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Like Essam, I was more thinking about the spoil ^^'
And about the ebooks, I'd agree about make the edited volumes unavailable during few months after they're re-released. (3 "re"... ^^') but only the ones who are edited (for example, when #1 to 3 would be re-released, only #1 to 3 would "disappear" from the base... and reappear later). Just to have less problem and to make people buy them a little ;) More they buy, more we can hope about a movie :p
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I say, if an Animorphs re-release is in the works, we might need to take the ebooks down, possibly permanently. At the very least, make the access to them a lot more restrictive.
The thing is, we want as many people to buy the books as possible, so that the market will be favorable for 2.0, right? And the simple fact of being able to get the books online for free, is going to make far fewer people go out and buy them. Even if we only take them down temporarily, if people find out that it's only temporary (and let's face it, this is the internet, so they would find out), then they might just wait for the ebooks to come back up rather than buying the actual books.
Even if we aren't infringing on any copyright laws (which, truth be told, we probably would be), then we'd still be hurting sales. Which is absolutely the last thing we want. I want Animorphs 2.0!
It is kinda hard for me to say this, because I know that a lot of people have put a lot of work into those e-books, and I love them too. I've used them, and enjoyed them, and a big part of me really doesn't want to see them go. But we have to think about the bigger picture, here. After all these years, if there's any chance at all of new Animorphs books, who are we to be the ones who might be blocking that from happening?
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The thing is, most younger kids, who the books are aimed at, won't read that much online, like in terms of Ebooks. Between not having the time and just not sitting there to read. Most kids that age like to bring the book to school so they can read in-between classes or when they're done their work in that class, ect. it'd mostly just be the older people like us.
Not to mention that by now you can get Animorphs ebooks on several torrent sites as well as kazaa/Limewire. If they want the ebook versions, they only have to look elsewhere and find them. Hell, that's HOW I found this site, cause I found a torrent of Animorphs ebooks in .txt file and one of the comments left behind said that there were better quality ones over here and provided a link and thus I arrived.
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Okay, I disagree with your first point (kids nowadays are trending more and more towards computers, and less and less towards books, so modern kids would be more likely to read stuff on the internet than our generation was), but your second point is a very valid one. Hmm. How are they going to get any books sold when the series is available in all these other places?
Keep in mind that two wrongs don't make a right, though. Just because a bunch of other people are doing something they shouldn't be, doesn't necessarily mean that we should, too. If anything, it just makes it that much more important that we do whatever we can.
And besides the general morality issue, I'm guessing that if Scholastic really is serious about this, they'll be bringing lawsuits to bear against those other sites, too. They can't expect to make sales if the series is available everywhere, can they? Not unless they make some very substantial changes to the books themselves. As in, re-write it into a whole new series, basically. Which I got the impression was not what they're planning to do.
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wow... i havent read this thread in awhile.
even though i already own all the books, i'll buy them when they are released again too! that way jack will have a brand new series of his own to cherish :)
i dont think an age restriction is a bad idea.. besides with the rerelese comes more fan sites and im sure a lot of them will be aimed at the younger fans anyway.
and if they really want to join they'll lie about their age.. and well.. that's their bad.
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There are plenty that can be done with books that can't be done with reading an average to bad quality ebook. Alongside the stuff I listed above, you can't climb under warm covers on a cold night, you can't read it in the bathtub, ect.
Sure, while society as a whole is more technological then ti was, I find when it comes to books, for those that do like to read, people in general but especially kids, tend to prefer a physical book over an Ebook.
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I definitely agree with taking down the ebooks if/when there is a re-release. I personally love the ebooks. I use them every week for the re-reads, even though I own hard copies of all the books. However, even though kids could theoretically get their books elsewhere, I think it's safe to say that RAF has the most comprehensive collection of ebooks that are of the best quality. Which means two things:
1) We are setting the moral standard for the availability of free copies of the series. If we take ours down it automatically becomes a lot harder (not impossible though) to find good quality copies of the books for free.
2) If Scholastic DOES decide to protect their new re-release by bringing up a lawsuit, they're going to go for maximum effect with minimal expenses. Which basically means that they'll target those who are making the largest infringement on their copyright. Which is easily RAF, since we not only have a comprehensive collection of Anibooks, but also Everworld and Remnants, all of high quality.
I love the e-books, I don't want to see them go, but from an ethical standpoint, a cover-your-butt standpoint, and the standpoint of a fan that wants the re-release to succeed....it would be in our best interest to take them down.
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There are plenty that can be done with books that can't be done with reading an average to bad quality ebook. Alongside the stuff I listed above, you can't climb under warm covers on a cold night, you can't read it in the bathtub, ect.
Sure, while society as a whole is more technological then ti was, I find when it comes to books, for those that do like to read, people in general but especially kids, tend to prefer a physical book over an Ebook.
I don't necessarily think so. Just last night I was curled under my covers with a book....on my iphone. There's also Kindle's and Sony eReaders and other devices that make it simple to put a free ebook in a transportable format. Kids don't read books the way they used to. They just don't. And in an era where you take whatever freebies you can get....they'll take the ebooks over the actual books. Except the kids who LOVE reading....but don't we want to pull in as many new readers as possible?
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I am for taking down the ebooks, even if it's only until the new rewrite is finished. And even then, it will probably be outdated anyway, unless you want to keep them to show people the way it was before the rewrite. Yes take down the ebooks. people have already said that one day Rishard may have to take them down, so if you want to keep them you'd better download them to a file on your PC before it's too late. I've done that already, so I'm in the clear.
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Either way, we have over 2 years until we have to worry about it.
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Either way, we have over 2 years until we have to worry about it.
and it'll be a bit more clear about what exactly will happen.
no sweat.
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why over two years?
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Because this is 2009 and its not happening until some point in 2012.
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2012 is just the ETA. Official Date is TBA (To-Be-Announced). The re-release could be much sooner (hopefully not farther :-X)
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hopefully we'll get them before the world ends, y'know? ::)
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Don't worry. My sources tell me that won't be until March 31, 2046, at 2:03 pm.
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is that official?
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is that official?
nothing's official.
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-_- ;; . yes of course.
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I'm all for taking down the e-books temporarily as well. Then put them back up after they're released.
Remember, it's more likely that they won't re-write the series, but I'm sure they might make a couple edits.
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you'd just be punishing people who use this forum
there are plenty of outlets for people to get the books online, and the only thing you're doing by taking down the e-books is ensuring that they're gotten somewhere else. Disincentivizing new users, which seems counter to this forum's initiative.
Richard will get a cease and desist if it ever comes to that. Until then, why not let everyone enjoy them equally?
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Meh, true, but still, it'd be like spoiler city. :donno: It's all up to Richard in the end anyway.
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I somehow get the feeling that they're not going to release the new series sequentially...I haven't quite figured out if they're going to update continuity stuff or not, but even if they do, the whole series is part of the *zeitgeist* now, it would be like rereleasing The Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings one by one and expecting people to be in suspense about how Frodo destroys the ring. They're releasing them all at once, I'm pretty sure, or maybe in sets of ten to figure out if people actually care enough to buy them or not.
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I guess it would make sense to put them out more quickly since a lot of people already know about the story.
I'm thinking I should get into LOTR, but which version? I don't know.
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Definitely go in order. The Hobbit, Fellowship, Two Towers, Return of the King.
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The thing is, taking down the ebooks is less about avoiding spoilers, and more about encouraging people to buy the re-realease.
Like, let's say they sell them in sets of 10 or whatever. Someone buys it, and are all "Hey, this series is great! I wonder if there's any communities!"
They go online and find RAF, along with the ebooks. Suddenly, they're thinking "Well, what's the point in buying the rest if I can read it for free online?"
Then the re-release doesn't do good, and there's less chances of 2.0 coming out.
Sure, it'll still be possible to get the books for free online somewhere, but why make it easier when the sales for the re-released are going to have an influence on whether we get 2.0 or not?
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right, but what I'm saying is that is ultimately pointless since if people are going to use the ebooks then they'll be willing to use independently uploaded pdfs or txts that do the exact same thing.
I think rather than just taking down the ebooks and coercing people into buying the books, we rely on peer pressure the get people to buy the books. I mean it is a little harder to police that on the internet where you can say one thing and do something completely different. Maybe there should be like a log-in feature that records who uses the ebooks...hell idk I just read Freakonomics so I'm thinking about this more from an "OOH HOW CAN WE CATCH THE CHEATERS" standpoint than a "I WANT ANIMORPHS 2.0 AND I WANT IT ANY WAY I CAN" way.
I still think taking down the ebooks is wrong, though. And it may be entirely pointless, if they edit the series like I have a feeling they're doing, updating the technology and fixing the thought speech mishaps and continuity errors. Then the ebooks become more of a quaint, antiquated, obsolete relic rather than a direct replication.
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how about taking them down for lurkers, then?
encourage people to at least post before reading it for free.
bringing them back fully (for everybody) when 2.0 is done?
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yeah, like the only thing I can think is to force people at least to get a username in order to access the books.
that's more steps than others require, so if they do that they at least have some lingering interest in the forum
idk
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i thought of an interesting idea while conversing with slushy on skype.
how about.. we make books 1 to #? immediately accessible. nothing required.
after posting an X amount of times, the user unlocks more books to read.
this would, simultaneously, get more members to post on RAF
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minimize the issue of cutting potential profit.
donating, of course, could get you instant access to them all. ;)
(it might backfire, of course, and cause members to spam. just throwing the idea around.)
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Didn't we used to have a system sorta like that? When I first joined RAF, I remember having to have ten posts before I could access the e-books.
I must admit, I'm still a little iffy on the whole thing, even with post requirements and members-only restrictions. If we re-instate the post requirement, I think it should be much steeper than last time, to get more people to buy the books. That's the ultimate goal, and I don't care what anybody else says, I WANT ANI 2.0! Even closing the e-books to everyone except members, will still hurt sales a bit.
And you know what else? Instead of whining that there are other sites out there that have their own e-books, and saying that we can't take ours down because they still exist elsewhere, I say we get those sites on board with us! Maybe we can't make a difference, but maybe, if we send out enough emails explaining the situation, and that new Animorphs books are over the horizon if sales go high enough, maybe the other sites would understand the need to take their e-books down, too. They're Animorphs fans too, after all, aren't they? Who's with me?!
One final note. Somebody mentioned earlier that we should wait until Scholastic forces us to take our e-books down. I think that's probably a bad idea. If we wait for them to act, they may not simply ask nicely for us to take the e-books down. They may hit us with a lawsuit, and maybe even try to shut RAF down. And the mere possibility of that terrifies me.
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completely agree. i want scholastic to be on our side for this whole thing.
let's just wait to see what happens. no point in worrying about something like this before we know more.
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And you know what else? Instead of whining that there are other sites out there that have their own e-books, and saying that we can't take ours down because they still exist elsewhere, I say we get those sites on board with us! Maybe we can't make a difference, but maybe, if we send out enough emails explaining the situation, and that new Animorphs books are over the horizon if sales go high enough, maybe the other sites would understand the need to take their e-books down, too. They're Animorphs fans too, after all, aren't they? Who's with me?!
I mean as noble an idea as this is, we are dealing with the *internet* where one bad apple out of billions of apples makes bad apples accessible to everyone. And some of the other ebooks or downloads or whatever that I've seen have been up for years, so long that the people who put them there might have even forgotten that they did. There's no way we're going to convince everyone. So, instead of giving hits to people that don't even remember they did it, why don't we draw people here?
One final note. Somebody mentioned earlier that we should wait until Scholastic forces us to take our e-books down. I think that's probably a bad idea. If we wait for them to act, they may not simply ask nicely for us to take the e-books down. They may hit us with a lawsuit, and maybe even try to shut RAF down. And the mere possibility of that terrifies me.
I'm of the general opinion that any company that actively works against its consumers, even if some of those consumers break somewhat ambiguous copyright laws, doesn't have the interest of the work itself at heart. Now I'm not going to go all *FREEDOM OF INTELLIGENCE* crazy on this or anything, but I just have the feeling Scholastic isn't going to try to shut down the most popular forum of a book series it's trying to revive. That's just bad business. And as blasphemous as this is to say on a site like this, part of me believes they DESERVE to have the reprint fail if that's their choice. So, if they want us to take them down, I'm pretty sure they'll be nice about it. But, seriously, Animorphs isn't Britney Spears. I don't think anyone is going to get sued over Animorphs.
But I have been very wrong before. I just have the gut feeling that taking down the e-books is the wrong way to go about this.
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The thing is, taking down the ebooks is less about avoiding spoilers, and more about encouraging people to buy the re-realease.
Like, let's say they sell them in sets of 10 or whatever. Someone buys it, and are all "Hey, this series is great! I wonder if there's any communities!"
They go online and find RAF, along with the ebooks. Suddenly, they're thinking "Well, what's the point in buying the rest if I can read it for free online?"
Then the re-release doesn't do good, and there's less chances of 2.0 coming out.
Sure, it'll still be possible to get the books for free online somewhere, but why make it easier when the sales for the re-released are going to have an influence on whether we get 2.0 or not?
yeah I hate to say it but it would really be for the best if they were taken off the site. We all want to see 2.0 get made and the ebooks would hurt its chances. I say we have an announcement saying to download them while you can because they will be taken down at such and such a date.
I must say though I love being able to carry around the entire series on my keychain as oppsed to the giant box I have had them stored in for so long now.
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I guess I'll start with what I do know: lawsuits are too expensive to just drop from the sky. C&Ds are cheap: form letter + paralegal + postage. Lawsuits, not so much. You have to put a complaint together, file it in court, and deliver a copy of the complaint to the person your suing. That's at least 10x as expensive as a C&D, even before the first hearing.
Now, whether a C&D shuts down a website depends on the webhosts. Legally, they're only required to remove infringing content. If the webmaster says "that C&D is bogus; I'll fight it in court" they can even republish it until the court says otherwise. Unfortunately, many hosts have a policy of shutting down entire websites for one C&D.
(I'm not a lawyer; just a spectator to some entertainingly scrappy IP fights.)
On the moral side, I believe that fans and publishers should reasonably cooperate. Cutting into Scholastics market is both unkind and stupid. Animorphs still falls into the 15-year window where I believe publishers deserve protection from competition, so if it were my decision, I would take the e-books offline now. I'm also looking to hand over my responsibility in the audiobook project--I won't compete. They've said they're returning to market, and we should respect that.
Now, that 15-year principle leaves me a bit conflicted, since it expires in June of 2011 for The Invasion and starts progressing through the series at a rate of about 10-12 volumes per year. Ideally, I'd like to see Scholastic at least publish new editions, and of course I'm very excited about a continuation. I'd have a lot harder time respecting them if they just try to sell the exact same product they did 15+ years ago.
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(I didn't read everything but)
If you want we restrict the download of the ebooks, I have an idea... with it, the people who wanna download will have to buy or at least to have the book close to them if they want to download :p
We can add passwords to download them... and why not a password took in the book? For example, to download the volume #3, you'd have to put the word number X page/chapter Y... and of course, different passwords for each book, so you really HAVE to have the book near you to check ;)
Or if you want an easier way, a password for all the books we give only to some people, like the old members... people who already had the books before the 2.0...
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Now, that 15-year principle leaves me a bit conflicted, since it expires in June of 2011 for The Invasion and starts progressing through the series at a rate of about 10-12 volumes per year. Ideally, I'd like to see Scholastic at least publish new editions, and of course I'm very excited about a continuation. I'd have a lot harder time respecting them if they just try to sell the exact same product they did 15+ years ago.
Is this 15-year principle just self-imposed? Because copyrights do eventually run out, like with art there is a point where it's legal to use the image without paying a fee to the artist, but it's like 60 or 80 years or something crazy. And yeah, I really have a feeling Scholastic is updating the books since they're taking over 2 years to do so, which kind of makes arguing about whether people could just steal the e-books moot anyway.
Or if you want an easier way, a password for all the books we give only to some people, like the old members... people who already had the books before the 2.0...
Then you're just discriminating against kids who didn't know about/weren't old enough to join the old forum, and that's unfair.
The fact of the matter is, we're discussing a very small portion of the population who would rather cheat and download the books than buy them themselves. Most people on this forum, and most people in real life, would be honest about it. Taking down the ebooks, which are a really handy resource when you don't have a book you did buy or borrow from the library handy, seems like an overreaction based on fear rather than reason. It may be the right decision, but I just want us to act out of rationality instead of anxiety.
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Many people simply don't like to read on computer ^^'
But I was answering to the people who wanted us to delete the ebooks or restrict the downloads...
I'll tell you the truth: I like to "cheat" for some stuff, I even have a shirt to prove it ^^' I like what is free, I can't pay for everything but I try and I do when I can. Just, in my mind, to delete the Ebooks would be like a crime against liberty lol So I wanna keep them, even if the 2.0 appear, I gonna keep them even if Richard delete them from RAF (they'll be on my website instead). I think that the better thing would be a password that people can find if they buy or rent the real books, the old ones or the new ones. That wouldn't be unfair, 'coz both old and new members would need them, but they could rent them in a library.
I just said the other solution as a easier one, even if discriminating, but who don't make us to delete totally the ebooks.
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Is this 15-year principle just self-imposed? Because copyrights do eventually run out, like with art there is a point where it's legal to use the image without paying a fee to the artist, but it's like 60 or 80 years or something crazy.
Historical and scientific reasoning. The first US copyright law had a 14-year maximum. It has been extended primarily due to the lobbying efforts of large publishers. The optimal copyright term can be estimated using some moderately-complex economics and comes out to about 15 years as well. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.ars
Supposedly, copyright term is limited. However, that limit is currently 70 years from the death of the author for a real person and 120 years for a corporate author. Additionally, the US Supreme court has ruled that while an unlimited term is unconstitutional, there is no limit on how far Congress may extend the terms of existing copyrights. (Eldred v Ashcroft) Whenever the copyright on "Steamboat Willy" is about to run out, Disney spends chump change lobbying Congress and gets an extension for everyone. Watch for the exact same thing to happen around 2018 or so...
Compare that to national secrets, typically released after 25 years, and patents which last for 20 years.
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I don't know. I agree with Dameg - even if I liked the series, but I saw the ebooks up for free, I would read the ebooks instead of buying the real ones.
Ebooks would/will surely hurt the sales of the the re-released books.
The question is, would ours actually matter? I am almost positive that other Animorphs forum has a set of ebooks, but I think it's limited to members, I'm not sure (even if it was, it's not hard to make an account and lurk)
Also, the website www.scribd.com (a large ebook sharing site) used to have a complete set (actually, just a re-uploaded copy of our set), but I just checked and it's no longer there. Maybe it taken down by Scholastic? It's impossible to say.
Also, it would be very, very ignorant to ignore the likelihood that there are small sites that have them up, and the nature of torrents. Most of these probably just use ours.
Either way, if you google "Animorphs ebooks", we are the first result.
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yeah, AFF has the ebooks as well.
we could ask them, when the time comes, and see how they feel about it.
however, let's not get ahead of ourselves. animorphs 2.0 is a while off.
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yeah, AFF has the ebooks as well.
we could ask them, when the time comes, and see how they feel about it.
however, let's not get ahead of ourselves. animorphs 2.0 is a while off.
Agreed.
After all, the people we want to buy the books - new people who have never heard of the series - aren't yet aware of Animorphs or Animorphs 2.0. Actually, I'm pretty sure only us, and maybe a couple other die-hard fan sites are even aware of 2.0 to begin with.
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Historical and scientific reasoning. The first US copyright law had a 14-year maximum. It has been extended primarily due to the lobbying efforts of large publishers. The optimal copyright term can be estimated using some moderately-complex economics and comes out to about 15 years as well. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.ars
Supposedly, copyright term is limited. However, that limit is currently 70 years from the death of the author for a real person and 120 years for a corporate author. Additionally, the US Supreme court has ruled that while an unlimited term is unconstitutional, there is no limit on how far Congress may extend the terms of existing copyrights. (Eldred v Ashcroft) Whenever the copyright on "Steamboat Willy" is about to run out, Disney spends chump change lobbying Congress and gets an extension for everyone. Watch for the exact same thing to happen around 2018 or so...
Compare that to national secrets, typically released after 25 years, and patents which last for 20 years.
lol clearly you know more about this than me, so kudos. It is a powerful economic incentive to create stuff, but you're right, when it gets abused just so mom and pop bakeries can't put Mickey Mouse on a birthday cake without paying royalties to Disney, then it's out of control.
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sidenote: we mustn't forget, taking down the ebooks would also reduce members on RAF.
if AFF had ebooks and we didn't, i'm sure the majority of the new fans would head there.
not exactly as planned.
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Yeah, we have time to think about it.
And I didn't say the ebooks will hurt the sales, just that I don't wanna stop uploading the ebooks because of the 2.0. I think that most of the people prefer to read the true books than ebooks on computer. Even pirates usually prefer that!
So it won't hurt so much.
We have different choices for RAF (I don't talk about AFF even if we can see with them if they accept to do the same, and I absolutely can't say about the other websites who propose our ebooks... as we are the 1st link on Google, we are the "most important"):
- We can propose free download/online-reading of the beginning of the books, so people who don't know can begin to read and buy if they like.
- Restricted download for the full ebooks, with a password that everybody who own/rent the book (s)he wanna download can find.
- Link to buy the new versions of the books.
And if there is a problem about the law, we can even try to find a place on Internet, in a "free" country where the American law have no right ^^' Richard can think about it, if he wants to protect totally his website. We're already outlaws :P
Edit after the 2 last messages:
Soon you'll have to pay just to write "Mickey Mouse" :P
Goom > I understand, so maybe we'd begin by allow the download to the participating members, for example ;) Be a member or find the password and you can download
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I agree with Goom. I mean, the entire reason I even found this site to begin with was cause I was looking for Ebooks. If it wasn't for that I would have never found, and thus become a member of, this site.
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And you think people won't come if they have to register/participate or to find a password?
Then, we'll have to make a choice...
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- We can propose free download/online-reading of the beginning of the books, so people who don't know can begin to read and buy if they like.
That's not a bad idea. Not only would it allow us to leave at least a few e-books up, it might actually increase sales a bit. People would read a few books, get hooked, and then when they decide that they have to read the rest, they are forced to buy them instead of being able to see them for free.
It might still hurt sales at the beginning, though. So maybe we should take down all e-books to start off with, and then put a few of the early ones back up when the series gets rolling?
I think that the better thing would be a password that people can find if they buy or rent the real books, the old ones or the new ones.
I like this idea, too. It makes people buy the books to access the e-books. But, on the other hand, it kinda defeats the purpose of the e-books altogether, doesn't it? I mean, what's the point of having access to the e-books when you have to have the book itself to access the digital version of the same book?
I still would prefer that we take the e-books down, mind you. But I'm starting to see that I'm in a minority. So either of those two ideas would be an okay compromise, I think.
Still, as Goom said, we have plenty of time to think it over. And who knows, they may end up changing the series so much for the re-release that it becomes a moot point.
And you think people won't come if they have to register/participate or to find a password?
Then, we'll have to make a choice...
No, I think people will still come to the site. It might be fewer people, since there are some people who come here for the e-books. But we also get plenty of fans who find us simply because we're a forum to discuss Animorphs books, and they're nostalgic for that kind of connection. For example, I came to this site long before I even knew there were e-books here. I just came because I missed talking about Animorphs.
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In fact, about the "beginning" of the ebooks, we could put only the first chapters of 10 or 20 ebooks. For example, #1 chap 1 to 10, #2 chap 1 to 10... #10 chap 1 to 5... and then only the first chapter, or something like that.
And I understand what you say about not needing the access to the ebooks when you own the books, but it'd be a good idea for people who rent them. Or people who have an ebook-reader.
But we still have the other solution: a password for the downloads we give only to the members who participate. For example, to download them you'd have to write 10 messages (not in the boring board). So people would have to introduce themselves, talk about Animorphs or other things...
Then, if we do both things (free first chapters and password when you participate), sell and members would increase ^^
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In fact, about the "beginning" of the ebooks, we could put only the first chapters of 10 or 20 ebooks. For example, #1 chap 1 to 10, #2 chap 1 to 10... #10 chap 1 to 5... and then only the first chapter, or something like that.
And I understand what you say about not needing the access to the ebooks when you own the books, but it'd be a good idea for people who rent them. Or people who have an ebook-reader.
But we still have the other solution: a password for the downloads we give only to the members who participate. For example, to download them you'd have to write 10 messages (not in the boring board). So people would have to introduce themselves, talk about Animorphs or other things...
Then, if we do both things (free first chapters and password when you participate), sell and members would increase ^^
I like the way you think, Dameg!
Putting up only the first few chapters is genius. It would increase sales because it would force people to buy every book to read the ending, and yet still allow us to keep at least a part of the e-books up!
I sure hope it's legal, though. That's the only thing I would worry about if we did that. But, as has been said, there are enough torrent sites that Scholastic can't hardly hunt them all down, so maybe they won't bother?
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so we're just amazon.com's look inside feature now?
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Not "now", and we'll allow download with a password. I don't want the ebooks we made disappear from the web...
But it'd be something we can do to keep a free part of all that.
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Anijen, do you really have to bash every compromise we try to make?
Not "now", and we'll allow download with a password. I don't want the ebooks we made disappear from the web...
But it'd be something we can do to keep a free part of all that.
I guess that's better than nothing, but I was picturing that only the first parts of the books would be available even with the password, and then just have nothing after that. No matter how complex we make the registration process to get to the books, some people will still prefer doing that to paying money for them. It's sad, but it's true.
I've got another idea, though. How about this? Maybe, to download each book, you need to find a password from the previous book. We'd make it something from the back cover, or inside cover, or something like that, so it couldn't be found on the e-book version. Or we could just 'white out' one random word from each e-book and make people answer "what word was missing?" That would force people to buy each book in order to access the next book electronically, while still leaving the books available to anyone as long as they're willing to buy the books. And maybe the first book could be accessed by having a certain number of posts on RAF, since my system wouldn't work for the first book. What do you think?
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Anijen, do you really have to bash every compromise we try to make?
To be completely honest I don't even know what we're trying to do anymore. You seem dead set on making the ebooks unavailable in some ways to people, while I believe that they should be available, though protected. I think we have a fundamental disagreement on what purpose the ebooks serve, so no, I guess we're not going to reach a compromise. Maybe I'm just being too flip about the availability of copyrighted information on the internet, but I really don't think taking the ebooks down is going to do anything to hurt the sales of either the rerelease or the continuation, both since I believe the vast majority of fans are honest enough to buy the books and because RAF's ebooks are only one penny in the jar of ways to read the books illegally. I mean, the way you're talking, it's like people should feel guilty going to the library to read them since they're not going to convince Scholastic that a continuation is a profitable enterprise.
I think we should worry less about holding others accountable and worry more about holding ourselves accountable. The ebooks are a good resource, and being so draconian with their accessibility seems both unfairly limiting and exclusive to me.
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I'm actually not disagreeing with you on a lot of your points, Anijen. I agree that the e-books are a great resource. Believe it or not, even as strongly as I've been arguing for it, I don't actually want them taken down, if there's any other way to keep from hurting sales. Hey, you never know, maybe the books will be so heavily edited for the re-release that we can safely leave the e-books up, and that would be great! :D
And I see your point about other illegal sources for the books, and I agree that that's a rather troublesome loose end. It is still true, however, that RAF is the biggest and best source for e-books, so taking ours down would at least make a sizeable dent in illegal downloads.
But the way I see it is this: which would you rather have? The ability to easily conveniently re-read the same Animorphs books over and over? Or have new Animorphs books to read? Please don't get me wrong, they're both great and wonderful things. But even the distant and dim possibility of new Animorphs books being a reality some day is so incredible I can barely breathe just when I think about it. So I'm desperately wanting to do everything in my power, and then some, to help that happen. If I have to email every single site on the web that has Animorphs e-books, and tell them to take them all down, and if that will make any difference at all, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
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I think that's a great idea. I'm pretty cynical as to the amount of good it will do, but if anything it will let more people know that the series is going to potentially be extended which is news we could afford to have spread a little bit.
I guess that's the perspective I see this from--right now, there's a tightly knit and greatly motivated core of Animorphs fans who would pretty much cut off an arm to get a reboot, and the other 99.999999% of the population who's more like "Oh, Animorphs? Was that another of P.S. Stine's series?" I don't think there's much controversy in what the tight-knit group is going to do. Arms are generally worth more than $200 or whatever the rerelease is going to cost, so that's great. What we need to do is figure out how to get at least part of the 99.9999999% of the population to care enough about the rerelease to buy them. And I know it's kind of counter-intuitive, but I don't believe being all reclusive and greedy with our resources is the way to do it. We need to accept new fans with open arms, not with a bunch of caveats and hindrances.
So if anything, we should be all "COME TO RAF WE HAVE FREE BOOKS."
But, like I said, I could be wrong. I'm really thinking of the rerelease more from the perspective of an unsigned band on MySpace who would kill just to get people to listen to their music, rather than Britney Spears who puts watermarks and passwords on her CDs just so people don't share them. But you know what? People still do, and then they hate the record label for making them break through paswords.
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Haha, I guess I've just been thinking about it like a Britney Spears CD, then. But you're probably right on that point. Animorphs never exactly reached Harry Potter or Twilight-level popularity.
And you're quite right that we need to spread the word, one way or another, about Animorphs. Hopefully Scholastic will advertise the re-release and take care of some of that for us, but every little bit is going to help.
How many people, though, of that 99.999999%, would read the books online and then buy them? I realize that I would (and not just with Animorphs, either, but with any book I happen to like), but then again I have to admit I'm kind of an outlier on the bell-curve of humanity. So, even if we do make a whole bunch of new fans by offering them free books, wouldn't a good percentage of that be sorta-halfway fans who are contented with just reading the books online and never actually buy them? Maybe not all of them would be like that, and maybe you're right and that would be the way to get people to buy the books. I don't honestly know. It's hard to say how it would play out, and we of course can't know for certain one way or another until it's much too late.
Going back to your CD analogy, though, there are loads of people who are just content with downloading music illegally, and those people almost never turn around and buy the CD after they already have the music. Books are a bit different from music, though, so that was just a thought.
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idk I mean tbh a pdf was how I read Twilight. And that certainly did nothing to deter its success.
People will read the books on here and then not buy them. I just think the number of people who do that will be less than the number of people we could potentially gain being open and welcoming with everything we have to offer.
And besides, I STILL believe the rereleases are going to be updated/edited, so the e-books are going to be more of a fun artifact than a viable replacement. But whatever those are my thoughts.
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Well, I think we'll have to wait to decide.
We don't know exactly how will be the 2.0.
Personally, I'd just like that ebooks stay available in a way, with or without password (we have time to decide) and that the sells aren't hurt by it (and if we can even help them, it's great).
If the 2.0 is different, we'll have to take care about the password, because some words can change... ;)
Don't be stressed by that.
And if you want that more people care about Animorphs, do advertising about our ebooks now! If people begin to read them here, trust me, they won't read the 64 ebooks ^^' (or only the few totally insane geeks) and they'll buy the 2.0.
Good luck ;)
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idk I mean tbh a pdf was how I read Twilight. And that certainly did nothing to deter its success.
Twilight's a bad example. They did everything wrong, and yet nothing they did deterred its success. So I have no idea what to make of that.
And I, too, am crossing my fingers and hoping that they edit the books for the re-release. That will make this entire discussion completely moot, and will mean that we can leave the e-books up without fear of hurting sales. Everybody wins!
I'm just paranoid that that won't be the case, and I want to stay prepared for every possibility.
I'm no longer so sure what we should do about that, though. On the one hand, there may be current fans who would buy a re-release only if there were no e-books available instead, but on the other hand, there may be future fans who are enticed by the e-books into buying the real books. Which of those two groups is bigger, is going to be the important question, here. I've been arguing this whole time that it's the first group, but I'm beginning to wonder if we can really be so certain . . .
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Maybe I just have too much faith in the corporate system, but I see no reason to wait three years to do this unless they want to market them for a new generation, and to do that, yeah, you're going to have to update the books themselves. You could reprint the books as they are in a couple of months if you wanted to. I mean, magazines release a new mass-marketed publication each month, how hard can it be?
lol famous last words y/n?
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idk I mean tbh a pdf was how I read Twilight. And that certainly did nothing to deter its success.
Twilight's a bad example. They did everything wrong, and yet nothing they did deterred its success. So I have no idea what to make of that.
And I, too, am crossing my fingers and hoping that they edit the books for the re-release. That will make this entire discussion completely moot, and will mean that we can leave the e-books up without fear of hurting sales. Everybody wins!
I'm just paranoid that that won't be the case, and I want to stay prepared for every possibility.
I'm no longer so sure what we should do about that, though. On the one hand, there may be current fans who would buy a re-release only if there were no e-books available instead, but on the other hand, there may be future fans who are enticed by the e-books into buying the real books. Which of those two groups is bigger, is going to be the important question, here. I've been arguing this whole time that it's the first group, but I'm beginning to wonder if we can really be so certain . . .
just save them all to a flash drive and keep them on your key chain. seriously the whole set of e-books only takes up 33 mb.
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Serraph, we don't say it's hard to keep the ebooks, we're just talking about how to distribute them.
Anijen, I think you're right. They'll probably change something. Maybe change the details to make the story happens around 2012 and not around 2000. For example, when they talk about video games, they won't have Nintendo 64 but Wii ;) And the Twin Towers don't appear, the famous actors/singers wouldn't be the same...
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I think that regardless of what we do with the e-books, we should most definitely promote purchasing the rerelease on the e-books page, or maybe even in the e-books themselves. At the very least, we should include a link to where you can buy the re-realeased version of the book you're about to download.
One thing that would be wonderful if we could find a way to pull it off, and this would involve working with scholastic, would be maybe to have a way to donate TO Schlastic from RAF. That would most definitely show our support, especially if we could find a way to make sure they know that these donations are to encourage 2.0.
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Donations? lol We wouldn't go so far ^^'
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Remember, this is Richard's site. He decides whether or not they stay. You guys are thinking of compromises like you're the ones deciding the outcome.
Dameg,
I prefer to read the e-books rather than the hard copies, but I still want to own the hard copies so that they're like good back-ups if the power goes out, or if I have to travel.
Anijen/Goom,
I agree 100% No matter what we do, the e-books are on the internet, if they can't get it here, they'll get it elsewhere. We don't want them to get it elsewhere. If RAF had taken down the e-books before I found this site, I wouldn't be here.
My very first post ever was me signing up to help with the e-book project. Taking down the e-books would only repel people.
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Of course, we remember it's Richard's website so he'll decide at the end. It doesn't mean we can't give our opinions ;)
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Remember, this is Richard's site. He decides whether or not they stay. You guys are thinking of compromises like you're the ones deciding the outcome.
Dameg,
I prefer to read the e-books rather than the hard copies, but I still want to own the hard copies so that they're like good back-ups if the power goes out, or if I have to travel.
Anijen/Goom,
I agree 100% No matter what we do, the e-books are on the internet, if they can't get it here, they'll get it elsewhere. We don't want them to get it elsewhere. If RAF had taken down the e-books before I found this site, I wouldn't be here.
My very first post ever was me signing up to help with the e-book project. Taking down the e-books would only repel people.
I agree with you, to an extent.
If people want the ebooks bad enough, they will find them, but if we take them down from here (and maybe get Animorphs Fan Forums to take their's down), it would seriously deter them. I think a lot of people try to stay away from torrents, but I'm not sure, either way they instantly become 90% harder to find. Heck, the way I found this site was by googling Animorphs ebooks (this is the first thing that pops up).
On a, I guess, lighter note: I came home from college to visit my family only to discover that my mom had given over the majority of my Animorphs collection to my cousin (around roughly 20+ or so books). I called my auntie (his mother) to see about getting them back and she asked me that I let him hold onto them a little longer because it's the only thing she can get him to read. You see, my cousin is a sports/videogames kid so he doesn't ever read unless he had to, but he's actually (apparently) addicted to these books! I'm sure it doesn't seem like a big deal to you guys, but my family was certainly surprised to see him reading as opposed to watching a basketball game on Thanksgiving night. It reminded me of when I was younger, considering Animorphs is the whole reason I even began reading recreationally, so I let him have them.
Hope for the future?
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It's cute ^^ And yeah, there are hope for the future. I think Animorphs can still be liked by nowadays kids. ;)
Just be careful he returns them back ^^' (and introduce him here!)
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It's cute ^^ And yeah, there are hope for the future. I think Animorphs can still be liked by nowadays kids. ;)
Just be careful he returns them back ^^' (and introduce him here!)
LOL, it's funny that you say that because he called this morning and asked if I had any more. I told my mom let him have them, hopefully he'll tell his friends...
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echoing my previous statement, i say just keep them on RAF, remove them if scholastic has a problem.
we'll have plenty of time to think about it when the books draw near.
there might not be a 2.0 anyways. :P
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:ditto:
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Ok I know I haven't said anything in this topic, But I vote to move the talk/argument/debate about the freeness of the Ebooks to a SEPARATE topic. Unless the eBooks are the Animorphs 2.0 that was originally brought up.
That way people know that an argument is happening. (i didn't know it was happening either).... just a suggestion.
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split as suggested.
(sorry if anybody's post was intended for the other thread, i moved them all after my own)
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first: they are re-releasing the animorphs?! really?! when? (i don't have time to read thru all the pages, so sry if it has already been said)
second, don't take them down unless he is asked to. because if someone doesn't want spoilers they just don't read the e-books. its that simple. anyone else tho is already a fan so they already know what happens anyways cuz they already read all the books
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split as suggested.
(sorry if anybody's post was intended for the other thread, i moved them all after my own)
Good call.
But is this JUST about the Animorphs eBooks, or the Remnants and Everworld ones too? If it's about all of them, then maybe move it out of the Animorphs board or something... :P lol i dunno
EDIT::: OMG JUST READ FIRST POST NVM
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Again, don't take 'em down. If we do, it'll divert members from our site to others.
Estrid,
Schoolastic is officially going to rerelease the original series early 2012. It is speculated that there may be new cover art, but that's not confirmed. The only fact we have is that in early 2012, they will rerelease the Animorphs series. Then they will judge those sales numbers and decide whether to go through with Animorphs 2.0.
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whats animorphs 2.0 gona be?
man i really need to start getting back into the animorphs thread :-\
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They're not saying.
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So 2.0 could be anything from the continuation of the series to a movie?
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Or sorry, it's a book series, but we don't know if its a continuation, a separate story, or a rewrite.
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Or maybe just a reediting ^^' We can't be totally sure...
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I say take them down. I don't want us to catch some bad attention, or be enablers to people who may refuse to buy books when they can read ebooks. If the other websites disagree, we can't force them, but we can set an example for everyone. Not to mentione that, depending on how much is changed, the ebooks may become outdated anyway.
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All the more reason to keep 'em up. OG e-books, classics never die!
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I say that's a reason to get rid of them, if they become outdated, and you say that's a reason to keep them around? That's funny. A valid point, though.
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It's always good to have a reminder of where a series came from. Like when the rerelease comes. I'll have both my original Animorph books, and the rereleased copies above them. :thumbsup:
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Or sorry, it's a book series, but we don't know if its a continuation, a separate story, or a rewrite.
apparently truth's source confirmed (as quoted on hirac dilest) that it will be a reprinting of the original series and he isnt sure whether anything will be abridged to make it more current or anything
It seems like scholastic will at some point contact richard and ask him to take down the books. This will almost definitely occur before the rerelease if they have a single intelligent person at scholastic lol They'll want to handle this privately as best they can because companies gain nothing from lawsuits against the little man
They might also ask for us to remove everworld and remnants too since even though there isnt any money to be made off those books anymore they are still scholastic property so they would want to make sure we got rid of all copyright infringements now because if they ever needed to come back and ask us to remove them we could say oh you didnt ask us to remove them last time thats practically consent and make a big stink out of it.
So I guess just wait until they come to us
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That's just speculation though.
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which part? the issue isnt whether or not scholastic will want the ebooks removed, the issue is whether we should remove them preemptively or wait for scholastic to approach us
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It's speculation that scholastic will ask us to remove the e-books. It makes sense that they would, but we don't KNOW that they will.
Also I thought that they were going to do the rerelease, then do Ani2.0?
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well according to hirac dilest it depends on the success of the rerelease as to whether there will be a 2.0, so hopefully it goes well
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Okay, that's what I thought. Hopefully Scholastic won't care about the e-books.