No Starch Press Turns Table on File Sharing--Media Alert

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:
From: "Victor Marks" <victor () macnn com>
Date: April 3, 2008 9:50:09 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: No Starch Press Turns Table on File Sharing--Media Alert

Dave, For IP if you wish.

This is a PR announcement from oreilly - they're distributing two
books on bittorrent networks. They frame this as 'beating piracy' by
being first to distribute and controlling the release by initiating
rather than an individual 'pirate' initiating distribution.

Notably, the author of the release says "The truth of the matter is
that the battle to stop people from posting copyrighted material to
torrent sites is one that can't be won. Beside the fact that No Starch
Press sells PDFs without DRM (digital rights management) protections,
anything that can be viewed online can be captured and pirated."

Add this to the Canadian television program being distributed by
bittorrent, and linux distributions available by bittorrent, and we're
seeing bittorrent transformed slowly from 'evil illegal pirate
network' into just another service like email, http, and instant
messaging.

ISPs are going to have to find a way to accommodate customers who wish
to use these services, I expect.

Regards,
Victor Marks
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ariel Schwartz <nostarchpr () oreilly com>
Date: Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Subject: No Starch Press Turns Table on File Sharing--Media Alert
To: victor () macnn com





If you cannot read the information below, click here.



CONTACT:   Ariel Schwartz
nostarchpr () oreilly com
415.863.9900 x301



No Starch Press Turns Table on File Sharing
Posts torrent versions of best-selling tech books with 11,000
combined downloads in first week San Francisco, CA—No Starch Press,
publisher of geek books, is trying something interesting with
file-sharing sites.

Recognizing that the book business is changing and that books end up
on file-sharing sites within days of being released in electronic
form, they thought they'd take matters into their own hands. The
result? No Starch released their own "official pirate version" of two
best-selling backlist titles, Leander Kahney's The Cult of Mac and The
Cult of iPod. News of the release became a viral hit online, and there
were over 11,000 downloads of the books in the first week.

"I've always felt that these two books should have sold many more
copies than they actually have," said No Starch Press publisher Bill
Pollock, "but that they suffered from a lack of visibility. As
four-color, coffee-table books, they were never released
electronically and never appeared on torrent sites. So these two were
good choices for this little experiment."

Visibility online came swiftly. One of No Starch's editors had shared
2GB of data from his home PC within hours of the initial upload. By
the next day, The Cult of Mac became the #1 book on the infamous
torrent site, The Pirate Bay. And a story about the experiment posted
to TorrentFreak.com reached the front page of popular social news site
Digg.

The truth of the matter is that the battle to stop people from
posting copyrighted material to torrent sites is one that can't be
won. Beside the fact that No Starch Press sells PDFs without DRM
(digital rights management) protections, anything that can be viewed
online can be captured and pirated. Within days of its release, No
Starch Press's best-selling Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd
Edition, was scraped from an e-book site and posted to multiple
file-sharing networks.

Of course, part of the reason for No Starch releasing these titles on
P2P sites is political. As major organizations and ISPs work to shut
down file sharing, No Starch aims to remind them that P2P has valid
uses as well—even for traditional content providers. "File sharing
itself, or P2P, is not a crime," said Pollock. "It can be a great way
for willing artists to share their work. That's not to say that
stealing copyrighted material is not a crime, and our actions are not
in any way meant to endorse it."

"If this experiment works, we'll try more titles," Pollock said. "And
even if it doesn't work, we may try more titles, if only to beat
pirates at their own game." For more information please email
nostarchpr () oreilly com.

About No Starch Press
Founded in 1994, No Starch Press is one of the few remaining
independent computer book publishers. We publish the finest in geek
entertainment—unique books on technology, with a focus on Open Source,
security, hacking, programming, alternative operating systems, and
LEGO. Our titles have personality, our authors are passionate, and our
books tackle topics that people care about. See www.nostarch.com for
more information and our complete online catalog. (And most No Starch
Press books use RepKover, a lay-flat binding that won't snap shut.)

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