This particular article and the study it mentions are kinda dubious in conclusion. They just didn’t generate enough data, imo.
But, that’s whatever.
Anyone want some anecdotal shit followed by an opinion? If so, read on. If not, well, don’t.
So, I’m a writer. Not a successful one in the usual sense, but I have a pretty good sized body of work, and I actually have a few fans.
So, I got published years ago, back in the oughts. Didn’t sell for shit. Couldn’t even talk family into buying copies. Total flop, but part of that was the small publisher and lack of support marketing.
So, fast forward to maybe ten years ago? Maybe fifteen, can’t really recall. Point being that I was reworking the old books, writing new stuff, etc. My homie, Spider, wanted to read my stuff, so I just passed him epub versions. Dude moves them into his books folder that grts shared via soulseek.
Now, it was at least a decade since the published books were out. But. A few weeks after he tells me he “fucked up”, I start getting emails from people that actually read my shit, and wanted to read more.
Some of those people actually bought a different book via amazon. I got more sales to pirates than I ever got through normal methods.
My opinion? The zone in which piracy is going to hurt an author is narrow. When you’re small enough, even a 1% conversion of pirates to paying fans is awesome. And, when you’re big enough, even 1% loss of paying customers is a drop in the bucket you’ll never notice.
But somewhere in the middle, there’s a range where the lack of sales that would otherwise happen can be the difference between writing for a living, and not making a living at it.
But I’d still rather piracy exist, because I hold the same philosophy as that game dev that said culture shouldn’t only be available to those who can pay for it. That’s a paraphrase, and I can’t remember the guy’s name. But it’s the same reason I gave copies of my print books to libraries in the area I live. I would rather people be reading, have access to material, than make a little extra.
Fwiw, I barely made enough off of any of the traditional published books, or Amazon sales, to equal about two weeks pay at my job as a CNA. Total, over years lol. I made some damn good money doing custom fiction, and research & reporting back in the day, though.
I feel this way about music too. Not just pirated tunes, but copyright takedowns on shorts and in yt vids
Finding new artists as a fan is hard enough. If someone has reposted your music video as their own, sure I get it.
But a minute clip or less? Fans or haters talking about it? Let that thing fly free baby! I’ve found so much new music that was background music. I use the family Spotify account or buy merch more than I buy music these days to support.
I’ve bought so many books from authors that became my favs after they did a free epub once that got my attention.
There’s always the “do this thing free for the exposure” problem - but people who say that are usually trying to exploit artists for their own gain. Fans are different, they are grass roots and not trying to exploit, but trying to recruit.
Most new books I find are books I check out from my local library. While the library did pay for a copy, so it’s not quite the same, as a reader I didn’t pay anything for it. The barrier to trying the new book is very small, and if I don’t like it I haven’t lost anything.
Readers finding your book online for free are having the same experience. Maybe not everyone who reads it will want to buy copies, but some will. Just like how some who find your book in a library would want to buy their own copy.
That’s a very astute observation and it made me wonder if piracy was partly to blame for the death of the B-tier game (at least on PC). In my younger pre-Steam days me and my friends would pirate 9/10 of the games we played (if not more). Games like CoD/Fifa/Sims would get enough sales from regular folks, but who the heck was going to take a chance on something like Will Rock or Scrapland? I would often check out games at my local store and then go home to torrent them, meaning they lost out on sales from the kinds of weirdos who the games were made for.
all my pirated copies are offline, its working for me!
The corollary is that a book has to be in-print, or commercially distributed in e-book form, to have any sales.
If neither new printed copies, or commercially sold e-books are available, then taking down pirate sites, or even an archive like archive.org, only diminishes the collection and availability of human knowledge and literature.
Seems to corroborate that piracy is mostly a service problem. People will flock where the content is easily accessible and cheaper.
You want to solve piracy? Make the selling/distribution platform not suck and don’t treat your customers like shit.
They reached out to several major publishers and partnered with an anti-piracy outfit, to test whether takedown efforts have a measurable effect on legitimate book sales… While the researchers found a small positive effect in the takedown category, it wasn’t pronounced enough to be statistically significant. Only after the researchers tried a Bayesian analysis, adding data from previous research, did they find an uptick in book sales.
Sounds like fair and unbiased science. \s
The fun part is “statistically significant” is already a nonsense bar that doesn’t imply causation.
I think there’s a big difference in writing books as in literature, and writing school books with the purpose of passing on knowledge.
For me, knowledge is 100% fine to pirate, while literature is okay, but buy the ones that you liked to support the writer. Just like games/movies.
I think writing quality textbooks absolutely qualifies as real, genuine contribution that deserves to be compensated.
It definitely doesn’t deserve to require a new, updated version of a $150 textbook every year that does nothing but change the problem sets to fuck students out of being able to buy used copies, though.
Academic journals charging obscene fees at both ends to monopolize publicly funded research that should be automatically in the public domain no matter what? Fuck them more.
Only after the researchers tried a Bayesian analysis
If I remember my college classes right, this basically means “we invented data to fit the curve we want”, right?
College kids should collectively buy 1 book and then AI to rewrite the book in other words and distribute it freely.
That would be hilarious and in line with their world view of seizing the means of production.
