Book Piracy BAD

[Mad Swede]

I guess if that's how you view respect and readership, I can see how you came to the rest of your conclusions. I think we maybe just have fundamentally different world views? I can't imagine a less valuable metric than sales in terms of how good a writer is, personally. No hate, you're free to feel how you feel of course.

All said and done, piracy and used book stores have the same effect on sales for the writer, but relatively few people are against used bookstores. I think it's this difference in values that says 'paying for something = respecting/valuing it more' that is drawing this line? (Correct me if I'm wrong vis a vis how you view used bookstores, though!) It's hard to imagine looking at the world that way, but diverse viewpoints are what make the world go round, so it's fascinating to learn about them.


Of course, but you can also give away copies through itch in a way that Amazon's (or bookstores') don't allow and I think that appeals to writers with an ethos similar to mine. Community copies sustain the itch community in a lot of ways, and I think it fosters that different perspective.

Wait one. When you give your book away (or set the price to zero) on a site like itch or Bandcamp or Amazon you are still in control of who gets a copy (or reads it in terms of a community copy), and so you can see how many wanted to read a copy and therefore how much interest there is in your work. The same is true if you (or your publisher) set the price to $15 and track the number of sales through book stores and/or on Amazon - you can see how many people wanted a copy to read. You can even track how many times your book was borrowed from a library, because you get a small fee each time the book is lent. In all these cases it's the same metric (the number of people who want to read the book), you're just not counting money when you give the book away.

This is also true when someone buys a book second hand, the level of interest in the book can be judged by how fast a second hand copy sells (and sometimes for how much) and indirectly by how hard it is to find a second hand copy for sale. Popular books either never make it into a second hand book shop (because people keep hold of their copies) or sell as soon as they turn up.

Piracy is different, because it is theft of someone elses property. Even when it applies to books.

 

[casval]

Wait one. When you give your book away (or set the price to zero) on a site like itch or Bandcamp or Amazon you are still in control of who gets a copy (or reads it in terms of a community copy), and so you can see how many wanted to read a copy and therefore how much interest there is in your work. The same is true if you (or your publisher) set the price to $15 and track the number of sales through book stores and/or on Amazon - you can see how many people wanted a copy to read. You can even track how many times your book was borrowed from a library, because you get a small fee each time the book is lent. In all these cases it's the same metric (the number of people who want to read the book), you're just not counting money when you give the book away.

This is also true when someone buys a book second hand, the level of interest in the book can be judged by how fast a second hand copy sells (and sometimes for how much) and indirectly by how hard it is to find a second hand copy for sale. Popular books either never make it into a second hand book shop (because people keep hold of their copies) or sell as soon as they turn up.

Piracy is different, because it is theft of someone elses property. Even when it applies to books.

Sure, yeah, I don't think I ever said I was against having any metrics - hence why my original post to this thread said if I self-publish, I plan to offer community copies or a free ebook through my website. It is a means of reducing piracy by offering free copies in a legitimate way, so to speak. I just don't see the monetary element as necessary; I don't really begrudge people for not paying for books, most people I know can barely afford groceries.

I don't know if there's a way to really track sales through used book stores, though, if they don't have a website or some other means of self-reporting to publishers about interest... but I guess in a certain timeframe the 'popular books won't be in used stores' metric is true, at least for the first couple of years after it was published.

I prefer physical books so I don't have much reason to pirate them myself, but I'll admit I have pirated comics in the past and many of those websites have download numbers and more popular series have more seeders - and 'sort by popularity/most downloaded' is a feature of most websites, legitimate or otherwise. So it might not be impossible to track potential readers through those means, if you still wanted the metrics.

 

[pmmg]

Sure, yeah, I don't think I ever said I was against having any metrics

But you also have not said piracy was bad. If you are defending piracy all the rest of this is a smokescreen. You may wish to give your books away for free, but that is not the same as deciding for others that they should do so as well. If I am not on that path, and you pirate my book, or put it somewhere to be pirated, it is theft. I don't need to go any further.

Piracy is theft.

I am not sure what I can do about it, but it is still theft.

 

[casval]

But you also have not said piracy was bad. If you are defending piracy all the rest of this is a smokescreen. You may wish to give your books away for free, but that is not the same as deciding for others that they should do so as well. If I am not on that path, and you pirate my book, or put it somewhere to be pirated, it is theft. I don't need to go any further.

Piracy is theft.

I am not sure what I can do about it, but it is still theft.

Well, I haven't said piracy is bad because I don't think piracy is bad, obviously. It's the natural result of bad service and, perhaps, a bad economy. I think offering your book for free via a website, community copies, or any other means is a good way to combat piracy because it offers a legitimate means to acquire the book for free - but if all you want is for people to pay for your book, then yeah, I guess there's not really much you can do about it at the end of the day.

 

[Mad Swede]

Well, I haven't said piracy is bad because I don't think piracy is bad, obviously. It's the natural result of bad service and, perhaps, a bad economy. I think offering your book for free via a website, community copies, or any other means is a good way to combat piracy because it offers a legitimate means to acquire the book for free - but if all you want is for people to pay for your book, then yeah, I guess there's not really much you can do about it at the end of the day.

To put this much more harshly, what you are saying is that it is OK to steal. You may think that you're only talking about books, but the reality is that you have accepted the principle that it is OK to steal provided you feel that you can justify it to yourself. It's like taking bribes. Once someone has taken a backhander to do something the only question to be discussed next time is how much more they have to be paid to do something even worse, simply because they've shown they can be bought.

That's the start of a very slippery slope, one I've seen far too many times on the various UN peacekeeping and peace enforcement oerations I served on. The argument that "it's OK to do this because..." rapidly escalates and what results is all too often an unpleasant and bitter conflict.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I wamt to point out there's two fundamental differences between used book stores and piracy.

The first is that a used book store is a one to one transaction. I buy a book new, I sell it to the second hand store, who can then sell it to someone else. Once I sell it, I don't have it anymore, and the used bookstore can only sell it once, so only one person can read it again then. Someone has paid for that first book, which the author receives in royalties.

The second difference is that physical books deteriorate in quality. Not everyone cares about it of course, but if you buy a secondhand copy, it's obvious someone has read it before you. a page may be folded. Maybe a scribble in the margin. The spine deteriorates and so on. There's only so many times you can resell a book, and it will go down in price each time. A digital book on the other hand has nothing of this. If I buy a second hand digital one, or pirate one, then it will be as new. There is no decrease in quality between the first and the second or the thousanth copy that gets resold. Which is why the sale of second hand digital books is actually not allowed in the Netherlands (without the author's consent).

This makes both situations very different.

It's the natural result of bad service and, perhaps, a bad economy.

I don't buy this. Not for books. There are easy to access digital storefronts that are available everywhere. There are very few (english language) books that are not available globally. And there are more books available for free, 99ct, or $2,99 than a person can read in a lifetime.

Say what you want about Amazon, but they overall have great customer service. Same for Kobo and all the other online stores. It's easier to find a digital book in a store that pays the author than to pirate one. So bad service is not a good reason.

And if you don't want to pay $15 for an ebook, that's fine. Just read one that only costs 99ct. There are plenty. That's again not a reason to pirate one in the same way that going into a grocery store and just taking an expensive $15 steak without paying just because of the economy is still theft. You might not get the exact book you want, but there is plenty of stuff out there to read that is within any budget you can think of.

Now an author can use many different pricing models. Some (often traditionally published) authors go with $15 ebooks, priced equal to or slightly below paperback. It makes sense if you consider that most of the cost is in actually getting the book ready for publishing. The printing cost on larger, traditional print runs isn't all that high. And it also helps keep bookshops happy and in business.

Other authors do free give aways of ebooks to draw readers in. Or have a cheap part 1 in a series and make money on the back end. Others use patreon or whatever to make there money. It's all different, and it can all work, and I can give you very succesful examples of each.

All of these however have in common that it's the author's and publisher's choice. They decide how they sell the book they created. It's for the customer to accept or reject that. But rejecting it means you don't get to read that book.

 

[casval]

To put this much more harshly, what you are saying is that it is OK to steal. You may think that you're only talking about books, but the reality is that you have accepted the principle that it is OK to steal provided you feel that you can justify it to yourself. It's like taking bribes. Once someone has taken a backhander to do something the only question to be discussed next time is how much more they have to be paid to do something even worse, simply because they've shown they can be bought.

That's the start of a very slippery slope, one I've seen far too many times on the various UN peacekeeping and peace enforcement oerations I served on. The argument that "it's OK to do this because..." rapidly escalates and what results is all too often an unpleasant and bitter conflict.

We live in a world of theft - primarily wage theft - so I can't say I consider theft done by poorer people to be some great sin in the grand scheme of things. I have terrible news for you about my views on the UN as a 'peacekeeping' institution as well, but that's neither here nor there.

Say what you want about Amazon, but they overall have great customer service. Same for Kobo and all the other online stores. It's easier to find a digital book in a store that pays the author than to pirate one. So bad service is not a good reason.

Amazon's ebooks are genuinely awful to work with if you don't use their Kindle app or device, but other online storefronts are definitely better, no doubt. But I don't think there's been the breakthrough in ebooks needed to push out piracy, especially for how hard it is to find readable books with images - we're still doing PDFs for half of the textbooks out there (one of the largest piracy markets for books afaik). Music piracy went down when Spotify was introduced; movie piracy went down when Netflix launched. I don't think books have had this 'leap' and it's not surprising piracy would be up when people are used to that sort of service.

(Of course, movie piracy has gone up again since there are now 30 Netflix competitors and they all charge $14/month with ads, so these things do ebb and flow. And I know audible was a great boon for several years before Amazon messed that up, too, so I think a similar service could once again help reduce piracy rates.)

Honestly, though, I think the biggest problem is probably just that libraries are radically underfunded outside major cities in the United States. People try to come up with alternatives like the Internet Archive and writers like Chuck Wendig whined about that all the way to court. I hope something that kills book piracy dead comes along, because it would mean there is a wonderful, accessible, affordable way to read all of the books your heart desires available to all of the people who want and need it.

All of these however have in common that it's the author's and publisher's choice. They decide how they sell the book they created. It's for the customer to accept or reject that. But rejecting it means you don't get to read that book.

At the end of the day, the philosophical disagreement I think we're having here is I just think people should have a human right to experience art. People have always found a way to do so and will continue to regardless of the wishes of a publishing company. Pirate radio, sitting on the hill watching a concert from a distance, or sitting in the alley next to the opera house. When I was a kid, a guy came around to my Dad's pub selling $5 Chinese bootleg DVDs of movies still in theatres. My high school English teacher printed out 2000 pages of double-sided scans of all of Ender's Game because the school let him photocopy anything he wanted but wouldn't buy 20 copies of a book for his science fiction course. Internet piracy is the new form of it, it is what it is.