Re: What kinds of Books are pirated and made into EBooks?

>
> 1a. Re: What kinds of Books are pirated and made into EBooks?
>    Posted by: "Bill C" bczygan-/[email protected] bczygan
>    Date: Tue Mar 9, 2010 7:31 pm ((PST))
>
> Amy,
>  No, you misunderstand. These are serious questions. I am interested  
> in what real effects there are in Ebook piracy. I read this list,  
> and there is a lot of discussion of it. In fact, it permeates the  
> list. A year or so ago, there was much more talk of protection, but  
> that sees to have tapered of a bit. But nowhere does there seem to  
> be real information. I used myself as an example to spark some  
> discussion. We could talk of my morals, but what I am really  
> interested in, and the reason I opened myself up in such a  
> vulnerable fashion for, is to find out if there really is a serious  
> measurable consequence to authors and publishers. What are your  
> thoughts?

There is very little way to measure the actual consequences in lost  
sales of piracy. There's no way to do a double blind, no way to  
accurately match pirated and not pirated, no way to randomize, or any  
of the other methods used by the social scientist to measure such  
amorphous phenomena.

Nonetheless, there are some instructive datasets. Look at the music  
business, and the thunderous drop in revenues to musicians as well as  
to the rest of the industry.

Then again, look at Baen: they give away free e-copies of older titles  
in order to spark the sales of print copies of newer ones.

A few notes, however:
I very much doubt that many (any?) readers will buy a legit e-copy  
once they own a pirated one. So, once the e-book has eviscerated the  
mass market paperback's market, and significantly reduced the market  
for the trade paperback (think maybe 10 years?), piracy won't be able  
to spark sales of those formats, and will probably tank revenue,  
unless it stops soon.

Not all books are the same. Most books sold in the US are NOT fiction.  
They're not even trade non-fiction. These books are likely to behave  
very differently than Baen's list, for example. Arguments about piracy  
and DRM should recognize these differences explicitly.

Musicians have been able to replace much of their lost revenue by  
selling other things, especially tickets to live shows. That's not a  
model that's likely to work well for most authors. What are book  
people going to sell -- tickets to a reading? You can't get people to  
show up in large numbers when they're free, and you're giving away  
snacks and drinks. They're sure not going to pay for it.

Many pirates are racking up status points for a collection, and are  
poor enough that they're not good candidates for legit sales. But  
these downloaders are NOT the ones publishers worry about. They're not  
a large enough group to make a dent one way or another -- except to  
the extent that they make piracy easy for another, larger group:   
readers who just don't get the difference, and just want an e-book for  
the best price they can get.

The public generally doesn't understand what the fuss is about, and  
doesn't always understand that sites where you pay a membership, or  
register, aren't necessarily buying the rights from the true owners of  
the material. And they're the market upon which we depend for our  
bread and butter.

The iTunes model -- cheap, easy, secure, and good enough quality -- is  
one that we're trying to replicate via the Kindle, and other mass  
market sites. That may be enough to pull us back from the cliff edge  
that the music industry has fallen over. We can only hope.


Marion Gropen
Gropen Associates, Inc.
By-The-Question Consulting,  Tools for Publishers, & Classes
www.GropenAssoc.com
Her blog: www.GropenAssoc.com/blog





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