"As to hanging, it is no great hardship...": Internet Piracy, and Who It Hurts.

As much as I agree with you on the whole, this bit:

Let's assume, this time optimistically, that all 1,095 people who illegally downloaded my book were originally planning to buy it new, before they found this awesome new way to save money and get the book magically delivered to their computer.

...just isn't true.

There's a lot of evidence out there that says that those folks who're stealing your stuff would not be buying it if it weren't available to steal. They were likely never your customers. Those are not lost sales. Treating them as if they were just does not match what reality seems to be.

Yes, absolutely, they are stealing something from you, and they are hurting you when they do largely because publishers do treat them as lost sales and they do things like measuring illegal downloads versus legal sales, and make decisions based on that. Perception is everything.

But even if you could somehow prevent those 1,095 people from stealing your work, that would not be 1,095 more sales. It would very likely be no more sales. And there's some chance it would be less sales, because there is some evidence that while illegal downloaders generally aren't your customers, they do seem to increase your exposure, that that does seem to increase sales.

This is one of those areas where human behaviour is really not well understood yet, and we have publishers of various sorts of media making decisions as if it were really true that if we could just get these people to stop stealing stuff, they would buy it instead. And yet all the evidence points to that being very much not true.

In my opinion you can make your argument stronger if you avoid buying into this faulty assumption.

I don't think it weakened Seanan's argument, but you are correct in some regard. The library, for example, is a place you can go and get the book for free without spending money. Popular authors are often always out.

Ironically, stolen books from an actual bookstore helps meet the author's advance.

I suspect that you and folk like you are the exception as opposed to the rule, though.

this is an unpopular point of view, but the one I was going to state. piracy is still problematic, people are still stealing when they do it - but statistically speaking, you are not losing a sale. as an artist, I know that doesn't make it feel any better to have people steal your work, but I think that it is important to understand the dynamics of the problem.

a lot of people have mentioned software theft in a similar vein, but the same thing holds true for software - the people who steal it are not the people who were ever going to buy it.

unfortunately, I don't know what the solution is... no one seems to yet. hopefully over time, one will develop.

Both extremes are oversimplifications at best. Yes, a lot of people will grab things because they're free that they never would've if they had to pay. (I have a non-trivial pile of ebooks that I downloaded, legitimately, for free, and have read very few of them. I've only bought one ebook, and I haven't got around to reading that, either.)

However, some percentage of the downloaders are downloading something they specifically want, or might have run into the work and bought it later. They are lost sales. How big a percentage are they? Nobody has the faintest idea. Some will actually download for free, then buy anyway, but not many, and it's probably a much smaller percentage than in the music market, because people don't generally reread books as often as they re-listen to music.

The internet and the ease of digital copying are being hugely disruptive to the media businesses, and they're vigorously trying to defend their old business models, but there is hope. The iTunes store demonstrated that you can compete with free, but ebook technology hasn't reached the point where it's more convenient to buy and read an ebook than a paper one.

Some will actually download for free, then buy anyway, but not many, and it's probably a much smaller percentage than in the music market, because people don't generally reread books as often as they re-listen to music.

That's actually a really good/interesting point that makes a lot of sense but I've never quite articulated before. I'm a heavy rereader, but I still could never reread a book as often as I listen to the same album.

Wah - someone wrote fan mail admitting that they'd torrented your books? And didn't, from the way you wrote that, enclose money?

...hm. Is there any easy way to give you money?
Caveat, i have slept somewhat less than two hours in the last forty odd, so I am not sure I am capable of rational or intelligent thought. This just occurred to me, that making it possible and easy for someone to give you money (basically as a donation, I suppose, though the mechanics are a bit of a mystery to me), via PayPal may be a partial solution to this issue.

I mean, aside from buying your books. And I am not suggesting that a significant number of the people who steal your book would then chose to do so... but is it possible? Is there a "Pay a fair price for your stolen book" button on your website?


For the record, i have not and will not download e copies of your books for my reader. I have, however, borrowed copies from the library (a financial decision, and I am sincerely sorry if that hurts you).

I am curious about something. Since you invoked Cory Doctorow, one of the arguments he makes in favor of freely available electronic copies of his work is that the issue of obscurity far outweighs the issues of piracy.
I recognize he is already somewhat more well known, and widely published than you are (so far!). The upshot of his argument, though, is that allowing free download gives more people opportunities read it, which in turn encourages more sales.
I mean, I read your books based on your LJ writings (Velveteen in particular), which are free and freely available (though, come to think of it, sponsored...).
I don't think I have an answer. I am not even sure I am asking intelligent questions. So I am going to shut up, now.