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Originally Posted by livingenzyme
What they do to give you these BS numbers is they have a BS estimate of sales this year and then compare that to the actual sales... as if we're all idiotic enough to believe they don't inflate their hypothetical sales.
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Piracy figures are silly. Piracy is really overstated as a factor, and I am not even sure it results in lost sales. For example, poor old M$ lost so many sales to piracy with windows 3.1 that it gave them the largest market share in operating systems sales. This, in turn, let them reap massive profits with subsequent releases, lock people in to windows and associated products, and made Gates the richest man in the world. Yep, piracy is a bady in a thing.
A company is not losing a sale if the person doing the pirating could not or would not buy it anyways. I think where piracy does cause lost sales, and is morally reprehensible, is in the cases where businesses pirate digital products, especially software.
I was recently put in a position where I felt justified in obtaining pirated copies of several books. I had purchased these books from ereader.com, and I could not access them online. I certainly was not going to pay for them again, and I needed to use a couple of them. Actually, the pirates seem to be very good at what they do, I imagine because of high speed scanners. But IMHO, piracy is not a publisher-killer at all.
Not, at least, if the publishers treat their customers fairly by pricing the books reasonably and by making purchasing and accessing the books convenient. Ebook prices need to come down, probably to the $7 range. Amazon has made a good start.
Treat the customers fairly, and price the books fairly and make accessing them convenient, and I think piracy in the ebook market is a small factor. But if the books are priced at hardcover book prices, and you treat your customer with little respect, I think many readers will resort to piracy. Take a look at iTunes store, and all the music sales they make. And just remember that all of that music can be had for free. But customers are still paying for the music.