Quote:
Originally Posted by MV64
Piracy is stealing. I wish we could all agree on this as it seems very basic.
|
Piracy is only "stealing" if someone's losing value from it. If piracy doesn't cut into sales at all, it's not stealing--which means that ebook piracy of a book with no legit ebook may not be stealing.
The Harry Potter books would hardly have doubled their print sales without bootleg ebook editions floating around. The people who downloaded either (1) already bought print versions, and wanted digital versions for the purposes pbooks don't cover (search, copy/paste, portability), or (2) were too poor--or believed they were too poor--to buy the print books, and would've just gone without.
An argument can be made that they should just go without. However, going without doesn't increase sales or popularity; there's no *benefit* to the author if people who can't afford the paper version just don't read their books.
We keep going back to the "define piracy" game because it is not "obviously stealing" as some people say.
If you have a bread shop, and sell bread for $2.00/loaf, and I read your recipe, memorize it, and make loaves and give them away in front of your shop--I haven't stolen your bread. I haven't stolen your money. "Stealing" does not mean "Makes so many copies so cheaply that you can no longer make a profit selling it."
I might be cutting into your profits, and that might be a crime--but the name of that crime is not "theft." I can't steal what you didn't already have--those profits.
Quote:
|
Imagine a bestseller for 6 as an ebook. They would sell more than normal and it would more than make up for sales. Imagine 3 or 4 dollars for a backlist title.
|
We get both of those in the indie markets. I regularly pay $3 for backlist ebooks, and some of the self-published books for $4-6 have made the bestseller lists.