Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Lack of hard data is not conclusive of anything. What do you think is going on on the Darknet? All those copywritten documents are being posted there, and absolutely no one is downloading them? Is lack of hard data a good reason to turn a blind eye to a potential loss to a person's income... to the extent that you're not even interested in investigating the possibility? Or is it just not important because it's not happening to you personally?
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I know there is a darknet. I've been there. I know stuff gets downloaded.
What I
don't know is what actual impact that has on anybody's sales.
The fact that something is simply
downloaded doesn't count. Witness the discussion between Tompe and I about the ebook collections being downloaded with some downloaders not even knowing what all they have.
Factor that out of the equation, as it has no bearing. The relevant question is how many people downloaded your books from the darknet, and read them
instead of buying a copy from you.
That's lost sales you are concerned about.
We
don't know. We
can't know. There is no way to measure it.
I'm not suggesting turning a blind eye to someone's loss of income, but I'd like a bit more hard evidence that income is being lost, and how much, before I start advocating measures to prevent it. The problem is that the measures proposed all sound either like enormous pains for the honest folks (like DRM schemes) or draconian measures to police the Internet that could be (and almost inevitably
would be, somewhere) applied for more sinister purposes.
The question becomes "Do you trust the market?" There will
always be those who would rather steal what they want than pay for it, but thus far, enough of the market has been honest and willing to pay for what they get that the theft is an irritation, not a disaster.
Electronic content and the Internet have changed the equation, in making theft easier. Has it also eroded morality? Will a large enough number of people chose to steal rather than buy, and upset the applecart, simply because it's now easier to do so?
Personally, I doubt it. I may be an optimist, viewing the world through rose colored glasses, but I think the majority of folks out there are willing to pay for what they get, and the darknet will remain no more of an irritation than theft has ever been. It's possible I'm wrong, but I haven't seen any hard evidence pointing that way.
Writing places your ego in the line. I can't help wondering if writers concerned about loss of income through the darknet have a deeper unvoiced fear. What if poor sales of their books has nothing to do with illegal downloads? What if too many people simply aren't
interested in reading their books? Reading a book is an investment of time as well as money, and every author has to confront the prospect of what all of those folks could be doing
instead of reading books. Given the number other ways to spend discretionary time available for recreation, a book has to be compelling to justify reading it instead doing the other things you might be doing.
How about it, Steve? Which way do you jump? Do
you trust the overall market, or not?
______
Dennis