Book piracy: Less DRM, more data

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

That's the only way to bring losses under control and keep it under control (not stop it, but manage it).

I do think the losses are exaggerated. Losses are certainly there, but just like the movie and music industry, people download music or movies they would never, ever buy. There never was a sale lost in the first place.

However, figures oft quoted by the special interest agencies that spruik for the entertainment and music industry will always include those figures as lost sales as it inflates the whole and makes their figures look far better than they actually are. The publishing industry no doubt are doing the same thing.

Management is the best thing certainly, however the publishing industry must move towards the customer in terms of price, relaxing of geo restrictions and DRM. Currently that is moving at glacial pace.

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

And as I've illustrated, simply giving customers good quality product, low prices, multiple formats, no restrictions and no DRM is no guarantee they won't be pirated.

But I don't think you *have* illustrated it. If your book is in a torrent with a thousand other books by 'name' authors, how do we know that the downloader wasn't really interested in them? How do we know that any of the downloaders have even heard of you? Do you have ANY numbers for torrents containing only your books?

Look, every industry has 'losses.' It's part of doing business. And yes, you take *reasonable* steps to prevent the losses you can prevent, but if you are so skittish about 'losses' that you don't even get into business in the first place, that makes no sense.

Are there a few people who obtained your product and did not pay for it? Yes. And that would be true for any business in the world. What you need to focus on are the sales you CAN make. So, for example, if 100 people downloaded the book without paying for it and 40 of them could have been converted into paying customers in other circumstances, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on how to get those customers in the future, rather than focusing on how to stop the evil pirate who was never going to get it in the first place?

Here are some factors that have stopped me from buying a book before. I will put a star next to the ones that apply to books with no DRM too:

- *the price was too high for what the book was
- *there was no sample available to help me make a choice
- *there were no reviews so I did not have enough information
- *the author's website was confusing or poorly written or badly done and either did not give me the information I wanted or made me think the book would be awful
- *the sample and/or reviews were available but did not give me enough information to make an informed choice on the book
- *the sample and/or reviews were terrible so I opted not to buy the book
- the book was not available in a format I could easily read or convert
- the book was geographically restricted and I could not purchase it
- *the book was no available at a venue from which I purchase and I did not want to set up a new account
- *the book was part of a series and the whole series was not available to me
- *the author said something in a message board or internet forum which turned me off or made me think they were not a good writer

I'm sure I could come up with more But you get my point, I think. Even for books with no DRM, there are plenty of reasons a customer would choose not to buy. You need to work on those reasons of you wan tto sell to them.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Soldim

That's assuming there's losses; maybe you guys all win out!

Originally Posted by sabredog

I do think the losses are exaggerated. Losses are certainly there, but just like the movie and music industry, people download music or movies they would never, ever buy. There never was a sale lost in the first place.

Okay, I might as well say here and now that this has never sat well with me. The statement that a person who pirated a book "would never, ever buy it" doesn't change the fact that he has it now... that makes it a copy that has not been paid for, and therefore, a lost sale caused by theft.

In much the same way as a man plucks an apple from an orchard, it doesn't matter whether he eats it, throws it away, or gives it to a horse: The fact is, he took it, and that makes it a lost sale through theft. The fact that he says he wouldn't have paid for it is immaterial to the fact that he took it.

By that logic, I dismiss the "It isn't a lost sale" rhetoric as specious. It's just another way to excuse theft.

Which begs the question: Why are we spending so much effort concocting excuses for theft? If the act was right and permissible, why would we need excuses for it?

This is why I say there's a lot more going on here than numbers.

BUT... since you're all talking about numbers anyway... I'll simply point out that O'Leary himself agreed that the numbers suggest, but do not actually point to, a correlation between guesstimates of loss and actual sales increases, because the numbers are only approximations. He might as well have said they point to sales downturns, or they point to my street address, or they point to the Age of Aquarius, for all the direct correlation he has.

I just don't see where this effort is going to lead to any useful information.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by ficbot

But I don't think you *have* illustrated it. If your book is in a torrent with a thousand other books by 'name' authors, how do we know that the downloader wasn't really interested in them? How do we know that any of the downloaders have even heard of you? Do you have ANY numbers for torrents containing only your books?

I am ignoring the efforts to which you and others have gone to marginalize and trivialize me with this line of thought (), and will politely retort that if someone saw fit to include one (or any) of my books in a torrent, that makes them just as significant as any other single book in the file. Your logic essentially dismisses every single book that isn't the most popular book in the file; I say they are all equal, as "popularity" isn't the same for all people.

So, there.

And as to the last question: That's the entire point. No, I don't have numbers. No one has numbers! No one will ever have numbers! Why talk about numbers we will never have?

Hmm... we still don't seem to be getting anywhere with this. I suppose this was the wrong place to bring my disagreement with the numbers premise, so maybe I'll just bow out and leave it to the rest of you...

[FF2]

The apple example is not quite on point. If one picks that apple for whatever purpose and does not pay for it - that can lead to a lost sale. That PHYSICAL apple is gone and cannot be resold. While the taking of an electronic copy may in fact be theft, it does not necessarily equate to a lost sale. The electrons taken by someone else does not mean another electronic copy cannot be sold - so there is not lost sale in the way a physically stolen item cannot be sold by its rightful owner.

I would imagine, geographical restrictions could be leading to some of the thefts - can't buy it at home so I will find another way to get it. Lost sale? Well, not if it were not available in the "takers" home country - no matter what price.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Okay, I might as well say here and now that this has never sat well with me. The statement that a person who pirated a book "would never, ever buy it" doesn't change the fact that he has it now... that makes it a copy that has not been paid for, and therefore, a lost sale caused by theft.

In much the same way as a man plucks an apple from an orchard, it doesn't matter whether he eats it, throws it away, or gives it to a horse: The fact is, he took it, and that makes it a lost sale through theft. The fact that he says he wouldn't have paid for it is immaterial to the fact that he took it.

By that logic, I dismiss the "It isn't a lost sale" rhetoric as specious. It's just another way to excuse theft.

You're right, nothing changes the fact that the person who obtains a book by illegally downloading it ends up in possession of the file without paying for it, and is guilty of what you are calling theft.

While that definitely makes it a loss, it doesn't make it a lost sale, just as the theft of a paper book from a bookstore is not necessarily a lost sale. It has the potential of a lost sale, but the actual loss is the wholesale cost, not the retail price.

The problem I have with the term "lost sale" is that I think too many people use it to justify a false conclusion. By using that term they create the impression that if their work was not pirated, their total number of sales would equal the sum of the number of legal downloads and the number of illegal downloads.

I am not aware of any evidence that justifies that conclusion.

I am sure that piracy leads to lost sales and lost revenue. However, I am also sure that the total loss of revenue due to piracy is NOT equal to the number of illegal downloads multiplied by the retail price. That's the problem with using the term "lost sales," it gives the impression that the speaker believes that to be true, and thus makes their entire argument suspect in the eyes of anyone who does not agree with those numbers.

I can certainly agree that each illegal download represents the potential of a lost sale and that the rightsholders should receive full retail price for each illegal download. But that's not the same as saying that had the work not been pirated it would have had that number of sales - and that's how many people interpret the term lost sale: not as the potential of a lost sale, but as an actual loss of revenue from people who would otherwise have bought the work had they not downloaded it illegally.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Just playing Devil's Advocate for the moment... why bother doing back catalogue if it's going to be pirated anyway.

Look at what happened with Lord of the Rings -- an extremely popular darknet download, it still hit the bestseller list once a (mistake ridden!) legal version was available to buy. I'm confident the same would happen with, say, Harry Potter.

Any book has the potential to be "pirated anyway," but that's hardly an argument for not making legal versions available.

[NVash]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Okay, let's think about that. Seriously, a publisher is in business to make money, and the happier their customers are, the more they buy, and the more money they'll make. Of course they care about that... it's how they make money.

I think publishers want to give customers what they want--if they can, and I think most of us agree the problems aren't insurmountable--yet customer behavior (ie pirating) makes them fearful of losing their shirts. And since ebooks in general haven't reached profitable numbers yet, as print books decline in popularity, that's a legitimate concern.

And as I've illustrated, simply giving customers good quality product, low prices, multiple formats, no restrictions and no DRM is no guarantee they won't be pirated.

Beyond guesstimation numbers, what publishers need is an assurance that they can sell a product that will make them a profit, and not cost them too much in loss. If the steps I outlined in the paragraph above aren't working to deter piracy, what will? What will make consumers, who know they can pretty much pirate with impunity (and therefore they do), willingly stop pirating it?

Im sorry, I must respectfully disagree. If they cared what consumers wanted we wouldnt have these ridiculous prices, badly formatted ebooks and worst of all, half the books people want not even scanned. They want to do what they want to do and poo on whoever disagrees. And if you really want to start asking questions, PIRACY is the answer.

Heres how a conversation with a publisher may go, if you ask me.
"Sir, Ive had many complaints from consumers and I have to ask, just why is this book thirty dollars?"
"PIRACY! Its because of all these PIRATES PIRATING this book! Have you seen the torrents? Direct downloads?! HAVE YOU?!"
"Well no, but Im pretty sure that doesnt justify the cost, I mean the regular book is five dollars on the Marketplace at Amazon."
"People use that? Probably stole it from a library."
"Sir, I really dont think everyone is stealing from you."
"Thats exactly why you arent paid to think."
"Ive also had many requests for this book here. Now while I recognize its an older book Ive actually taken some time to look at numbers and its highly pirated as is. So if we were to provide a legal alternative there could be money to be made here."
"OR THE PIRATES COULD PIRATE IT!"
"They already did sir."
"Then why should I care? Well consider it a loss."
"Sir, Im trying to tell you it could be a gain. Many of these consumers have already said theyd be more than willing to pay for it if given an opportunity."
"Consumers? You mean 'PIRATES' dont you? Theyll tell you anything to justify what theyre doing!"
"Sir, I have to agree with them in this case."
"Whos side are you on?"
"Theres sides here? Sir, Im just trying to tell you that if you get this book scanned and formatted properly and give it a price that makes sense, say five dollars, you could make some money."
"Five dollars? Are you insane?! How am I supposed to pay my Maserati bill on five dollars a book? Do you see this cigar Im smoking? Its imported from Cuba, finest there is, do you know how much it costs?"
"Honestly sir I dont really care."
"Thats a shame, I was going to give you one."
"A real shame if I ever saw one sir."
"Suffice it to say I cannot afford this amazing imported cigar by selling books at five dollars each."
"Sir Ive crunched some other numbers and..."
"What is your job again? Youre doing a heck of a lot of number crunching. Dont you work in the mail room?"
"... and Ive taken the numbers of how many books youve sold along with the number of people have pirated it and the general consumer opinion."
"Oh have you now? This should be interesting."
"At thirty dollars sir youve sold somewhere around twenty thousand copies. Youve also had about five thousand returns due to people being angry about DRM and the horrible formatting in this book plus many complaints on Amazon over this. The reviews are mixed but you have three and a half stars so far. In those reviews around ten thousand swore theyd never buy a book from this company again."
"Alright, what of the pirates?"
"We have a petition I stumbled across that was linked to on Amazon, three hundred thousand people signed that theyd like it to be dropped to five dollars and until then theyre boycotting."
"And the pirates?"
"About five hundred. This is not only torrents downloaded but also from various direct links. Now, I got the direct link numbers by a Google search and checking how many people 'Thanked' and replied to the threads so there may be more, so Ill just double it to be safe. I think thats mighty generous but fine, a thousand. A thousand pirates, three hundred thousand boycotting and five thousand successful sales where the customer did not complain or demand a refund. Sir, I dont even need to crunch numbers anymore. Youre losing money here. Ive also noticed that alot of the user names of people who 'Thanked' the post and posted in the torrents have signed that petition."
"They would, its covering their behind."
"Or maybe they really want to give you their money but cant."
"Listen kid, I know you just got hired and you have many ideas of how things should be but they just dont work that way."
"Sir this business makes no sense."
"That kind of attitude is exactly why youre down there and Im up here."
"Id also like to take a moment and discuss the horrible formatting done on this other book. I just purchased this twenty dollar book last night and dont even see any chapter breaks on my Kindle. This is downright inexcusable."
"What do you want, a refund?"
"No, I want you to get someone to fix this."
"Not going to happen. Too many books we have to get scanned properly, I have an author on the phone and hes wondering why were selling his book so cheap."
"Im your secretary sir. Theres no one on the phone."
"Get back to work."

Thats the way I see it. You can give them all the reasoning you want, all the numbers you want, they dont care. They know what they know and thats all they know.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I am sure that piracy leads to lost sales and lost revenue.

That's a widely held belief, but I'm not at all sure that it's true. I think it is an assumption not based upon evidence.

I have frequently seen another proposal that I don't think is based upon evidence: that the biggest pirates are also the biggest customers.

Consider music. The fact that the most popular (sold) songs are also the most pirated doesn't prove to me that the pirates would have spent money on it.

Perhaps there are two markets - people with money and people without. Pirating allows those without money to enjoy what they have not paid for. But it is not clear to me that the artists have lost anything because the poor never had the money to give them in the first place.

I saw record exec Tommy Mottola interviewed on Fox Business about a month ago, and he said that music used to be a 50 billion dollar industry and it is now a 25 billion dollar industry. My opinion is that the decline is based upon the fact that they are making records nobody wants to buy. The popular touring acts are for the most part the older acts, not those with current hits.

[NVash]

Ive actually read about that online GA, it was a Yahoo article. Most of the comments said that its because music these days is horrible and no one wants to pay for that garbage anymore.

[ProfCrash]

Last year someone manage to sell Harry Potter e-books through Amazons indie author program. It took no time for the books to hit the Top 10 list. I think it took Amazon an hour or so to pull them. If those types of numbers don't tell JK Rowling what would happen if she were to make the books available as ebooks then she is blind.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I am ignoring the efforts to which you and others have gone to marginalize and trivialize me with this line of thought (), and will politely retort that if someone saw fit to include one (or any) of my books in a torrent, that makes them just as significant as any other single book in the file. Your logic essentially dismisses every single book that isn't the most popular book in the file; I say they are all equal, as "popularity" isn't the same for all people.

First of all, no one is trying to marginalize you. You are doing a fine job yourself by refusing to offer proof of your claims. Nothing is impossible to study! And many more difficult things to study or do, have been accomplished.

As far as all books being equal, would you still feel this way if a book authored by you was in a torrent with a book by Dan Brown?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Here are some factors that have stopped me from buying a book before. I will put a star next to the ones that apply to books with no DRM too:

- *the price was too high for what the book was
- *there was no sample available to help me make a choice
- *there were no reviews so I did not have enough information
- *the author's website was confusing or poorly written or badly done and either did not give me the information I wanted or made me think the book would be awful
- *the sample and/or reviews were available but did not give me enough information to make an informed choice on the book
- *the sample and/or reviews were terrible so I opted not to buy the book
- the book was not available in a format I could easily read or convert
- the book was geographically restricted and I could not purchase it
- *the book was no available at a venue from which I purchase and I did not want to set up a new account
- *the book was part of a series and the whole series was not available to me
- *the author said something in a message board or internet forum which turned me off or made me think they were not a good writer

You left off the big one:

I did not know the book existed.

Setting aside the issue of "books I have no interest in"--it doesn't matter how well-written the newest military adventure novel is; I'm not going to read it--my #1 reason for not buying a book in one of my favored genres is that I didn't know about it.

*After* I get a list of "books I have discovered," which includes recommendations, things I've seen on TV, things mentioned in friends' blogs, and books I saw while browsing a bookstore for other books--then I check things like can I afford it, is it in a format I like to read, does the synopsis look interesting, do I have any reason to specifically avoid that author, can I navigate the shopping cart, and so on.

But it starts with knowing the book exists. And that's an area where traditional publishing methods are falling apart on the internet; the methods that sell books for them offline, don't work here. (Two months ago, I didn't know Stieg Larsson existed.)

[ficbot]

Good point, Elfwreck. No offense to Steve Jordan or any other indie author, but let's say one of their books was in a torrent with JK Rowling, Stephen King, Dan Brown and Nora Roberts. Do you REALLY think that people were seeking out and downloading the torrent just for that book?

I forget who it was, but there was a commenter on Teleread who had what I think is the best, truest comment on DRM and piracy that I have read. He said that the problem is, piracy is an issue which concerns publishers and not an issue that concerns readers. If you want to sell to these readers, you need to know what they ARE concerned about, and address those concerns.

My own bottom line is this: there will ALWAYS, in any business, be 'pirates' or whatever that industry calls them. You will not sell to those people because they weren't going to buy it anyway. They are part of the cost of doing business. What you CAN do is address the people who might have bought it in another circumstance and did not---if you find out why they did not, and address that, you can convert that to a sale next time. THAT is how you win this one

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Okay, I might as well say here and now that this has never sat well with me. The statement that a person who pirated a book "would never, ever buy it" doesn't change the fact that he has it now... that makes it a copy that has not been paid for, and therefore, a lost sale caused by theft.

In much the same way as a man plucks an apple from an orchard, it doesn't matter whether he eats it, throws it away, or gives it to a horse: The fact is, he took it, and that makes it a lost sale through theft. The fact that he says he wouldn't have paid for it is immaterial to the fact that he took it.

By that logic, I dismiss the "It isn't a lost sale" rhetoric as specious. It's just another way to excuse theft.
[snip]

So if a 12 year old kid with maybe $100 to his name downloads 20,000 MP3's to his ipod did the music industry lose $20,000 in sales. People are not trying to trivialize it, they're just tired of the numbers being inflated.