The culture of entitlement and illegal downloads

[Falcao]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

so we can exempt the .0001% of pirates who, already owning the book in paper format, take only those books.

Any source to back that number?

All these tools trying to stop piracy without providing a better service than pirates, reminded me of the old story about King Canute trying to command the sea.

Spoiler:

[W]hen at the summit of his power, he ordered a seat to be placed for him on the sea-shore when the tide was coming in; thus seated, he shouted to the flowing sea, "Thou, too, art subject to my command, as the land on which I am seated is mine; and no one has ever resisted my commands with impunity. I command you, then, not to flow over my land, nor presume to wet the feet and the robe of your lord." The tide, however, continuing to rise as usual, dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leaped backwards, saying: "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws."

The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by Falcao

Any source to back that number?

All these tools trying to stop piracy without providing a better service than pirates, reminded me of the old story about King Canute trying to command the sea.

I couldn't agree more; although what you say may be revalatory to some, even the exec from EMI I quoted and Gabe Newell from Valve software have realized it's a service issue rather than an issue of people just wanting something for nothing. The fact is, pirates have managed to embrace technology while large media companies have either resisted it or been glacially slow to do mimic the pirates.

Might as well realize that the pirates are going to continue to be an issue and adapt business to beat them.

Edit

Since examples always help, here's an easy one: The Harry Potter book series. It's the most pirated ebook in existence. Why? Probably because (i) it's hugely popular; and (ii) a legit ebook version doesn't exist.

You can say "well, that's the copyright holder's choice and we need to respect that." which is true, but is also quite irrelevant. What is relevant is that pirates have created very professional versions of each of the books in any format you might like and made those available globally.

Books like Harry Potter are wants, not needs (obviously), the whole industry is based on wants. Maybe media companies shouldn't complain when they successfully create a want in people and then don't provide a means for someone to give them their money.

Originally Posted by Crusader

Author and journalist Guy Haley has a very sobering post on piracy on his blog

It sounds more angry than sobering.

The thing is, both sides of the piracy debacle have grandiose senses of self-entitlement. Just as it is wrong to take something without compensating it's author, it is wrong for the author to demand overarching control over how their creation is used.

Three examples:

• This whole one copy one reader mentality. Copyright is about giving authors control over supply, rather than giving them control over how it is used.
• DRM claims to be about copy protection, yet it is also used to control how people access content. This ranges from region locks to vendor lock-in.
• Slow response to changing market demands. Ever notice how pirates adapt to technology better than businesses do? Illegal downloads seem to predate legal downloads in virtually every market.

I'm not going to defend pirates because most of it is self-entitlement or greed, but I cringe when copyright lobbyists claim the moral high-ground.

[mr ploppy]

Having read it, there's not much I can say that won't get me carted off to the political group black hole, but people like him make me want to scream, and I've got no sympathy for him whatsoever.

He goes on about the greed and selfishness of people who "steal" 16 pence from him, but he supports plans to punish the poor for being poor by taking money away from them to fund tax cuts for the rich. I hope he does end up stacking shelves for minimum wage some day.

[carld]

Pirating is indeed extremely simple. I don't recall the exact details, but one of the smaller video game publishers said that 95% of the people connecting to their servers were running pirated copies of their game.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Might as well realize that the pirates are going to continue to be an issue and adapt business to beat them.

Another brilliant solution.

How 'bout some details to go with it?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Another brilliant solution.

How 'bout some details to go with it?

In this particular case he only wanted 16 pence per download, I'd be surprised if he couldn't do a deal with some Megaupload type site that is raking in money from advertising to get that amount each time someone downloaded it. That's pretty much the way Spottify works for music, bands get a few pennies each time someone listens to one of their songs.

I don't know about you, but I would definitely go for something like that.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

So, subsidizing books through ad revenue... the TV model, essentially. Yes, that could work, though a system like that would surely force the downloading service to restrict the authors who were allowed to post their books to the site, and therefore who would get their money. IOW, it would become a Most Popular Authors site, shutting out most independents and new authors.

It doesn't address entitlement, of course; in fact, it encourages it, since consumers won't have to pay for product. That will make it that much harder for authors who can't land deals with the ad-supported sites, and must sell directly to consumer at practically nothing to compete with free authors.

By the way: If any such downloading site is reading this, I am interested in such a deal: PM me at this site and we'll work something out.

After all, it must be as easy as that, right?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

So, subsidizing books through ad revenue... the TV model, essentially. Yes, that could work, though a system like that would surely force the downloading service to restrict the authors who were allowed to post their books to the site, and therefore who would get their money. IOW, it would become a Most Popular Authors site, shutting out most independents and new authors.

It doesn't address entitlement, of course; in fact, it encourages it, since consumers won't have to pay for product. That will make it that much harder for authors who can't land deals with the ad-supported sites, and must sell directly to consumer at practically nothing to compete with free authors.

I can't see any reason why they wouldn't accept content from anyone who wanted to create it. Even if it just sat on their servers and never got downloaded the costs would be negligible. The most popular creators would get the most money, but that's pretty much how it is now anyway.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I can't see any reason why they wouldn't accept content from anyone who wanted to create it. Even if it just sat on their servers and never got downloaded the costs would be negligible. The most popular creators would get the most money, but that's pretty much how it is now anyway.

Advertisers want the most people to see their ads, and they want the best artists to draw the most people. If no one knows or cares about Steven Lyle Jordan and his silly SF books, they won't go to the site that they pay good money to promote, and they won't get their money's worth. Just like the television model, stations put on shows they expect a lot of people to watch, and advertisers pay the most for the shows with the highest revenue. That's why no station is showing old episodes of My Mother The Car when they can play Fast and Furious instead.

And no one wants their site to fill up with a million My Mother The Cars, making it harder to find the good stuff (cough-Smashwords!-cough).

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Another brilliant solution.

How 'bout some details to go with it?

That depends upon both your product and target demographic. More on that in a moment, but here are a few examples where people earned money by using non-traditional business strategies:

• Open source software vendors treat software as a service. Since they cannot control how the software is distributed, they sell support (e.g. RedHat), advertising (e.g. Google), network storage (e.g. Ubuntu), or solicit donations (e.g. many individuals).
• Two-tiered schemes, where certain people pay and certain people get the product gratis. You frequently see this in dual licensing schemes (e.g. Qt is open source for open source developers, and paid for closed source vendors). Sometimes vendors make separate but similar products to reflect the needs and price sensitivity of different demographics (e.g. Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements, Office Standard vs. Office Home, or BBEdit vs. BBEdit Lite).
• Many commercial software developers get away with giving away their platform, and charging other developers for the development tools (e.g. Adobe Acrobat vs. Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash vs. Adobe Flash Player).
• Other times we have the opposite situation, where the development tools are free but it adds value to a vendor's other products (e.g. Visual Studio Express as a learning tool for new Windows developers).
• Some game developers give away the game and even some of the online gaming experience, but expect payment for the full online gaming experience.

Hum, notice how most of those examples come from the software industry. Perhaps it is because they are a new industry that is willing to adapt to emerging market conditions, while the established players aren't. But let's try some of the more traditional media.

• Television service can be obtained for free (or a nominal fee), but is advertising supported. Ditto for newspapers and some magazines.
• Some publishers use free content to attract buyers of more expensive physical content (e.g. O'Reilly Make/Craft magazines or a short novel to sell later novels in a series).
• A few authors give away their content in digital form, relying upon people who are willing to pay a nearly identical physical version of it or to make donations (e.g. Doctorow).

And I'm confident that there are many other examples.


Of course, you have to understand your product and your target demographic. You are going to have much more success selling a $15 book, $20 movie, or $40 game to someone in their 40's than someone in their late teens or early 20's. So you have to be more sensitive about pricing products targeted at a more youthful audience. The same goes for products developed for technical vs. non-technical users. A non-technical user is more inclined to pay for something that just works, so you can get away with charging more. On the other hand, a technical user will be less willing to put up with nonsense. So don't expect them to pay for a crippled product.


There's an old cliché: 'the customer is always right.' Clearly it isn't always true because there have always been 'customers' who are willing to steal. But I do believe that there is some truth to that old saying since there is something wrong if too many people would pirate rather than pay. So if piracy is a problem, maybe a carrot and a stick approach should be used: yes, enforce copyright law. Yet also try to find out why people aren't paying then find ways to entice them to pay.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

BWinmill, I don't see how any of your first set of suggestions (software) would apply to ebooks. The big difference there is that software, as you said, is treated as a service. Books are generally entertainment/education. So they fit better with your second set of suggestions.

Even your second set of suggestions largely depend on consumers being honest, and either paying for physical content, or buying ad-supported products (since, if no products are sold that can be attributed to an ad campaign, the campaign will be altered or shut down). In an entitlement culture, that honesty is diffused by the desire to take for whatever reason fits the moment.

Personally, I've never bought the idea that "the customer is always right," and real businesspeople know that is a sham (meant to placate the customers, of course). In business, the real slogan is "the profit is always right," and where repeat business means more profit, the customer should be made as happy as possible to ensure repeat business. That doesn't mean catering to a sense of entitlement, but it does mean making them as happy as possible about their purchase, in the hope that they'll show their appreciation by coming back.

[wizwor]

The IP/Copyright crowd has waged war on the consumer for decades. Until recently, they had the tools and money to do as they pleased. Exclusive to beta, exclusive to vhs, DVD, BR, cassettes, records...if this is about protecting IP, then once I have licensed the IP, I should be entitled to have it in any format that suits my use. How many times does one have to pay George Lucas for StarWars? If I decide to replace my kindle with a nook, why should I have to pay again for the same IP? Why do I have to pay for games twice so my kids can play on the PS3 or the XBox? Why can't I bring my own snacks to a theater?

PBS *really* takes the cake. They use public funds to create and promote content then 1) sell the product at a profit, and 2) sue the pants off anyone who shows up at a brithday party dressed as a purple dinosaur. If the public pays to develop IP shouldn't it be in the public domain?

I'll bet if you if it was not possible to duplicate IP and that IP only had to be licensed once per consumer, the IP industry would see a substantial net loss.

I have downloaded 158 e-books from Amazon.com since purchasing my kindle. I paid for three of them. If there were no free books on Amazon.com, I would have three books on my kindle. I watched three movies on Netflix yesterday and would not have paid a buck (let alone dropped $30 at a theater) to see one of them.

Enough of the whining.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

BWinmill, I don't see how any of your first set of suggestions (software) would apply to ebooks. The big difference there is that software, as you said, is treated as a service.

The main point was that these businesses sought alternative models to generate revenue, and they were successful. Software, after all, was once considered much as books were: a product that you bought off the shelf. Of course there was experimentation early in the game. Developers gave away fully or partially functional versions of their software in hopes that people would buy it (shareware) and businesses serving corporate markets sold support (in the early days, consumer products usually came with free support).

Books are generally entertainment/education. So they fit better with your second set of suggestions.

True and false. Entertainment is usually considered timely, which is why people pay more for newly published books and why people pay more to see films when they are released in cinemas. There may be ways to take advantage of that. Maybe publishing will return to serialized stories, something that is released regularly (so you always have that just-released flavor) and that people can reasonably complete in one sitting (so there is more incentive to read it when it is just released). When you think about it, we already know that model works. Many people buy books that are a part of a series or come from a favored author's keyboard. We also see that model in television series, and it seems to work quite well.

Or maybe the difference will come in how books are delivered. At the moment, we buy/sell particular titles. Maybe we should be considering subscription services to compliment it, much like you get television or music or magazines through subscription.

In an entitlement culture, that honesty is diffused by the desire to take for whatever reason fits the moment.

Piracy and entitlement was always an issue. At one time it was VHS. Before that we had audio cassettes. I've even seen a device to replicate vinyl. Then there were scanners for books. Prior to that, photocopiers. Yet the 'information economy' has yet to collapse.

I think that there is a reason for that. It is mostly a certain part of society that holds certain values that does all of that replicating, and most of those people end up growing out of those habits.

Personally, I've never bought the idea that "the customer is always right," and real businesspeople know that is a sham (meant to placate the customers, of course). In business, the real slogan is "the profit is always right," and where repeat business means more profit, the customer should be made as happy as possible to ensure repeat business.

In an absolute sense, both philosophies are wrong. Which you sort of alluded to in the repeat business part. But I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Just as the customer needs the business to provide what they need, the business needs the customer to buy their stuff. If both sides aren't addressed, the relationship rapidly collapses and neither one's needs are being served.

It is also important to consider that most of these customer-business relationships are there by the agreement of the customer. Consumers don't need books. Consumers don't need software. Consumers don't need music or video or electronics or most of the other services and material goods that fill our lives. In the cases where we do need those services or material goods, we can usually carry a good part of the burden ourselves but we simply choose not to. Families used to cook all of their own meals, sew most of their own clothes, create their own entertainment, and even produce some of their own food. The fact that we have created a society where we consume the work of others doesn't mean that we can't return to those old habits (though most would find it unbearably difficult since they don't possess the skills and would have to give up things that require sophisticated manufacturing processes).

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Since we're quoting the anecdotes of others to support our personal opinions, here's a quote from O'Reily . . .

O'Reilly books are full of charts and graphs that have to be completely understood to master the material.

My employer, like many, subscribes to a service where I can see the entire contents of most O'Reilly titles on a computer screen. But if I really want to become fluent in the technical area being taught, a paper copy is highly desireable. This puts O'Reilly, as a publisher, in quite a different space than a novelist. It's much easier to see a darknet download leading to an O'Reilly sale than to a Reality 36 sale.

The OP influenced me to look for a serious review of Guy Haley's book. This one is very positive, and the reviewer admitting to not really liking science fiction makes the opinion more credible to me:

Review: Reality 36

It turns out that, although available on Overdrive, none of the libraries whose cards I have have purchased it. And there's no PB library copy anywhere near me either. So I may have to break down and give the fellow his 16 pence.