ebook piracy numbers

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by esecallum

I KNOW THIS GUY WHO HAS DOWNLOADED TONS OF BOOK TORRENTS AND HAS ABOUT 500 GIGS OF BOOKS IN EVERY FORMAT!

just scrolling the book folders is exhausting

i estimate he must have more then a 10 million books.

but you know something ?

he freely admits he has not read a single one of those books!

first he can't make up his mind what to read and then because he has so much choice he becomes indecisive and ends up watching tv!

That's pretty common, and not just among books. That is why it is silly to count them as lost income.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

You want to stop piracy, make it cheaper, and easier, and safer that surfing the net for the prirates next read.

They're never going to stop piracy, so shouldn't even bother wasting their time on it. What they should be doing is focusing on improving the value for their customers. Pirates are not their customers.

[Worldwalker]

Exactly.

Even on a smaller scale ... say, a mere 1000-book torrent. Would the person who downloaded that (probably to read one or two books in it, if not just to hoard them) have spent $15,000 on those books otherwise? Hell, we don't spend $15k a year on books -- probably not even $1500 -- and they're the primary source of entertainment for two people. It might possibly (or maybe not) be a lost sale for a handful of the books in question, but the publishers count it as a loss for each and every one of them, completely ignoring the fact that most people neither want nor could afford the whole lot.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

They're never going to stop piracy, so shouldn't even bother wasting their time on it. What they should be doing is focusing on improving the value for their customers. Pirates are not their customers.

What they should do is monetise free content, then there would be no reason for piracy to exist. People who want it for free will generate income for you instead of some pirate website, and people who want to pay will get the same content but without adverts, nags, etc.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

They're never going to stop piracy, so shouldn't even bother wasting their time on it. What they should be doing is focusing on improving the value for their customers. Pirates are not their customers.

Exactly. Pirates are not their customers, and probably never will be. So wasting money trying to stop them from doing something that isn't actually costing them money (since the pirates are, after all, paying for all the distribution themselves!) is pointless; that money would be better spent in making sure the people who are or could be their customers become or remain customers.

It's like a sports stadium spending millions of dollars and a lot of wasted effort trying to keep neighborhood kids from peeking through the cracks in the fence to watch the game because they're "stealing" a $50 view, while the paying customers are complaining that the seats are falling apart and the concession stand food is a health hazard.

[Amanda Jones]

I don't pirate tv shows, music, movies or video games because I feel they are reasonably priced in the market place right now. Ebooks, however, (at least the authors I most frequently read) are often priced at what I consider too high for something I cannot return, share or resell. If it costs more than a paperback, I pirate it. Lower prices would stop me.

New (to me) authors I pirate to preview. If I don't like it, I delete the file. If I do enjoy it, I go buy it. I have discovered dozens of great writers this way and have spent lots of money on their backlists. I'm spending significantly more on ebooks since I started pirating than I did before, only now my money is going mostly to unheralded authors instead of the bestsellers, and to independent publishers instead of the agency 5.

[mikij]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

It's like a sports stadium spending millions of dollars and a lot of wasted effort trying to keep neighborhood kids from peeking through the cracks in the fence to watch the game because they're "stealing" a $50 view, while the paying customers are complaining that the seats are falling apart and the concession stand food is a health hazard.

This is the best comparison I've seen so far.

[ann15554]

I recently purchased a hardcover book new then a used copy for my mother 8 hrs away-easier to rebuy than send. I prefer to eread so want a copy in .pdb format. A digital copy is only legally available for More than I paid for the new hard cover and not in the format I use. For the first time I am considering the darknet and told Barnes & Noble they were about to drive me there.

[KunoK]

Originally Posted by Amanda Jones

I don't pirate tv shows, music, movies or video games because I feel they are reasonably priced in the market place right now. Ebooks, however, (at least the authors I most frequently read) are often priced at what I consider too high for something I cannot return, share or resell. If it costs more than a paperback, I pirate it. Lower prices would stop me.

I don't agree with the view that you are somehow entitled to pirate something, which you think is too expensive. That is just my view.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by KunoK

I don't agree with the view that you are somehow entitled to pirate something, which you think is too expensive. That is just my view.

We can be pragmatic or moralistic on this issue. Pragmatism might help sales, I don't think taking a moralistic stand will. The e-book market is all about convenience and pricing. Make it easy, and price the ebooks fairly and people will buy.

And for that matter, from a moralistic standpoint, why should an ebook ever be priced more than a paper copy? Sounds like pure greed to me, because the costs of that ebook are much less than the paper book (no trees used as inputs, no transportation or warehousing costs, no cut for the bookstore, and the publisher does not have to destroy unsold copies and then reimburse someone for the cost of those unsold copies).

Readers are not stupid, they know costs for ebooks are lower. High costs give incentives for piracy.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by KunoK

I don't agree with the view that you are somehow entitled to pirate something, which you think is too expensive. That is just my view.

Cost and DRM do not factor at all if you are geographically restricted from buying the ebook in the first place.

[BillSmithBooks]

As for the folks with huge collections of darknet books...

I don't believe the industry because they do try to count those as lost sales. They are often not "lost" sales -- the people doing this probably would not have bought those books in the first place.

It's not unlike the book industry fretting over "lost sales" from those evil library patrons...

Or fretting over "lost income" when one does not hit the lottery jackpot every weekend.

Potential income? Sure. Realistic income. Not a chance.

[KunoK]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

We can be pragmatic or moralistic on this issue. Pragmatism might help sales, I don't think taking a moralistic stand will. The e-book market is all about convenience and pricing. Make it easy, and price the ebooks fairly and people will buy.

And for that matter, from a moralistic standpoint, why should an ebook ever be priced more than a paper copy? Sounds like pure greed to me, because the costs of that ebook are much less than the paper book (no trees used as inputs, no transportation or warehousing costs, no cut for the bookstore, and the publisher does not have to destroy unsold copies and then reimburse someone for the cost of those unsold copies).

Readers are not stupid, they know costs for ebooks are lower. High costs give incentives for piracy.

Of course there is a lot of greed. But voting with your feet and buying your books from publishers and book stores who do not price ebooks higher than printed books, will also work against that greed.

[KunoK]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Cost and DRM do not factor at all if you are geographically restricted from buying the ebook in the first place.

I might not have thought this entirely through, but I don't think there is anything morally wrong with circumventing geographical restrictions. They are put there by private companies with the intention of making money by means of hindering free trade.

I wonder if you are breaking any laws by as an example using a billing address, where you don't live. You might also be paying vat in another country than you should, although it is unintentionally.

[DJHARKAVY]

Originally Posted by KunoK

I don't agree with the view that you are somehow entitled to pirate something, which you think is too expensive. That is just my view.

Entitled to? Probably not.

Going to? Maybe, depending on the person, their level of honesty, and their technical ability.

The ultimate business model has to encompass the idea that the Darknet exists and will be used to get what the consumer wants if it is not available legally or if it is too expensive and/or inconvenient to obtain properly.