Maggie Stiefvater writes of her experience with piracy

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't think anyone announced anything. She went to the pirate sites and read the comments.



These were e-ARCs uploaded before the book was available as hardback or paperback



She asked the publisher not to give out e-ARCs of book 4 because she found e-ARCS of book 3 on the pirate sites.



They made a phony e-ARC of book 4 that was just the sample, repeated to mimic the length of a real book.



Based on what? Do you think every pirate has to take a master's class to learn how to do it? It's not much more difficult than responding to this thread.



You have very little to nothing to base this on. How do you know her publisher wasn't well aware? If she went through that much trouble to prove her point, do you think she didn't tell someone at her publishing company?



I got lost in there. What's the first one? What's the second?

Having said all that, I do have issues with the conclusions she reached. It's just if you are going to argue with it, at least represent her points fairly.

Zod, you misread my second one.
I was referring to the commenters saying stuff. They are announcing to the world they are thieves. I have a hard time with real thieves announcing their intentions.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Zod, you misread my second one.
I was referring to the commenters saying stuff. They are announcing to the world they are thieves. I have a hard time with real thieves announcing their intentions.

Try going to 4Chan some time. You will be shocked at how people behave.

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

She did something she knew was illegal to prove a point. That just makes her a thief too. Whether it was 4 chapters or the entire book does not matter. Even worse, she got her brother to do her dirty work.

You are assuming an awful lot. Her blog doesn't say, for instance, that she made the experiment without the publisher's consent, or what the terms of her contract were - say, maybe she had the right to use these chapters as she saw fit, or whatever.

The blog article is interesting, but as others have mentioned, there may be a lot of factors in how much a book sells, especially a series. Still, what she describes (paper version selling out quickly, for instance) is troubling - though in this case, it seems to show that the false pirate ebook actually helped sales.

(The experiment, as described, also seems to me to be biased: if the pirated ebook is massively visible on the very night the book was supposed to be released, it's not a big surprise that many people tried to download it - if you've been waiting for the last book in the series, and it's available even before it actually hits the stores, it's likely you will be tempted to download)

[Cinisajoy]

Here is the thing. She is not the publisher and neither is her brother.
If the publisher wanted it on a pirate site, they would have done it.
When you have a publisher, the author cannot publish any part without violating their contract.

She signed a contract. She has no rights to tell the publisher what to do.

She put it on a pirate site. Pirate sites are illegal. Therefore, she is no better than they are.
If the publisher agreed which is doubtful, then they are also guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime.

She is just pissed because she did what many little authors do and lost readers.
Oh first and second books sold well so I don't have to worry, I can write crap and they will buy for the name.
Oh and that best seller list. The amount varies wildly to get on it. Even for the really big need authors

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

She did something she knew was illegal to prove a point. That just makes her a thief too. Whether it was 4 chapters or the entire book does not matter. Even worse, she got her brother to do her dirty work.

I don't think it's possible for the rights-holder to "pirate" their own work. And I certainly don't think it's possible to declare with any degree of accuracy that what she did was illegal. In fact, I believe it to be highly unlikely that she violated any laws whatsoever.

[tahastudio]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Cin, the point was that the author was implying that the pirated copies of the third book caused her sales to drop.

That's why I mentioned that there were likely pirate copies of the first two books. The author never mentions that.

For sure, there were pirated copies of her first two books. Doing a quick search, some of those torrents have been out for years, around the same time the first book came out.

But that's an angle I didn't think of, so the whole case here may be that people, desperately awaiting the next book in the series, saw the pirated ebook and decided not to wait for published version...

Of course, once that happened the majority of people may not buy the book, but I don't know: if I read a pirated version of a book and enjoyed it, I'd definitely support the author by buying it. That's why I originally thought her ebook sales dropped: people saw how the quality of the third book dropped and didn't buy it.

Sent from my D6633 using Tapatalk

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by tahastudio

For sure, there were pirated copies of her first two books. Doing a quick search, some of those torrents have been out for years, around the same time the first book came out.

But that's an angle I didn't think of, so the whole case here may be that people, desperately awaiting the next book in the series, saw the pirated ebook and decided not to wait for published version...

Of course, once that happened the majority of people may not buy the book, but I don't know: if I read a pirated version of a book and enjoyed it, I'd definitely support the author by buying it. That's why I originally thought her ebook sales dropped: people saw how the quality of the third book dropped and didn't buy it.

Sent from my D6633 using Tapatalk

It could be both a drop in quality and impatient readers got the torrent. One thing in her favor is that the third book sold better in paper than e-book when the first two didn't. So she could still well be right. I just don't think it's a slam dunk of an argument.

[haertig]

Couldn't you do the same experiment with libraries and conclude that libraries hurt sales?

Everybody thinks libraries are a good idea. But why do we think this? Why do we allow libraries to exist? After all, they hurt the authors and publishers who'd certainly rather sell their books for profit than lend then for free.

I'm not condoning piracy. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

[JSWolf]

The way I see it for the third book is that because an ARC was released early, too many people had the chance to read it before it was released and once released, why buy it because it's already been read.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

It could be both a drop in quality and impatient readers got the torrent. One thing in her favor is that the third book sold better in paper than e-book when the first two didn't. So she could still well be right. I just don't think it's a slam dunk of an argument.

Didn't the price jump from $6 to $12 for the ebook between the 2nd and 3d book?

Greg

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

She put it on a pirate site. Pirate sites are illegal. Therefore, she is no better than they are.
If the publisher agreed which is doubtful, then they are also guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime.

There is no such thing as a pirate site, making everything posted to it illegal. That some given site has been used to illegally post copyrighted material in the past, does not magically make it illegal for someone to post material that they have the rights to.

Your last sentence above is just hilarious.

[darryl]

This is Joe Konrath's take in a comment on The Passive Voice:

Link to Joe Konrath's Comment

Very valid comments.

But there is no mystery about the behaviour this author describes. If you release advance copies of your book and you have avid fans, they are going to go to great lengths to get the book. If it was available through legitimate sources, many, but not all, would buy it. But if it is not available through legitimate channels, it is not hard to guess what is going to happen.

And then there is price. If you price your ebooks at $12 or even more, you will lose sales. Even more so when previous books have been much cheaper. Some may go and buy the print book. Others will wait to buy a used copy or borrow from a library. But we live in an age of instant gratification. Many will simply download a pirate copy. Like it or not, there are people who would have paid 5 or 6 or 7 dollars, but will not pay 12. Even more so in the case of YA.

Yes, piracy does damage sales, sometimes signficantly. If you price your book too high (or your publisher does) you will lose sales to piracy. The more overpriced your book, the more sales you will lose. Likewise, if you release advance copies and your readership is an avid one, you will lose sales to piracy while the book is not available. Combine these two mistakes ………

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by darryl

Yes, piracy does damage sales, sometimes signficantly. If you price your book too high (or your publisher does) you will lose sales to piracy. The more overpriced your book, the more sales you will lose. Likewise, if you release advance copies and your readership is an avid one, you will lose sales to piracy while the book is not available. Combine these two mistakes ………

Which is fair enough, sort of, and Konrath knows what he's talking about, however, I'm still not happy with the "If it costs more than I like I'm going to nick it" argument.

I also notice that he's changed his stance to "piracy does damage sales, sometimes signficantly" from "Piracy doesn't harm authors", seems like quite a shift to me

[Blossom]

You have to look at the target of her audience. I find young people of today do not care about piracy. My own experience with my nephew trying to educate him about his downloading habits and failing. They simply do not care. They will use whatever method to get their hands on what they want.

I think her experiment was a failure personally. I do think her third book from the reviews I read was disappointing. Not all books in a series are going to be best sellers.


Sent from my XT1528

[darryl]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Which is fair enough, sort of, and Konrath knows what he's talking about, however, I'm still not happy with the "If it costs more than I like I'm going to nick it" argument.

I also notice that he's changed his stance to "piracy does damage sales, sometimes signficantly" from "Piracy doesn't harm authors", seems like quite a shift to me

Mike. You are quoting my comments, not Joe Konraths, though I am of course flattered. I'm afraid my writing is not nearly as good nor as interesting as Joe's. I linked to Konrath's comments and then made comments of my own. I'm not sure if you noticed the link which appears above my comments but defaults to the same colour text. I have now edited the link so it is in blue and stands out a little more.

I don't think Konrath has changed his stance at all. He simply added a proviso. This is an extract from the link to his blog:

The problem isn’t piracy. As long as your book is available, and reasonably priced, piracy isn’t going to harm your sales.

But if your book isn’t available yet, such as the case with ARCs and galleys, your fans are going to do whatever they can to get ahold of it. There is a whole market for selling ARCs, and always has been. Many indie booksellers can only stay afloat by selling ARCs. I’ve visited hundreds of bookstores and have seen this firsthand.

On your other point, copyright infringement is just that. Copyright infringement. It is not identical to stealing for many reasons. It is of course arguable and argued by many that it is morally equivalent. Rights holders like to call it theft simply because the majority of people don't understand copyright infringement but they do understand theft. In any case, little turns on this. The morally correct response to a price which is too high is usually not to purchase. But authors and publishers live in the real world, and must deal with the fact that if they price too high there are people who have no problem with pirating the book. Some will point to the nefarious practices of some of the publishers in their own moral equivalence argument that two wrongs cancel each other out. Others will not bother with any justification. But lamenting that some people choose to download infringing copies rather than purchase if they consider the price is too high doesn't change the fact.