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Old 01-27-2008, 08:17 AM   #1
Alexander Turcic
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Paulo "The Alchemist" Coelho pirates own books to increase sales

Credits also to ricdiogo who reported the news first.

It's probably a safe bet to say that his publishers (one of them being HarperCollins) ain't going to be amused about this, but Paulo Coelho, author of the best-selling novel The Alchemist, decided to harness his talents as a pirate to spread his own books for free via BitTorrent. According to TorrentFreak, this "unusual" step helped him to radically increase hardcopy sales throughout the world:

Quote:
In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And everyone was puzzled. We came from zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the next year we were over 100,000. […]

I thought that this is fantastic. You give to the reader the possibility of reading your books and choosing whether to buy it or not. […]

So, I went to BitTorrent and I got all my pirate editions… And I created a site called The Pirate Coelho.
Links:
Thanks to "horseyride" for the tip!
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Old 01-27-2008, 08:22 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic View Post
It's probably a safe bet to say that his publishers (one of them being HarperCollins) ain't going to be amused about this...
Maybe they dully accept it to see how it goes... like an experiment.
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Old 01-27-2008, 09:05 AM   #3
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This is extremely weird...and it once again shows that those who rave against pirates ruining their sales don't know the first thing about marketing and the way it really works...
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Old 01-27-2008, 09:06 AM   #4
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What piracy???

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic View Post
(...) Paulo Coelho, author of the best-selling novel The Alchemist, decided to harness his talents as a pirate to spread his own books for free via BitTorrent. [url=http://torrentfreak.com/alchemist-author-pirates-own-books-080124/] (...)
Official "Pirate Coelho" Blog (use Google to find the exact link as we don't want to encourage piracy here)
With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...
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Old 01-27-2008, 09:20 AM   #5
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Well, he calls himself a pirate, so I guess we should too...
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Old 01-27-2008, 09:21 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by erwin View Post
With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...
I'm sure none of us can call it a way or another without reading the fine line of his contract with the editor, but IMHO it's a safe bet that this is indeed piracy - and if it didnt have the success they say it had, his editor would have been really upset.

As usual with piracy, it's always in grayscale - never in B&W

Alessandro
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Old 01-27-2008, 10:21 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by erwin View Post
With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...
If he has an exclusive distribution contract with his publisher, then although it's not "piracy", he's probably at least breaching his contract.
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Old 01-27-2008, 10:48 AM   #8
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Ehr, The Alchemist is a *1988* book, for crying out loud! Editors and other similar paras... ehm, I mean "indispensable third parties" should had gained enough already on it, I think...

Anyway, my obiection is mainly on the pruderie to not give a direct link to Coelho site with the excuse to not "encourage piracy". Another fine example of how distorted the concept of respect of the "intellectual property" has become lately, thanks to the mudding activities of all the ones that feed on the authors creativity, in the musical as in the books field...
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Old 01-27-2008, 01:46 PM   #9
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This is a slightly modified repost from another thread about Paulo Coelho and his "piracy"
Quote:
Originally Posted by erwin View Post
With all the due respect... are you kidding or what?

An ***author*** decide to distribute one of ***his*** books for free, and you call this piracy?

Again, no falme intended, but this level of "political correctness" seems to me plainly rudiculous...
Yes. It was piracy.
Well ... it was what is usually incorrectly called piracy.
Real piracy is a robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, by an agent without a commission from a sovereign nation [quote from Wikipedia]
It wasn't even a copyright infringement but it DEFINITELY was at least an "unauthorized distribution of the copyrighted work"

His publisher must have had a fit when he discovered the site.

It might seem strange, but even if he really DID write the books, he ... aehm ... "pirated" them by giving them away.
How can you ... aehm ... "pirate" *YOUR OWN* book? The very book you own the copyright on?

Simple and easy.

Step 1.
Write a book.

Step 2.
Sign a deal with publisher for publishing your books and get the money.

Step 3.
Give away the book you received the money for from your publisher.

Step 4.
Your publisher is ... displeased

In this particular case:
Step 5.
Your "piracy" has rekindled[*] a lot of interest in you, so people that wouldn't notice you otherwise suddenly find out they like your books. So the sales of your [paper] books [sold by your publisher] steeply rise.

Step 6.
Everyone is happy
The author
The pirate
The publisher
and, last but not least The readers.

See?
He even got nice free advertisement here on Mobileread and even on Slashdot.
[*] Paulo Coelho was alredy a very famous author.
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Old 01-27-2008, 02:14 PM   #10
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As posted on another thread: when you sell close to 100 million books you can do whatever you want with your books; so if Mr. Coelho wants to call himself a pirate I think his publishers will say "yes, Captain" and even buy him an eye patch
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Old 01-27-2008, 04:15 PM   #11
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Old 01-27-2008, 06:34 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by erwin View Post
Anyway, my obiection is mainly on the pruderie to not give a direct link to Coelho site with the excuse to not "encourage piracy". Another fine example of how distorted the concept of respect of the "intellectual property" has become lately, thanks to the mudding activities of all the ones that feed on the authors creativity, in the musical as in the books field...
Erwin, of course you're right. It's ridiculous to not link directly to his pirate blog. Perhaps I was tired this morning when I made the post, or maybe I was just too caught up in trying to be "politically correct".
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Old 01-27-2008, 07:22 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic View Post
Erwin, of course you're right. It's ridiculous to not link directly to his pirate blog. Perhaps I was tired this morning when I made the post, or maybe I was just too caught up in trying to be "politically correct".
Thank you.
______
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Old 01-27-2008, 07:43 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic View Post
Erwin, of course you're right. It's ridiculous to not link directly to his pirate blog. Perhaps I was tired this morning when I made the post, or maybe I was just too caught up in trying to be "politically correct".
*erwin steps down from his high moral horse*
No problem, you are forgiven, for this time...
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Old 01-27-2008, 11:02 PM   #15
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Pirating of intellectual property will be seen many years from now as one of the reasons for the decline of our society.

For the record, I thought The Alchemist was a piece of crap.
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