No Honor Among Thieves
Downloading a book illegally is stealing. Period.
This morning on Twitter, a woman tweeted at Sarah Rees Brennan that she had illegally downloaded a copy of her book because e-rights were not available where she lived.
First, you all know that I adore Sarah Rees Brennan. I am a huge fan. Second, that was incredibly rude, insulting, and thoughtless of the woman. Third, the woman tried to justify her actions because the mean publishers wouldn’t let her have her book! I mean, she would be a paying customer if it were available? In fact, she WILL be a paying customer if it becomes available! She’s going to let the author know this, so the author can relay the information on to her meanie publishers!
Other authors have spoken about the subject from an authorial standpoint and how it hurts them. (Saundra Mitchell‘s post in particular shows you with concrete numbers the very real consequences of illegal book downloading.) But for those of you unconvinced by their words, I have some words for you too.
If the illegal downloading of books continues, there may soon be a world in which you will never be able to read books again.
Bold words, eh? Hyperbole isn’t my strongest suit, but I am taking an issue and taking it to its most extreme logical conclusion.
As others have mentioned, regardless of promises by the pirates to buy a legitimate copy, every illegal download is a sale lost. You cannot count on the honor of thieves. You simply cannot.
But say you are a publisher. Say you have bought a book from an author you hope to see succeed in the marketplace. You have paid him or her an advance against royalties and things are good to go. The physical book is published, simultaneously with the ebook. You push these books out into the world and hope people buy them.
Things seem to be going okay, but sales are less than you had hoped or projected. Why? You check your numbers; everything ought to be going swimmingly. You have a sinking feeling in your stomach because this project is losing you money, and you need your books to make money or else your business fails.
Then your author and other internet sleuths come back and tell you that there are thousands upon thousands of illegal downloads of the book. That makes you even sadder. Why? Aside from the lost sales, it means that you cannot justify one (or both) of two things: 1) publishing ebooks at all if people are just going to download them illegally or 2) publishing the next book by this author, whom you think is talented and want the world to know.
Pirates and illegal downloaders have scores upon scores of reasons for defending their actions. I am going to address the biggest reasons and why your stealing will end up contributing not only to the death of the industry, but possibly books overall.
But the physical book is too expensive!
Uh, this might be a no-brainer, but go to the library. Or a second-hand bookshop. Or borrow it from a friend. Even if you are borrowing, that sale is not lost. Libraries buy copies, second-hand bookshops buy copies from people who have already bought copies, and your friend has bought a copy. Downloading an illegal copy of a book is not “borrowing”. You are under no obligation to return the intellectual property you stole.
But the ebook is not available! I only read ebooks.
Listen, we want people to read books in any and every format. But publishers can be and are hesitant to publish ebooks if people just keep stealing them. A publisher might look at the bottom line and think it’s not worth releasing an ebook at all. And now look what you’ve done. You’ve basically just prevented yourself from getting the ebook by ensuring no publisher wants to take that risk.
I am doing this to make a stand! Publishers should make these books available in all countries, territories, and formats!
In an ideal world, yes, books would be available that way. It is, unfortunately, not possible unless there is one global publishing conglomerate. In other worlds, a global monopoly. When we acquire books, we acquire rights to territories, which may or may not include ebooks. Even if we, in North America, acquire World Rights, we still sell those subsidiary rights to foreign publishers, who then may or may not decide to publish in the format you want. For example, Macmillan is part of Holtzbrink. Holtzbrink includes Macmillan US, Macmillan UK (which I believe includes the Commonwealth and Australia), and a German publishing house. While Holtzbrink includes all these publishing house–they are not one big publishing house. Warner Bros. is part of Time Warner, but is not the same company as DC Comics, which is also part of Time Warner.
Downloading an illegal copy of a book I already own is totally fine.
NO, IT IS NOT. What are you are actually doing is giving the torrent sites a reason to keep pirating books. YOU may have spent money on a book, but by downloading illegally, you are putting pennies into the pockets of pirates instead. THEY are the ones making money, not the author and not the publisher. If the author and publisher are not making money, then soon there will be no way to make books.
Downloading the book means I am spreading the word! See, it indirectly supports the author!
You can say that all you want, but you can give me no evidence to support it. Also, most likely, spreading the word will merely send the potential buyer to the free download website, at which point you are giving money to the website. Nope, still not helping.
All these justifications for stealing something won’t actually convince a publisher to publish more books in more formats; in fact, it will very likely convince them of the exact opposite. If a baker bakes baguettes that people keep stealing because he’s not baking brioches, that won’t convince the baker to start making brioches. That will just drive the baker out of business. And now look what you’ve done; you’ve ensured no one in your town gets bread period.
Of course, this is all hyperbolic rhetoric. I am exaggerating. But the scary part is I don’t think I’m exaggerating all that much.
Well written and thoughtful post. Thanks so much. I find it amazing how much convincing that this is wrong is necessary, however people are so used to stealing music and movies that this is just one more entertainment they want for free. I have heard people actually say that Creativity should be shared, that it is from God and therefore should be for everyone – and that artists are supposed to suffer. *facepalm* I will send them this link – next time I hear those pathologically selfish arguments.
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Thank you for posting this information. I have shared it on my FB page. We’ve got to get this knowledge out there–so many are ignorant concerning pirating and its painfully sad consequences. I want to keep reading good books, so, c’mon everyone, let’s pay for them!
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I am hardly advocating illegally downloading…anything, but plenty of research has been done into this and found that illegally downloading a product hurts sales far less than it seems. When internet sleuths go and find thousands of illegal downloads all over the internet, they can’t count every single one as a lost sale. It doesn’t account for the people (which tend to be the majority) who downloaded the product simply because it was freely available. These are people who, had the product not been available to them for free, would never have bought it in the first place. It sucks when a publisher sees how many people have downloaded it because they would hope those are all potential sales, but the real picture is always far more complex.
Just thought this worth mentioning. I know you’re using hyperbole here, but electronic piracy of books is hardly cause for concern in my opinion. Especially in the YA world which seems to have one of the fastest growing and best selling markets in publishing.
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I also think there is a difference between having a product available for free through a publisher or an author and it’s quite another to have something illegally downloaded.
But it’s hard to argue that illegally downloading a book doesn’t hurt sales. If you read Saundra Mitchell’s post about it, she’s very frank about the real numbers. Her books are going out of print because fewer than 10 copies per month are being sold. Yet at the same time, 800 people are downloading her book every week. (She is a YA author as well). If even half of those 800 people went and bought her book, she would earn out her advance in another month.
How can you not count those 800 downloads per week as lost sales? It would be one thing if those 800 downloads converted into 80 sales per week–a mere 10%–it might be enough to keep her in print.
Publishers don’t count how many people are illegally downloading books as sales. Why should they? The author and the publisher is only making money on those 10 copies per month.
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You’re talking about one person, I’m talking about a general picture. There are plenty of artists who lose money when they see a large amount of people enjoying their work compared to their compensation, of that there is no doubt. And I am hardly advocating this kind of piracy, but at the same time I recognize that it’s not a cause-effect picture.
I am saying that the overall picture couldn’t be further from the truth. Even in her case, there is probably a lot more to the picture than meets the eye. The fact is those 800 copies don’t directly translate into lost sales. They are potential sales, but more often than not, had they not been able to get the book for free, they wouldn’t have gotten it in the first place. It’s shitty, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s hard to fight for these reasons. You could break back and limb to see to it that no copies find their way on torrents or blogs, but it doesn’t mean you would see sale numbers go up.
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Thanks for sharing! I agree that pirating any creative materials: art, fashion design, music, movies, and books is wrong and appreciate your thoughtful post on the subject!
I just had a question about publishing ebooks generally: I have a Nook and enjoy reading ebooks (especially when I am traveling), but it frustrates me that the prices of these books never goes down. Yet if I wait long enough I could get a hard copy of best sellers at Barnes and Noble on clearance for five or six dollars. This may be more of an issue with B & N and not publishing houses, but do you ever see this model changing so that the readers of ebooks get some of the discounts that purchasers of books at big box stores like B & E and Borders get?
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Well, with the agency model, the price of an ebook should go down when the paperback is released. For instance, when the hardcover is on sale, the ebook ought to be $14.99. When the paperback is on sale, the ebook ought to be $7.99 (I think…don’t quote me for actual numbers!).
But I don’t foresee price deflation on ebooks if the book was paperback original, unless it goes to mass market. The reason you can get hardcovers on clearance at bookstores is because they are getting rid of inventory because demand is low. :-/ Unlike ebooks, physical books are products which take up space, and when a bookstore needs to make more room, they’ll discount the price. There is no reason for a bookstore to discount ebooks.
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Good post. And while I don’t really like ebooks (I think physical one are easier on the eyes), I have to agree with the IP thief that the lack of legal availability of ebooks is fueling illegal downloading.
I can attest to how frustrating it is to be living in a country that does not have ebooks available outside of the public library (that loans them in pathetic slots of 2 hours).
We’re happy to pay for them and we have the technology for it, but content or licence providers / whoever else are preventing these books from being available to us.
It’s something Americans will find difficult to empathize because you have Kindle and Google Books readily available on your smartphones, e-book readers or iPads. And while we have access to the very same technology and devices, we don’t have any books to download.
To us, it’s just not fair. So I can fully empathize with her frustrations.
Also, I don’t understand the logic about selling ebooks to countries that supposedly suffer from piracy. While some of the ebooks will no doubt end up in torrents (which I’m sure occurs in the US as well), there are people in these markets who are able and willing to pay for them. How much money are the publishers/authors potentially losing by not tapping into these markets?
To me, it’s just a vicious cycle.
1) Publishers weary about piracy? No ebooks.
2a) The avid reader will look for physical copy.
2b) Those who live in small spaces, as many do in Asian countries, will resort to stealing like that Twitter person.
2c) Indifferent people like me will just not read it, if the physical copy is not readily available at the local bookstore or library.
3) Less sales.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
It’s not about creating an ideal world. It’s about basic supply and demand. There’s demand, but no supply. So demand will take its business somewhere else and unfortunately, one of the “somewhere else” includes piracy.
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It’s a territory issue when it comes to ebooks, as it is with the print. If we buy World rights + translation for a book, it doesn’t necessarily mean every country in the world wants to buy said book. You cannot create demand for a place doesn’t, well, demand it. For instance, we buy a book, but Korea doesn’t want the rights, then that book won’t be available in Korea, period.
Now, there is a place to buy books and have it shipped to you for free. It’s bookdepository.com, and I have bought many a book there that’s only available in England.
The thing that galls me about that woman is that she is from Australia, where the author’s books are available. It simply wasn’t available in the format she wanted. I’m sorry, that just doesn’t you steal it.
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I would consider the greatest threat to the book to be many of the ones actually getting published. A full half of the population of the United States has simply been abandoned as a potential market. Half. You can’t do that and expect your market to grow. And certain demographics will download illegally at a much higher rate than others – namely young and internet savvy. To a large degree the industry is responsible for it’s own pain. Just like the time I left my car window open and all my cassettes (the precursor to the CD for you younger readers) disappeared when I was inside Wal Mart. There was a thief involved but I made it very easy. My fault.
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Have a look at this.
http://colorblue.dreamwidth.org/60441.html
What do you think?
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I agree that piracy is unfortunate mostly for the author. But working in a library department I see that one of the issues with books in e-format is the lack of a universal platform. Until a universal platform has been established most consumers are not sure which e-reader device to use or even how to use them. There are so many of them now and so many choices. People get overwhelmed with the choices and give up. Libraries can not purchase e-books that are supported by all platforms, publishers will not distribute the e-books on all platforms, so sometimes the book you want to borrow in e-format from a library is not available. Until a universal platform can be established and the e-reader wars are over the consumers will be the ones to suffer the battle for ready, easy-to-load e-book’s – no matter how much the publishers charge for the books. And, even then, I think the piracy will continue. But probably less so because people will not be so frustrated at the process in which it takes just to download a book to a device of any kind. That is just my two cents.
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Very nice post JJ! I personally have mixed feelings about piracy but your post is the first I found online that explains in a concrete and structured way why piracy is eventually bad for everyone. For anyone who cares to read it, another equally reasonable post that explains the issue from the other point of view is http://e-library-free.blogspot.com/2012/02/free-illegal-knowledge-and-how-not-to.html
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