I read an article about Valve, the company that makes Portal and other games, and they talked about how they had released a game to the Russian market, which traditionally has outrageous rates of piracy, and found they had virtually no piracy problems.
What were they doing differently? They released the game in Russia the same day they released it in Britain, rather than months later.
In other words, the fans were pirating games as a solution to a problem (games were always released in their country much, much later), and when the company made that problem go away, the piracy also went away.
No, it didn't. They just saw some improvement because *some* pirates stopped, the ones who only wanted an early release, and the general amount of illegal downloads in Russia is so high, even this small %% dropping off was noticeable. But the majority of pirates, at least in Russia, do not do it for that reason. They simply want stuff for free and they have the means to get it, so why not. It's the national mindset: lulz we tricked the rich dudes out of their money. It's especially true re: games, because there is no "poor artist" concept behind them in the eyes of the general public.
Quitting because of piracy? So, the bad guys have won? You've given up your dream, but in this case, was it really your dream? Was it worth giving up to something that can be overcome?
She might still be writing, just not showing it to anyone except friends.
I know a Russian author who did the same thing. She has a blog and when she posted about her frustration (she kept receiving emails in which people were asking her where they could download her newest book and got offended when she sent them the link to a local version of Amazon), some comments were like this: hm, you want me to pay for *books*? That's weird, I pay for clothes, food, vacations, important stuff, not for something that's just entertainment. Those people--the ones who commented--were not poor. They just had this idea that only a careless spender would spend money on something that's not new shoes or a new house. A writer, in their world, is someone who has lots of fun writing books (while they slave away at their boring day jobs) and then has the nerve to want some money from those hard-working dudes who are just looking for a bit of fun, ridiculous, isn't it?
And those were people who called themselves her fans and devoted readers.
Another example, also a Russian one. Sergey Lukyanenko is a number one bestselling Sci-Fi writer not only in Russia but, it seems, in Eastern Europe. He is a passionate hater of book piracy and used to blog about it quite a lot. His blog's audience is huge. Once his post received a large number of replies from readers who downloaded his books illegally. They said they thought all the publishers were corrupted and they'd be happy to thank the author directly if they could, but they refused to give any money to publishers. (This is a popular point of view in that country.) Others said they downloaded books illegally when those books were hard to find. Or that they only wanted to read ebooks and never bought the paper stuff. Etc, etc. Lots of reasons.
Okay, Lukyanenko said and created a social experiment. He set up an account using a local cyber-money system and asked everyone who downloaded his books illegally and wanted to pay for them or just to thank him for writing books to send him a bit of money. He promised to donate the whole sum to charity, it wasn't about him wanting money, he wanted to prove that his opponents only cared for free stuff.
He got... I don't remember the exact amount but it was about 150 or 200 dollars total. Mind you, he is the most famous Sci-Fi author in that part of the world. Like Stephenie Meyer for American Young Adult.
Though piracy isn't just about the customers wanting stuff. It's not about freedom of information, either. It's about profit.
http://lib.rus.ec is the biggest Russian site for pirates. Its servers are situated somewhere in Southern America. It's full of banner ads and has an incredible amount of hits per hour. Can you imagine just how much $$$ flows towards its owners? They are filthy rich. And that's not the end of it. If you click on "buy it" instead of "read it", wanting a fb2 or another special ebook format (the free copies are in basic html format), you will be sent to another site. That site sells digital copies of books which were never released in that form. More than that: some writers who chose to publish their books as free ebooks, find those *free* ebooks on sale there.
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"Literature is not a profit-making job, but a passion," said Kelly Sánchez, one of the least vitriolic critics. "If you had a real vocation then you wouldn't stop writing." [from the article]
Every time I see this, I want those people to arrive at their work place next Monday just to discover that they will no longer be paid because the public feels like they must do it for free. Hey, doctor, if you had a real vocation, then you wouldn't demand any pay from your patients. Hey, teachers, artists, physicists, what are you doing wanting some money to feed yourself with? That's your vocation, dammit. You chose chemistry? Work in the lab for free and sweep streets at night to pay your bills.
Vocation? Ha. It's just a convoluted way of saying: yes, writer, gimme what I want for free and stop whining, you should be happy we read your drivel.