Novelist Quits Writing Due To Piracy

I have mixed feelings about this. I know Terry Pratchett has had strong words about book piracy in the past. I support authors' rights. But every time I hear of something industry-driven, like SOPA and the DMCA, I cringe a bit. Because government and industry efforts won't solve the illegal download problem, they'll just widen the legal definition of a criminal. Usually in favor of of the very industries who've balked and whined at new technologies in the first place, instead of figuring out how to adopt and adapt to them.

A very good friend of mine helps keep a local game shop in business by buying hardcover editions of new D&D and Traveler books. He would love to legally have access to those same books in digital form on his e-reader and laptop, for easy access during games. But he has to buy two copies, f the digital versions are even available. He'd love to see hardback and trade paperback editions come with a download code for a digital version.

I sympathize with the Spanish author. But if that is her way of dealing with the problem, it's probably for the best that she gets another job besides writing.

This kind of thing makes me wonder if some authors will simply refuse to go digital at all and keep the print.

Thanks for sharing the article. I always like to know what's going on in regard to ebooks/publishing/piracy, etc.

Food for thought.

"This kind of thing makes me wonder if some authors will simply refuse to go digital at all and keep the print."

Google will be happy to steal it, scan it, and put it out there. One digital copy = infinite number of digital copies.

I don't know if its a good enough to quit writing if you love it. I do however think piracy is a crime and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law (after all, it is stealing).

That's . . . I'll be kind and call it daft.

No sympathy here.

Quitting is not the way to fight. Standing up, speaking out, and taking proper action to stop piracy is.

I know it's apples to oranges, but I was very happy to hear that the comedian, Luis CK made a million dollars in five days by posting his a comedy special he put on. He asked for $5 a pop, no DRM, and just put a note basically asking people not to pirate it.

I'm sure it has been, and will be, pirated, but it's neat to see that it worked out for him.

Quitting is definitely not the way to go. Piracy needs to be fought.

The piracy thing isn't logical when you think about the details.

For a start, most downloaders would never buy the books they're downloading, so downloads don't equal lost sales. But aside from that, pirates are not picky about the books they pirate. Any successful author will have their novels pirated. So why is she going down the sales chart and other authors are rising up the sales charts? It isn't the pirates. If it were, other authors with pirated works wouldn't be taking her place.

The take away lesson is not to get obsessed with piracy. Or to think you're somehow special when you're targeted. Other authors are facing it too, so if they're still selling books... you have to look elsewhere for your sales drop.
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Polenth said:

The take away lesson is not to get obsessed with piracy. Or to think you're somehow special when you're targeted.

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I'd love to find out that a book of mine had been pirated. That would mean that somebody out there actually wanted it. But, of course, since no one does actually want any of them, none have ever achieved publication, and therefore are in no hazard of being pirated. How's that for a catch-22?

caw

Polenth said:

The piracy thing isn't logical when you think about the details.

For a start, most downloaders would never buy the books they're downloading, so downloads don't equal lost sales. But aside from that, pirates are not picky about the books they pirate. Any successful author will have their novels pirated.

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This. I doubt most pirates--if any-- are actually reading the books they download.

Miselle said:

Google will be happy to steal it, scan it, and put it out there. One digital copy = infinite number of digital copies.

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Surely, they would buy it first. Otherwise there will be a lot of IT workers stealing from Waterstone's and B&N?

I'm reminded of the music piracy episode of south park where the boys form a band but refuse to play for fear of being pirated. In the end, they learned that it was really about the music and to stop worrying about people stealing their music because enough people would still pay for it anyway.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s07e09-christian-rock-hard

I don't worry about my books being pirated because if someone wants to read my book for free, they already have access to it at the library.

Also, I question whether someone that can walk away from writing completely because of money was ever a true writer anyway. Even if I never make a dime at it, I have to write. It's who I am.

Medievalist said:

That's . . . I'll be kind and call it daft.

No sympathy here.

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I'll be less kind and say I would never buy from an artist stupid enough to stop creating based on piracy.

Piracy seems like one of those problems where the solution is to stop thinking about it as a problem.

Or rather, to see piracy as the solution to a problem, and engineer a better solution so no one feels the need to turn to piracy.

For example, a lot of music piracy just went away once iTunes appeared and started offering music cheaply, easily, online, on a song-by-song basis.

Essentially, iTunes just started giving people what they wanted: the ability to get one song, not the whole album, and to get it instantly in electronic form.

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.

There will always be criminals, but most people are basically honest. If those people turn to piracy, it's often out of frustration at companies that set up the system so it benefits the company, not the customer.

There are two types of pirates: those who will pirate no matter what, and those who pirate because your delivery system is shit.

The former will never buy your art; the latter would be happy to buy it if your deliver system weren't shit, but can't because it is.

It comes down to whether you'd rather punish the entitled bastards at the expense of potential customers, or whether you'd rather turn the potential customers into real customers first and punish the entitled bastards later.

The industry is opting for the former, which is, quite frankly, a fucking stupid decision.

I can understand her frustration. I've been pirated by someone who won one of my books in a contest and seen her collect thank yous for sharing. I don't understand how that wouldn't bother someone. I've also seen people rate books who claim to regularly download illegally and that bothers me too. I won't lie, I've felt like giving up on publishing, especially after receiving emails for being selfish because I spoke out or after being told I was ruining my career by daring to call piracy stealing. My opinion is I really don't care if it's not a lost sale, I really don't care for sob stories about not be able to afford books. If someone steals from me I really don't care for their opinion at all.

I won't stop writing because of it but I can't say it's never crossed my mind in moments of frustration.

I have really mixed emotions about the concept of piracy. It used to be that fans would buy a book and then lend it to a circle of friends If it bothered authors, nobody seemed to mention it a decade ago. Yes, I know email & boards changed the game a lot but I like to think that readers are, by and large, honest. For a long time, for example, our books weren't even available as ebooks (and I mean just like a year or two ago). I didn't begrudge readers getting an e-version through piracy. Heck, I even made PDFs myself & sent some out to reviewers. when ours became available in e-form, I got quite a few emails from fans, telling us they'd gone out to buy a copy, because they felt GUILTY about pirating it. Readers aren't evil. They are generally honest & I do my best to treat them as such. To me, library-only readers are in a similar class. I have any number of fans who only borrow books. Does that somehow make them less of a fan? Not to me. Now, some authors will use the argument that "well, at least ONE copy was bought.". But there's no way to know if that's true. I've seen our Advance Copies (w/a "not for sale" label right on the cover) in libraries.

Is piracy wrong? Yes, and I'll turn in the sites I find to our publisher's legal team. But I won't blame the READERS. Fans are great & do mostly understand that authors depend on them buying. Piracy isn't likely to make me stop writing even though the money is important to my decision to write.

Her vow to stop writing provoked a torrent of abuse from downloaders who filled her Facebook wall with insults. Some said they did not earn enough to buy her books.

"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."

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Alitriona said:

especially after receiving emails for being selfish because I spoke out or after being told I was ruining my career by daring to call piracy stealing.

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Leaving aside the piracy issue for a moment, I think this is what disheartens me the most.

If you're going to pirate, whatever, but don't act like it's anything less than what it is. It is stealing.

jjdebenedictis said:

Piracy seems like one of those problems where the solution is to stop thinking about it as a problem.

Or rather, to see piracy as the solution to a problem, and engineer a better solution so no one feels the need to turn to piracy.

For example, a lot of music piracy just went away once iTunes appeared and started offering music cheaply, easily, online, on a song-by-song basis.

Essentially, iTunes just started giving people what they wanted: the ability to get one song, not the whole album, and to get it instantly in electronic form.

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.

There will always be criminals, but most people are basically honest. If those people turn to piracy, it's often out of frustration at companies that set up the system so it benefits the company, not the customer.

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And I think this comment hit the heart of the matter. I know for myself any piracy I've engaged in the past *furtive looks* was because the product bought was simply out of my range of ability to acquire (too expensive, not available without rootkits/massively invasive DRM, anime being sold at $30 a dvd with only 2 episodes and no extras, and whatever nonsense Sony tried to pull there for a while on their cds).

Once it became available to me in a form I could afford/wanted/suited my needs and available tech, I was more than willing to give up my hard-earned cash to get it.

One of my favorite authors has a new book coming out. Amazon just sent me an email and when I read it, the ebook was being priced at $9.99 but the trade was going to sell for $10.88 'discounted' from $16.00. For a paperback.

I won't pirate it because I believe the author is worth paying for...but at a price that is more affordable. So I'll wait for a sale. Along side that, another author I love (and advertised as Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought) has a new book coming out hooray for $7.99 for Kindle and paperback. :/ Guess who gets my money this time? Possibly twice, once for the ebook and once for the paperback.

I don't understand the part of publishing that sets prices and how their elaborate algorithms work, but the first publisher is really pushing the limits of what many consumers are willing to pay, which for many, may start the downward slide to pirate it.

However, I don't think the answer to the problem is to quit writing. That ranks up there with fanfic authors who hold their fanfics hostage by saying "I need 10 reviews or I quit writing this story".

Although, I'm not sure what the answer is except making it available to readers at affordable prices, which is not within the author's realm of control (unless self-pubbed).

No sympathy from me. Piracy is annoying, but it's not a tragedy.

I wonder what the job offer she got was? I wonder if it'll pay as well as writing did (sounds like she was doing pretty well with the prize money, at least!).

That has got to be one of the the dumbest things I've read in a while. More and more people are getting their book fix with ebooks and her publisher thinks it's a GREAT idea to REFUSE TO RELEASE her latest novel in an ebook edition because *gasp* some people might steal it.

End result--anybody who wants her novel in electronic form is FORCED to swipe a PDF version because THEY CAN'T PAY MONEY FOR IT EVEN IF THEY WANTED TO.

I . . . just . . . wow. That's a spectacular kind of clueless.

Sarashay said:

That has got to be one of the the dumbest things I've read in a while. More and more people are getting their book fix with ebooks and her publisher thinks it's a GREAT idea to REFUSE TO RELEASE her latest novel in an ebook edition because *gasp* some people might steal it.

End result--anybody who wants her novel in electronic form is FORCED to swipe a PDF version because THEY CAN'T PAY MONEY FOR IT EVEN IF THEY WANTED TO.

I . . . just . . . wow. That's a spectacular kind of clueless.

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I agree that it's a short-sighted/stupid policy on the publisher's part, but I've got to disagree with the idea that people are FORCED to commit piracy. Something not being available in my preferred format does not give me the right to steal that item, and it certainly doesn't FORCE me to steal the item.

If we, as writers and as human beings, believe that it's wrong to take someone's work without their permission, then we should stand by those beliefs even if it means we can't read that person's work, or can't read it in our preferred format.

I agree with what people are saying, that making it less available isn't the way to go, and that most people who pirate aren't even reading the book in the first place.

But man, I'm stunned with some of the attitudes where evidently the excuse of "I want it now, and can't afford it otherwise" is a perfect excuse to steal someone's work. Like if you really wanted a shirt in a store and couldn't afford it, you'd steal it and then maybe buy another one from the same store later?

We live in a culture of entitlement, where people want things and they want them now. This means people go into crazy debt buying things they can't afford instead of waiting and saving up the money, or, I guess this also means people justify stealing.

Piracy is theft. And yes this author's reaction seems silly to me and not a solution to the problem, but that still doesn't mean piracy isn't theft.

(there's also a BIG difference between an author choosing to put her work out there for free, and someone else making that choice for her)

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?

[Decided to restore this bit, because it's a viewpoint and it's a different take; if you don't like it, don't jump down my throat about it -- I can entertain this viewpoint without saying it's one I accept or don't accept. It's a viewpoint.]

Instead of legislating to death against piracy and further reducing access to items for legitimate customers, why not find a way to integrate piracy somehow? If you think about it, piracy is a form of distribution, a promotional channel. What if you exploited it as part of the promotion campaign? The network is already set up, the people are already there.

And, for those that only turned to it because they have no other choice, and would have bought a legitimate copy if they could have, offering an incentive (e.g., a second free book, or, no prosecution) might help them to help you promote your work. (Btw, these are the people you want on your side. Not the actual pirates themselves, 'cos they do it because they can.)

The problem with piracy is the lack of access to the book, regardless of when it's released. Those not in the right country or region can't access it. And even after waiting a reasonable amount of time (about 2 years or more in some cases), and still being unable to purchase the book, they have one of two choices: forget the book, or go for a pirated one.

If the former can be chosen, most will. On the other hand, if you've waited for 2 years, and the publisher still hasn't released it, and you still can't purchase it legitimately, of course you're going to hit a pirated copy.

Understand that piracy is a solution to otherwise-unobtainable goods, or withheld goods because the publisher or whatever company, is trying to milk the customer for all they have. Or, the producing company is so terrified of pirates, they've cut out everyone (including that huge base of legitimate customers that would help them recuperate their costs) in certain regions.

So, a solution to piracy? Include otherwise honest people in your promotion campaign. How? That's up to you.