An Open Letter To Scott Turow About Not Freaking Out About Book 'Piracy'

from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept

Wed, Jun 9th 2010 10:46am — Mike Masnick

We recently noted that author Scott Turow had been elected as President of the Authors Guild, where his initial focus seemed to be all about the evils of file sharing. Thankfully, some are trying to talk some sense into Turow. Michael Scott points us to a fantastic open letter to Turow, from Brian O'Leary, about why his kneejerk reaction isn't helping, and that he should be focused on understanding unauthorized file sharing, and what impacts it has (both good and bad), before jumping to the conclusion that it's evil and must be stopped at all costs. Here's just an excerpt, though you should read the whole thing:

First, though: I am not a pirate. I value intellectual property and believe its prudent defense can return value to its creators. But I've also come to believe, in this increasingly digital landscape, that the greater threat to many authors is obscurity, not piracy.

....

That's why we started studying the impact of piracy on paid sales almost two years ago. On an admittedly limited sample... we've found an apparent correlation between piracy and subsequent growth in paid sales.

Now, you recently told GalleyCat's Jason Boog that "...the larger problem for us is the pirating of books". I ask, simply, "How do you know?"

There are no reliable studies of the impact of piracy in the book business. Because our sample set is limited, I include our own work to date in that bucket. The studies that are cited most often are based on sampling techniques that try to track the instance of piracy, then apply an assumed number for "substitution rates" (lost sales).

The Government Accounting Office recently "assessed the assessments" of digital piracy and found them all lacking. That's not the final word, but it's an indication that conclusions drawn on the limited data available are premature, at least.

In talking with GalleyCat, you went on to say that "(piracy) has killed large parts of the music industry." But, the music industry is not dead, and there are studies that suggest that the more likely shift in buying patterns occurred when vinyl owners finished replacing treasured albums with CDs.

As replacement sales declined, purchase patterns also shifted from whole albums to individual songs. This was a trend that the music industry actively resisted, in the end fostering the piracy it wanted to prevent. The lesson here could be more readily distilled as: "Don't take actions (like delaying the release of e-books) that frustrate consumer demand."

There's much more in the full letter, and it's well worth the read. O'Leary suggests not that Turow ignores the issue, but that he takes a more open-minded, data- and evidence-driven approach to responding to this market issue. That is, don't immediately assume the best response is "stopping" unauthorized copies, but collect some data to figure out how to best respond to the market situation. Hopefully Turow will actually pay attention and maybe rethink his position.

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Filed Under: books, ebooks, scott turow
Companies: authors guild

32 Comments

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Ima Fish (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 10:54am

"(piracy) has killed large parts of the music industry"

The internet and the digitization of music killed off that small portion of the music industry which erroneously thought it was in the business of selling plastic discs.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:11am

Re:
Portion of the music industry? Oh, you mean the recording industry, which, as everyone knows, is not the music industry, which is much larger than the recording industry.

Especially nowadays!
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Jay (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:13am

I'm so glad more people are getting it
Thank you! I'm so glad that these people are out corroborating what we've been saying for the longest:

copyright infringement doesn't mean we need draconian laws.

Make BUSINESS, not laws.

And now that the publishing industry is on track to compete with torrents, it seems that we'll soon see better alternatives than what the government can make.
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Ima Fish (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:16am

Re: Re:
Last time I checked the labels are still with us, still signing new acts, still promoting new acts, still selling music on iTunes and Amazon, still making deals via movies, TV shows, commercials, ringtones, concerts, etc., etc., etc.
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PaulT (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:27am

Smiling softly at the fact that I have only read 2 of Turow's books, and both of those were bought second hand. I probably won't bother giving him any money directly, and I don't feel bad for that.

Meanwhile, books are mostly too expensive for me to bother buying new unless they're something special (just picked up a new copy of Steig Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, *specifically* because it was half price - and I enjoyed the other 2). In actual fact, I've not bothered buying a brand new, full priced book for a long time because they're just too expensive.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:40am

Re: Re: Re:
Fair observation, although you can still buy buggy whips if you happen to need one.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:40am

"the greater threat to many authors is obscurity, not piracy. "

the greater threat to many authors is starvation, not choice restaurants.

socialism is the answer.
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Democracy is dead, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:43am

im dling everything i can get my hands on
then i'm going poof
moving and the hell with it all
nothing is democratic no more

im grabbing all the dev tools i can
all the open source and non opensource i need

and if i want somehting in my future i'll make it
SCREW IT ALL

law is for the rich
law is for lawyers
it no longer is just fair or represents the will of the people I shall wait for the revolution that will surely come within 20 years

I may be an old man but i have faith one day we all will live free
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:44am

Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, but globally, the music industry is still larger than the recording industry. How many small music-based start-ups have appeared in the past decade? How many big labels have disappeared in the past decade?
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Ima Fish (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:50am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Yeah, but globally, the music industry is still larger than the recording industry."

And that's basically my point. The music industry is not dead. Only the small part that thought it was in the business of selling plastic discs.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
But I do believe there is room for both, it's just one of those entities is being slightly unreasonable in the 21st century.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Right, gotcha.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:52am

Re:
Socialism.

You keep using that word.

I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:52am

Re:
Or maybe you could try selling electronic versions of the books?
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interval (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 11:54am

Re: im dling everything i can get my hands on
...Mr. Smith, is that you?
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Brian (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 12:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I tend to think of the record lables as 4 year old children being taken out of a candy store, and don't realize they are being taken into a nicer and much better candy store. So they go out kicking, screaming, yelling, crying. Then after a while they realize they are in a much nicer and better candy store, and are happy again.
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Hephaestus (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 12:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"But I do believe there is room for both, it's just one of those entities is being slightly unreasonable in the 21st century."

They declared war on the consumer, freedom, and society at large. There are 7 billion of us and about 50,000 of them, its a loosing battle for them. Personally I dont think it is a war we are facing but and ever expanding rebellion, there isnt room for both.

re·bel·lion (r-blyn)
n.
1. Open, armed, and organized resistance to a constituted government.
2. An act or a show of defiance toward an authority or established convention.
3. dissent from an accepted moral code or convention of behaviour, dress, etc.
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Hephaestus (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 12:18pm

Re: Re:
"Or maybe you could try selling electronic versions of the books?"

In the short term that will work. Long term there will be so much competition from so many sources that most authors will live in obscurity.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 12:49pm

Re: I'm so glad more people are getting it
The publishing industry is not on track to compete with Torrents. Nowhere near it. The price of an ebook only looks good when you compare it to a hardback, when you start looking at cost comparison to paperbacks it gets pretty grim fast. On average, I pay about 30 cents per book more for an ebook than I could buy the exact same ebook for in paperback form. Yes, there are a lot of very cheaply priced ebooks out there. But normally they are introductory ebooks only. You get a discount of a buck or two for the first book in a series making it look very good, but once you look at the rest of the series each book is priced higher than its pulp brother. So in the end, you pay more for the exact same tale.

It is very good marketing to those who don't read a lot of books, but for those of us who do and were early adopters of the technology, its a kick in the teeth.

The Publishing Industry is actually doing a worse job than the Recording Industry did. Ebooks have been around for a lot longer than MP3s, and most people agree the current pricing and DRM free MP3 solution is pretty fair. But Publishers with several years lead time on digital distribution are just now starting to notice the digital portion of their business really exist at all.

As an early adopter btw, I only advocate ebooks for people worried about shelf space. Otherwise the price premium doesn't make sense.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 1:17pm

Re: Re:
socialism is the answer. all authors write whatever, and the state pays them a flat rate every year for the rest of their life, the state mandated rate for writers. their books are then given away (why would you make anyone pay for them) at the governments expense. that would remove the requirement for copyright, for rights management, and any other issue because we the people would own it all.

socialism.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 1:28pm

Re: Re: Re:
It's like you're trying to define a new type of argumentative fallacy that makes setting up straw men look like a master argument.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 1:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
you miss the point. what they fear isnt obscurity, they fear having to have a day job. they fear having to work hard to perfect their craft and move forward. what they want to do is sacrifice the entire functional book industry, and replace it with something that allows many people to make a very few dollars, instead of a lesser number of people actually making a true living. essentially, they want to use "giving away stuff for free to avoid piracy" as some sort of social equalizer. that sort of thing is better accomplished with socialistic processes, as i outlined. why beat around the bush, they want to be equal to better known writers without having to actually do anything that merits it.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 1:38pm

Re: Re:
there will be no sales of electronic versions in the long run, without some sort of drm. otherwise, a single digital copy will be shared without limits, effectively killing the digital industry. remember, if it is freely available, it is infinite and therefore has no market price. so any business model predicated on selling into an infinite market is a failure. still waiting for mike to propose something to replace the current market that keeps writers, musicians, and film makers from working mc jobs or playing mini-putt full time.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 1:47pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Good thing you provide so much evidence to back up your stupidity, TAM. Otherwise we might just laugh at you.
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Bleedin' obvious, 9 Jun 2010 @ 1:54pm

Too many books, but I always want more
I already buy lots of physical books that I never get around to reading. I often wonder what I would do if e-books were cheap ($1, say) and drop-dead easy to buy.

I suspect that I would buy hundreds of books that I might never get around to reading. When I found an author that I like then I know that I would immediately buy everything by that author.

Same is true of music and films. Just make it so cheap and easy to buy that you sell millions of copies on impulse purchases.

That is how the pirate sites work except that the cost is time to download and the fear of being caught. Why not simply copy that business model and put the pirates out of business by under-cutting them?

Seems blindingly obvious to me.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 2:07pm

Re: Re: Re:
Or you could keep writing and trying to sell new electronic versions of the books? To your fans? Or don't they count for anything?

It's like you're not even paying attention to the entire equation.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 2:19pm

Re: Re: Re:
Hint: The vast majority of writers, musicians, and film makers have never made a living writing, creating music, or making films.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 4:01pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
i am not tam. as for evidence, i am only taking the writers comments and extending them to their somewhat illogical conclusion. he doesnt want to work to be famous, but he would certainly sacrifice the book industry to be better known. the end results would be the same as in music. there isnt a huge increase in consumer spending, just a few more people making beer money. it is certainly worth killing an industry to do it.
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Nastybutler77 (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 4:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"he doesnt want to work to be famous, but he would certainly sacrifice the book industry to be better known. the end results would be the same as in music."

The same as in music? You mean more artists making more music and more money than at any other time in human history? And you think that's "killing an industry?" You probably think bacon comes from trees too, if that's the way your mind works.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jun 2010 @ 4:39pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You are TAM, but feel free to keep pretending you aren't. It's actually more entertaining.

As for your "evidence"...you just admitted to having none. Again. As always.
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Dementia (profile), 9 Jun 2010 @ 6:59pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Despite the lack of capital letters, I don't think it actually is TAM this time. There actually seems to be some logic in the thoughts and, it seems almost sarcastic towards the publishing industry and their desire to fight piracy.
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Jerry in Detroit, 12 Jun 2010 @ 5:14am

Unrecognized pirates
Uh, Mr. Turow,

There are all kinds of piracy and file sharing going on. For instance, here in my neighborhood, there are several libraries which buy one book them allow everyone and anyone to read that one book. The universities are even facilitating this. Their Library Science programs should be called how to commit piracy.

Then, when the original purchaser has read one of your books, they can sell the book at a used book store which will sell it to someone else, buy it back and sell it again and again until the book disintegrates or no one wants to buy it. By your measure, this is blatant piracy.

To answer this blatant theft, we need to burn down the libraries and used book stores. We also need the government to register books so that only authorized readers may possess registered books. Perhaps we should discontinue the teaching of reading in our schools. I will wait for your public support of these measures.
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