Not Only Can You 'Compete With Free' You Have To If You Don't Want Your Business Overrun By Piracy

from the basic-economics dept

Mon, Jun 4th 2012 12:15pm — Mike Masnick

Rob Reid, who recently got a ton of well deserved attention for his hilarious TED talk on copyright math, has a WSJ op-ed piece, in which he tries to explain why there's so little ebook infringement, compared to music infringement. The crux of his argument? Even though the big publishers aren't really great about this stuff, rather than fight the technology, they were actually quick to embrace the technology and make authorized works available for purchase. Contrast that to the music industry, which sued every advancement in technology, including the first MP3 player, and didn't actually license an MP3 download store until many, many years after MP3 players were widely available.

Compare this to the situation in books. Although it had some small-time forerunners, the Kindle, like the Rio MP3 player, brought portability to a mass market. But the Kindle launched with licenses rather than lawsuits from the key rights-holders in its domain, and offered more than 90% of the day's best sellers when it shipped.

This meant that consumers discovered digital books through a licensed experience that delighted them. Exciting hardware, a critical mass of titles and Amazon's retail sensibilities were all integrated into a single elegant package that piracy has never matched.

Of course, piracy emerged anyway. Countless unlicensed e-books can be found online, and millions of people use them. But sales figures suggest that relatively few of these downloads represent foregone purchases. Most Kindle, iPad and Nook owners seem to view piracy as a low-rent and time-consuming experience compared with the sanctioned alternatives. They probably wouldn't if the publishers had kicked things off with a five-year content boycott.

This highlights a key point that many of us have been trying to make for a long, long time. The "answer" to the "piracy question" is not greater enforcement or more draconian laws, as the entertainment industry keeps telling us, but rather more legitimate services that can provide good value to consumers. The music industry failed at that for so long, that it really helped drive the culture of infringing music.

For years, we've pointed out that of course you can compete with free. But what Rob's article is highlighting is even more fundamental. Not only can you compete with free, you must compete with free or you're going to lose out. If you don't offer a legitimate alternative, people will flock to the illegitimate ones. Yes, some people will always infringe, but over and over again we see how legitimate services pull people away from file sharing and towards paying -- if they provide enough value at a reasonable price.

Now, I know that some will quibble with one other major difference between books and music that Rob sort of leaps over in his piece: it was much easier to create digital music than ebooks. You could just take CDs and drop it into your computer and there you go. There really wasn't a simple equivalent for books. Sure, lots of people have scanners, but that's a laborious process. Still, I'm not convinced that was really as big a deal as I'm sure some will make of it. That's because once a single copy of a book is digitized, it's very quickly available all over the place. And there were plenty of people working to digitize books long before the Kindle came along. It might have been a limiting factor, but certainly not a complete hindrance to ebook infringement.

Either way, the key takeaway can hardly be challenged: the way to deal with piracy is to offer good legitimate services, and preferably more than just one, so they can compete on adding value. Unfortunately, many in the industry like to just dip their toes in the water with a few services -- and as soon as they become successful, seek to raise prices. That's no way to encourage a long term market success.

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Filed Under: compete with free, copyright math, kindle, mp3, piracy, rob reid

54 Comments

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DH's Love Child (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:21pm

You are assuming..
That's no way to encourage a long term market success.

you are assuming they want long term success. They are only interested in this quarter's numbers, though. Or success until the CEO and get out with the golden parachute. Long term success doesn't enter into the conversation with these folks anymore. They want more money NOW
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copyright mathematician, 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:25pm

Hey, stop making fun of Hollywood math. Hollywood math is fun and has many practical applications, like confusing politicians and giving everyone else some comic relief.
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John Doe, 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:33pm

ebooks are content done right
Amazon, through the Kindle, Kindle website, PC and smartphone apps, allows you pick up and read your ebook anywhere, anytime and it knows your last read location no matter where you access it.

Now compare that to music. There is no comparison.
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ahow628 (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:36pm

"Most Kindle, iPad and Nook owners seem to view piracy as a time-consuming experience compared with the sanctioned alternatives."

Bingo. I open Amazon, click buy, and the book is on my Kindle. It simply could not be easier.

To pirate, I would have to go to TPB (or wherever the hell has pirated books, I have no idea), get the torrent, wait for it to download, email it to my Kindle or tether with a USB cord. Difficult.

This is actually one of those situations where buying is easier than piracy. Amazing.
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Woadan (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:37pm

I only wish they'd sell e-books for less than they do now. At current prices, it means I'm better off buying the paper...
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el_segfaulto (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:39pm

Even more impressive.
When you think about the ease of piracy, the eBook industry should be lauded even more. You can theoretically download every book in a library's collection in the same amount of space as a single HD movie. If you add compression into the mix (text files compress marvelously), piracy has the potential to do far more damage to authors than to filmmakers.

The fact that it hasn't tells me two things: That the threat posed by copyright infringers is far overblown and/or that the book publishing industry is doing something less wrong (I won't go as far to say 'right') than the film and music industries.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:47pm

you still have the greed problem though. those selling e-books often want as much, sometimes more, than the hard copy. cant see how that can be justified.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:47pm

"Yes, some people will always infringe, but over and over again we see how legitimate services pull people away from file sharing and towards paying -- if they provide enough value at a reasonable price. "

If some people will always infringe, and that has to be accepted, I'm curious what would happen if a medium did in fact do everything right and yet too many people ended up in that "will always infringe" category in a way that the medium couldn't address.
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Benjo (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:50pm

Re:
A lot of people (including myself) will download digital copies of books they already own physical copies of. It's just a nice way to consolidate a large part of your library in to one place. E-book prices are ridiculous in many cases. There is no way I'm going to pay more for an e-book then a physical copy of a book, even a used one.

Plus the digital versions you download tend to have no DRM, meaning I can read it on any platform I want, easily.
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fogbugzd (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:51pm

Ebooks usually have fewer regional restrictions and windowing. Windowing is one of the major drivers of movie piracy.

There are also a lot of cheap and even free ebooks. And there are sources that have been DRM free, and the DRM-free ebook movement is expanding. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/04/the-drm-free-movement-for-ebooks-expands.ht ml
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Robert (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:52pm

Pretty much. I mean, sure, I *could* pirate a book that I've been looking for. But all the devices I'd read it on have such easy access to the book. Smartphone? Open your reading app of choice, search the market for a book and boom. On your ebook reader? They make it simple and painless, and the vast majority of titles I'm looking for are available within seconds.

So yeah, I could go and pirate and transfer to my device, but its so much easier to buy.
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AG Wright (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:52pm

The difference between industry and musicians
On interesting thing to me is that though the music industry has fought digitization tooth and nail musicians have adopted it like crazy and the same thing has happened with writers.
Many smaller writers have also published books electronically that would never ever be published by a major publisher and for a very small amount of money invested by the writer,
Musicians are doing the same. The little senior adult group that I used to play with had an album. About 20 copies were made.
The thing is that people have something to say, whether it is through a book or music and now there is a medium to say it with.
Hooray for electrons!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:52pm

I don't mind paying a few bucks for an Ebook, knowing that the authors I like are getting paid for their hard work. It helps a lot that they make it easy to do, though the price could be more inline with the format. Thanks a lot CrApple!
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Mike Linksvayer (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:53pm

compete?
you must compete with free
Only if your business is selling copies, ie you=publisher (which is indeed what the linked column assumes). But if you=artist or anything else, competing with free isn't a must (though you can) and competing with free is the wrong way to see free. Often you want to, um, leverage free to connect with fans, and give them reasons to buy stuff that complements free. :-)

I guess the last paragraph of this post can be read to say that, but "deal with" still sounds pretty negative -- "leverage" would be the (maybe equally inaccurate) positive spin.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:54pm

Re:
To add to this, IMO, ebooks offer a lot better content that is worth the price of admission as apposed to the garbage Hollywood spews out these days.
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Lowestofthekeys (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 12:57pm

Re:
Crime is constantly evolving, and so is piracy.

The measures to combat the crime also have to evolve, just not in a way that oversteps boundary lines.
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Prashanth (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:03pm

High prices
What of high prices though? I read a lot of TechDirt pieces regarding how the fact that ebook prices are often higher than physical book prices drives a lot of piracy of ebooks. Of the piracy of ebooks being done today, what percentage might be eliminated simply by doing something like offering them for $0.99 or even $4.99 instead of $19.99?
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Chosen Reject (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:08pm

Re: Re:
Being able to read a book on any platform is not really a problem of Amazon's DRM. The Kindle app runs on Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7, plus they have a webapp for anything that wasn't covered by their native app. I don't like DRM either. All of my ebooks so far are public domain books acquired from Project Gutenberg either directly or through Amazon.

Don't get me wrong: DRM sucks and rightfully deserves to be hated, and there are some problems with Amazon's setup both in regards to DRM and in regards to their control of devices and books you've bought. I'm just saying that the Kindle's DRM as it relates to being able to read on any given platform is an incredibly small problem.
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DH's Love Child (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:14pm

Re: High prices
Agreed. I don't pirate books based on pricing, I do it based on availability. If the book is priced too high (and for me anything over $4.99 for most ebooks is too high), I just don't buy it.

If the book isn't available (legally) in electronic format, however...
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:17pm

Re:
That would be the library.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:25pm

Re: Re:
Overstepping boundary lines is exactly the problem with trying to deal with online filesharing. That the internet does not have boundaries in its structure does not mean that there are no boundaries for the people using it.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:26pm

Re: Even more impressive.
Or that the mass demand for books (outside of certain titles) just isn't as great as the demand for movies and music.

Consider that globally, a book written in English isn't going to appeal to the majority of the world's population. Music and movies cross borders much more easily.
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zos (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:29pm

I guess i'm just "some people" i can't afford to give 10 or 12 bucks for a digital file i'll delete the moment i'm finished with it. I've got a book a day habit, when i was analogue i stuck to libraries, or splurging at the used book store when i have some cash.

Right, wrong...it just is what it is. any media i want is available, any time, any where, in any format, for free.

The only authors that get my money are the ones i buy drinks for at conventions, or the ones who go above and beyond to be awesome like Cory Doctorow.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:32pm

Re: Re: Re:
While the Kindle DRM isn't too onerous in terms of reading it on your choice of device I still find it excessively limiting. I could read a book in the kindle app on my phone, or I can read a book in my preferred e-book reader (Aldiko). On the kindle reader I can read in black on white, black on sepia, or white on black and have 5 options for font size. In Aldiko I can select any even numbered point size between 4 and 40. I also have about 80 color choices for both the text and background colors as well as separately configured day and night theme colors. Even better yet in Aldiko I can configure the volume up and down buttons to act as page forward and back while I read.

Give me choices with reasonable defaults and I will be a happy camper.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:39pm

Re: You are assuming..
For sure, but I think that's more a problem with western business culture in general, than specifically e-book sellers.
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That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:42pm

Re:
Ah, but it stops being funny real quick when the morons in office take the crap seriously and pass laws based on it.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:48pm

Re: You are assuming..
For sure, but I think that's more a problem with western business culture in general, than specifically e-book sellers.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:49pm

Re: Re: Re:
And no boundaries for potential customers!

Just in the way one looks at it I suppose.
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Lowestofthekeys (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 1:50pm

Re: Re: Re:
If too many boundaries are added, then there's a chance that legitimate information flow could be hindered.

I think it's a delicate process, and understanding the internet better is a way to go about setting up boundaries.
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Mason Wheeler, 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:04pm

Re: ebooks are content done right
...right up until something goes wrong with the distribution and they reach into your system and delete content from it without your consent. Then they turn into ebooks done wrong.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:05pm

Re:
The medium fails and the market moves on.
No need to grant monopolies to anybody.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:09pm

Re: Re: Re:
Lets be clear here, until very recently sharing was legal there were no boundaries those were created after some people panic and started screaming bloody murder trying to get attention to themselves.

If there are boundaries is the boundaries that we reached already, society is not willing to give up any more rights so a handful of people can keep enjoying theirs while screwing the rest of us.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:11pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Another example, my boyfriend and I were texting while I was reading a book in the Kindle app on my iPhone.

There was a single paragraph I wanted to copy and paste for him to read. Doesn't happen.

I did finally manage to get just that section relayed over to him.

WHY MAKE IT SO HARD TO SHARE WITH PEOPLE?!?!!
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Mark (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:12pm

You wouldn't steal a car....
Another big difference is that if I buy a legitimate e-book I'm not forced to start by reading an article on why piracy is bad followed by a bunch of adverts for other books before I can ever begin with chapter one. That makes the legitimate route far more appealing. Movie studios, take note.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:20pm

Re: ebooks are content done right
That's why Amazon is more like a rental service for books.

But since I can borrow books from Amazon Prime for "free", I'm ok with that.

Anyway, has that happened again since the whole "1984" fiasco?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 2:57pm

Or maybe...
There are a lot more songs in existence than e-books?

People find more pleasure in listening to music than reading an e-book?

I mean, there COULD be other reasons, you know.
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Josh (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 3:10pm

Re: ebooks are content done right
Ummm, apparently you haven't heard of Google Music, iCloud, or Spotify...
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Keyboardr (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 3:11pm

Re: Re: ebooks are content done right
For that matter, Amazon has a cloud music locker too.
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ltlw0lf (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 3:21pm

Re:
I only wish they'd sell e-books for less than they do now. At current prices, it means I'm better off buying the paper...

Amazon's ebooks have been falling (at least, on the ones I've been looking for.) One book I've been waiting to buy for a while dropped recently from twice the price of the hardback to just above the paperback, and that was nearly overnight. I can only find one book that I was interested in that hasn't fallen, and it was made into a movie recently.

I suspect that even if the government lawsuit doesn't go anywhere, the days of super-high ebook prices are history. Now, get them down to ~$2-3 a book with bestsellers at $4-5, and I'll be interested in reading more (than the ones I've already been picking up for that price.) The only ones I've bought greater than $3 so far are the ones I already know I'll like. If the ebook prices were less, I'd even explore and pick up books that are recommended that I don't know if I'd like or not.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 3:27pm

Re: Re:
I'd even be happy with 6 - 8 dollars per book.

8 bucks for a 500+ page Ebook that I enjoy is a good entertainment value IMHO.
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ltlw0lf (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 3:33pm

Re: Or maybe...
People find more pleasure in listening to music than reading an e-book?

I find pleasure in listening to music *while* reading an e-book, I'll have you know.

The problem is, as is mentioned above, there are legal methods of getting e-books that have been around since the first e-book reader was available. The RIAA fought, and even as late as 2008, was claiming in court that ripping a CD that you legally purchased in order to fill your mp3 player with music was against the law.

If RIAA had embraced technology and allowed those at the time to produce mp3s of their music instead of suing them into oblivion, the outcome may have been far different (I certainly wouldn't have been boycotting them for so long.)
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 3:43pm

Re: Re: Re:
But if your preferred platform is not one of those and doesn't have wine you're fucked.
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Keroberos (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 6:01pm

Of course, piracy emerged anyway.
No, e-book piracy existed long before there were e-readers to read them on. I was reading public domain books on my Palm in the 90s. And I know there were pirated books out there.
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Rob Reid (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 8:09pm

Re: Re:
Hey ltlw0lf - I'm actually afraid that the ultimate impact of the lawsuit could be HIGHER book prices, longterm. If the DoJ prevails, it will make it very difficult for anyone not named "Amazon" to stay in the reader market, because Amazon has the resources & the proven determination to sell books at far below cost in order to drive all other competitors out of the market. B&N and others don't have this luxury, since they need to make a living from selling books.

So - there's a real risk that the DoJ will create an actual monopoly in the name of ... competition. And once monopolies exist, they tend not to maintain the below-cost prices that enabled them to attain that position.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2012 @ 8:14pm

I think that this guy is playing a combo if wishful thinking and "in before the lock" declarations.

The market for e-books is relatively new, and is still growing. This is something that, 2 years ago, didn't exist at all, has existed mostly as walled gardens, and didn't permit a bunch of intermingling. Third party piracy isn't a big thing yet, because the market is only in the defining process.

A rush to judgement, perhaps?
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ltlw0lf (profile), 4 Jun 2012 @ 8:39pm

Re: Re: Re:
Hey ltlw0lf - I'm actually afraid that the ultimate impact of the lawsuit could be HIGHER book prices, longterm.

I agree sir, but it will be because of a natural monopoly, not an artificial one that exists now. Any company can compete against Amazon, just like any company can compete against any other one. And if Amazon uses their natural monopoly illegally (to hinder their competitors, then they will have the same problem.) The prices may raise a little, but that will be because the true market has spoken, not because a company can force their will on everone else.

If the DoJ prevails, it will make it very difficult for anyone not named "Amazon" to stay in the reader market, because Amazon has the resources & the proven determination to sell books at far below cost in order to drive all other competitors out of the market.

Non DRM'd books can be read by any reader. If they use DRM to lock you into a particular reader, then they are using an unfair business practice that locks out competitors. I read ebooks on a Nook (I prefer it to Kindle, which I've played with in the past,) but I also read on my Android phone, my Android tablet, and my Linux and Windows laptops, all running different applications. DRM is the problem, without it then Amazon wouldn't be able to have its monopoly. Instead of forcing "Agency Pricing" to break up Amazon's monopoly, remove the DRM and they will be forced to compete against everyone else for their reader. Agency pricing did nothing but give the publishers an excuse to be ridiculous in their price models and remain out of touch with their customers.

So - there's a real risk that the DoJ will create an actual monopoly in the name of ... competition. And once monopolies exist, they tend not to maintain the below-cost prices that enabled them to attain that position.

Again, I agree. I hate monopolies. But the difference is that with a natural monopoly, any competitor can enter the market and give the incumbent a run for their money, even if it isn't successful. At the moment, the only person setting the price is the publisher, and there is no pressure to provide the customer what they want or to make sure the artists/author gets what they want (I am sure many authors would prefer to get a ton of purchases of their ebooks at a lower cost than a very few purchases at a much higher cost because their publisher doesn't understand economics. As it is, I prefer to buy dead tree versions and scan them in myself as it is ultimately cheaper to do this than buy the ebook that is more costly than the hardcover version of the book (and I own a lot of ebooks thanks to Baen and other booksellers, as well as cheaper Amazon books.)
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Seegras (profile), 5 Jun 2012 @ 1:59am

despite DRM
I don't buy e-books usually, but I read them. The reason, of course, is DRM. Happens these nefarious schemes don't even work on my platform, so it's much easier to just download the books from somewhere (which is, by the way, legal in my country. It doesn't even matter if somebody put them up illegally).

I'm actually quite astonished that some many people put up with DRM. Seems it's not so much a hassle to most, or more probably, the majority hasn't yet realized what freedoms they give up.

But the real problem is of course that DRM is just a big enabler to enact monopolies, and THAT I cannot condone in any way. It's plain evil, wicked, vicious, nasty, mean, bad, villainous, diabolic and malevolent. It's a destroyer of culture, and a menace which has to be eradicated from earth. Same as patents.

Of course, I totally do not understand why one can initiate and antitrust-investigation while totally ignoring the main reason these monopoly-practices were possible in the first place.
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Andrew D. Todd, 5 Jun 2012 @ 2:30am

The Music Industry has Different Economic Underpinnings than the Publishing Industry (to Rob Reid, #43)
One point which one must not lose sight of is that the publishing industry makes so much of its money by selling college textbooks, in banal subjects such as College Algebra. Most of these textbooks are not books of great distinction-- they are about as interchangeable as the GTF's teaching discussion sections of freshman and sophomore courses. By mechanically renumbering exercises, possibly with the aid of a computer, the publisher can easily break a book down into a thousand or more editions, specific to particular schools and years. Increasingly, the teaching system is dependent on a publisher website, where actual personal accounts are required, making the situation effectively comparable to that in video games. The publisher makes more money by taking over the grading of homework, a task the college teacher would prefer not to do. A College Algebra textbook is substantially a collection of exercises. Textbook prices are growing rapidly, at a rate comparable to college tuition, and for much the same reasons. The major economic concern of a publisher is whether college faculty might decide to "cut the cord," to take perfectly legal actions, such as producing free textbooks (and software), which leave the publisher out of the loop. That said, the book publishers probably worry too much about book piracy, not too little.

It is a commonplace to buy a business for the tax deductions, rather than for the profits. If a company has no assets save its potential tax deductions, it is bought by someone who can use them. Very well, publishers such as Barnes & Noble will be bought by someone who can conveniently run them at a loss, someone who is in substantial competition with Amazon across a wide range of merchandise. Think of Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Kroger's, Safeway, Albertson's, etc., people like that. Amazon is already selling stuff like canned goods at competitive prices. When you take a grocery store, and cut it down to the things which Amazon really would have fundamental difficulty in handling, such as salad greens, it is small enough to be a family business, the same as a restaurant.

The idea of a publishing house being owned by a major supermarket/discount chain is really no stranger than that of major newspapers and magazines being funded by advertising revenue, something which we take for granted.
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ahow628 (profile), 5 Jun 2012 @ 6:31am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
HTML5 webapp FTW.
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Lowestofthekeys (profile), 5 Jun 2012 @ 6:58am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I agree with you on the part about the boundaries being set by people who should not be setting boundaries. The record companies have show time and time again they have no idea how to regulate their content on the internet, yet you have companies like Netflix who can regulate and do it very well.

The labels and movie companies just don't like losing control lover the content because of it's value to them
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ltlw0lf (profile), 5 Jun 2012 @ 7:35am

Re: The Music Industry has Different Economic Underpinnings than the Publishing Industry (to Rob Reid, #43)
When you take a grocery store, and cut it down to the things which Amazon really would have fundamental difficulty in handling, such as salad greens, it is small enough to be a family business, the same as a restaurant.

I must admit, I like shopping at Amazon, just as much as I like shopping at Wal-Mart so the anti-Amazon/anti-Wal-Mart folks can throw my argument out the window like they do with everyone else. I think you hit it right on the head with that statement...when you are fighting against a natural monopoly, you do so at the fringes. I go to Amazon/Wal-Mart because of the price, and I go to the market because of the convenience (because drop-shipped greens and fruit aren't very helpful or healthy.)

Vons has been delivering groceries for a while now...and at my local Vons, it seems like the only people who shop there are the ones going for last minute quick items (as am I.) Albertsons seems to be the same way. Some companies are popping up taking the fringe away from Vons/Albertsons too, Fresh and Easy is taking away their single-shopper market.

In all those cases though, there is a pressure for each company to expand their market by offering better service. It only makes things work better in the long run. You don't get that in artificial monopolies.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jun 2012 @ 4:31pm

Re:
It's getting simpler than that. I can download most of what interests me from my public library. Like it? You can buy it from the same source.
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SleepyJohn, 7 Jun 2012 @ 2:06pm

One very rarely hears ISPs mentioned
Yet virtually every single person accessing the internet prefers to pay an ISP for the convenience of being able to do so in the own home rather than drive round town looking for a free or unsecured wifi.

Your point about easy access to ebooks hits the nail right on the head. Time and again surveys have shown that the majority of 'piracy' is caused by the difficulty of obtaining legitimate content rather than the cost. The basic problem with the music and movie industries is that they seem to be run by mentally-retarded street-corner drug peddlars, rather than the entrepreneurial businessmen who should be doing it. My chickens have a greater capacity to grasp the big picture, even after their heads are cut off.
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lillianmurphy (profile), 27 Nov 2012 @ 2:31pm

For more on this topic....
Great article, for more literature about competing with free you can also read http://www.founderblog.com/2012/05/23/you-can-compete-with-free-and-win/
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