eBook Pirates Tend To Be Older And Well Off, Which Means They Pirate Because Of Human Intuition On Economics
from the the-infinite dept
People tend to have a hard time discussing the two mathematical concepts of zero and infinity. It's not hard to understand why this is, of course, with reality being a material thing and both the lack of and the infinite amount of something being somewhat foreign. And this manifests itself in all sorts of disciplines, from cosmology to spirituality to physics. And, of course, economics, particularly in the digital age where many of the axioms surrounding physicality no longer apply to digitized goods. Zero and infinity play heavy roles here, both in the discussion of free content (zero) and the concept of digital and freely copyable goods as a resource (infinity). The economic nature of these concepts have long vexed established industries, even as some of us have pointed out how efficient and useful infinite digital goods can be if properly applied.
Industry rebuttals to the economics of all of this have mostly amounted to facile derision in the form of slandering younger generations who either "just want free stuff" or "want stuff they cannot afford." Neither makes much sense, with both claims easily disproven given statistics demonstrating how much more is spent by "pirates" than those who don't pirate content. The truth is that, while the average citizen likely can't speak eloquently about the economic laws at work for digital goods, they certainly can understand them intuitively. And this can be shown with piracy statistics for eBooks, which a recent study shows that eBook pirates tend to be both older and relatively affluent.
A new study, commissioned by anti-piracy company Digimarc and conducted by Nielsen, aims to shine light on eBook piracy. It was presented yesterday at The London Book Fair and aims to better understand how eBook piracy affects revenue and how publishers can prevent it.
In previous studies, it has been younger downloaders that have grabbed much of the attention, and this one is no different. Digimarc reveals that 41% of all adult pirates are aged between 18 and 29 but perhaps surprisingly, 47% fall into the 30 to 44-year-old bracket. At this point, things tail off very quickly, as the remaining ~13% are aged 45 or up. There are also some surprises when it comes to pirates’ income. Cost is often cited as a factor when justifying downloading for free, and this study has similar findings. In this case, however, richer persons are generally more likely they are to download.
With nearly half of eBook pirates falling into their thirties or forties, and the study later showing that two-thirds of eBook pirates have household incomes of at least $30k per year, and almost a third having incomes in six figures, this simply isn't a situation that can be explained away by pointing at young poor people. So, why do older, more affluent people pirate eBooks?
I would argue it's instinctual. Most of these people may not even be able to explain the term "marginal cost", but by instinct they feel that something that costs nothing to reproduce ought not to require payment. Their brains do this calculation behind the scenes, not thinking about the sunk costs of initial production, nor the sweat-equity spent by the content creator. Marginal cost is the term used by economists to explain pricing laws that emerged organically through human instinct.
This isn't to say that unauthorized downloading is somehow acceptable when eBook publishers wish against it. But it certainly does suggest that any eBook publisher, or publisher of other digital content, has a very high hill which it must roll its old business model wagon up to make it work. Human intuition is one hell of a thing to overcome. So much so, in fact, that it's likely the better strategy is to figure out how to make that intuition and infinite digital goods a boon rather than the enemy.
Now, it's worth noting that the price of eBooks was still a factor for those responding in the study, but not nearly the factor that convenience played.
Given the majority of pirates’ ability to pay, it comes as no surprise that convenience is the number one driver for people obtaining content from torrent sites. Cost still takes the number two position but a not inconsiderable four out of ten still believe that online retailers are lacking when it comes to content availability.
In other words, a huge amount of eBook piracy could likely be done away with immediately, if the content cost closer to what the buyer instinctually believes it ought to be and the content was at least as readily available for purchase as it is through pirated means. That really can't be that hard for eBook publishers to understand.
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Filed Under: ebooks, infinite goods, non-excludable, non-rivalrous, piracy, studies
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Alien Sub Culture
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“Merciful Goddess, indifferent God, what an unholy goatfuck.” - Amy Lane
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heheheh
Cause, ya know, people who read a lot of books tend to also read a lot of news and are often better informed than the general populace.
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Re: heheheh
If the digital copy is more expensive than the physical copy I'm not buying.
It's not a matter of money. I can pay. It's more that you don't want to be ripped off.
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Re: Re: heheheh
I am relatively affluent, between 30 and 40, and am it professional. I know what the costs related are.
Fuck the publishers for once again screwing over both the seller and the buyer.
I have nothing against supporting the authors, if I could I would but all my books directly from them. Instead I have to rely on scumbag publishers that expect me to stupidly overpay for a product, whilst using their fucking insane DRM schemes that locks my purchases to specific devices and accounts.
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Re: Re: Re: heheheh
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But there are lots of reasons to pirate besides cost. Avoiding DRM would be a big one for me. If I'm paying for it, I want to be able to read it on any device using any software I choose.
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Re: heheheh
Taking a copy of all of them everywhere uses up less than 10% of a modern 128GB microSD card.
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Re: heheheh
If I buy a physical book I can re-read it whenever I want forever, as long as I don't lose the book or let it get so badly damaged it falls apart.
E-Books however can often be stolen from me whenever the publisher wants to. And who knows if the Kindle/etc. format will still be readable in the future.
My brother is a pastor, and he said all the older pastors warned him to keep backups of his old sermons in txt files, because many of them lost their lost sermons by using now unsupported word document formats. Txt files on the other hand are unlikely to ever become completely unreadable with time.
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Re: heheheh
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Re: heheheh
Besides that, the "legal" methods are excessively difficult or require giving up personal information. I don't want someone to have a list of everything I read.
If somehow I could anonymously give money to an author and have them write a book I'd actually have rights to (redistribution at least), I'd be willing.
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Re: Re: heheheh
So when you walk out of Best Buy with a computer without paying for it, you are annoyed when they call you a shoplifter?
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Re: Re: Re: heheheh
Again, someone confuses unlicensed digital sharing with the theft of physical property. The people who make these remarks can't all be morons or shills for the copyright industry. How are we failing to clarify this issue for the masses?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: heheheh
While, as Mike has correctly pointed out on many occasions, there are some property-like aspects to copyright, such as the ability to transfer it, copyright itself is not property like a house or a car.
Content is experienced, not consumed. It doesn't turn into crap, then get excreted because you read, listened to, or watched it. If your experience of it is different the second or third time after you first accessed it, you've effectively taken its virginity; it's now more familiar and the sense of wonder of "the first time" is now gone, but nobody likes to put it in those terms, do they? Except the man I had a full on shouting match with, who wouldn't use the word "virginity" and insists on saying "consume." So much for logic.
Look, people, if you use the words and phrases the maximalists use, you cede the argument to them by framing it in their terms and frantically try to defend yourself from charges of being a robber. The best argument we can come up with in that case is, "It's not the same kind of property as a house or a car and you still have the access thereto, we haven't removed it from you. We just have a copy of our own, now." It's a panto-style argument: "Oh no it isn't!" "Oh, yes it is!" ad infinitum.
We need to re-frame the argument in our terms and put those toe-rags on the back foot.
RE: property: "It's not property like a house or car; it's not property at all. Rights can be transferred but rights aren't property. Nothing has been stolen, we just made a copy. Stop lying!"
RE: consumption: "You don't consume content, you experience it. Can't you manage four syllables? Content doesn't change its nature just because you viewed it, etc. It's your personal experience of the content that changes because it's not new to you any more. Therefore nothing was consumed; the content remains in an unchanged state."
Maximalists use "property" and "consume" to imply a unique and finite resource that they alone have the right to control access to. Don't play their game by using their words.
I expect I'll be ignored again where this is concerned. :/ Can't we at least discuss it?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: heheheh
You just don't want to pay for the content. Theft, pirate, whatever, you are just a cheap asshole.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: heheheh
He may be slightly less "pissed" if this was backed with evidence. Because right now, it looks you're just accusing people of crimes because you can't admit that they're correct.
Perhaps your high horse would be more comfortable if it wasn't built on lies?
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Re: heheheh
It's also worth noting that readers know that price fixing and collusion were rampant during the physical days as well. Weirdly, when people know they've been routinely ripped off, they will find away around that.
Not to mention that experienced readers have always gone for cheaper options - for myself, I've always bought hardback books when it's something I really, really wanted or requested as a gift. Paperbacks were much more common, however, with them regularly being second hand purchases or library rentals rather than new purchases. Even new purchases were driven as much by retailer discounts as the desire to read specific titles.
If you're used to reading secondhand paperbacks, as many readers are, then that option gets removed from digital purchases and they're being asked to pay much more than they would have done previously? Yeah, they'll probably pirate - and since the money from their previous sales went to a secondhand retail and not the publisher/author, there's not even a moral quandary.
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I'd like to point out Baen here - they're the only one I found where buying a book (that works everywhere) is simpler than downloading off random sites.
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If you haven't already found it consider giving Smashwords a try. Free trials of pretty much any book, generally good prices, no DRM at all, and no regional restrictions that I'm aware of. I don't think you even need to sign up to buy.
Depending on what genres you read, I might be able to toss some suggestions your way as well if Smashwords does look good to you, given over half of my ebook library came from there.
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Let me second the call-outs for Smashwords and BAEN Books. The prices are reasonable, and the "No DRM" policy is a winning draw.
Also, the Gutenburg Project is worth a mention, for classics and for older (copyright expired) works -- "free" and "legal" is hard to beat.
I have more epubs from Smashwords or from BAEN Books than from everyone else combined (and the Gutenburg Project is the only other "publisher" that comes close to them).
I don't have to worry about whether I can read it on this device, or only on that device, nor for how long I'll be able to keep them and read them again. Nor do I need to fiddle with stripping DRM and/or tinkering with them in Calibre trying to ensure the book will render properly on whichever device I want to use this time.
If a book is worth reading, I'm certainly willing to pay for it. What I'm not willing to do is to wrestle with books I've paid honest cash for, just to be able to read them as I please on the device I please, when I can almost certainly get "pirated" versions for free, which I can just load and go, with no effort to speak of, on whichever device I find most convenient.
Also: note that I said "ePub": I don't buy e-books from Amazon or for Kindle -- in my mind, "proprietary formats" is a concept even more incompatible with "books" and "Literature" than DRM is, and I simply refuse to support a publisher who tries to foist that brain-dead idea on the general public.
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Not in it's base form, and not unless you convert the formats(though conversion is trivially easy, literally taking two clicks).
From what I've read(I don't bother doing so myself) you need a specific add-on to the program to remove DRM, with Calibre itself going the standard CYOA route of telling users that such add-ons aren't in any way officially supported, which means if you want the add-on you're going to be getting it from someone else.
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Re: "not available in your country"
Signing up for notifications from the publishers is worthless, I've not found a way to avoid the generic spamvertising and just get a notification of the specific book.
So it's "steal it now, or buy it in a year, if I remember"... nope.
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So?
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A quick search gave me this, which if accurate suggests that the older the person the less likely they are to read ebooks, though the ranges aren't too big when compared to the stats listed in this article.
Younger(18-29) people read slightly more(35%) and are slightly less likely to engage in ebook copyright infringement(41%), while older(30-49) people read slightly less(32%) and are slightly more likely to engage in ebook copyright infringement(47%).
The differences in ranges aren't too big, at 3% reading and 6% infringement, but given how they're reversed from what you might expect(with the younger demographic engaged in less, rather than more copyright infringement) the article seems to be accurate.
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Probably a very fluffy statistic...
People who read a decent number of books are probably more affluent to begin with. Reading ebooks on a phone is a pretty dire experience so we're probably also looking at people who have spare cash to buy a dedicated ebook reader to support their reading, again pointing to affluence.
Lower-income readers probably grew up going to lending libraries rather than being allowed to use their parents' phones and tablets for tens of hours per week. This means that not only will they have a habit of reading paper books over ebooks, but they probably also don't have the habit of owning books in the first place; the library system owns the books those readers are reading.
So the nature of this survey likely means that you're doing a lot of pre-selection for affluent people anyway.
To get any meaningful data out of this, you should be looking at the proportion of readers of ebooks who are affluent, then comparing that figure to the tendency of ebook pirates to be affluent. Only then would you be able to justify the kind of commentary you make in your article.
But hey, this is just an editorial hack job and not a credible science piece, so carry on.
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Re: Probably a very fluffy statistic...
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Speaking as a prolific (and much older) ebook pirate...
I'm not about to pay -- again -- for a book that I've already paid for in physical form.
I'm also not about to pay usurious rates for textbooks -- there's no reason that a third-year chemistry text costs $139 other than publisher greed.
I'm not about to pay for conference proceedings that are equally overpriced despite being paid for by the authors.
I'm not about to pay for technical books that are essentially FAQs stretched to book length and bloated with lengthy code examples. (I'm looking at you, Packt.)
I'm not about to pay for books that should have passed out of copyright years and years ago.
Publishers have only themselves to blame for this. It's their endless desire for profit and control that convinced me, more than anything else, that I should dispense with them. I'm no longer interested in persuading them or dealing with them: I don't need them.
And neither does anyone else.
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Re: Speaking as a prolific (and much older) ebook pirate...
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Re: Speaking as a prolific (and much older) ebook pirate...
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Re: Re: Speaking as a prolific (and much older) ebook pirate...
I am not the GP, but he uses the same phrasing I find myself using in similar conversations. When I look at the commonly used operating systems on mobiles, I cannot help but call them toy operating systems unsuitable for heavy work. In part, this is because they, by design, come with only token input capability. They are designed as an output-mostly device. That they can take input at all, usually in the form of an on-screen keyboard, is a concession to the fact that people want to treat their mobiles as input/output devices, not just portable radios. Try writing a thesis on a mobile. Try writing it on a laptop or desktop (the "real" computers running "real" operating systems like Windows, Linux, BSD, or Mac OS X). Compare the difference.
OP, like me, probably defines "real" OS as those commonly found on laptops/desktops, not on mobiles or weird embedded devices. I am aware that, with enough peripherals, some mobiles can be converted to work like a laptop. That is not their intended usage model, and those peripherals are usually sold separately, so I consider those devices based on their intended usage, not their theoretically possible usage. Even when they can be converted, they often retain the software semantics that, while passable on a mobile, are just frustrating or silly on a full size system.
I view computers that are output-mostly as toys. If I am expected to use it for long form input, particularly non-point&click input, I want a device with a physical keyboard (or an equivalent size virtual input, but in practice, that means physical keyboard; digital equivalents that reproduce the hands-low position and are large enough to permit full-hand typing are rare). If I have the luxury of not hauling the computer around (i.e. working in the back office, not as a traveling salesman), I strongly prefer the layout of a non-portable desktop over a portable laptop. Lightweight laptops are wonderful if you need to be able to move them around. If a computer can usefully spend 99%+ of its lifetime in one place, I will gladly accept the inconvenience of being anchored in exchange for input devices that are optimized for usability, not minimal size.
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Re: Re: Speaking as a prolific (and much older) ebook pirate...
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Re: Speaking as a prolific (and much older) ebook pirate...
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I've seen standards plummet over here (many of my colleagues have shockingly low standards of English spelling and grammar, even though they're English and were born here) due to Tory spending cuts on education and for the same reasons as listed above: when a school is run on a tight budget, standards drop because more talented, experienced staff cost more to hire.
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The legal system has a double standard where files are considered property when corporations own them, but not when citizens own them. Or worse than that: Duplicating a file - leaving the original in place - is theft. Jail-breaking an X-Box can put you in jail because it *might* be used for theft. But theft by a corporation - remotely deleting or disabling your purchased content - is allowed with the flimsiest of reasoning.
Small wonder that there's growing contempt for that part of the legal system.
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I'm thinking of incorporating myself so I can rob stuff at will and declare that it's not been licenced for use in Manchester. If it works for Amazon, why not for me? Or do I have to get big and downright evil to my workers first?
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No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
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Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
out_of_the_blue still hasn't found any brain cells to call his own, it seems.
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Re: Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
You have an unusual view of commerce. More commonly, it's considered the seller's job to try to convince people to buy.
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Re: Re: Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
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Re: Re: Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
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Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
If Netflix can figure it out, other businesses can too.
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Re: Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
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Re: Re: No, you're looking at it wrong, still: this says people who can pay simply won't.
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"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
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After all, the stated concern is that piracy would result in lost sales.
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Re: Confirmation Bias
"eBook Pirates Tend To Be Older And Well Off, because eBook Readers Tend To Be Older And Well Off"
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My single book pirated in at least the last decade. Time spent trying and failing to transfer my legally published ebook to the Reader( 2 hours), Time to pirate a american copy of the book as different to my Australian copy of the book, 5 minutes.
If a publisher is charging more for a ebook then the Hardback, i regard it as a insult and my presumption now is they don't want me to read that ebook. Ever. I don't pirate it, i just never buy it.
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And give consumers more reason not to buy their product? I'm not following your logic here.
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All you're doing is giving these people more reason to double down on copyright maximalism rather than changing their business practices.
No, not really. When the standard 'responses'(more DRM, more restrictions on purchase and use, harsher penalties) just make people more likely to see what they're being offered as a rotten deal and decide to skip the whole 'buy' step, saying that they're being given more reasons for more failed anti-piracy techniques doesn't quite strike me as true.
Now if you change 'reason' to 'excuse', that I might buy, but 'reason'? No. Shooting their own feet was a stupid move the first time around, pirates aren't giving them 'reason' to pull the trigger another time, that's all on them.
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Publishers can scream as much as they want, and I won't be giving them money while they call us names. But I'm not going to pretend it's wrong to copy stuff just because they happen to own some copyrights on it. Companies can't "own" knowledge. They don't even write the books.
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Then again, fuck you. The eBook prices are still spit-in-your-face, piss-in-your-beer insulting ripoffs. They could make money from me by pricing reasonably, but THEY FUCKING WON'T. Screw 'em. Not a penny from me.
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First, most people is not that they don't want to pay but they CANNOT. No money! More than half of the world population lives on less than 2 USD per day, according to UN and World Bank data. So "don't want to pay" is a lie. The correct assertion would be can't afford it.
So what would be your answer to that? Fill in the blank: "if you cannot afford it then ________". There are 2 main options: 1) fukk off, 2) get it somehow...
Second, that argument is forgetting that people are FREE to copy and share information as much as they want, this is a natural right. Regardless of what some for-profit stupid law has to say about it. Remember, laws have to adjust to peoples uses and customs, not the other way around. We don't have to stop sharing just because a law says so, so a few can keep their profits flowing. If my buddy lends me his copy of his ebook then i can just make a copy for myself, who is to say otherwise? better yet? who is going to enforce the opposite and come after me? Trying to enforce the unenforceable.
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Or, in the absence, a very cheap all-you-can eat service. Amazon has something like that but it's not very rich in book availability and not cheap enough (at least here).
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Like a library?
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A netflix for games wouldn't be that bad either, yes GOG and such are good but more can be done.
Again, all falls back, always, to the huge and greedy profit expectations of the authors or their distributors or rights holders.
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It was sad to see that Thursday's Techdirt Reading List only lasted for a one-year run. Hopefully if Mike ever comes across any more good books he'll tell us about them, now that the pressure is off to find something to talk about every single week.
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Same old same old
Dubner and Levitt ("Freakonomics") described the real-world experiment done by Paul Feldman "What the Bagel Man Saw". He quit his high-powered Beltway analyst position and took to selling bagels in fancy offices on the honor system. As a numbers freak, he recorded everything. The biggest thieves, naturally enough, were the CEOs and lawyers.
A 2012 study in PNAS "Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior" found poor behavior, from lying and stealing to aggressive driving, was more common among the upper classes.
My own personal introduction to this aspect of human nature came on UC Berkeley campus back in the 1980s. Once when I bought a newspaper from a sidewalk stand, after I put my quarter in and opened up the box, a hand reached in and grabbed the top paper. I shouted at the fellow "aren't you going to pay?" and he just looked at me as if I was just a stupid sucker. He then walked into Boalt Hall, home of the UCB Law School.
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Re: Same old same old
On what he said was the honor system. If he was recording data to identify thieves it's not really an "honor system". Unless nobody ever found out they were caught I guess.
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Double props to Baen
The Black Library (WH & WH40K) books also work on all of my devices as do all of my Humble Bundle books.
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Or because of perceived scarcity. It's there now, and it won't be in a few days if the publishers have their way. If people know the books are still going to be on Project Gutenberg or archive.org in a few years, they might not bother.
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And lets not forget also those that even though they finished it, they considered it complete shite and a waste of time, is there a refund in that case?
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You must be new here
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The same thing is happening with other content, like TV shows. The networks still like to pretend that TV shows are only available for a limited time, then they either get released on DVD, or they disappear forever. Want to watch the ABC show "Better With You" from 2010? Good luck finding it without resorting to piracy. How about the 2005 NBC sitcom "Committed"? (I like Jennifer Finnigan) Same problem.
The internet is like the world's greatest library and the copyright industry wants to kill it.
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Condition for sell ebook
1. Open culture license
2. No DRM
3. Interesting or useful content
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Re: Condition for sell ebook
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What the publishers are demanding here isn't payment for ownership, it's for a licence to rent.
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It isn't lost revenue to the team, because I wouldn't have paid to see the match anyway. The game happens one way or another.
What is so hard for you to understand? You just don't want to pay the price asked, so you get the free version.
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Funny thing about the example you went with even beyond the fact that 'steal' is still not the right term to use, unless the seat infringer takes the seat home with them when they leave. As you yourself note the 'seat infringer' might pay, not for the seat but perhaps food or something else. You've got their attention, and with that you still have a chance to get their money as well.
The person who 'does without' in that example though? The one who sees the price and decides that nah, that's not worth it, and as a virtuous upstanding citizen decide against the 'free version'? They aren't paying squat. They aren't paying for the seat, they aren't paying for the food, they're not paying for a shirt. They've moved on with their attention, meaning the chance of you getting any of their money has likewise gone.
The difference between someone engaged in copyright infringement and someone 'doing without' is that while neither are giving you money now, the latter is drastically less likely to give you any money in the future thanks to their attention having moved on to other things.
This is why I always find it funny when people respond to copyright infringement with 'If you don't like the terms/price do without!', as neither group is paying now, but the 'do without' group is even worse when it comes to possible future sales, making it a counter-productive argument.
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If you like you can interpret that paragraph as "I was doing it before it was cool" (or before Google), though that was not the intent... All of this passion and forward thinking (I'm not talking about myself) ends up as just another situation waiting for the big players to come along and pick it up. Conditions were not conducive to small organic "disruption". Instead conditions restrain innovation until certain big players are forced to eventually pay attention and rake in the big bucks (poor guys). It was obvious they would screw it up or abuse it. Like with children, "you can't have nice things". I, for instance, will not use any electronic book store, connect any e-reader to the internet or purchase any kindle device (no open epub format).
I wonder about the purpose of corporations. Recently, I recall some calling themselves things like "providers" or "they-built-this" or whatever marketing they use to project their self-images into people's heads. Instead of earning money for useful, beneficial services it seems they crowd various domains in order to try to alter services and the need for services, monetizing them by manufacturing the necessity for their existence. This allows them to EXTRACT money; treating and thinking of the populous as existing to provide money or provide cheap labor. The historical purpose of corporations was not ambiguous. Broadly speaking their current, apparent, purpose is part cancer, part gibberish and part tradition (momentum). It's like a cross-section of greed, aggression and weaponized ignorance.
- OA
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Now, the best way to make money is to sell a useful product or service. But the purpose of any corporation is to make money.
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And more lies (maybe not intentionally but as product of ignorance as OA points out - which sometimes is even worse),
the best way to make money is with a monopoly, or stealing it, or by invading other countries and taking their resources (hello USA & war).
What is a corporation? Get your facts straight. Lie all what you want to yourself, but please don't try to lie to others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
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DRM eBooks are loans
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Since the first printing press, the price of books has been coming down and this is the new reality. Stop writing those $10 books. Theres already plenty of 99cent books out there anyway. Get with the New Economics or find another line of work.
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