I’m making a response here about a discussion about e-piracy under Dear Author’s Tuesday Midday Links post because a) I think many DA regulars are truly tired of the topic and b) I don’t want to revive the dead-horse discussion. Oh, and c) it’ll be such a long-arse response. 
In Gradey Wolff‘s response, there is a line that caught my attention:
The pirate acquired a copy without paying for it. That is a lost sale. Period.
By ‘pirate’, I’m guessing Wolff was actually referring to a downloader. A pirate is a distributor; a person who distributes copyrighted materials or use resources without permission.
As for ‘lost sale’? That’s where Wolff gets it wrong.
Wolff isn’t the only one to think that, though, as I have seen quite a few readers and authors referring downloads as ‘lost sales’. It’s not correct. Lost sales have little to do with piracy. It’s a lot more to do with retail distribution.
1) A lost sale occurs when a customer is denied a chance to purchase a copy.
I do understand why many publishers and authors feel piracy is the cause of “lost” sales. They perhaps view pirates as a group that denies their potential customers an opportunity to buy their books. It’s a flawed perspective, though.
Two reasons:
A: there is an assumption that customers would always be tempted by the ‘free’ route, e.g. pirated books.
This generates a belief among publishers and authors that if all routes to piracy were shut down, there would be more/better book sales. This is wrong. (And offensive to customers.)
Here are some of typical scenarios to show when lost sales happen:
- A customer turns up at a bookshop with an intention to buy a print copy of The Dukes in Love. She wanders around. She can’t find it. She gives up and goes home. This is a lost sale.
- The customer turns up at a bookshop to buy The Dukes in Love and discovers the book isn’t what she thought it would be. She returns the book to shelf and wanders away. This a lost sale.
- The customer goes online to buy The Dukes in Love and finds the cover price for a print copy is too excessive for her taste or that the shipping cost is prohibitive. This is a lost sale.
- The customer goes online to buy the Kindle edition of The Dukes in Love. She finds she couldn’t buy a copy because the licence isn’t extended to her country. This is a lost sale.
- The customers goes online to buy a digital copy of The Dukes in Love. She discovers it’s available in only one format that her device can’t use. She surfs away. This is a lost sale.
- A person downloads an unauthorised copy of The Dukes in Love. This is not a lost sale.
When the person goes to a pirate site to download a book, the person is not a customer. Period. Her action makes it clear she has no intention – temporary or permanently – to buy a copy. No intention to buy = no lost sale. Period.
B: As you see from above scenarios, the only people who truly control customers’ opportunity to buy are publishers and book distributors themselves.
When a customer is denied an opportunity – due to lack of copies in a shop, geographic restrictions, DRM, out of print/stock, price, format or whatnot – to buy a book, it’s a lost sale. Period.
In short: Lost sales happen because of some flaws in current strategies of legit book distribution, not piracy.
2) Piracy has always been about availing copyrighted materials without copyright holders’ permission.
Where the illegal distribution of e-books is concerned, there are two major groups:
1) those who bought ebooks that they distribute.
2) those who bought or already own print books that they scan and distribute.
According to our research data, the biggest group seems to be the latter. Anyroad, pirates and downloaders generally don’t sell or profit from copyrighted materials, such as comics and books.
Pirates’ reasons why they do it vary. It would be one of these:
- censorship (share suppressed or unavailable information, or distribute copyrighted materials that aren’t available in some countries)
- love (promote a neglected or favourite author’s works or distribute books that are either out of print or not available as ebooks)
- ego (compete against other pirates)
- obligation (give and take, e.g. a downloader feels obliged to return a favour by distributing a copy from his or her own collection)
- money (make money from advertisements, they use copyrighted materials to attract traffic to generate an income from adverts)
- fairness (mostly, as a protest against high-priced academic and textbooks. Pirates of this type are known as “Scholar Robins”, probably a pun on one or both of these two terms: round robin and folklore hero Robin Hood).)
- hobby (such as distributing for Star Trek fans, racing car fans, manga fans, or similar)
- political (This is heavily associated with technology (e.g. hackers that believe in an old mantra: information should be free to all) and with a political movement that campaigns against the “giants”, such as Disney, that lobby and influence legal and political systems where copyrights are concerned, e.g. the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act a.k.a. the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.)
It was almost impossible for us to fight against some certain groups listed above. Believe it or not, the three most problematic groups we encountered were a group of knitting fans (who didn’t want to give up sharing knitting pattern books), a group of medical students, and a group of law students.
As for downloaders’ motivations?
Now this is based on my educated guesses:
- frustration (can’t/won’t buy legit copies because of restrictions or ‘unreasonable’ prices)
- bargain (can’t buy because it’s out of print, too expensive or simply not available as an ebook, but will buy when a legit copy is cheaper or available)
- opportunity (some materials will never be available for sale in their countries so they access these materials through other means, e.g. American downloaders access East Asian comics or films, or Malaysian downloaders access materials that failed to meet censorship laws)
- replacement (want digital copies of print books they already own)
- addiction (want an entire collection of an author’s body of works by any means, e.g. some they purchased and some they can’t get, they download)
- financial (can’t buy because it’s priced way out of their budget, but must have, e.g. university students or readers who ‘need’ books – such as books on child-rearing, animal care, sexual problems (probably the most downloaded of all non-fiction books), health or personal problems, social issues, etc. We still don’t know why they don’t use libraries, though.)
- hoarder (they download everything available, regardless of whether they would actually read it or not)
- entitlement (want something that they don’t want to pay for)
- ignorance (it’s okay to take if it’s available on the net)
- trial run (won’t buy something they aren’t familiar with (high price or whatnot), but will buy the rest if they like it)
Of course, copyright holders would be offended and angry that people would access their works without paying — especially those who don’t seem to understand the concepts of patience and legal boundaries — but their anger is directed at the wrong groups.
In the ideal world, customers would stay away from illegally distributed materials, but in reality, it is not going to happen. It isn’t happening. We have seen this from history, ranging from the black market during WWII to the prohibition of alcohol in the U.S. during 1920s.
Counterfeiting and piracy aren’t new. Neither is copyright infringement. We all have been guilty of violating something related to intellectual property at least once in our lifetime, with or without realisation. Education and knowledge are the key.
So, instead of screaming at pirates and downloaders, it’s better and more productive to have a closer look at publishing issues and legit distribution to find solutions that work for all. It won’t be easy and quick, though.
What solutions should we use for now?
The best approach for authors to take is ignore piracy and keep writing.
Don’t ever forget there is always a base of legit buyers.
They were there when the used-books industry thrived. They were there when book swapping was the trend. They were there when libraries were preferred. They were there when the economic climate turned chilly. For as long as books exist, in whatever format, there will always be a base of buyers.
When there are poor sales of a book, don’t blame it all on piracy. It doesn’t work that way. It’s similar to blaming teen violence on violent video games.
Blame it on a flawed distribution, lack of reader interest, quality of writing; lack of promotion, lack of support from publisher or ‘that’s the way it goes’. In fact, it’s better not to blame it on anything at all. Just focus on writing, career development and readers. Write better. Research better. Encourage readers to do the word of mouth if they liked the book.
If authors are still keen to do something about it, then there are many ways.
Such as provide links to helpful articles and posts in a sidebar somewhere on author’s blog. IMO, the best weapon is provide information on distribution – online and print – where readers could buy books.
Authors should make a note that their books aren’t available in such such places and – this is a key to combating piracy, IMO – an estimate when these books would be available. Plus, it’ll cut down volume of email enquiries. If authors don’t know, then provide an online form for readers to sign up for a newsletter or a notification when it does become available.
These are, believe it or not, among our most successful tactics in combating piracy of graphic novels and comics. We once put up an update that a digital/English edition of the latest volume of a popular Japanese comic would be available in three certain countries (including the US) in 2012, the number of downloads of illegal fan-translated English scanlation of the pirated French edition dropped by 46% within a fortnight.
IMO, estimated dates, frequent updates, information (including an article that calmly and sensibly explains what piracy and copyright infringement are) and a list of links to where books can be purchased are keys to stopping lost sales from happening. In fact, I think putting up a link to lostsales.com would be awesome because it shows that authors are aware it’s a distribution issue that needs to be addressed.
If authors don’t have the time, get an intern or assistant to do the job of providing updates, information and whatnot. Hell, I’m sure a long-time fan would be happy to do this task. In fact, I used to host a fan site of Anne Stuart to provide bibliographic information on her body of works. She didn’t have a web site at the time. Heh. That was fun. Anyroad, my point is there is always someone who’s willing to help out.
It’s also a good idea for authors to self-publish and publicise their backlists on their sites. This is a good example: Patricia Ryan’s backlist at Smashwords.
When I found out about these from Sarah Tanner (@SarahTanner) on Twitter, I bought all P.B. Ryan books in one go. Good prices and instant availability of these out-of-print books were the trigger. Patricia Ryan is way ahead of pirates by availing her books for sale and at reasonable prices, instead of allowing pirates a chance to scan and distribute her out-of-print books for ‘free’.
All that would give browsers a sense that authors have an active interest in developing digital aspect of their writing careers. This will stop some from feeling alienated from authors who peddle these tired old lines:
- ‘Fuck you all pirates! You stole my money! You took food out of my children’s mouths! Fuck you!”
- “I won’t allow my books to be available in China, Europe and other foreign countries because it’s full of pirates.”
- “I’m all for DRM. How do we know readers won’t make zillions of copies for their friends if we make it DRM-free?”
- “I don’t know when or where will my books be digitally available. I’m only a writer. I leave it all to my agent/publisher. Contact them yourself.”
- “I love the smell and feel of a real book.”
- “I can’t write any more. I see Google alerts and just cry. It kills my desire to write. Why should I write any more? What’s the point?” (I actually do sympathise with this a lot. I feel this when I see some on Yahoo! Answers asking where they could download “free” copies of our latest release. I honestly felt like to punch them in the face. Hard.)
- “I’m sorry if you can’t buy. Get a print copy. It’s not my problem if you prefer digital.”
- “Piracy is STEALING! Pirates are thieves! How would you like it if someone walks into your house and takes your things?! You wouldn’t like it, would you? Then fight against piracy! You are no fan of mine if you don’t!”
So, imo, it’s better to be positive, pro-active and productive than spending time and energy on ranting about piracy and ‘lost sales’.
*cough* I went longer than I intended. Sorry about that. 
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