General > Author Q&A
Midlist Authors & Online Piracy
MisterGuyMan:
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on July 31, 2017, 12:16:36 pm ---The more time people spend consuming free media, the less time they spend consuming purchased media, the less money they spend. You can spike your samples any which way (the way IP foes do), cherry-pick countless happy scenarios, but it all comes down to this: people spending less, and content producers struggling more.
Being a Yar is bad enough. Being one who thinks they're actually doing good, on the other hand...
--- End quote ---
This isn't actually how the market has evolved though. Consumers are spending just as much money as they ever have on legitimate media and the media industry isn't struggling. The only difference is how that money is being allocated. In the music industry, for example, people are buying less albums and singles. That's the big bullet point record companies cite. What they don't point out is that consumers make upo that difference and more with concert sales. This results in individual artists making more per capita today and the big losers are the record labels which historically have played the role of middle men. As I stated before the primary limiting factor of media spending isn't determined by anything media suppliers can manipulate. Consumers simply have a finite amount of disposable income and they spend a certain amount of that income on media.
I was always interested in how you specifically would view this considering the major themes of TSA. Copyright and IP isn't actually universal and has only been around for a few hundred years. It's original intention was a form of censorship. Creative arts have flourished before copyright and it flourishes today in markets with lax copyright laws. In the West we've been conditioned to view copyright as an intrinsic right when the historically it's actually the anomoly.
I hesitate to even continue this debate since you are my favorite author and it would be easy for you to conclude that I'm advocating "theft" of your work. I'm not. I'm just pointing out that the marketplace is ever evolving and we can't put the genie back in the box. Good to artists have always found ways to profit from their work before and after the Internet.
generalguy:
--- Quote from: MisterGuyMan on July 31, 2017, 11:37:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on July 31, 2017, 12:16:36 pm ---The more time people spend consuming free media, the less time they spend consuming purchased media, the less money they spend. You can spike your samples any which way (the way IP foes do), cherry-pick countless happy scenarios, but it all comes down to this: people spending less, and content producers struggling more.
Being a Yar is bad enough. Being one who thinks they're actually doing good, on the other hand...
--- End quote ---
This isn't actually how the market has evolved though. Consumers are spending just as much money as they ever have on legitimate media and the media industry isn't struggling. The only difference is how that money is being allocated. In the music industry, for example, people are buying less albums and singles. That's the big bullet point record companies cite. What they don't point out is that consumers make upo that difference and more with concert sales. This results in individual artists making more per capita today and the big losers are the record labels which historically have played the role of middle men. As I stated before the primary limiting factor of media spending isn't determined by anything media suppliers can manipulate. Consumers simply have a finite amount of disposable income and they spend a certain amount of that income on media.
I was always interested in how you specifically would view this considering the major themes of TSA. Copyright and IP isn't actually universal and has only been around for a few hundred years. It's original intention was a form of censorship. Creative arts have flourished before copyright and it flourishes today in markets with lax copyright laws. In the West we've been conditioned to view copyright as an intrinsic right when the historically it's actually the anomoly.
I hesitate to even continue this debate since you are my favorite author and it would be easy for you to conclude that I'm advocating "theft" of your work. I'm not. I'm just pointing out that the marketplace is ever evolving and we can't put the genie back in the box. Good to artists have always found ways to profit from their work before and after the Internet.
--- End quote ---
recording artists, who have deals not too different from authors, have generally made most of their money off touring and ancillary products like merch, not selling albums. The advent of Spotify as a capitulation to this hasn't really killed off artists--it killed off piracy much faster.
I think it would make sense to publish say, the atrocity tales, as a kindle singles or have a different way of publishing the last series, since the classic publisher-backed book deal hasn't done wonders.
Though if Overlook owns the characters and setting, that might be hard.
Cû'jara-Cinmoi:
--- Quote from: MisterGuyMan on July 31, 2017, 11:37:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on July 31, 2017, 12:16:36 pm ---The more time people spend consuming free media, the less time they spend consuming purchased media, the less money they spend. You can spike your samples any which way (the way IP foes do), cherry-pick countless happy scenarios, but it all comes down to this: people spending less, and content producers struggling more.
Being a Yar is bad enough. Being one who thinks they're actually doing good, on the other hand...
--- End quote ---
This isn't actually how the market has evolved though. Consumers are spending just as much money as they ever have on legitimate media and the media industry isn't struggling. The only difference is how that money is being allocated. In the music industry, for example, people are buying less albums and singles. That's the big bullet point record companies cite. What they don't point out is that consumers make upo that difference and more with concert sales. This results in individual artists making more per capita today and the big losers are the record labels which historically have played the role of middle men. As I stated before the primary limiting factor of media spending isn't determined by anything media suppliers can manipulate. Consumers simply have a finite amount of disposable income and they spend a certain amount of that income on media.
I was always interested in how you specifically would view this considering the major themes of TSA. Copyright and IP isn't actually universal and has only been around for a few hundred years. It's original intention was a form of censorship. Creative arts have flourished before copyright and it flourishes today in markets with lax copyright laws. In the West we've been conditioned to view copyright as an intrinsic right when the historically it's actually the anomoly.
I hesitate to even continue this debate since you are my favorite author and it would be easy for you to conclude that I'm advocating "theft" of your work. I'm not. I'm just pointing out that the marketplace is ever evolving and we can't put the genie back in the box. Good to artists have always found ways to profit from their work before and after the Internet.
--- End quote ---
Actually consumers are spending less money--way less in some circumstances. Large musical acts are able to recoup income via concerts, but I have friends in the industry who've sacrificed health and relationships touring and touring endless dives, sometimes glad just to get paid in drinks because of the glut of bands out there. Otherwise, the marketers now utterly rule the mainstream music scene.
Even if your spiked versions of the data that consumers were paying the same were true, that would still count as an economic loss, a year over year loss compounded into a genuine disaster in a mere decade.
The only argument worse than this is the argument that IP is an oppressive and artificial cultural device. All economic norms are oppressive and artificial. Yars just pick and choose those that make them feel better, they way all free-riders do.
Otherwise, who said anything about putting the genie in back in the box? It's about creating a culture that maximizes the number of people who do pay, and dispelling the ridiculous argument that giving away free content actually increases the amount of money ALL artists receive. It may help certain artists in certain circumstances, the same way giving away Toyotas at hockey games helps sell Toyotas. It's proselytizing Yars like you, the ones who think returning to the age patronage is good, 'natural,' and that the vast explosion of professionalized creativity arising out of IP was 'unnatural,' 'oppressive,' bad--YOU are the virus, the one slowly ensuring every piece of content is selling something other than itself, via patronage obligations, or product placement, or the simple terror of doing anything different as a profession.
YOU WOULD NOT HAVE READ A SINGLE ONE OF MY BOOKS, were it not for this oppressive, unnatural system you're decrying.
A few years back my agent asked me to pull together some illegal download numbers for PoN to convince Overlook to lower their kindle price point. So I toured a wide number of sites--those possessing download counters. I stopped once I surpassed the number of books I had actually sold. And this actually helped my sales? Give me a fucking break buddy. Go peddle your self-serving bullshit to someone who doesn't have a family to feed, but wants to feel like they're sticking it to the man taking food out of the mouths of the people they claim to admire and adore. Steal if you want, but stop pretending you're doing good, let alone heeding destiny's call.
Hiro:
--- Quote from: MisterGuyMan on July 31, 2017, 11:37:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on July 31, 2017, 12:16:36 pm ---The more time people spend consuming free media, the less time they spend consuming purchased media, the less money they spend. You can spike your samples any which way (the way IP foes do), cherry-pick countless happy scenarios, but it all comes down to this: people spending less, and content producers struggling more.
Being a Yar is bad enough. Being one who thinks they're actually doing good, on the other hand...
--- End quote ---
This isn't actually how the market has evolved though. Consumers are spending just as much money as they ever have on legitimate media and the media industry isn't struggling. The only difference is how that money is being allocated. In the music industry, for example, people are buying less albums and singles. That's the big bullet point record companies cite. What they don't point out is that consumers make upo that difference and more with concert sales. This results in individual artists making more per capita today and the big losers are the record labels which historically have played the role of middle men. As I stated before the primary limiting factor of media spending isn't determined by anything media suppliers can manipulate. Consumers simply have a finite amount of disposable income and they spend a certain amount of that income on media.
I was always interested in how you specifically would view this considering the major themes of TSA. Copyright and IP isn't actually universal and has only been around for a few hundred years. It's original intention was a form of censorship. Creative arts have flourished before copyright and it flourishes today in markets with lax copyright laws. In the West we've been conditioned to view copyright as an intrinsic right when the historically it's actually the anomoly.
I hesitate to even continue this debate since you are my favorite author and it would be easy for you to conclude that I'm advocating "theft" of your work. I'm not. I'm just pointing out that the marketplace is ever evolving and we can't put the genie back in the box. Good to artists have always found ways to profit from their work before and after the Internet.
--- End quote ---
As an artist myself, I find this line of reasoning selfserving, to say the least. It's very simple: if you go your local supermarket, you pay for your food, right? And I assume that, whatever work you do, you get paid for that as well, right? Just because something is available on the internet, it does not mean that it is not stealing, or that it won't have that effect. Why do you assume that it is different for artists? Scott has already reflected on the bizarre faults in logic that come with these justifications.
MisterGuyMan:
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on August 01, 2017, 01:55:53 am --- (click to show/hide)Actually consumers are spending less money--way less in some circumstances. Large musical acts are able to recoup income via concerts, but I have friends in the industry who've sacrificed health and relationships touring and touring endless dives, sometimes glad just to get paid in drinks because of the glut of bands out there. Otherwise, the marketers now utterly rule the mainstream music scene.
Even if your spiked versions of the data that consumers were paying the same were true, that would still count as an economic loss, a year over year loss compounded into a genuine disaster in a mere decade.
The only argument worse than this is the argument that IP is an oppressive and artificial cultural device. All economic norms are oppressive and artificial. Yars just pick and choose those that make them feel better, they way all free-riders do.
Otherwise, who said anything about putting the genie in back in the box? It's about creating a culture that maximizes the number of people who do pay, and dispelling the ridiculous argument that giving away free content actually increases the amount of money ALL artists receive. It may help certain artists in certain circumstances, the same way giving away Toyotas at hockey games helps sell Toyotas. It's proselytizing Yars like you, the ones who think returning to the age patronage is good, 'natural,' and that the vast explosion of professionalized creativity arising out of IP was 'unnatural,' 'oppressive,' bad--YOU are the virus, the one slowly ensuring every piece of content is selling something other than itself, via patronage obligations, or product placement, or the simple terror of doing anything different as a profession.
YOU WOULD NOT HAVE READ A SINGLE ONE OF MY BOOKS, were it not for this oppressive, unnatural system you're decrying.
A few years back my agent asked me to pull together some illegal download numbers for PoN to convince Overlook to lower their kindle price point. So I toured a wide number of sites--those possessing download counters. I stopped once I surpassed the number of books I had actually sold. And this actually helped my sales? Give me a fucking break buddy. Go peddle your self-serving bullshit to someone who doesn't have a family to feed, but wants to feel like they're sticking it to the man taking food out of the mouths of the people they claim to admire and adore. Steal if you want, but stop pretending you're doing good, let alone heeding destiny's call.
--- End quote ---
Before accusing me, a person whose spending habits you have no basis to even speculate on, as the problem, we should actually define the actual problem first. Worldwide, the amount spent on media has increased 8% (http://www.bizreport.com/2017/05/study-consumers-spending-more-on-media-content-streaming.html). This outstips Global inflation which hovers around 3.5%. You argued that the media industry is struggling but I don't actually see much evidence of this.(https://www.techdirt.com/skyisrising/)
Your second main argument is that the goal should revolve around "creating a culture that maximizes the number of people who do pay." I actually agree with this. The problem is we do not share basic assumptions. If anything we're actually close to this "maximize paying" culture or we might be beyond it. What exactly do you believe such a culture would look like? Currently in the USA the average American Household carries over $8k in credit card debt and the vast majority do not pay off their balance each month. I pointed out earlier that the limiting factor on media spending is a basic lack of disposable income. The average credit card debt figure, which is approaching all time highs, strongly argues that Americans shouldn't be spending more on media at all and should probably spend less. So if we maximize paying even more, what exactly would an economy like this even look like? How could you argue that it's healthy? This also ignoring the multiple counterexamples that we have in other countries with lax copyright laws. Artistic creators are able to generate income in those countries too using different business models.
You accuse me also of being the problem and even called me a virus. I didn't want to make an anecdotal example of myself but if you insist on using me as an example I can rock with it. I recently had a planning meeting with a financial advisor and we concluded I wasn't saving enough. Don't get me wrong I save more than most but still don't save enough. I don't have terrible CC debts thankfully but it's pretty clear to me I spend too much on media. I have first editions of all your PoN books and I overpaid terribly for a first edition of TTT which ebay advertised was signed by you. With your second series, I've pre-ordered multiple copies from multiple sites to get them as soon as possible. With TWLW I placed a next day order from Amazon Canada to get it a few days early without canceling my American Amazon hardcover which I still own because I want matching covers. I paid a premium for an Advance Reader copy on Ebay for the Great Ordeal while, again, retaining a first edition hardcover for my display. Most recently I ordered a UK copy of TGO because I needed to ensure I got my copy before I went on a 3 week vacation in Asia. This is on top of my legitimate Kindle purchases of your all your books. I don't care enough about music to pirate it since I listen to audiobooks or podcasts in my car and I only watch what's on TV and am an avid theater goer. I also game mostly on XBO which, as far as I know, has never been hacked to play bootlegs.
So as you can see, I'm actually a model consumer if anything. Just because you are my favorite author doesn't mean I'll just let you insult me or make incorrect assumptions about me. I look at the issue of piracy on a macro scale whereas you seem to be arguing on an emotional level. Any rational analysis of my spending habits would lead to the conclusion that I spend too much on media or media related merchandise.
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