General > Author Q&A
Midlist Authors & Online Piracy
MisterGuyMan:
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on August 01, 2017, 07:43:58 pm --- (click to show/hide)The sheer number of media consumers worldwide is exploding, so of course there's an overall gain. In Western music markets, revenue remains around 60% of its 2000 mark. Even looking at the EU data correlating higher illegal downloading with higher purchasing you very quickly run into differential granularity problems: the fact is, the 'long tail' as they call it, is getting skinnier and skinnier, and the long tail is where the genuine novelty incubates. The skinnier it gets, the less incubation time it has, the more likely it is to die off, the more monotonous and mechanical the mainstream becomes. (Since concert/touring income is almost entirely restricted to the manufacturers of pap, and only applicable to musicians to boot, it is an argumentative canard).
Like all instances of free-riding, the viability depends on honest brokers. Since you seem to recognize this now (abandoning the assertion that IP is an artificial instrument of oppression), then the question is one of why you aren't decrying illegal downloading? At what point do you think illegal downloading will negatively impact sales. When it reaches 50%? 60%? 70%? 80%? Do you only plan to defend it so far?
To the extent you provide apparently articulate rationales for illegal downloading you are, most definitely, part of the problem. I thank you for buying my books, but as someone who regularly encounters 'I'll keep reading, but I ain't paying a cent,' comments because of some perceived moral failing on my part, I would kindly ask that you stop encouraging people to perpetuate my poverty. Do you really think product placement and merchandising are commensurate with projects like mine? What other 'business model' do you have in mind? Government handouts? The last I checked my books contravened pretty much every 'literary scruple' an arts bureaucrat can be expected to muster.
I am genuinely 'out there.' The only way fools like me get to make a difference is by toughing it out in the long tail. The problem I face, even though my sell-through percentages are in the high 80 percentile range, is that publishers are becoming less and less inclined to 'develop' midlist authors, and more and more inclined to grope for lightning in a bottle. Why pay an artist to hone their craft when you need only troll for magical amateurs? The less books I sell, the more expendable I become. As soon as I vanish from bookstore shelves, my single biggest point of exposure to new readers vanishes also, as well as any chance of receiving mainstream attention. Then odds are, it's off to the experimenter's graveyard. The genre community finds me pretentious, too 'academic.' The academic community finds me vulgar, too 'genre.' My publishers are the only institutional leg I have to stand on... of course I find your chiseling insulting. That which robs me makes me richer.
In one breath you say illegal downloading generates IP income, and in the next you say it's time to find something other than IP income. Then you say I'm advocating higher levels of household debt. Ooof. If we don't let people steal X, then we risk the economy collapsing. And X = 'content' as opposed to 'chairs' or 'diapers' or 'allergy medication' why?
Talk about rationalization.
--- End quote ---
I'm still currently trying to see how feasible it would be to attend Zauduyanicon or Bakker on as I prefer to call it. I'm hoping this disagreement won't prevent you from signing my books.
Your music figure is almost certainly only covering legitimate sales of recorded music. If we examine the entire music industry, we see that despite the greatest recession in living memory, the music industry continues to thrive (http://www.economist.com/node/17199460). So while albums and singles sales, which pays peanuts to artists, artists are making more money than ever from concert sales and other merchandise.
You asked me how high piracy rates would go before I stopped defending it. I don't believe it's relevant to industry growth. Here's the percentage I focus on 5.6%, which is the percentage of household income spent on entertainment. Regardless of how much the piracy rate increases, the amount spent on entertainment is still only finite. If the average household can only allot 5.6% of their income to entertainment then pirating more won't make them earn more money to spend on media. I cited the CC debt figure to prove to you that the average American housold is, in fact, spending more money than it earns. You want to maximize spending right? So here's a simple thought experiment. Where is this money coming from? Money won't materialize just because we want to spend more on media.
I'm not advocating that people pirate to save the economy. I'm pointing out a simple fact that people have finite money and should spend it as they wish. We have multiple studies showing that most prolific pirates also spend the most on media so they are actually supporting media over, say, chairs. Conversely, if some one values chairs over media then they should buy more chairs. The market is good at allowing people to allocate their income however they want. As income rises and prices fall, we see increases in legitimate purchasing and less piracy. People just like to spend on media but we can only spend so much.
You are also correct when you point out that the media industry is growing because more and more people worldwide consume media. The fastest growing media markets though have notoriously high piracy rates. To reinforce my previous point, there is simply not enough money for the average person in developing markets to buy legitimate products. We've seen firsthand how China's increasing middle class is buying more legitimate media even though the same people were buying pirated versions before. As I keep arguing, disposable income determines how much money is spent on media.
As for publishers, why are we limiting ourselves to traditional publishing? I've actually been reading up on Amazon's self publishing and for mid level authors, they could earn more by self publishing than they would with a traditional publisher. The opportunities are there and if we examine the publishing industry as a whole, rather than focusing on traditional publishers. The rise of self publishing more than compensates for the decline in traditional publishing.
Also yes in one breath, I have no qualms saying illegal downloading generates IP income, and in the next say it's time to find something other than IP income. That's how complex markets work. There are many right ways to do things and wrong ways too. You have found Comercial success with traditional publishing. Others have found success by actively supplying their work for free. Some authors have benefited from pirated versions of their works. So as much as I respect you, their business model is just as valid as yours. To parallel the religious themes in TSA, there is no one right way to be a successful artist.
With respect, and this is a self serving request, I ask that you reconsider your stance on alternate sources of revenue if this issue really concerns you. I'm trying to bridge our disagreement into a productive request. There were a handful of people here already showing interest in action figures. The custom Kellhus figure I mentioned earlier will probably cost me over $500 to make and that's largely because there's no official stuff to buy. I would support you via patron if you ever decided to go that route. Wilshire was upgrading your books into these awesome leatherbound and I said I would only sign up for a set if you would agree to sign them as a semi official first edition collector set. Your fans are dying to support you if you let us.
Consider this an olive branch. I feel l have supported my position enough so you can at least see where I stand even though I know we will continue to disagree.
Callan S.:
--- Quote ---People just like to spend on media but we can only spend so much.
--- End quote ---
To clarify here, MGM, you're not just saying people can only spend so much - it's that they can only spend so much and then they can keep getting more than what they've paid for, because they can only spend so much?
--- Quote ---So as much as I respect you, their business model is just as valid as yours. To parallel the religious themes in TSA, there is no one right way to be a successful artist.
--- End quote ---
But which is it, businessman or artist? Granted the current system has some staff at a publishing house to get past in order to be published, but apart from that a fair amount of artistic integrity is supported. How is artistic integrity maintained with self publishing, apart from appealing to an echo chamber (arguably zero artistic integrity at that point)? You can write what you want and be ignored, rather than engage thinking minds in the publishing industry and maybe get broadcast to people who would have otherwise ignored you?
Redeagl:
--- Quote from: Baztek on August 01, 2017, 10:17:52 pm ---I'll give it to you Scott for toughing it out and sticking to your guns. The genre community are a bunch of plebs, and lol at what academics think about anything.
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This has to be one of the most elitist comments I ever saw in my life.
Wilshire:
I'm curious how you can get away with justifying that piracy is not theft because "nothing physical is taken".
That only makes sense if you believe that the issue has nothing to do with payment. Theft if taking something without paying, not simply removing something from anothers possession without permission.
When you wrongfully take something without paying, it's stealing, that's pretty basic. How does a taking a digital item from a digital store make a difference.
To me, by that logic, if someone took all the money from your bank account, it's not stealing because it's all just 1s and 0s? How is pirating a song any different?
It's called "getting your identity stolen" when someone gets enough digital info on you to buy stuff with your name. Is that not stealing? Again, how is that different than stealing an album?
For that matter, taking a record from a store is stealing, but as soon as it's online it's somehow not?
Argue that it's helpful if you want, but let's all call it what it is. Plain and simple, if someone is doing it, they're a thief. If that's not the case, please enlighten me.
If someone decides to give away their stuff for free and you get it, then you aren't pirating it. But otherwise, yes, that's theft.
Hiro:
--- Quote from: Wilshire on August 02, 2017, 09:31:39 pm ---I'm curious how you can get away with justifying that piracy is not theft because "nothing physical is taken".
That only makes sense if you believe that the issue has nothing to do with payment. Theft if taking something without paying, not simply removing something from anothers possession without permission.
When you wrongfully take something without paying, it's stealing, that's pretty basic. How does a taking a digital item from a digital store make a difference.
To me, by that logic, if someone took all the money from your bank account, it's not stealing because it's all just 1s and 0s? How is pirating a song any different?
It's called "getting your identity stolen" when someone gets enough digital info on you to buy stuff with your name. Is that not stealing? Again, how is that different than stealing an album?
For that matter, taking a record from a store is stealing, but as soon as it's online it's somehow not?
Argue that it's helpful if you want, but let's all call it what it is. Plain and simple, if someone is doing it, they're a thief. If that's not the case, please enlighten me.
If someone decides to give away their stuff for free and you get it, then you aren't pirating it. But otherwise, yes, that's theft.
--- End quote ---
Wilshire, you put it more eloquently than I could have. I had gotten as far as, 'so as technology changes, stealing is ok...?' / 'so if things are easily available, stealing is ok...?'
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