Why Authors Shouldn't Sign On With Publishers Focused On 'Fighting Piracy'

Business Models

from the they're-not-looking-out-for-your-best-interests dept

Copycense points us to a blog post by Timo Boezeman on a book publishing blog, in which he points out that “fighting piracy is the dumbest thing you can do,” as a publisher. There isn’t necessarily much new there for regular readers of this site, but it is a nice succinct summary of the issues.

In many ways, it comes down to the simple equation of which is more important: your overall revenue or stopping piracy. For some reason, many in various legacy industries have trouble separating those two questions, and often think that it’s the same question. They assume (incorrectly) that “stopping piracy” automatically increases revenue, and that allowing infringement to continue automatically decreases revenue. But that’s not the case. There are all sorts of other variables and unintended consequences. That’s the point that Boezeman is making:

Not only does it cost you time and money (and hardly shows results, again learn from the music industry), it can cost you your image. This might be a difficult one to grasp. Especially if you do not want/dare to look at other industries that have already dealt with this before. The reason people illegally download is not always because they want something for free. Common reasons are: convenience (in a file format of your choice to use on a device of your choice), speed (why wait for it to become available here if you can already get it elsewhere? It feels unfair, and more important: the consumer doesn?t want to wait) or availability (see the Harry Potter example, as mentioned on FutureBook two weeks ago).

If these are the reasons for people to download illegally, then how can it make sense for publishers to start actively fighting them. Because the most important fact is: they want your product! It?s up to you (as a content creator/provider) to ensure that consumers can buy your products in the simplest way, as quickly as possible, for a good (reasonable) price and without any fuss (no DRM, no unnecessary copyright notices and usable on a device of their own choice).

Of course, this raises a separate issue. If you’re an author, do you want to work with a publisher who’s going to focus on “stopping piracy,” or one who’s going to focus on maximizing revenue for you? Again, if you can’t separate the two, you may assume that they’re one and the same. But if you recognize these are two different things, suddenly the publishers who focus so much on “stopping piracy,” appear to be publishers who probably aren’t that good at maximizing your revenue.

Filed Under: business models, infringement, publishers