Piracy in the Go industry.

[rubin427]

...I am no longer working on go books...

I didn't know that, and I'm sad to hear it. I like your books, John.

[Loons]

I've been told recently that there is no demographic for 'regular' digital go books.

Is anyone aware of how this conclusion was reached?

I hope it's not "Books get pirated as PDFs ergo everyone interested in buying PDFs would pirate them instead" or just "Kiseido Digital Bookshelf's selection of five books <still> hasn't had a big followup so there was probably no demographic".

[Redundant]

And I certainly cannot compete with you in math skills - but I can suggest some "math" that support the conclusion that you might be in the minority in the opinion you express above. You have posted 735 times, and been liked 60 times. John has posted 707 times, and been liked 849 times.

If you look through John's posts, you'll see that I like a lot of them. John often posts useful and interesting news from the go world. I play Malkovich games. I do not in any way claim to contribute more than him to the go community or this forum. I do however claim that sometimes his posts display attitudes I find distasteful, as when he attacked someone for asking a question about one of his books in a manner he found distasteful.

I sincerely hope that John continues his certainly impressive contributions here, which he provides, free of charge for the benefit of all of us, and does not decide that your opinion of him is widely held and a reason to leave.

I am not sure you understand that the effort that goes into John's books far outweighs any financial remuneration he receives. While he appreciates the small sums he gets, mostly because he more than earned them, not because he needs them or because they are signifcant in size - what John wants is his publisher to make enough money and sales so that they will continue to want to publish his wonderful work.

Note that I did not say that I was going to pirate his work. I'm simply telling him that the attitude of some of his posts here is offputting, even if much of his information is very interesting and useful to the community. Because of this, I don't want to support him financially, just as I don't buy books from Orson Scott Card or Terry Goodkind. I know that he provides a great service to the go community without making nearly enough money to offset his work. I do not, however, need to like him as a person for this.

And right now, the books are not selling well enough to publish more as fast as John is putting them out - and one of the reasons is piracy - however small or big a reason that is.

I do not buy this reasoning. I think that the null hypothesis here should be zero effect of piracy on sales of books. Until I see research to the otherwise, I'm going to follow with this hypothesis, given that I've seen evidence that the opposite can be true.

It's not that I'm a huge supporter of piracy. I just think it's an easy scapegoat for other, much larger issues.

[Redundant]

I'm annoyed because you jump to piracy and blame it when free availability of ebooks has a track record of actually improving sales (see Cory Doctorow, Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker, and the time when Neil Gaiman's American Gods was free on his website).

That's a crock. Only a handful of authors have benefited from giving their books away. And they are authors who were doing fine before that. Cory is a good example; he managed to attract a lot of the freetard crowd, even though plenty of others had been buying his books.

But for those three you mention, there are thousands of others - including myself - whose books are pirated.

Regarding John's books, however, I agree with you. A quick search on torrent trackers doesn't turn any up. I have seen a few go book torrents, but, as mentioned above, generally older books. I'm not saying they're not passed around, but they're not easily accessible.

I'll concede that both authors were already somewhat high profile before this, but it does demonstrate that even if an ebook is freely available, people will still buy the dead tree edition. In fact, it shows that it can be the case that the first correlates with the second.

I'd also prefer not using the term freetard here. Loaded language is not conductive to a civil, balanced discussion.

There's also the example of Mark Pilgrim, who put his book Dive into Python, which as far as I can tell is his first ever book, online for free in what I'd consider to even be a more useful format than the dead tree edition.

I won't doubt that your books are pirated, but I will doubt that you've been negatively affected by it.

I hope that you don't mind me assuming that you're not an incredibly popular writer, in which case the extra exposure that piracy has brought to your work may have caused some to buy it who otherwise might not have. You are free to disagree with me on this, but it has been my personal experience that I later spend money on things that I already own through piracy, simply because I enjoyed the show, album, etc that I wish to support the creators of said item.

[Solomon]

I am attacked for "persecution mania" or neuroses or racism by mostly anonymous immature newbies, compulsive but unfunny wisecrackers, amateur psychologists, testosterone sufferers, feminists...

Don't forget the condescending bigots.

[tchan001]

I'll concede that both authors were already somewhat high profile before this, but it does demonstrate that even if an ebook is freely available, people will still buy the dead tree edition. In fact, it shows that it can be the case that the first correlates with the second.

Milton Bradley is an author of go books who has provided an entire go book for free on his website called "Improve Fast at Go". He has several other books published as dead tree editions by Yutopian. Who here has actually bought one of his dead tree books because he offered the free go ebook?

I have bought a couple of his dead tree books, but more as a result of trying to collect english go books rather than as a result of reading his great offer.

[kirkmc]

I won't doubt that your books are pirated, but I will doubt that you've been negatively affected by it.

I hope that you don't mind me assuming that you're not an incredibly popular writer, in which case the extra exposure that piracy has brought to your work may have caused some to buy it who otherwise might not have. You are free to disagree with me on this, but it has been my personal experience that I later spend money on things that I already own through piracy, simply because I enjoyed the show, album, etc that I wish to support the creators of said item.

I'm not the kind of writer who benefits from "extra exposure," I'm a tech writer; I write about software and operating systems. I get more than enough exposure from my magazine and web writing.

There's no way to know how many lost sales are due to piracy, but I'm sure there are some. I don't lose sleep over it; it's part of the cost of doing business these days. But suggesting that such piracy helps people like me, or John, is simply wrong.

[hyperpape]

Respect (or lack of it) comes up in another way. Robust discussion is to be welcomed, but when I (as an example) offer an opinion on a topic such as this, to which I am perfectly entitled, which is formed not from thin air but from my own experiences, and which does not harm anyone else, I am attacked for "persecution mania" or neuroses or racism by mostly anonymous immature newbies, compulsive but unfunny wisecrackers, amateur psychologists, testosterone sufferers, feminists and others who rarely read carefully what is written anyway. I often get the impression that many people here think I'm not allowed to have opinion.

This isn't about this particular thread, but I sometimes get the impression that you think you don't need to defend your opinion. When discussions with you descend into disagreement, it seems that half the time you either declare your opinion self-evidently true or complain that we're engaging in tedious logic-chopping. I don't think that's particularly helpful, or particularly respectful.

If you only had this attitude towards your gallery of trolls, it might be ok. But that's not how it looks to me.

[hyperpape]

I'd take issue with a few things said by both sides. Against Redundant: it's not reasonable to say "until you show me otherwise, piracy has no effect". It's the null hypothesis, but that has a technical meaning, and doesn't indicate that you can go around saying it has no effect. Better to just say you don't know if that's what you mean.

But against people who says it has an effect, a lot of markets show cases where there is piracy, but it's limited to compulsive cheapskates who would never spend the money anyway. I pirated music in college, but once I left, it never seemed to be worth the time. As iTunes and Amazon, got better and easier, I just bought songs and CDs from them. In college, I wouldn't have bought music in any case, while afterwards the availability of piracy didn't matter. I don't know if the go book market is like the music market or not. But you can't just assume that piracy is hurting sales.

But can I fault authors for worrying that piracy is a big deal? Hardly. In the absence of clear evidence of how the go book market works, who wouldn't be worried if they were putting forth a great deal of their time and money?

[Horibe]

[

And right now, the books are not selling well enough to publish more as fast as John is putting them out - and one of the reasons is piracy - however small or big a reason that is.

I do not buy this reasoning. I think that the null hypothesis here should be zero effect of piracy on sales of books. Until I see research to the otherwise, I'm going to follow with this hypothesis, given that I've seen evidence that the opposite can be true.

Well, I know for a fact that John's publisher feels that way. Of course, he could be wrong in his reasoning.

It seems to me if we have a book for sale, and it is popular enough for someone to go through the trouble to pirate it, and people take it instead of paying for it, then the null hypothesis should be a loss of sales. I am not disputing your evidence, although it is almost certainly not from go books, but I do not see how you can fairly move the starting point from a loss of some sales at the outset.

Off topic - I suspect I agree with your reasons for not liking OS Card - it is a shame, I think he is a great writer, and his views are quite rationale on a lot of issues, but he loses so many people because of his positions on a few, albeit significant, issues.

[tapir]

I believe the role of xerox copies is underestimated. There are (that is my gut feeling) likely more sales lost to them than to digital piracy, especially given that they are around so much longer. People downloading digitalised go books may download a large number of them (as no investment of time or money at all is needed) but likely never read them, only a few of those books they would have bought.

While I obviously have no solution, I would not try to go digital but to make my books more like books. That is no DIN Ax formats that look ugly and are well suited to copying, better binding, more emphasis on cover design (it can still be simple), in short something that makes people want to own the book itself. Many go book publishers don't care about that very much, e.g. Slate & Shell is a disaster in this regard.

[RobertJasiek]

no DIN Ax formats that look ugly

I like DIN formats because, well, surely I am used to them. There is a real advantage though: the edge ratio SQRT 2 often allows a nice vertical page layout. The books are held well in one's hand(s). Other paper formats can fit these purposes, too. In Europe, DIN is the norm and therefore production costs in those formats are the smallest in relation to the (text-heavy) contents. Producing smaller formats creates at least the same cost as the next bigger DIN size.

[Dusk Eagle]

True, the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas has not yet been extended to cover the cyber-oceans of our internet era. But I think we all know that the mayhem and robbery these digital seadogs perpetrate outside the geographical borders of sovereign states are every bit as cold-blooded and lecherous as the indignities that Blackbeard and Captain Kidd inflicted on innocent seafarers in an earlier, more innocent, age.

The hyperbole here is ridiculous. Obtaining a digital copy for free versus pillage and rape and murder.

It seems to me if we have a book for sale, and it is popular enough for someone to go through the trouble to pirate it, and people take it instead of paying for it, then the null hypothesis should be a loss of sales.

This is the problem with your reasoning. You're assuming that people are pirating it "instead of" paying for it.

I figure I should reveal something about my own piracy habits. For me, I've always been more of a fan of finding music and videos on streaming sites than by downloading to my computer. I can list many franchises I became a customer of after starting off with unauthorized copies, and which I never would have bought their products at all if it weren't for those copies.

Fullmetal Alchemist - I watched the first half of this show online, and bought DVD box sets for the second half because I liked it so much. I later got my sister into this show, and she's watched the entire series on streaming websites at least 4 times. As a result of her fandom, she now owns around ten books of the manga, and my brother and I own a few of the books as well. She finished the manga online because the publisher was too slow getting the later installments published over here, but even after reading the entire thing online she bought a couple more books.

Pokemon - I watched a lot of the Advanced Generation anime on streaming sites, and because I was a fan I would occasionally buy DVDs containing a few episodes that were coming up so I could watch them in higher quality and also show my support for the franchise. I own about 8 DVDs, but I'm at my parents' house for the weekend and can't check the exact number. All this goes without mentioning how being a fan of the anime made me a virtual lock to buy Pokemon Pearl when it came out.

Radiohead - I was first introduced to this group by a high-school English teacher who played us a couple of their songs off of YouTube (this was before music companies started uploading songs to YouTube themselves, so you could call this unauthorized). I was next exposed to Radiohead because they play the ending song in the anime Ergo Proxy, another anime I streamed. Listening to Paranoid Android after every episode made me search for more stuff by them. Although I have made a commitment to myself not to buy music from any RIAA-affiliated label due to their aggressive lawsuits against piraters, when their self-released album The King of Limbs came out, I bought the digital copy the very first day.

Looking at my own life, my piracy has definitely lead me to spend more on media then I likely would have otherwise. Obviously you need some actual studies before making firm conclusions about the effects of piracy on sales, but from looking at my own life it doesn't seem like a ridiculous notion that piracy can lead to increased exposure and thus increased sales.

[kirkmc]

Dusk Eagle, every single anecdotal example you cite could be countered by the tens of thousands, nay, millions of examples of people who are simple freeloaders and download everything they can without ever caring about paying.

There are plenty of studies that correlate downloads and music purchases, for example, but none of these go beyond mere correlation (correlation is not causation, and all that).

Some anecdotal examples:

When my son went off to study web design two years ago, I bought him a copy of Adobe CS4 (student license). He was _the only student_ among the 60 in his class who had a legal copy. But they all had copies.

Among his peers, pretty much everyone downloads everything without hardly every buying anything. (Some do still go to the movies.)

But these examples are as anecdotal as yours. I don't pretend that they represent a valid sample of the world of downloaders. I do, however, posit that this behavior has become second nature among young people today.

And, by the way, I'm not saying that I don't download stuff. Interestingly, it can often be easier to download a movie than to rent it legally. With release windows, and all that, sometimes the movie you want to watch simply isn't available. I buy very few DVDs, at least of movies, because I rarely watch them more than once. (And where I live there are no DVD rental options.) Personally, I think online video rentals should cost no more than $2. That's cheap enough to offset the ease-of-access, at least for those movies that are available. As for non-availability, that's probably one thing that _increases_ piracy.

[daal]

Dusk Eagle, every single anecdotal example you cite could be countered by the tens of thousands, nay, millions of examples of people who are simple freeloaders and download everything they can without ever caring about paying.

But I think Dusk Eagle's point is that such people wouldn't have shelled out the money anyway at the time, but that their piracy exposed them to material that they might eventually purchase when they are ... more mature.