4 ms·

Can we stop with the “access to copies for which the publisher is being paid less per access kills markets” shtick already? It’s been twenty plus years since N

Can we stop with the “access to copies for which the publisher is being paid less per access kills markets” shtick already? It’s been twenty plus years since Napster and the only sourced data I’ve seen, that isn’t simply publishers’ hypothetical handwringing, says that exposure creates desire and increases the size of the purchase market over a several year span. Tech dirt had a few stories, iirc.

space_fountain 6y ago
Isn't the market for music still way below what it was before Napster? Lots of sources but this one has a good graph: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/
- NegativeLatency 6y ago
  Causation is not established by that chart, I suspect some of the decline was due to piracy, but with no evidence it seems like it could be attributed to other factors. For example there's a drop in vinyl in the late 70's on the chart, at which time napster wasn't a thing.
  - lstodd 6y ago
    Late 70s would be the compact cassette rise.
- seg_lol 6y ago
  This only measures revenues. Are people listening to more, less or the same amount (quantity, diversity, songs, albums, etc) of music? Listener behaviors have changed, to only cite revenue for the industry (already a subset of all music sources) is unscientific. Video killed something, what killed video and why? I am going to go out on a limb here and conjecture that the vast majority of people do not listen to music, or listen to much less music than in the past, same thing goes for books. Both industries make the majority of their profits off a small and shrinking segment of the population. Hit singles are cheap, easy and plentiful to source from anywhere, both paid and free. If the industry just makes hits, they won't have the breadth to support a diverse revenue base. You can't survive on icing alone.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  The revenue chart is worthless when it comes to showing demand for music. In fact it just demonstrates the music industry's rent seeking. They managed to maximize their revenue when they had sole control of distribution. For most musical acts an "album" is one or two singles with a bunch of filler. Anyone wanting to buy those one or two singles had to spend $8-15 on a cassette or CD. When iTunes et al came around making single sales widely available, we get to see how little most people cared for albums. Before iTunes most labels didn't even sell singles and when they did they were still several dollars vs the 99¢ from iTunes and the like. Allowing consumers to actually buy what they want has been a huge improvement for them.
newbie789 6y ago
I agree with this. A friend of mine is an avid pirate and is often the first one to recommend to me some new book/TV show/movie, which in quite a few cases has led to me buying a ticket or a paperback etc. I've also then shared my thoughts about the media I've consumed with others, and they also bought tickets! In my friend group, one dude downloading Into The Spiderverse led to six of us seeing it in theaters. This is obviously anecdotal, but it's always seemed to me that piracy is almost free advertising in some cases (though obviously not universally.)
- webmaven 6y ago
  > This is obviously anecdotal, but it's always seemed to me that piracy is almost free advertising in some cases (though obviously not universally.) Tim O'Reilly wrote a post in 2002 titled "Piracy is Progressive Taxation"[0]. Basically, the conclusion he came to after analyzing the data is that on average, piracy stimulates demand enough for net gain in sales for publishers, but it isn't distributed evenly: works in the fat head (eg. bestsellers, blockbusters, etc.) see a very small net loss (ie. for the most popular content piracy may displace sales a bit), but for everyone else it is a net gain, and the gain is bigger the less popular the content is. [0] https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxation-and-other-thoughts-on-the-evolution-of-online-distribution/ https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxati...
- jerrysievert 6y ago
  > In my friend group, one dude downloading Into The Spiderverse led to six of us seeing it in theaters. and this is different than "paid influencers" how? oh, well I guess in the former, it's an interested fan, and in the latter it's a known commodity that likely doesn't even like what they're reading/watching.
- Mromson 6y ago
  This heavily reminds me of when Artists are offered to "get paid in exposure".
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> exposure creates desire and increases the size of the purchase market over a several year span. Sure, I remember when we used to say this on Slashdot twenty years ago. But does this still hold true when films and music have moved to streaming that pays artists ridiculously little and there is no longer much interest in buying physical media among the younger generations? (Even the chance for musicians to make money from touring is gone for at least 2020–2021). Once books go into a streaming model that allows you to read as much as you like for a low monthly cost, very few people are going to buy the physical book. So, it looks like authors will have to just be content with that fraction of a cent per read in perpetuity, and making the book practically free isn’t really creating a market by which authors can make a living from their work.
II2II 6y ago
I suspect that it won't end for a few reasons. Even if a publisher does not believe in the shtick, they do not want library lending to become socially acceptable and easily accessible since it would erode the market of people who are willing and able to pay. Another reason is that some markets are going to be more susceptible to lost revenue than others. It is possible that library lending represents a loss of revenue for popular authors who have no need of exposure or have easier access to other forms of exposure. Of course, this isn't always true. Many authors toil away in obscurity or serve niche markets, where the exposure is probably beneficial. The publishers who have popular authors have the greatest incentive to oppose library lending. Measures are likely another issue. It is far easier to count lost sales (e.g. X% of lending) than it is to count sales from increased exposure. That X% of lending also makes it easier to calculate how much libraries should pay in order to generate similar revenues.
dafoex 6y ago
Perhaps this it the wrong analogy, but home cooking hasn't killed the restaurant industry. Maybe, given that ebooks are just files that don't have to be printed and bound, libraries should buy direct from the author, rather than having the publisher take most of the profits of sale.

space_fountain 6y ago

Isn't the market for music still way below what it was before Napster? Lots of sources but this one has a good graph: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/

NegativeLatency 6y ago
Causation is not established by that chart, I suspect some of the decline was due to piracy, but with no evidence it seems like it could be attributed to other factors. For example there's a drop in vinyl in the late 70's on the chart, at which time napster wasn't a thing.
- lstodd 6y ago
  Late 70s would be the compact cassette rise.
seg_lol 6y ago
This only measures revenues. Are people listening to more, less or the same amount (quantity, diversity, songs, albums, etc) of music? Listener behaviors have changed, to only cite revenue for the industry (already a subset of all music sources) is unscientific. Video killed something, what killed video and why? I am going to go out on a limb here and conjecture that the vast majority of people do not listen to music, or listen to much less music than in the past, same thing goes for books. Both industries make the majority of their profits off a small and shrinking segment of the population. Hit singles are cheap, easy and plentiful to source from anywhere, both paid and free. If the industry just makes hits, they won't have the breadth to support a diverse revenue base. You can't survive on icing alone.
giantrobot 6y ago
The revenue chart is worthless when it comes to showing demand for music. In fact it just demonstrates the music industry's rent seeking. They managed to maximize their revenue when they had sole control of distribution. For most musical acts an "album" is one or two singles with a bunch of filler. Anyone wanting to buy those one or two singles had to spend $8-15 on a cassette or CD. When iTunes et al came around making single sales widely available, we get to see how little most people cared for albums. Before iTunes most labels didn't even sell singles and when they did they were still several dollars vs the 99¢ from iTunes and the like. Allowing consumers to actually buy what they want has been a huge improvement for them.

newbie789 6y ago

I agree with this. A friend of mine is an avid pirate and is often the first one to recommend to me some new book/TV show/movie, which in quite a few cases has led to me buying a ticket or a paperback etc. I've also then shared my thoughts about the media I've consumed with others, and they also bought tickets! In my friend group, one dude downloading Into The Spiderverse led to six of us seeing it in theaters. This is obviously anecdotal, but it's always seemed to me that piracy is almost free advertising in some cases (though obviously not universally.)

webmaven 6y ago
> This is obviously anecdotal, but it's always seemed to me that piracy is almost free advertising in some cases (though obviously not universally.) Tim O'Reilly wrote a post in 2002 titled "Piracy is Progressive Taxation"[0]. Basically, the conclusion he came to after analyzing the data is that on average, piracy stimulates demand enough for net gain in sales for publishers, but it isn't distributed evenly: works in the fat head (eg. bestsellers, blockbusters, etc.) see a very small net loss (ie. for the most popular content piracy may displace sales a bit), but for everyone else it is a net gain, and the gain is bigger the less popular the content is. [0] https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxation-and-other-thoughts-on-the-evolution-of-online-distribution/ https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxati...
jerrysievert 6y ago
> In my friend group, one dude downloading Into The Spiderverse led to six of us seeing it in theaters. and this is different than "paid influencers" how? oh, well I guess in the former, it's an interested fan, and in the latter it's a known commodity that likely doesn't even like what they're reading/watching.
Mromson 6y ago
This heavily reminds me of when Artists are offered to "get paid in exposure".

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

> exposure creates desire and increases the size of the purchase market over a several year span. Sure, I remember when we used to say this on Slashdot twenty years ago. But does this still hold true when films and music have moved to streaming that pays artists ridiculously little and there is no longer much interest in buying physical media among the younger generations? (Even the chance for musicians to make money from touring is gone for at least 2020–2021). Once books go into a streaming model that allows you to read as much as you like for a low monthly cost, very few people are going to buy the physical book. So, it looks like authors will have to just be content with that fraction of a cent per read in perpetuity, and making the book practically free isn’t really creating a market by which authors can make a living from their work.

II2II 6y ago

I suspect that it won't end for a few reasons. Even if a publisher does not believe in the shtick, they do not want library lending to become socially acceptable and easily accessible since it would erode the market of people who are willing and able to pay. Another reason is that some markets are going to be more susceptible to lost revenue than others. It is possible that library lending represents a loss of revenue for popular authors who have no need of exposure or have easier access to other forms of exposure. Of course, this isn't always true. Many authors toil away in obscurity or serve niche markets, where the exposure is probably beneficial. The publishers who have popular authors have the greatest incentive to oppose library lending. Measures are likely another issue. It is far easier to count lost sales (e.g. X% of lending) than it is to count sales from increased exposure. That X% of lending also makes it easier to calculate how much libraries should pay in order to generate similar revenues.

dafoex 6y ago

Perhaps this it the wrong analogy, but home cooking hasn't killed the restaurant industry. Maybe, given that ebooks are just files that don't have to be printed and bound, libraries should buy direct from the author, rather than having the publisher take most of the profits of sale.