4 ms·

> Except for book publishers, the Internet Archive has done no one any harm. I strongly disagree with this statement and would argue book publishers have done

> Except for book publishers, the Internet Archive has done no one any harm. I strongly disagree with this statement and would argue book publishers have done more to damage their own reputations and finances than anyone else.

catlikesshrimp 2y ago
Neither has damaged the publisher's bottomline, which is all that matters. The publishers fight piracy so law abidding people consider committing a crime less attractive and pay the levy to publisher's instead.
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  How can you say this? All it takes is one person to not buy a book because they can get it for free from the IA. And there's plenty of evidence that more than one person did this.
  - terminalbraid 2y ago
    Your argument only works if they were going to buy the book if it were not available by other means. The position you're taking is the one the publishing industry, RIAA, MPAA, the worst publishers in the games industry, etc have taken via piracy. It has done nothing but hurt themselves, irritate people who would otherwise pay for their output, and prove ineffective.
    - xhkkffbf 2y ago
      But your argument only works if EVERY person who downloaded a book from IA would never have paid for a legit copy. But I contend that the general level of corner cutting in the world means that the odds of this being true about EVERY person is essentially zero.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    > All it takes is one person to not buy a book because they can get it for free from the IA. And how many people bought books because they liked what they got for free, ot because their friend who pirated it told them it was great? Because if it's anything like record sales, basically every non industry funded study said that piracy is actually net good for sales. What publishers dislike is losing control over what sells.
    - xhkkffbf 2y ago
      When you say "non industry study", you mean "non recording industry study." It was almost certainly paid for by someone who would profit from the piracy, either by owning an ISP, selling bandwidth or running a search engine. But go on dreaming that giving away complete copies of something will somehow encourage people to go and pay for another complete copy. Because if that strategy worked, other businesses would do it too. But it doesn't and that's why the other businesses only give away very limited samples.
      - mandmandam 2y ago
        > It was almost certainly paid for by someone who would profit from the piracy You can't imagine anyone funding a study that doesn't profit from it? Sounds like a you problem. Hint: government and academia exists. | Here I'll even write the prompt for you: "What are some good studies that showed how piracy can increase book / album sales - and who funded them?" > But go on dreaming that giving away complete copies of something will somehow encourage people to go and pay for another complete copy. I don't need to dream, because there are studies. Seems unlikely they're all secretly funded by Big ISP, lol. And you do realize we're talking about digital books, with like one or less sales / year, right? > if that strategy worked, other businesses would do it too. Businesses do that all the time bud. Because yes, it works. There's shareware, freemium, open source, content marketing, loss leaders, working for exposure, etc. How strange you never heard of any of this.

catlikesshrimp 2y ago

Neither has damaged the publisher's bottomline, which is all that matters. The publishers fight piracy so law abidding people consider committing a crime less attractive and pay the levy to publisher's instead.

xhkkffbf 2y ago
How can you say this? All it takes is one person to not buy a book because they can get it for free from the IA. And there's plenty of evidence that more than one person did this.
- terminalbraid 2y ago
  Your argument only works if they were going to buy the book if it were not available by other means. The position you're taking is the one the publishing industry, RIAA, MPAA, the worst publishers in the games industry, etc have taken via piracy. It has done nothing but hurt themselves, irritate people who would otherwise pay for their output, and prove ineffective.
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    But your argument only works if EVERY person who downloaded a book from IA would never have paid for a legit copy. But I contend that the general level of corner cutting in the world means that the odds of this being true about EVERY person is essentially zero.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  > All it takes is one person to not buy a book because they can get it for free from the IA. And how many people bought books because they liked what they got for free, ot because their friend who pirated it told them it was great? Because if it's anything like record sales, basically every non industry funded study said that piracy is actually net good for sales. What publishers dislike is losing control over what sells.
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    When you say "non industry study", you mean "non recording industry study." It was almost certainly paid for by someone who would profit from the piracy, either by owning an ISP, selling bandwidth or running a search engine. But go on dreaming that giving away complete copies of something will somehow encourage people to go and pay for another complete copy. Because if that strategy worked, other businesses would do it too. But it doesn't and that's why the other businesses only give away very limited samples.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      > It was almost certainly paid for by someone who would profit from the piracy You can't imagine anyone funding a study that doesn't profit from it? Sounds like a you problem. Hint: government and academia exists. | Here I'll even write the prompt for you: "What are some good studies that showed how piracy can increase book / album sales - and who funded them?" > But go on dreaming that giving away complete copies of something will somehow encourage people to go and pay for another complete copy. I don't need to dream, because there are studies. Seems unlikely they're all secretly funded by Big ISP, lol. And you do realize we're talking about digital books, with like one or less sales / year, right? > if that strategy worked, other businesses would do it too. Businesses do that all the time bud. Because yes, it works. There's shareware, freemium, open source, content marketing, loss leaders, working for exposure, etc. How strange you never heard of any of this.