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IIRC it was shown that piracy increases sales for books. For example, if you pirated an ebook and liked it, you'd likely buy a physical copy.
by MYEUHD 1y ago
IIRC it was shown that piracy increases sales for books.
For example, if you pirated an ebook and liked it, you'd likely buy a physical copy.
- black_knight 1y agoThis is true for me! For authors like, I might read a few epubs, then buy their entire series in hardcover (or paperback if no hardcover is available) to have in my bookshelves for rainy days.
- kelnos 1y agoThat's absurd. I could potentially believe the conclusion that piracy doesn't take away from sales (that is, most people who pirate would otherwise do without, and not buy a copy). But the idea that many/most (or even some significantly-small percentage) of people who pirate will buy copies of the things they like? No, that doesn't pass the sniff test.
- solidsnack9000 1y agoI actually have bought many books that I started reading online. The book format is useful.
- wiseowise 1y agoI do. When I was poor – I couldn't do it. Now that I'm wealthy and can afford any book, I prefer to take a quick look at online version and then buy a physical copy.
- baq 1y agoKids who don’t have pocket money won’t, but they aren’t lost sales anyway.
- lucb1e 1y agoIf you and I would support the works we think are good, why wouldn't others? I keep noticing that people constantly expect worse morals from others than how they claim they are themselves It's easy to add a "me too" onto the existing list but that's not my point. I think we generally can expect better from the average person than we instinctively do. If 50% of people are just as honest as we are (if we're average persons which, on average, we are), that would be easily worth it if free distribution of a book gets you a 3x bigger reach as compared to when people have to pay up front. I'm not aware of research confirming or refuting this (of course I'd like to believe that information can be free), but it doesn't seem so outlandish to me that we can ignore the option altogether by doing a sniff test
- fsflover 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476 EU paid for report that concluded piracy isn’t harmful, tried to hide findings (thenextweb.com) 280 points by tchalla on Sept 21, 2017 | 59 comments
- dartharva 1y agoThe official EU study that proves exactly this is just one google search away, but here: https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_s...
- joha4270 1y agoEven if that might be the case now, I doubt that holds if piracy becomes truly widespread. I would suspect A pirates book B and tells C about it, C buys book B is a lot more common than A pirates book B and likes it enough to buy it I have no data to support this, and while I have paid for things I could access for free, but I'm sufficiently pessimistic about human nature to think that's the norm.
- pcthrowaway 1y agoPiracy has been "truly widespread" for decades now. Most people who are able to, still pay for things, especially if they're convenient. Even when those services actually add additional restrictions to their access to the media they think they're paying for.
- IAmBroom 1y ago"Despite the data, I continue to guess that in the future my hypothesis will be true." Bold. Not inherently incorrect, but not optimally heuristic.
- fsflover 1y agoDespite which data? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476