Interesting article from geek.com on piracy (both of books and music):
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Talk to anyone fairly high up in the publishing world and chances are they will tell you piracy is killing the business and driving down revenue. But you have to ask what evidence they have for such statements? Downloads do not directly correlate to lost sales and may actually increase them if this example gets repeated.
Artist Steve Lieber probably agreed with the publishing industry a few days ago, but now he sings a different tune. The Underground graphic novel he illustrated for Image Comics was scanned and uploaded to 4chan in its entirety a few days ago. Rather than getting upset Steve joined in the conversation about his comic and offered to answer questions about it. Here’s the important part of the post he made on the 4chan thread:
As for putting all the pages up here. What can I say? I get that this is how things go, and I’m trying to live in the same decade as everyone else. If nothing else, I’m flattered someone thought enough of the book to take the time to scan and post it.
Anyway, that’s that. If anyone has any questions about the book, post them here or ask me on twitter @steve_lieber
Steve describes the discussion that followed as “genuinely fascinating” but what he didn’t expect was the bump it gave to the sales of the novel. Here’s the image he posted showing exactly how engaging with the 4chan community can have a positive impact on your sales and therefore your income.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:
Cheers!
Brian M
2 comments
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November 25, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Ephraim Rodriguez
Digital piracy has become the new word of mouth. Though in reality it consists of a bunch of zeros and ones, it’s pretty much Western civilization’s watering hole.
I always suspected artists and their representative companies of handing their product over to the pirates to save on marketing. Plus even the pirates offer different flavors of the media – remixes, extended versions, versions pre-formatted for various media players and devices, optional commentary, sincere and forthright reviews and commentary on the product etc.
In a lot of ways, the interweb’s booty savvy peg-legs are more accessible and offer better service than the intended distribution avenues in current use.
April 16, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Michael J. Farrand
Maybe the machines just couldn’t copy them fast enough in the old days. Same thing in music: great fear of free internet downloads. How different is that from radio? Offering pay-what-you-will CDs, rather than charging a set price, doubles sales for bands. Things aren’t always what they seem (especially these days!!).