We believe obscurity is a bigger threat to
authors than piracy.
As many professional writers have mentioned, obscurity is a bigger threat to most
authors than piracy:
Quoting the generally on - topic Tim O'Reilly, Mike notes, «obscurity is a greater threat to most
authors than piracy.»
Not exact matches
Where copyright led to books being priced as luxury goods in the U.K., the threat of
piracy forced German publishers to produce cheap editions for the masses alongside their premium - priced editions, resulting in a period that Höffner believes may have been the most lucrative ever for
authors — he discovered, for example, that an obscure Berlin chemist earned more in royalties for a tract on how to tan leather
than Mary Shelley did for writing Frankenstein — prompting more academics to publish their findings, and encouraging the spread of practical manuals in fields like medicine, engineering and agriculture.
We should point out, however, that ebooks are much more easily subject to
piracy than print, and it concerns us that this may in fact have a significant impact on our, and
authors», revenue, as meagre as it currently is.
They seem far more nervous about
piracy than most indie
authors.
Essentially, BookBaby, has found that charging legitimate
authors an upfront fee to process and distribute their ebooks may cause some to ultimately opt for one of the sites that makes its profit out of royalties rather
than pay an initial investment; however, this same business model means that spam and
piracy can be kept to a minimum as get - rich - quick scammers are loathe to shell out the upfront cost.
The bigger problem for
authors are the publishing houses themselves because with the decline in paper books, it simply makes no sense for an
author to turn over the majority of her profits to one of these places and * that * costs the
author far more
than piracy.
From what I've seen, the costs of DRM systems for an
author tend to be higher
than what may be lost due to
piracy.
While I pride myself as an indie
author and
piracy activist, I have come to discover that there are people who consider themselves the same, but who do more harm
than good to the rest of us.
Many years ago, publisher Tim O'Reilly, in writing about the topic of «
piracy,» wrote this much - quoted observation: «Obscurity is a far greater threat to
authors and creative artists
than piracy.»
Piracy is more likely to hurt
authors who are famous, rather
than the unknown
authors.
While
piracy concern can heighten indie
authors» resistance to publishing their content on certain platforms, it seems this issue must be responsibly monitored and tackled by distributors rather
than leaving it to
authors who have spent their quality time crafting their content.