Piracy is reality for book publishers now. What should you do about it? Fight it? No, fighting piracy is the dumbest thing you can do. It will cost you your money, time and image to the consumer. But what then? I say: learn from it. What makes illegal sources so interesting for people to go to? Implement that in your legal business models, deliver a better job then the pirates do and focus for the full 100% on your customers.

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piracy
What we can learn from pirates

2. Introduction
Timo Boezeman
Digital Publisher for Arbeiderspers|A.W. Bruna Publishers
The largest Dutch commercial publisher
Twitter @boezeman
Blogs boekeman.blogspot.com (Dutch)
futurebook.net/blogs/timo-boezeman (English)
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piracy

3. Who is the pirate?
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4. Who is the pirate?
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5. Who is the pirate?
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6. Who is the pirate?
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7. Who is the pirate?
Technology adoption lifecycle
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8. Who is the pirate?
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9. Who is the pirate?
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10. What is piracy?
Piracy ≠ theft
Theft removes the original Piracy makes a copy
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11. “The losses due to piracy are far
outweighed by the benefits of the free
flow of information.”
Tim O’Reilly
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12. But piracy is bad, right?!
Of course it is!
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13. So we should fight it!
“We should hunt them down,
shut them off and put them on trial!”
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14. So we should fight it!
“We should hunt them down,
shut them off and put them on trial!”
No.
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15. Why do people pirate?
Not because:
- They see publishers as greedy grabbers
- They hate copyright
- They just don’t want to pay
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16. Why do people pirate?
But because of three reasons:
- Large number of titles available
- Low price
- Ease of use
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17. What you shouldn’t do
Don’t think in terms of:
- Threats
- Fears
- Lawsuits
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18. What you shouldn’t do
So don’t go fighting piracy:
- You can’t stop it
- It will cost you time and money
- It will hurt your image
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19. What you shouldn’t do
And also don’t think that:
- Every download is a missed sale
- Stop publishing e-books will stop piracy
- People want everything for free
- The world is still divided in territories
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20. How you should see it
Piracy is a sign that the world has
changed (digitized).
That world is reality. It’s now!
Fighting against that world
is the dumbest thing you can do.
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21. “My problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity.”
Cory Doctorow (blogger, journalist)
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22. What you should do
Think in terms of:
- Opportunities
- Advantages
- Learning
- Adaptation
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23. What you should do
See piracy as something you can learn from:
- Complete title catalogue
- In all desired file formats
- Works on every device
- Without DRM or other hassle
- In logical bundles
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24. What you should do
So, rather:
- Focus for 100% on your potential buyers
- See it as sampling, people being interested
- Take over control and spread it yourself
- Launch your titles worldwide at the same time
- See it as something you can learn from
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25. What you should do
The best way to deal with piracy is three-fold:
- Offer your titles in different editions/file formats (tastes)
- Offer price variations from free to very expensive
- Get rid of all the hassle
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26. “Pirating can act as an introduction to an
artist’s work.”
Paulo Coelho (Brazilian author)
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27. Look at other industries
What have they done wrong?
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28. Look at other industries
What have they done wrong?
Don’t make those mistakes yourself
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29. Look at other industries
What have they done right?
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30. Look at other industries
What have they done right?
Try to translate that to the book world
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31. What did they do wrong?
- Very slow reaction to a changing and digitizing world
(where Napster and Kazaa where quick)
- Limited title catalogue
- Device-dependent files
- DRM
- High prices (to close to their physical equivalent)
- Delayed launching in other territories
- Lawsuits (i.e. Metallica vs. Napster)
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32. What did they do right?
- Come with a strong new business model (Spotify)
- Complete title catalogue
- Device-independent files
- No more DRM or complete ecosystems (iTunes)
- Better pricing (thanks to iTunes and Spotify)
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33. How can we copy that?
Almost everything can be copied to our world:
- Enlarge the title catalogue for as far as you can
- Make your files compatible with all devices
- Leave out the DRM, or use social DRM/watermarking (which
doesn’t annoy the consumer)
- Look for a better pricing, which reflects the feeling you have with
digital (and this doesn’t mean free)
- Dare to experiment with new business models (freemium,
streaming services like 24Symbols)
- Dare to launch worldwide simultaneously
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34. Summed up
Do Don’t
Think in: opportunities, advantages Think in: threats, fears, lawsuits
and lessons learned Think that: piracy = missed sales
Focus for 100% on potential buyers Think people want everything for free
See piracy as sampling Fight piracy
Take over control Be slow
Offer a complete title catalogue Offer little titles
Which works on every device Use DRM
Without any hassle Price high
Learn from piracy Think in territories
Launch worldwide the same time Frustrate your customers
Experiment with new business models
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35. “Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”
Steve Jobs
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36. Thank you!
Any questions?
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