Piracy and sales

[Valerion]

Last month I saw an article on Torrenfreak that stated that Japanese officials have stated that piracy boosts sales of Anime.

http://torrentfreak.com/internet-piracy-boosts-anime-sales-study-concludes-110203/

Being on torrentfreak, I decided to ignore it as possibly one-sided. However, today I came across a video by Neil Gaiman, one of the more respected comic book authors. And, as an artist himself, he would have a vested interest in finding the truth.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/02/10/neil-gaiman-piracy-lending-books/

In areas where his books are pirated more heavily (like Russia), his books sell better. So he decided to do an experiment. He took a book that's still on the shelves, and gave it away for free for a full month. The month after that, his sales of the book tripled in volume.

His argument is that piracy is the new way of advertising. If you have a favourite author, did you discover this author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book by someone you didn't know, or by being lent a book by someone else, then later on go and purchase the book?

 

[Lycanthrope]

Last month I saw an article on Torrenfreak that stated that Japanese officials have stated that piracy boosts sales of Anime.

http://torrentfreak.com/internet-piracy-boosts-anime-sales-study-concludes-110203/

Being on torrentfreak, I decided to ignore it as possibly one-sided. However, today I came across a video by Neil Gaiman, one of the more respected comic book authors. And, as an artist himself, he would have a vested interest in finding the truth.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/02/10/neil-gaiman-piracy-lending-books/

In areas where his books are pirated more heavily (like Russia), his books sell better. So he decided to do an experiment. He took a book that's still on the shelves, and gave it away for free for a full month. The month after that, his sales of the book tripled in volume.

His argument is that piracy is the new way of advertising. If you have a favourite author, did you discover this author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book by someone you didn't know, or by being lent a book by someone else, then later on go and purchase the book?

Nice find

If you feel like getting into the thick of it, there's a fun little thread here

 

[milomak]

Interesting

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[cpu.]

I'm proud to say that I play an active part in helping authors, actors and musicians market their product.

 

[antowan]

I agree fully with this stance. As I said before, just because you downloaded something doesn't mean you would have bought it if you hadn't been able to. Thus not all pirate downloads translate into lost sales... in fact it could have the oposit effect by boosting sales. This has been and still is my opinion on online so called "piracy"... If you pay somebody for a stolen product... then it is something else altogether...

 

[Jannie031]

I'm proud to say that I play an active part in helping authors, actors and musicians market their product.

I think most of mybb does. Anime is damn expensive to buy. Those fansub torrents is just so attractive.

 

[Valerion]

I think most of mybb does. Anime is damn expensive to buy. Those fansub torrents is just so attractive.

If you import the DVD's, you are technically a pirate (DVD region coding). The ones you get on shelves here are likely the Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean knockoffs in any case, which doesn't go back to the authors. Generally legal anime is not easily available in South Africa, no one bothers to target the market, due to the cost of distributing it here. So unless you pirate, you either have to do grey imports, or pay a HUGE premium. Really good for the industry.

 

[D.B.Cooper]

Nothing new here. If I like something I will most often buy it. On the other hand, my use of "extended demos" has also saved me quite a bit of change when the product turned out to be crap. My thought in that case is usually "Phew, glad I didn't waste money on this ****," and then delete the thing. Frankly, I've been burnt often enough to learn this lesson well: Never buy before trying.