Interesting piece by Eric Flint...
Apr. 29th, 2002 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI've mentioned Eric Flint in my journal on previous occasions, but it turns out he is the "Librarian" of something that Jim Baen (the force behind Baen Books) set up called a "Free Library."
Flint writes a periodic piece he labels "palaver," and in the lastest of these (#6), he presents actual numbers supporting his assertion that "it benefits an author to have a certain number of free or cheap titles of theirs readily available to the public."
Flint starts by asking a simple question:
"Does anyone have any real evidence that having material available for free online-whether legitimately or through piracy-has actually caused any financial harm to any author?"
He then provides a number of examples where it is hard to show such harm occurring. In his own case, for example, he cites increased sales of a book he co-wrote with David Drake (An Oblique Approach) after it was made available for free download from the Baen site. Says Flint, after presenting the numbers from his royalty statement:
Cheers...
Flint writes a periodic piece he labels "palaver," and in the lastest of these (#6), he presents actual numbers supporting his assertion that "it benefits an author to have a certain number of free or cheap titles of theirs readily available to the public."
Flint starts by asking a simple question:
"Does anyone have any real evidence that having material available for free online-whether legitimately or through piracy-has actually caused any financial harm to any author?"
He then provides a number of examples where it is hard to show such harm occurring. In his own case, for example, he cites increased sales of a book he co-wrote with David Drake (An Oblique Approach) after it was made available for free download from the Baen site. Says Flint, after presenting the numbers from his royalty statement:
It's what happens next that is significant. Because, all other things considered, those "sales this period" figures should have kept steadily dropping. Slowly, perhaps, but what most certainly shouldn't have happened is a sudden rise in sales-and a rise which increases in the next period.He acknowledges that his is not cut-and-dried, unequivocal proof of his position, but does assert that his is the only hard data that anyone has proffered in the debate, a far cry from those arguing the "encryption/enforcement" side of the question, who - says Flint - have never come up with hard figures. Again, Flint:
Harlan Ellison, for instance, screams that he has "Lost sales!" because of piracy-but, to the best of my knowledge, has never once even tried to demonstrate that this is true. Not once has he done more than endlessly assert the "axiom" that since a title of his was pirated he "must therefore" have lost sales of that title.A well-written essay, in my opinion. (Moreover, 1632 is available in the Library.)
Cheers...
