Atlas Games finds free download doesn't work...

[Monte At Home]

My up-to-the-minute count is 12,146 downloads. Here's another interesting fact: only 5,080 of those downloads are reported as being in the USA, about 42%. In fact, the number of non-US downloads has been increasing (the last time I checked a few months ago, 45% were USA). I agree, the numbers are very intriguing.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Our pdf sales are heavily weighted toward foreign customers. I hear over and over again how much they appreciate the ability to buy pdfs, because they simply could not get the products otherwise. That's why I'm fairly certain that our pdf sales do not cannibalize our print sales (that, and the fact that our print products sales don't seem to be suffering).

I think the pdf market, free or otherwise, is very largely a world market.

 

[storyguide3]

I think one of the reasons that the free download did not drive more paper sales might have something to do with the fact that YOU gave it away. Certainly that fact alone makes it difficult to draw any comparisons between this experiment and the effects of unsanctioned file sharing.

What I mean is, if I were to download a copy of a book I am curious about, but not yet ready to purchase, from a newsgroup or kazaa, and I found it to be what I wanted, I would go and buy it. There are those that won't, this is true. There are others, and I am one of them, who would not continue to use a pirate copy of something when I could get the book for real (or purchase the legitamte version of a PDF product).

In this case however, the free download comes from the maker of the book. I feel no guilt or compunction to go out and buy the paper copy when the people who make it are happy to give me the file for free. I know, I did download it and have not bought the book. Why should I? You were kind enough to let me have a free one without any illegaility whatsoever.

When people say that folks who download pirate stuff will go and buy the product if they like it, there is an assumption that there is a factor of guilty feeling on their part about actually using (as opposed to just having) a pirate file. Remove that guilt by giving it away yourself, and you remove one of the motivating factors to purchasing the paper copy.

I think this is where it becomes problematic to make any blanket statements about piracy based on this experiment. If you want to give away core rules to drive supplement sales, that's cool. But I don't think you should expect that people will purchase a paper version when they have received a perfectly legitimate PDF from the people that make the product.

 

[Cergorach]

What I mean is, if I were to download a copy of a book I am curious about, but not yet ready to purchase, from a newsgroup or kazaa, and I found it to be what I wanted, I would go and buy it. There are those that won't, this is true. There are others, and I am one of them, who would not continue to use a pirate copy of something when I could get the book for real (or purchase the legitamte version of a PDF product).

In this case however, the free download comes from the maker of the book. I feel no guilt or compunction to go out and buy the paper copy when the people who make it are happy to give me the file for free. I know, I did download it and have not bought the book. Why should I? You were kind enough to let me have a free one without any illegaility whatsoever.

Your one of the few that gives a rat's ass about illegality, guilt maybe if they know the publisher, but i doubt that still.

I think the only thing people fear might be an RIAA raid or something, but i highly doubt that RIAA would recognize pirated pdfs...

 

[drnuncheon]

One thing that Baen has that ArsM does not - Baen chooses their books very carefully. They let you download one of the early books in a series, and they trust it to 'hook' you into buying the rest of the series. That's where the increased sales come from (and from completists who want copies of the entire series)

Putting the Ars Magica core book up against that is a radically different situation (as Atlas found out).

 

[Flyspeck23]

That doesn't surprise me at all. Our pdf sales are heavily weighted toward foreign customers. I hear over and over again how much they appreciate the ability to buy pdfs, because they simply could not get the products otherwise. That's why I'm fairly certain that our pdf sales do not cannibalize our print sales (that, and the fact that our print products sales don't seem to be suffering).

I think the pdf market, free or otherwise, is very largely a world market.

89% of all Complete Spell Cards customers are from the US. 71% for the free download (Blank Spell Cards), though.
Wonder why that is, because it's obviously contrary to other companies... but at least those percentages hold up to my speculations. If more than 40% of my customers wouldn't have been from the US I would've been amazed.

 

[Flyspeck23]

(Edit: Wow, my first double post. Can I have a cookie?)

 

[JohnNephew]

I think one of the reasons that the free download did not drive more paper sales might have something to do with the fact that YOU gave it away. Certainly that fact alone makes it difficult to draw any comparisons between this experiment and the effects of unsanctioned file sharing.

Some pirate defenders claim that free downloads of entire books (as you find being shared by pirates) increase sales of paper products, and thus file sharing should not be opposed. By making the download legitimate, I created an experimental microcosm, a world where downloading the file (a complete and high-quality digital copy of the work, not a preview; and free, not a purchasable alternative) was legal, acceptable, and indeed encouraged. My experience is that this does not result in more paper sales. I thus conclude that, if the pirates' argument was generally accepted -- if everyone or even most people felt that it was ethically A-OK to scan RPG books, file share, download whatever they want, etc. -- it would be detrimental to professional RPG producers.

Some ethical theories (such as Kant's "categorical imperative") judge the right or wrong of an action by asking, what if we universalized this? So I universalized the ethic of the downloaders -- I made it complete and free, and I watched to see the impact on the sales of the paper book. And the result was harm. Selling fewer books, meaning having less money to invest in future books, and in fact having to charge more for the new books we produce.

When people say that folks who download pirate stuff will go and buy the product if they like it, there is an assumption that there is a factor of guilty feeling on their part about actually using (as opposed to just having) a pirate file.

Some piracy defenders argue vehemently (perhaps to soothe their own sore consciences) that they should not feel guilty, and they have a lot of excuses for why piracy is not a big deal, or even a good thing. (Such as: "It's actually good for the publishers, like free advertising." "Publishers charge too much, so sharing scans of their books will force them to lower their prices." "I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so the publisher did not lose any money." "File sharing is the inevitable consequence of technology, and copyright law should be ignored because it's outdated needs replacement.") Pirates benefit from spreading these memes of rationalization around, because the more people they can persuade (at least up to a point -- if they persuade everyone, they kill the business), the more free stuff they'll get, as converts join the effort to scan books or share the commercial PDFs they've bought.

I don't know that there is any effective way to stop piracy, but I do see some value in bursting the bubbles of self-delusion that pirates use to feel good about their wrongful behavior. Perhaps all we can do is try and maintain the guilt, and mitigate the damage it does to sales.

 

[Cergorach]

Well... Actually it is free advertising, wheter it's good for publishers is another matter entirely...

"I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so the publisher did not lose any money." Is actually a pretty good argument, if the statement is true...

"File sharing is the inevitable consequence of technology, and copyright law should be ignored because it's outdated needs replacement." The first statement is certainly true, i also think that copyright law is way outdated, if you look at walt disney you would agree. I want to support good writers/publishers with my hard earned money, i just wish everyone on the planet (or even a significant amount) would feel the same way.

Pirates benefit from spreading these memes of rationalization around, because the more people they can persuade (at least up to a point -- if they persuade everyone, they kill the business), the more free stuff they'll get, as converts join the effort to scan books or share the commercial PDFs they've bought.

Yeah right! It's actually not good for pirates, because the more exposure, the more people will notice and the more 'enforcement' the scene gets. Only a small group of people actually scan/OCR books, the rest are just leechers. The leechers need the morale approval...

Did you know that this actually started as an effort to get out of print books and brake the ebay traders that asked $100s of dollars for sought after OOPs? The industry reacted way to slow, now they have a full blown pirate outbrake on their hands, serves them right!

I don't know that there is any effective way to stop piracy, but I do see some value in bursting the bubbles of self-delusion that pirates use to feel good about their wrongful behavior. Perhaps all we can do is try and maintain the guilt, and mitigate the damage it does to sales.

As many have already said in this thread, the results are anything but conclusive.

I could even speculate that you where always a very 'pronounced' anti pirate and started this project to proove the pirates are 'wrong', you might even have selected this specific product because it was clear in advance that sales would fall drastically the following year... I could speculate this, but i won't.

A different question though, how did the pdf products go that where for sale?

 

[DaveMage]

"I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so the publisher did not lose any money."

This reasoning is probably true, [see Supply and Demand] though stealing (piracy) is still stealing. Everyone has a price they are willing to pay for a good or service, and if the price is set higher than that, they won't (or can't) buy it.

[As an aside, the RIAA issue is, IMO, slightly different as the RIAA itself doesn't seem to treat the creators of the intellectual property as fairly as it could. This doesn't excuse the piracy going on, but it's very easy to feel no sympathy for the RIAA. /hijack]

If one receives the benefit of a product, (i.e., having a personal copy of a .pdf), IMO, they should pay for it.

Now here's an ethical/legal question for everyone:
If you have purchased a printed version of an RPG, do you have the right to create a .pdf of it for your own use? What if someone gives you a .pdf copy of a book you've already purchased? [For the sake of this argument, presume the .pdf is not available for sale.]

 

[jmucchiello]

Some pirate defenders claim that free downloads of entire books (as you find being shared by pirates) increase sales of paper products, and thus file sharing should not be opposed. By making the download legitimate, I created an experimental microcosm, a world where downloading the file (a complete and high-quality digital copy of the work, not a preview; and free, not a purchasable alternative) was legal, acceptable, and indeed encouraged. My experience is that this does not result in more paper sales. I thus conclude that, if the pirates' argument was generally accepted -- if everyone or even most people felt that it was ethically A-OK to scan RPG books, file share, download whatever they want, etc. -- it would be detrimental to professional RPG producers.

There is still a difference here, John. You made the free download for a book that you are planning to replace. I didn't download the free version because getting my group to change game systems is a losing battle. But even if I had downloaded it and loved it, I wouldn't have bought the current ArsM knowing that version 5 was coming. Baen makes available books that are old and have no chance of being updated. It may be an apples and oranges comparison.

Also, it's not pirate defenders who say this, it's Baen, too. Your experiment only shows that making a book nearing the end of its product cycle available for free download will hurt the remaining print products in the channel.

89% of all Complete Spell Cards customers are from the US. 71% for the free download (Blank Spell Cards), though.

77% of my sales are US across both of my products. So your results aren't as "out of the ordinary" as you might think.