A “Free” Harry Potter eBook?
The profession of an artist or an author is one in which you earn money by selling copies of the content you create. There’s no intrinsic cost associated with copying or distribution, however the original artist or author deserves remuneration in proportion to the popularity of his or her work. Now the question is, can the original content creators be rewarded for their work if the content they produce is freely and legally copied and distributed by the consumers?
Let’s imagine for a moment a scenario involving the release of yet another Harry Potter novel (I know the series is over but it wouldn’t be the first time an author’s added to an existing popular franchise). However this time, there’s no copyright protection law to prevent the novel from being distributed online. Now the novel loses all it’s value as a saleable product if it’s posted online. However nobody gets the novel unless J.K.Rowling releases the first copy of the same. Now, in my opinion, Madame Rowling is in the advantageous position – she can effectively “demand” an online payment to her account from anybody interested in reading the novel before she distributes that first copy. Everybody who’s paying needn’t pay the same amount, in fact people who aren’t eager to read the novel wouldn’t pay at all. However Rowling can withhold the first copy till she’s satisfied with the amount she’s collected. Effectively Madame Rowling would be bargaining from an advantageous position with the entire world on the other side of the counter. Once an agreement is reached (either the amount collected proves to be sufficient or it becomes clear from the cash flow that nobody else is interested in paying) the ebook would be released on the internet/mailed to the contributors. The public pays for the book to be brought into the public sphere.
The above idea may seem unrealistic; also it’s not quite clear how amenable authors would be to such a concept. One of the arguments against such a “business model” would be that the amount collected online would only be significant for popular authors like Rowling. Well, to quote Cory Doctorow (who was himself quoting Tim O’Reilly) –
“For me — for pretty much every writer — the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity”
“Obscure” authors, in the absence of a patron, would have to publish their first book or at least snippets of their first book for free. To put that in perspective, people would pay to read your book only if you’re a popular writer or if they like the snippets you release for free.
Another “problem” with free distribution is that it would mean the end of royalties directly derived from the continued popularity of your book, although secondary earnings would still be possible via lectures and other real life and online events. For the most part, in the absence of intellectual property protection laws the only payment which the author would be assured of would be the payment for intellectual property generation.
It can be argued that restricting access to content meant for public consumption is, technically speaking, impossible and that the current status quo of erecting legal and technological barriers to prevent the copying and online distribution of media is clearly not sustainable. If that is the case then content generators will have to eventually accept practices and business models such as requesting a distributed onetime payment for the release of content onto the public sphere. The only subsequent claim of the creator on the content would be the right to be credited for the same…
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Looking forward to views and comments.
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With a few modification, this model could work very well for unknown authors too, e.g. by releasing books chapter-wise: Rowling is paid a substantial amount for every chapter; the unknown give one or several chapters away for free, and charge for the remaining; those in between have a strategy equally in between.
A potential problem is that greedy or reader-unfriendly authors (let alone publishers, if they are not abandonded) could charge disproportionate prices for cliff-hanger chapters, without giving any kind of quality or value guarantee.
Above all, as I hint above, the main problem with the situation today is the middle-men, who often earn more money than the creators and do their worst to paint every user/reader/viewer as an evil criminal mastermind. Distribution networks like last.FM are more promising.
I think that’s a totally brilliant idea, with a lot of potential, and probably something similar will be implemented in future, considering the present state of affairs.
Though I do have one problem, I would never, ever read anything as an ebook. That’s just not a book. I need a book in my hands, need to smell it, need to turn the pages, need to admire the covers, need to fall asleep with it in my hands…
So, people like me, I guess, would protest against such ideas, unless there was like a balance where both real and virtual copies of the book could be available. But in that case, I don’t know how the model could work.
@ aayushi – thanks for the comment
“I need a book in my hands, need to smell it, need to turn the pages, need to admire the covers, need to fall asleep with it in my hands…”
really made me smile – please check out -
http://anubhavb.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/the-love-of-books/
Real books would never really die out… However the perspective I’ve proposed in my article might help authors accept free sharing of their books online…
@ Michael –
“A potential problem is that greedy or reader-unfriendly authors (let alone publishers, if they are not abandonded) could charge disproportionate prices for cliff-hanger chapters, without giving any kind of quality or value guarantee.”
I see that happening anyway – with a number of series – whether such strategies are justifiable is a totally different question…
Thanks for the comment…
Well such a business model may not be very far away from its implementation..However in my opinion, if such a strategy is put into practice…bookshelves will be rendered obselete!! The love for books will eventually die out!! All said and done..such practices must be avoided!!
@ Sirisha – What are bookshelves? They are collections of books used to display the books you own or the books you have read. Ownership would be be meaningless if ebooks become free (and I feel that’s a good thing) but people would still be interested in showing off the books they have read. Real life bookshelves would be replaced by virtual book shelves online (Check out Shelfari to see what I mean…)
Real life books and bookshelves would tend to become collector’s items. There would still be people who would love, appreciate and collect books…
There are some such allternative business models being tried by authors. One where the author charges for downloads, till he reaches a certain limit (say $200,000) and then, the book becomes “free”, or alternatively the price of a book is a function of time/demand. These are still rudimentary experiments and it will take some time before clear solutions emerge. But it will happen and the publishing industry will undergo a revolution.
@Aayushi — Nicely put… I have to agree with you
But I think we would be the last generation to feel that way, now that low cost mobile devices (smartphones/tablets/laptops) are becoming easily accessible to kids.