Piracy in the Go industry.

[daal]

The kickstart model that I've been suggesting could cure this problem. The publisher could calculate the cost of publishing the book with first rate materials, and then announce that if the fans put up enough money, they will publish. If the fans do put up enough money, the publisher prints and distributes. If not, the publisher does not print.
Either way, the publisher does not lose money, and when they do prin, they can use first rate materials. Also, since all copies are spoken for when they roll off the press, the publisher does not have the expense of storing copies.

How does this kickstart model work for (a) new authors that no one has heard of and hence have no trust in; and (b) consumers who put money up for a book that turns out to be lousy?

In the case of a, it's largely by word of mouth. The author presents their idea on the kickstarter website, and then asks their friends, acquaintances and any other potentially interested parties for support, and if the idea is good, they will hopefully spread the word. Similar to what Gabriel is doing with Kaya, the author can offer supporters some sort of recognition, such as a signed copy. In the case of a go book, the author would naturally have the opportunity of being able to present the concept here on L19 to a presumably interested audience.

If the book or project turns out to be lousy, thems the breaks. I've bought books that I ended up not liking written by professional go players.

[jts]

How does this kickstart model work for (a) new authors that no one has heard of and hence have no trust in; and (b) consumers who put money up for a book that turns out to be lousy?

The same dilemma currently exists, it's just the publishers who eat the losses for a miserable book rather than the community at large. (Although perhaps the consumers still eat the loss for a book that turns out to be physically lousy.) I suppose a publisher or editor gets to see a draft of a book before approving any payments, but I'm sure the same thing could be arranged on Kickstart.

[tapir]

Sorry for the on-topic post Slate and Shell publishers were criticized in an earlier post for the quality of their physical books. I agree that it is not luxurious and falls far below the quality of the old Ishi Press and Kiseido books. But Slate and Shell operates on a shoestring; new books can't be published until older books have sold enough copies to pay off their expenses and provide monetary support for the new books. Keeping costs down by using just a basic quality book allows the publication of more books. Besides, the quality of S & S books is not all that bad.

I have no doubt that piracy makes it harder for S & S to publish new go books. I think it hurts Kiseido, too.

Afair there was at least one Slate and Shell book with a typo on the cover. The font used hurts the eye and they obviously typed it in a small size and enlarged it without any smoothing leading to the edgy pixelised text. This isn't about money and production cost but about attention. Most important of all, if you don't have an appropriate picture, no picture at all might be the better design than an unsuited one. You can make a design which will be remembered by amazingly easy means, in Germany there is e.g. C.F.Peters (music) or Merve (nowadays postmodern talking points) that have a different but rather simple cover design without pictures at all. You instantly know what you have once you see the cover. Or take Hinoki Press (go books) I don't understand the pictures most of the time but the odd bars over the book make me instantly feel I have a go book by them in my hands, so I like that even if I am not thrilled by the particular design. I mean tchan should say something about it, I believe many people buy books to put them on their bookshelves, then how they look and feel is important too, especially if this is something a careless xerox copy or a pdf doesn't give you. (Though the professional pirate reprints on good paper which are made by some big book distributors and sold in-house are a different topic, which is rather political and which we don't want to discuss here as it is not relevant to english go books.)

[topazg]

I'll open by admitting that I pirate games, music, and books. Plucking figures out of the air that I would suspect are accurate to about +/- 20% or so, I'd say I've purchased about 70% of the material I have pirated. Of this, I would have played, listened to or read close to none of it without the availability of the illegitimate sources.

Often I'll see something and think "hmmm, interesting, I wonder if it's any good", and there's no way of finding it out easily for me (worth while game demos, or good quantities of music previews are generally unavailable). So I use other sources to see if I consider it worth purchasing, and do so if I do, and delete it if I don't. No one is losing out here, as if those sources weren't available, I still wouldn't be buying the material. I greatly value the ability to preview things in helping make my purchasing decisions. In some cases, such as the video game "Humble Indie Bundle"s and Radiohead's "pay what you want" album, I've paid money simply to support independent creative development on principle, even when I'm not necessarily interested in the product itself.

Robert Jasiek's joseki book is an excellent example of when I haven't pirated something, because he's actually put some material up there for my perusal (and, as Amazon does this for books too, I very rarely have any reason to consider pirating books). I'd actually have preferred around twice as much material to be available so that I could more easily get a better feel for it, but the existing material Robert has put up has put it on my wishlist for some point when I return to the Go world properly.

I've been fairly active before in the PC Gaming piracy community (primarily involving rights and law discussions), and I very strongly suspect that this community represents more customers and sales for the PC Gaming market as a whole than those who have nothing to do with piracy. This isn't just anecdotal, it's supported by a fair amount of published literature:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opini ... of-reason/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201107 ... dopi.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201107 ... stry.shtml

This may or may not carry over to music or books (although from my personal experience I suspect it might for the former), but I think saying "pirates are bad, mmmk? If piracy wasn't possible, the book / game / music market would do better, mmmk?" benefits no-one, and simply polarises an argument that would benefit more from a mutual understanding of sides. Of course, some pirates will simply grab all they can get for free (particularly the younger ones, in my experience), but I don't believe anyone has a set of data complete enough to know whether digital availability has a net positive or negative effect on the artists' incomes.

I personally think the Go book market isn't very good because Go itself is a fundamentally very niche market. When I started OGS, I harboured vague hopes that I'd be able to make a fair amount of money running an online Go server, just like a number of people manage to do running online Chess servers. Ha-de-ha, how naive I was. The reality is, not many people play Go in the west, and even less regularly read Go books, particularly ones like John's.

Now, before I get hammered into the floor for undue criticism of John's literature, my statement wasn't intended as one. The depth, flavour, and background provided in John's books makes for absolutely riveting reading to someone with my preferences in Go, but we steadily live in a more and more instant society, and I can promise they'd sell much better if they were called "how to get really good at Go in 50 pages". He hits a niche part of the Go-book-buying market in a way that I don't believe any English Go author has before him, and I believe the Western community is a richer place because of it - I wish more people valued such contributions, as I think they are undeniably valuable, but the truth is only a minority of people play Go, and only a minority of those both enjoy the cultural and historical aspects of the game. Even then, I suspect only a subset of these have the money and willingness to spend money on deep and thorough Go books that are not likely to improve their actual skill at the game.

I also greatly enjoy philosophy, sociology, and theology. One author I enjoy is Bart D Ehrman, but how many people here have even heard of him, despite being a reasonably well known and respected author on the history of Christianity (from the precise semantics of language and the deliberate misinterpretations of texts over the centuries to the regional politics and power-mongering, he discusses in great depth theories of why and how Christianity has ended up in its current form)? Niche markets just don't make a lot of money sadly, regardless of the dedication, knowledge and wisdom of their primary protagonists.

I'll end by saying that you'll definitely be missed John. I have found almost every post you've written on here to be thoroughly worth reading all the way through (and, as some of them were pretty long, that says a lot on an online forum).

[mohsart]

I wonder how many out there actually know anything except for how they themselves funcion; or have read an article about, say, how Monty Python boosted their sales by making their videos available for free...

From memory, when talking to two friends about how pirates are affecting their businesses:

Example 1: A comics store specialized at manga.
Sales keep dropping and the main reason is that new volumes of popular manga series gets translated by fans and put on the web weeks before the printed books reach the store.
Solution: Get official traslation as fast as or faster than the fans and offer e.g. a subscription option so the customers can buy a legal version fast, cheap, and easy.
Also selling at conventions works pretty good.

Example 2: A small punk rock record company.
Sales have been dropping radically for the last years, it is easy to see that the pirating is the (main) reason since some records have sold pretty much the same each year for 10 or more years and are now barely selling at all.
However, since we started selling digital versions sales have started to pick up again. We will most likely stop selling CDs etc very soon.

I'd say that pirate copying is indeed a big problem for many companies/artists, but that there are also examples where the availability of pirate copies actually increase the sales, at least in a slightly longer run.

Music, films, and computer programs are of course "easier" to copy, or I should say are possible to make a exact copy of, which makes those businesses suffer more from the effects (positive and/or negative) than books.
But with tablets, better computer monitors, and modern phones, books are starting to get affected too.

I don't know how, but I'm pretty sure the only way for the companies/artists now is to search for new ways. E.g. legal electronic copies, de luxe versions, Kickbox or whatever.

Two more things:
- A niched field, such as go books (or the punk rock record company mentioned above), could get hit really hard since the average person who finds a pirate copy with material won't care, so no new sales there; while the potential customers that are interested already knows about the material available.
- I think that the pack of pirated go books affect the sales of books not included in the pack too.
I hear many people saying (and I am a bit like that myself) that they don't want to buy any more books "right now" because they have so many unread ones.
But there are possibly also people who won't buy any of the pirated books but instead will buy e.g. one by John Fairbairn, so this is not so easy to say much about.

/Mats

[Fedya]

but we steadily live in a more and more instant society, and I can promise they'd sell much better if they were called "how to get really good at Go in 50 pages".

Just for the fun of it, I pulled my copy of Alfred Sheinwold's 5 Weeks to Winning Bridge off the shelf. This quick-help book has an original copyright date of 1959.

It hasn't made me a particularly good bridge player, however.

[hyperpape]

Example 2: A small punk rock record company.
Sales have been dropping radically for the last years, it is easy to see that the pirating is the (main) reason since some records have sold pretty much the same each year for 10 or more years and are now barely selling at all.
However, since we started selling digital versions sales have started to pick up again. We will most likely stop selling CDs etc very soon.

When did they put digital versions up for sale? Over the past decade, many people have stopped buying CDs in favor of buying music via iTunes or Amazon.

[jts]

I'll end by saying that you'll definitely be missed John. I have found almost every post you've written on here to be thoroughly worth reading all the way through (and, as some of them were pretty long, that says a lot on an online forum).

You've been missed. I've got to say, though, you're not very good at this "lurking" business.

[RobertJasiek]

you [are] the very epitome of endless meta-discussing

JFTR, I disagree.

[CnP]

I have no doubt that piracy makes it harder for S & S to publish new go books.

Perhaps it's possible to pirate S & S books but as an average person, a casual internet user for 15 years, I was unable to find illegal copies of "Fundamental principles of Go" or "Monkey jump workshop", which have been around for a while. - for research purposes you understand, I already own them. Whether sales of the latest books are hurt by illegal copies of books Kiseido mainly inherited from Ishi press a couple of decades ago I don't know.

I personally think the Go book market isn't very good because Go itself is a fundamentally very niche market. ... The reality is, not many people play Go in the west, and even less regularly read Go books, particularly ones like John's.

As someone who buys a lot of Go books I've not felt that John's books were ones I 'needed' to buy to help my game and IMO you're right it's a niche of a niche, of a niche.

I'd be interested to hear otherwise but I doubt anyone has done an analysis of money spent on Go books in total. I.e. total sales income from Kiseido, Slate and shell and Yutopian books* (net/gross, whatever), factoring in changing population of Go players (- not club membership but, say, KGS accounts** - which wouldn't have a 1:1 relationship to players but I would be willing to assume that the relationship between number of players and number of accounts remains fairly constant in time). Clearly if there are more books out there and the amount of money people spend on Go books remains constant the sales of any one book may see a decline. Plus, perhaps some people haven't noticed but the global economy is not in a very good condition right now and Go books are firmly in the luxury category. If you put Go book numbers (i.e. number of different books) supported by the community on the spectrum between Shogi and International Chess it doesn't seem that Go is doing too badly but I would hypothesise that there is a limit to the number of books and from the discontent expressed by JF who says it is more widespread, perhaps we have reached the carrying capacity of the community.

*ignoring smaller publishers and Chinese books imported, as these factors would probably be lost in the error bars.

** I would say this was a better indicator for the last 5-10 years anyway.

[Solomon]

I figure I should reveal something about my own piracy habits. For me, I've always been more of a fan of finding music and videos on streaming sites than by downloading to my computer. I can list many franchises I became a customer of after starting off with unauthorized copies, and which I never would have bought their products at all if it weren't for those copies.

Fullmetal Alchemist - I watched the first half of this show online, and bought DVD box sets for the second half because I liked it so much. I later got my sister into this show, and she's watched the entire series on streaming websites at least 4 times. As a result of her fandom, she now owns around ten books of the manga, and my brother and I own a few of the books as well. She finished the manga online because the publisher was too slow getting the later installments published over here, but even after reading the entire thing online she bought a couple more books.

Pokemon - I watched a lot of the Advanced Generation anime on streaming sites, and because I was a fan I would occasionally buy DVDs containing a few episodes that were coming up so I could watch them in higher quality and also show my support for the franchise. I own about 8 DVDs, but I'm at my parents' house for the weekend and can't check the exact number. All this goes without mentioning how being a fan of the anime made me a virtual lock to buy Pokemon Pearl when it came out.

Looking at my own life, my piracy has definitely lead me to spend more on media then I likely would have otherwise. Obviously you need some actual studies before making firm conclusions about the effects of piracy on sales, but from looking at my own life it doesn't seem like a ridiculous notion that piracy can lead to increased exposure and thus increased sales.

It's unfortunate that the scientific paper is in Japanese, but nonetheless: http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/ ... 10021.html

[Solomon]

Also, regarding my own views on the matter: Piracy is something that can't be stopped with the given technology today and business models have to work with it, not fight against it. DRM and lecturing people on how piracy is bad and sending pirates on a guilt trip is a waste of time and effort. Look at Crunchyroll. Spotify. Steam. If it's convenient and reasonably priced, you can take my money.

[kirkmc]

As Topazg pointed out, John's books are a niche in a niche market. They're great; entertaining, well written, and full of interesting information, but most go players aren't interested in what he has to offer. Problem books most likely sell better.

(An aside: I've heard of Bart Ehrman, but never read him. But he's had several books that sold quite well, so he's not exactly a niche author.)

Regarding mohsart's two examples. Comics store, yes; probably affected. Punk rock label; I think that's hit or miss. If it were a punk rock record store, then I'd think it's more of a valid example, but people may not be buying the music simply because it's not very good. (Not a value judgement, having been a punk back in the day, but music is not always of the same quality over time.)

[John Fairbairn]

I don't think this is a "contribution" (of my type), so I'm not breaching my intentions, but it's been interesting to see that once the dam broke the piracy confessions have flooded out, which makes me even happier that I've decided to drop out. The pirates think they've lost nothing, but at least they've lost my contributions, whatever they were worth.

More than a few of the flood of posts show what is wrong with L19. The thread started unintentionally with a throw-away remark by me, but picked up by someone else, that it "looks like the pirates have won". It has since been turned into an assumption that I wrote some sort of essay on piracy, and then into an assumption that I was beefing about sales of my own books.

Some of us (not the pirates, obviously) can take a stand on principles alone. I was told that my Kamakura was the best/fastest selling S&S book ever, and it was reprinted after just about a year. The other books have come close. Even if they hadn't done well enough, I'm retired and don't depend on go money in any way. So it is not about me or my piggy bank. But at the same time I hear strong suggestions that three go publishers may never publish another paper book and that even some Oriental go publishers have gone bankrupt. The change to digital may seem like an option, and over time it may be, but at the moment it is just too small a market to attract new authors or translators so most of the market will have to be the smaller one of reprints of paper books. I have therefore been speaking up on behalf of a beleaguered industry which I happen to believe is essential for the good of go as a whole, simply because it is a niche game. Its communicators need to be nurtured. The success of go in the 20th century was not down to Honinbo Shusai, Go Seigen or Yi Ch'ang-ho. It was down almost entirely to the journalists and publishers who wrote about go for a mass audience and tailor made the products by which they could communicate. It was no whim that I dedicated one of my books to the Fukumenshis.

(I will now leave this thread for good.)

[mohsart]

Punk rock label; I think that's hit or miss. If it were a punk rock record store, then I'd think it's more of a valid example, but people may not be buying the music simply because it's not very good. (Not a value judgement, having been a punk back in the day, but music is not always of the same quality over time.)

It IS possible that records that has sold very well year after year suddenly has become less popular, and that bands that draws the same amount of audience gig after gig suddenly cannot sell records any more.
Somehow I doubt it though, and that the drop in sales started when piracy did, and accellerated when piracy became easier seems like more than a coincidence.
Also, keep in mind that a small record company like that don't get their records distributed as easy as larger companies, so they sell "much" directly to the customers via mail order and at concerts.

I don't have any information about when they started selling downloads, and it's really not valid to what I was trying to say.

/Mats