Is it possible for non-creators to truly value creative work?
This post by Christopher Penn about people pirating books because they feel they’re too expensive gave me serious déjà vu. It made me think about the attitudes that were pervasive during Napster’s heyday.
Do you get déjà vu?
When suddenly given the option to steal music rather than pay for it, lots of people decided music was too expensive. Music piracy was so pervasive at the beginning of the new millennium, it threatened the entire music industry. Ultimately, it resulted in lawsuits not only against Napster and its creator Shawn Fanning, but against the most egregious individual Napster users, too.
The longer term impact of Napster is that it fueled the transition to digital music sales, where people could buy individual tracks instead of full albums for the first time. And that led to streaming. Both of those moves had huge negative impacts on music sales.
The music industry’s revenues have fallen in half since its peak a quarter century ago when CD albums drove demand. And if you adjust for inflation, that fall looks even worse. Thankfully, live performances and tours allow musicians to still make money, since they now make very little on music sales and royalties.
For those folks who thought piracy was a way to stick it to music labels, they succeeded. But the collateral damage to artists was also high.
‘Not our problem to pay absurd prices’
While the US book publishing industry has fared better than the music industry over the past two decades, it has still shrunk significantly when inflation is accounted for. During that time, the percentage of adults who read for pleasure has fallen, and even fewer read to their children.
Meanwhile, the publishing industry has become very fragile. We learned during the Penguin Random House antitrust trial that only 35% of its books are profitable, with just 4% accounting for the majority of profits.
At the same time, self-publishing has exploded. Since 2023, the majority of Kindle’s Top 400 books have been self-published. That means for those people who steal digital books because they fancy themselves literary Robin Hoods, they’re just as likely to be stealing from indie authors—who make less than $13,000 a year from their writing.
My self-published nonfiction books are pirated all the time, which is super frustrating. It makes you feel powerless.
And, of course, in the age of AI, book piracy has reached new heights.
Why is it okay to steal creative work?
On the one hand, whether we’re talking about AI companies or individuals who pirate books or music or art, they clearly see it as desirable—perhaps even essential. Otherwise, why would they steal it?
But on the other hand, they see it as unreasonably expensive. I wish more people appreciated just how much time and effort goes into creating a book. In that post by Christopher Penn, he mentions it generally takes 6 to 9 months to write a book. On average, that’s probably about right for nonfiction. But it can take much, much longer, especially for fiction—and that doesn’t count the time the author spent learning the trade, or the time of developmental editors or copy editors, or the time given by beta readers, or the often years spent thinking and planning a book. Plus, most authors only make a buck or two on every book sold. Through that lens, books are cheap.
When I think of things that are unreasonably expensive, I think of car repairs, Uber fares during peak times, and any event ticket sold on the secondary market. I’m sure many people feel the same. But they don’t steal those things, because they can’t.
That seems to be the fundamental reason that creative works get stolen. It’s not that they’re unreasonably expensive; it’s that they’re simply much easier to steal than other things. That not only sucks for creators, but for anyone who wants creators to be able to afford to make more great things.
Related posts:
‘What Do You Do and What Do You Make?’: Author with One NYT Bestseller
Why I self-published my nonfiction books
Book review: ‘The Business of Being a Writer’ by Jane Friedman
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