Techcrunch is reporting J.K. Rowling’s latest lawsuit, this time against Scribd.com.
Apparently some Scribd users have been uploading illegal copies of Rowling’s works, which is, clearly, not right. Suing Scribd, however, doesn’t seem like the appropriate response, either. DMCA/safe harbor would appear to apply, meaning Rowling should be going after the users who have uploaded the illegal copies, not the provider of the content.
Rowling has every right to take action when others break the law with her works. But from a practical standpoint, what’s the point? Playing whack-a-mole with copyrighted digital content is a huge time and money sink. And if the concern is about lost money, just how many “sales” is Rowling losing because her works are available for free on a website?
My suspicion is that the number of people willing to buy legitimate copies of her works after reading the illegal online versions would outweigh the number of people who, after reading the illegal online versions, would choose not to purchase legitimate copies but who would have purchased legitimate copies anyway.
Put another way, sales come from exposure (if you don’t know it’s for sale, you can’t buy it). Online exposure of content (i.e., advertising) increases net sales. Yes, there will be lots of people who read her works online and never buy a legal copy – but the net increase of legal sales will go up because more people will have had a chance to be exposed to the content.
Rowling is an extreme example; most young writers would love to have the exposure she does, and the Internet is the most wide-reaching, powerful tool for exposing content to the world. Trying to control content under traditional/industrial models where the Internet is concerned is an exercise in futility. Look no further than the music industry (and increasingly the video game industry) for evidence. Their answer was DRM.
DRM is DOA…