Mac Slocum, Brian O'Leary
- Document and assess prior work
- Address data quality
- Analyze and share
Findings
Not binary: Piracy is not Good or Bad
Measures must evolve: data based on print sales
Book industry does not appear to parallel other media
P2P threat may be overstated
(*I saw this article today on the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/feb/09/kindle-ipod-books-piracy)
Sample Matrix: 20 variables and many permutations
Random House: An initial look at sales impact
- Free downloads were correllated with but didn't cause sales
- Found that free downloads didn't hurt sales
Mac Slocum: "It's a zero sum game"
If you are concerned about piracy make sure you pay attn. to where it's happening (rapidshare vs torrents)
Avg. results in small sample were 'up'
range of possible outcomes
It looks a little bit like retail sales - the seeds peaking and dropping off.
Surprises in research
number and range of under the radar free exp available for analysis
strong interest among trade pubs
some strongly positive correlations
low volume of p2p incidence
lag time on p2p seeding
Next steps:
Random house:
- Matrix offers 20 possible options and even more permutations
- 16 books covered in this pass but several with only a limited set of data pts
- More promising opportunities to test:
- Young adult
- backlist for series
- Trade nonfiction
Three useful cautions:
- Correlation isn't causality (noisey environments that these exp took place in)
- Larger samples may uncover an existing skew
- what works today may not work as well at some future date
! Rough Cuts research paper coming soon
brian.oleary@magellanmediapartners.com
No comments:
Post a Comment