Author Sherman Alexie’s Rants On Colbert Against Ebooks, Piracy And ‘Open Source Culture’

On last night’s Colbert Report, author Sherman Alexie spent most of the interview ranting against digital books and how “piracy” was destroying the book business. The whole thing was odd not just because of how uninformed it was, but also because he seemed to contradict himself multiple times. I haven’t read any of Alexie’s books, but if his logic is so twisted, it’s difficult to think that his books are worth reading:

He starts out by insisting that he won’t put his book on the Kindle or any digital book format because he’s afraid of piracy — but that makes no sense at all. By not giving readers what they want, he’s actually encouraging more piracy. There are probably plenty of people actively willing to buy ebook versions of his book, and his response is that because of piracy, he won’t offer it to them. How does this help? Those people now have more incentive to actually go and download an unauthorized copy of the book (and Alexie is fooling himself if he thinks they don’t exist). How can not giving people what they’re asking for and are willing to pay for be a smart business model?

He compares the book business to the music business, saying:

“When the music industry went digital, somewhere between 75 and 95% of music is pirated. Nobody makes money off their music any more. Everything is about live shows now.”

First of all, it wasn’t the industry that went digital. Music went online way before the industry even realized it, and one of the main reasons that the piracy rates are as high as they are (and his numbers are industry figures that aren’t reliable at all) was because the industry held back for so long in giving people what they wanted: which is exactly what Alexie is now doing!

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