His post: http://piratebay.org
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/01/28/promo-bay/

Proves once again "piracy"(as in their false term) is not what media propagates.

it's an interesting approach, but it hardly proves anything. it's an experiment.

i'd like to fast-forward to 5 years from now and see how it went for him...

the trouble with piracy/theft of IP are not the people that end up buying the product. it's the people that would be interested enough to purchase but refuse since it's so easy for them to steal.

Well, he's only saying that the possibility to spread his work 'for free' all over the world via the Internet and to thereby allow a much larger number of people to sample and get to know it is also increasing the potential number of people who would pay for it in the end.

He doesn't necessarily believe that a large number of pirates will actually buy his books, he's just focussing on the actual sales instead of the virtual ones and prefers to see the promotional advantage in filesharing instead of lamenting all the time. In that regard, if it leads to only three more people buying his stuff compared to before, that's still three more sales than before and a bit more money for him, at no promotional costs, and if it works out this way it doesn't really matter how many people are reading without paying. Which I think is a sensible approach, provided it works (and he states that it does work for him).

It's like he always said:
"The light that shines through you is called freedom, and as the eagle soars, so does your sou-OH MY GOD BEEEEES!" - Paulo Coelho

Needless to say, I can't stomach his faux-mysticism-filled books. Seems like a decent enough guy though.

No need to fast-forward. This is not something new for him it seems. So you can look back and see that it worked. Here:

Who the <redacted> is Paul Coelhohohohahaha?

Never heard of him either, but I hope it works out for him.

That's the point. Nobody had ever heard of him until his work started being spread around for free. Now he seems to have a devoted shar or followers. I think this is well beyond an experiment by now. Wolfire Games has been doing something very similar with the Humble Bundles - leaving them wide open to abuse and theft - and yet, despite all of the piracy and losses on certain purchases, they still managed to rake in $2 million in the last bundle.

Yes, it is irritating that people who might have otherwise bought it will pirate it instead, but this group is almost certainly a minority. Intention alone is not sufficient to assert that a sale will have been made. The person might not have been financially capable of paying for the product; the interest in the product might be there, but this interest may well dissipate depending on the product price, the conditions attached (DRM and so on); the product may not even be available in the region.

I, for example, have an illegal copy of Parasite Eve 1 for the PS1 on my PC. There, I've openly admitted it. We in Europe have been denied the opportunity to buy this game for the past decade and a half. There is no way of playing a legal copy on my PS3, as the US version is region-locked. Therefore, Sony/Square Enix have not lost a sale from me, because they have provided me with no opportunity to buy. Should they release it on PSN in the future, I may consider buying it, even though I generally only buy disc games.

Another example: A friend of mine who is perpetually unemployed had been pirating games for years. I did warn him that he would eventually be caught, and indeed he was. He had to pay a rather large amount - which he borrowed, of course - and sign a sworn declaration that he would not download unlicensed software any more. Fine, and what does the industry have of it? He sold his gaming PC, got himself a cheap netbook with the proceeds and stopped gaming altogether. Not out of any desire to be defiant, but simply because he has no need of the games PC when he has hardly any games to play on it. He used to buy one or two budget titles a year when he could afford it (the machine was a bit on the older side anyway) and now the industry doesn't even have that from him.

The only possible outcome for the industry with their "war against piracy" is a pyrrhic victory. They will probably eventually succeed in eradicating piracy with more and more draconian measures, but not before they kill the market in doing so.

Wow wow wow? You are really not into literature, aren't you?

He is the most read Latin American author after Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His famous book is "The Alchemist". This book translated to 26 languages, published in 42 different countries. He is one of the most known modern novelists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho

fair enough. of course, if a game is not legally available to you and you decide to pirate it, the publisher doesn't loose anything.

the problem is when a game is easily available for everyone, fairly priced, even DRM-free, and still gets pirated more than it gets bought. The Witcher 2 comes to mind. it sold rougly 1.3mil copies, and that's a good number. but it was also pirated 4 times that number, which is, supposedly, a success.

am i to believe that of the 4-5 million pirates only a marginal number would have been ready to pay if they couldn't have stolen it that easily? i don't think so. 1) before pirating you'd need to know about the game and about the way to download, so you're already an insider. 2) you'd have to download a substantial package of data in the 14GB range. most people wouldn't do that for only a passing interest in the game. 3) the game was available in both a physical and a digital edition, DRM-free and fairly priced (at least on GoG.com). 4) if you have the kind of internet connection that makes a 14GB feasible, you're not some poor schmuck that couldn't afford the game.

i am convinced that a large number of those 4-5mil who pirated TW2 would have (eventually) bought the game if it hadn't been so easy and without consequences to steal it.

False. The writer is known "very" well. Even i know this man since 6th grade and i don't read that much book.

AFAIK, Coehlo is (was?) not that well known in English speaking countries.

He's extremely popular in Poland, though.

Well, unless he's in the genres of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Thriller (technological á la Clancy/Brown et al), or does Non-Fiction in very strict areas - Roman/Mesopotamian, WW2 history, astronomy and related sciences, then I'm most probably not interested in him at all.

The days where I'd read anything, just for reading's sake are LONG gone.

EDIT : The last Latin American I read was in the 1990s. Early 1990s. Isabel Allende. BORING!

mininova did (does) the same thing for quite some time now, ask around how did that work out...

I don't agree with you.

- Because, you can not do anything forcibly to humans. If a human is one of the types that hate to pay for something then you can not 'force' him to do. He will always chose to pirate. Even the original is very cheap. And if he can not pirate he will either play somewhere else or go and change his hobby. These kind of people doesn't respect any kind of labor or hard-work. Whatever you do you can not change this. Go and watch some "A Clockwork Orange".

-Of course you can think around the otherside of the opinion above. People always pay will always pay. Or will pay if they money.

-If people won't buy the game anyway playing the game as pirated won't harm anyone. There are so many people broke or can not afford games. By letting them playing your game you are promoting your brand, title etc. And when these people start to earn money beyond their basic needs they will remember your product and buy it(the old titles and the new ones). And if they don't buy. Nothing changes. The couldn't afford the game anyway.

-Think this. If i bought a book i can share it with my friend. I can give to my family to read. I can give it to my girlfriend. And then? I am a pirate??? Outrageous. Share a game with someone you like and you are criminal, very bad person, go to prison, pay us huge amounts of money! Is this seems logical?? Definitely no.

- Let's talk about internet. This kind of internet connection let's say for my country "Max 8mbit" means you can not have everytime 8mbit but maybe you will. With this kind of connection you can download over 500 gb (or maybe much more) data in a month. And the price? Price is about $25 dolar. They don't need to be rich. They can download much much more for just a price of one game. Plus the internet.