Physicist and tech blogger Eric Hellman has an annoying habit of knocking his knuckles on assumptions to see if they are hollow.  In a blog recently posted on his go to hellman website (See Attributor eBook Piracy Numbers Don’t Add Up) he tapped his knuckles on a statement made by Attributor, a leading company in the field of monitoring unauthorized use of copyrighted material, and he didn’t like the sound it made.

We wrote up Attributor a while back (See Attributor Badge Proclaims Your E-Book is Kosher) and reprinted its assertion that “Daily demand for pirated e-books can be estimated at 1.5-3 million people worldwide.”   Our guts told us it sounded right.  It sounded credible.

But Hellman begged to differ. He begged to differ by 90%.  Relying on Google Trends, AdWords  and keyword search data plus analysis of some other metrics, Hellmann said he considered “…the truth to be about 10% of the number they claim.”

“All in all,” he wrote, “I estimate that about 210,000 searches made on Google per day represent possible interest in pirated ebooks. About 30,000 of these come from the US. The ‘real’ number for all countries could be as high as 300,000 or as low as 100,000. The 1.5-3 million numbers reported by Attributor are not within the range of plausibility.”

When Attibutor stood by its original figures Hellman crunched the numbers again and produced a second article entitled Consumer Interest in Pirated eBooks is Even Lower Than I Thought. We asked Attributor CEO Jim Pitkow to comment and he wrote us as follows:

“Our study’s rigorous methodology ensured highly accurate results that align with actual consumer behavior. We analyzed 89 titles, using multiple keyword permutations per title, across different days of the week, with very high bids to ensure placement – each of which is fundamental in guaranteeing accuracy and legitimacy. Each of these variables impact the findings, and analyzing all variables together produce highly accurate results. We stand by our research, and we’re confident that the study addresses an accurate portrayal of the consumer demand for pirated e-books.”

So now what?

Hellman’s arguments are compelling and for all we know he is technically correct. But they don’t take into account the less quantifiable but devastating damage wreaked by piracy: the culture of entitlement, the climate of outlawry, the institutionalization of copyright ignorance and disrespect, the bleeding of profits, and the toll that piracy exacts on the incentive of artists and musicians and writers to create and sell their work. There is also a leverage factor to be considered: one successful customer search for a torrent pirate site can yield a trove of thousands of stolen e-books such as the one we displayed recently (See A Bootleg E-Book Bazaar Operates in Plain Sight).

So, even if one is willing to grant that Attributor based its claim on ambiguous stats, we still believe with bedrock certainty that piracy represents the Number One threat to the success of the digital book industry. You can knock your knuckles on that one until they bleed, we won’t change our minds. Nor do Hellman’s cogently reasoned arguments mitigate our support for Attributor’s goals and activities on behalf of aggrieved copyright owners.

For in-depth coverage of piracy visit our Pirate Central page regularly.

Richard Curtis