The Knockoff Economy at Zocalo in L.A.

Great writeup of Kal’s talk at Zocalo in Los Angeles. Especially great is the article’s recounting of a question from an audience member, who said that he’d found that pirated copies of The Knockoff Economy were already available on BitTorrent.  Kal’s response was perfect:

“[I]t’s good that [the] book is available for an illegal download. I think copies are often fantastic advertisements. And even if some people download the book illegally, as long as you price things well, and iTunes illustrates this beautifully, people will go with the legal version.”

Exactly. And I would add that nobody will bother to pirate a book that nobody wants. To see The Knockoff Economy up on BitTorrent so quickly reassures me that we’ve written a book that people actually want to read. Which, at least for me, is the real reward.