An Author Turned Pirate
Jan 25, 2008
Brazilian author Paolo Coehlo, best known for his book "The Alchemist," may be winning friends and influencing people in the international peer-to-peer community following a speech he gave at the Digital, Life Design (DLD) conference in Germany earlier this week.
Coehlo insisted that trying to protect copyrighted content on the Internet is a "lost battle" and admitted to using file-sharing service BitTorrent to share pirated versions of his own works. He even went so far as to create a site called Pirate Coehlo to make it easier for people to find the unauthorized copies. And the plot thickens...it seems that Coehlo pointed to the Pirate site from his personal blog without acknowleding that he was the one behind it.
As a result, he says that sales of his books increased significantly. He also credits the experience with allowing him to connect with readers in ways he hadn't previously been able to, even though he was already offering a number of free downloads via his primary site. He adds that his publishers "don't complain."
A side note: BitTorrent co-founder and president Ashwin Navin will be among the speakers at Tech Policy Summit this March. Despite its reputation for facilitating unauthorized file-sharing, BitTorrent's execs are focused on working with major content owners to use the technology for legal file-sharing.
Tags:
Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent, copyright, File Sharing, p2p
