On Piracy, Ebooks, and Giving Away Your Book for Free

Beloved author Neil Gaiman discusses why he's not concerned about book piracy, and what happened when he convinced his publisher to give away his book for free.

As long as we've had access to unprecedented amounts of information via the internet, there has been the problem of piracy. Even before ebooks and digital rights management, people were posting and sharing poems, stories, and book chapters on the internet without permission from the author or publisher.

In this quick clip, sci-fi powerhouse Neil Gaiman weighs in with his experience on the issue of piracy, from an author's perspective. After looking at trends in his own book sales, Mr. Gaiman champions the idea that if you give away some of your content for free, consumers will still buy your book--an idea that people have thrown around for years and that has new poignancy due to increasing ebook sales.