I am no literary critic. I have enjoyed some of Coelho’s novels, although admittedly they are a bit too optimistic for my liking. But this is not a literary blog either, so you know there’s a catch. Paulo Coelho is happy that his work is available online ‘for free’¹

Whether Coelho himself published most of his novels online himself or not is debatable. But as quite a few outlets have reported today, he is both endorsing this method of distribution and openly stating that it has helped him sell more books. Because people are more likely to buy things that they have already read  and enjoyed. I think this confuses content owners to some extent, that people would actually buy their content after they’ve already digested it. But they must know - think of how many different versions of “Collector’s Edition” movies and “Greatest Hits” albums come out!

Slowly we see the artists themselves beginning to let their creations flow freely on the Internet. Certainly they do enjoy the revenue, but many admit they prefer to know that people disseminate their work even if it is by ‘illegal’ means. The poorer acts - those that rely on copycat status to drive some album sales before they fade out - are the ones to really shiver at the news - and doubly so their masters, the MAFIAA.

1. read: pirated, for whatever definition of the term you choose [↩]