Ebook piracy?
The ebook piracy thing. What do you think? Is it completely unforgivable, or are there certain exceptions to the rule? Feel free to expand on the question.
It’s a more complex issue than it seems at first glance. A number of authors believe the populatiry of their pirate ebooks is partially responsible for their success. Paulo Coelho even started a website (Pirate Coelho) to distribute his ebooks, believing that it was a good way to promote his work.
One publisher in particular (Baen) likes their authors to make one book available for free, in the hope that people will read the first book in a series online and buy the others.
There’s an ongoing debate about whether the author and publisher lose money (assuming people will buy the book if they can’t steal it) or not (assuming they wouldn’t buy it anyway).
And finally, the real losers in this debate. Textbooks. Who’s going to buy a textbook if it’s available free?
So… comments?
Well, I think it’s totally wrong.* Sure most people on the net have gotten something illegally at one time or another. But as a general practice I think ebook piracy is rather low.
First, it’s incredibly disrespectful. I know a few authors, and I know how hard they’ve worked to write their books and get them published. Reading pirated books disregards their hard work. I don’t understand how someone can say they LOVE an author and yet rip them off. Even for authors that make tons of money – it’s not one person’s place to decide that author has made enough money and doesn’t need the proceeds from one more book.
Secondly, it’s illegal. Even if the author is ok with it, unless they have permission from their publishing company, it’s still illegal :/
To be honest though, I’m less set against it if the author is ok with it. It’s really the disrespect issue that gets me the most angry.
I came across a blog the other day on which the blog owner was offering several popular series of books for download. People who visited the blog were leaving comments lauding his “awesomeness” and saying how generous he was. I got so angry – heck he didn’t do any of the hard work like writing the books, he just put up links to them.
He was reported to several of the publishing companies by myself and an author I am acquainted with and a day later Harper Collins made him delete the e-books from the site.
Beyond his disrespect, his stupidity irritated me. Sure people do illegal things on the net, but good lord, the idiots that advertise themselves are so stupid. Why not wave a big red flag that says “I’m breaking the law!” ?
In regards to people who are too financially strained to purchase books – there are libraries, and there are tons of excellent books on Project Gutenberg. There is never any NEED to get pirated books.
As for publicity. I don’t think it’s up to book pirates to decide how an author gets their publicity. Saying that one is helping an author to become more well known is no excuse for breaking the law. If an author or publisher wants to offer the books for free as a publicity measure that’s their business.
Maybe they don’t lose money from it – but if they don’t want their books mass distributed on the net for free we should respect that.
*As a side note: Not to say this is ok or legal, but personally I don’t have a problem with trading e-books among personal friends as long as the original ebook was gotten legally. It seems to me to be the same as if I just let my friend borrow the book. Putting the books up for download on a public site, however, is totally wrong.
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