“Piracy” here is used in the context of books and all sorts of manuscripts.
r/books have three main arguments against it:
- It is technically theft
- It damages the author’s job and income (as well as the publisher, illustrator…etc.)
- Why go through the tedious path of pirating books when you can borrow the books from a library legally and for free.
What’s your reply to those arguments? Are they satisfactory?
Nothing to say about the last two arguments, but this:
- It is technically theft
…is just bullshit. Theft is illegaly taking a property or service from a person with the intent of depriving them of it. When you’re pirating, you’re essentially making a copy for yourself. In doing so, you’re not taking the original book, nor are you depriving the original owner of said book.
“Piracy is theft” is just some heavily regurgitated nonsense from the early 2000s that has been debunked many times over. It needs to die, because it is just objectively not true.
Not to mention that people that pirate that material are still going to talk about it, so even though they’re loosing one sale to piracy they may be getting an extra 10 sales through word of mouth.
Haha I knew this statement would generate furious reactions. But yes what you said is true and is the general consensus.
Well, release your god damn books DRM -free with localized prices on some service along the likes of Bandcamp.
It’s pure, it’s easy and God damn fair for both parties.
Yes, libraries are great.
Piracy is cool and good.
If I can’t get a DRM free (as in no restrictions which devices/apps can open the file) epub file of your book, I ain’t buying it. I will not spend money purchasing a product that can then just be stolen from me again because the seller decides to discontinue their drm, abandon support for the device I read on or simply for not liking me.
I think we should focus instead on implementing personalized pricing (localized pricing being one example) to reduce piracy.
My personal opinion: I also value my work’s impact and being credited, so my perceived loss is (piracy with credits, or knowing that it inspires new work/cultural progression) < (piracy) < (redistribution).
Many writers today are not so hateful about piracy as they used to, since their works became worldwide classics thanks to how easily pirated media propagates, especially in the third world.
My local library uses some digital library that doesnt work with my e-reader. How am I suppose to borrow ebooks? Most books I read are too heavy to lug around all the places my ereader has been.
What about digital paywalls on research papers, I think those should be freely accessible to the general public if grant money was acquired for said research.
Yeah I pirate some books here and there, wish I could just borrow digitally from my local library, instead sometimes I use the largest library known to man.
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I try to support authors by buying on Kindle or a physical copy if I can. That being said, I don’t think there is any way to combat piracy, and I think information is forever going to be free now. So I think the publishing world is going to have to catch up and evolve. Honestly if I were an author I would consider starting a Patreon.
