Book Pirate gets called out

I'm not sure I'd consider pirating a 10/15 dollar book on the same scale as stealing a 50,000 dollar painting either

Beachgirl said:

Comparing a novel to an apple is insulting to the author.

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So the guy actually stole the novel and now nobody else can ever read it, huh?

Icedevimon said:

I'm not sure I'd consider pirating a 10/15 dollar book on the same scale as stealing a 50,000 dollar painting either

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How many times was that book downloaded for free? What was the total royalty loss?

PulpDogg said:

So the guy actually stole the novel and now nobody else can ever read it, huh?

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Totally missing the point. Its about lost royalties.

Beachgirl said:

Totally missing the point. Its about lost royalties.

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And how many royalties does Terry Goodkind (or any author for that matter) lose by people simply not buying his book?

It's not lost revenue if someone was never going to have bought the book in the first place. No physical copy is being physically stolen. The 50,000 dollar painting is a physical object that cannot be reproduced again for the same value it is worth.

Beachgirl said:

Totally missing the point. Its about lost royalties.

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So if a reviewer writes a bad review and the author loses sales and thus royalities, is he/she equally justified for castigating the reviewer in public?

PulpDogg said:

And how many royalties does Terry Goodkind (or any author for that matter) lose by people simply not buying his book?

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Downloading a pirated copy is not the same as simply choosing not to buy a book.

I cant believe authors would actually defend piracy, which I'm getting the impression is going on here. In the e-book industry this is a huge problem. I network with fellow authors who are having to spend a heck of a lot of time keeping their books off of pirating sites. Giving pirates a pass with an attitude of "its not a big deal" will only encourage the activity.

Good for Terry. Now the law should move in and put this guy in the stocks so we can throw tomatoes at the bastard. Pirating is stealing. And those who get free copies through piracy aren't likely to EVER buy a book whereas people who use the library will go out and buy other books by authors they've read. It's the difference between honest people who properly use the system (libraries) and criminals who will always steal.

Christine N. said:

Yeah, but the library PURCHASED the book. The author was paid for the book. If you buy a book and lend it to your friends, you still made the initial purchase. No problem with lending.

Pirates just steal it and the author gets nothing.

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At the risk of contributing to a thread that will apparently force eyes to roll, didn't the person who distributed the book online have to buy it first, too? Seems like the objection rests on the fact that pirated ebooks are more readily distributable. It is true that pirates will cause more loss of royalties than libraries, but if the objection hinges on the ethics of 'lending' then it seems like a slippery slope.

And they do call it file sharing .

@Shadow Ferret: Some people will read a book at the library and buy it later. Some won't. Some people will download a book online and buy it later. Some won't. Same goes for music.

@Jake: That's a point I find myself pondering sometimes. Those strongly against it will say that although someone had to buy the book initially to pirate it, the copies are being made in addition to the original, and although they are being lent out in some form or another based on that copy, the original buyer doesn't lose the copy while it's being "borrowed" by someone else, like a library would when lending out a book. Also, libraries that lend out ebooks only lend out one copy of it at a time I believe, or deletes the copy off your device after thirty days or so, so they themselves handle that situation similarly to a physical copy.

Editorial note: honestly, it's like pulling the string on a child's top and watching it careen.

Jake.C said:

And they do call it file sharing .

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Which is illegal in the US.

Better to just send the DMCA IMHO.

The problem is that e formats make it too easy to copy and distribute the ebook. In the past it was still possible to copy and distribute books. I used to photocopy the covers of books I liked in the local library using their photocopier (I have no idea why I used to do it, I was young and I am sure I had a rationale at the time, I think it was mainly to remember the bood books). I could have photocopied the entire book then given it to my friends but it would have cost more in photocopy fees than it would have done to buy the book...

With an ebook, you can copy it and post it to a website and everyone can download it for free. No cost to you, very little effort (apparently DRM does not slow down pirates, possibly one reason why Tor have decided to drop it altogether) and the scale of the theft is a lot more. And I think one thing that pirates should possibly be made aware of is the fact that it is not big publishers who necessarily lose out here. They just pass on the costs to other consumers who do pay for their books, making all books more expensive. They also take it from the authors by paying them less overall. It is easy to steal from a corporation, more difficult to steal from 'someone like me'.

callalily61 said:

I may be the exception, but I've tried out several books at the library and then went and bought copies for myself.

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I do that pretty often. Mostly for non-fiction I keep for research purposes, but also for fiction I collect.

I think we could have the Standard Piracy Discussion (TM) somewhere else?

Beachgirl said:

Which is illegal in the US.

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In one of your previous posts you fell on this distinction, too. It might very well be illegal, but is it wrong? There's no (necessary) shame in civil disobedience if you think a law is unjustified. Surely we should let our standards of morality dictate the law, and not the other way around? Otherwise we will never get anywhere.

Beachgirl said:

Downloading a pirated copy is not the same as simply choosing not to buy a book.

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And yet, neither is it the same as stealing a $50,000 painting or an apple. When physical things are taken, someone else cannot have them. An illegal copy doesn't deprive anyone else from having it.

I cant believe authors would actually defend piracy, which I'm getting the impression is going on here.

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I think your impression is wrong. I think this thread a recognition that it's a complex issue.

Icedevimon said:

@Shadow Ferret: Some people will read a book at the library and buy it later. Some won't. Some people will download a book online and buy it later. Some won't. Same goes for music.

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Not sure what your point is. If you buy it and download it, that's legal. If you download it without paying for it, that's stealing.

Perhaps it's naive of me, but if I'm buying a book I want to pay for the paper it's printed on, not for the right to read words that are owned by somebody else. There's something ugly and totalitarian about the way that phrase comes together, isn't there?

I think I would say the same about I book I was selling. But perhaps it's because I don't rely on royalties to pay bills, and I can afford to be idealistic and naive.

If the underlying argument is that intellectual property inherently cannot be owned, to think you need to consider what would happen if that was the law. The intellectual professions would be demonetized. That being Goodkind's point.

Beachgirl said:

Downloading a pirated copy is not the same as simply choosing not to buy a book.

I cant believe authors would actually defend piracy, which I'm getting the impression is going on here. In the e-book industry this is a huge problem. I network with fellow authors who are having to spend a heck of a lot of time keeping their books off of pirating sites. Giving pirates a pass with an attitude of "its not a big deal" will only encourage the activity.

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Ok, a few things before these kind of blanket "everyone who disagrees with me defends piracy / is against me / wants me to starve and live in poverty" statements go any further.

I am not defending anything here. I am trying to show you a flaw in your argument.

I am not ok with people making a file available for download on a torrent site or a file locker or whatever. Copyright holders have every right to go after the sites and go after the people who made that stuff available in the first place. That's why I didn't mind when a site like Megaupload got taken down and people got taken into custody. They profited from this, it is illegal and they should be punished for it.

That said, there is also another side to the coin:

- going after the site or the "first uploader" so to speak is ok - slapping fines of a few thousand $ dollars on grandma Lilly for downloading a 99c song is not
- not every download is a lost sale
- technically copying a file is not stealing, as you don't lose the ability to still sell copies to every other person who wants it
- technically yes, downloading a file is exactly the same as someone not buying the book, since not every download is a lost sale

Just for clarification. I am not defending "piracy" here. But I am kinda saying "ignore it" to a certain degree. Don't fret people downloading the book, because they actually might by a legal copy later / buy other books from you.

Downloading books is something that is never going away. No author/publishing house/musician/movie maker/Hollywood studio will ever be able to completely eradicate it - no matter how hard they are lobbying governments to implement even more draconian and ridicoulus laws.

I have no problem with Goodkind going after the guy. I do have a problem with him doing it so publicly and sending an angry mob after him.

Also, back to your earlier point of "comparing an apple to a novel is insulting to the author". If, for the sake of argument, we assume that copying the file is in fact stealing - lets assume for a moment I am not copying it, but go to a book store and steal the paper back copy. Am I also stealing the novel from the author? Or am I just stealing a bunch of pages where the authors words have been printed on? The file is the same as the paper back, just the medium. So no - I don't insult the author, as I am not stealing his work, just a copy of it.

Roger J Carlson said:

And yet, neither is it the same as stealing a $50,000 painting or an apple. When physical things are taken, someone else cannot have them. An illegal copy doesn't deprive anyone else from having it.

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actually, using this reasoning, taking an apple isn't stealing because the tree will produce more copies.

@ShadowFerret: My point is that you were stating as fact that people who download pirated books never purchase the books, or other books by that author. I am saying that blanket statement is untrue.