Quote:
Originally Posted by thename
I think this is the fundamental issue. I think a few years ago it was the case (who was trolling USENET downloading every pirated book they could find?) but anymore it's more along the lines of "it's there? I'm grabbing it" whether they'll read it or not. I remember file sharers in the dorms back in the late '90s where some of these kids had hundreds of thousands of MP3s. They were clearly not listening to all (or even most) of them but pirated them anyway. I'm sure there are folks with thousands of pirated books on their computer who will not read a fraction of them.
You can even see some of this mentality evidenced in the Freebies forum on here:
While the book in question isn't pirated by any stretch, it's still along the lines of "it's free? I'll take it."
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If I find a title of an author on USENET or through IRC channels that I cannot find in e-book format on the commercial sites, I grab it. And, if I see an interesting title on those sites, I grab it. If it's an author I've never read before and I enjoyed the read, I then put the author on my "buy his/her works" list. Of course, I've got a B-H/H-W list that is far larger than the available titles on the commercial sites. Yes, I always first check out Amazon - and if the title is not available in Kindle, I click the 'release it in Kindle' link. And if it cannot be found after six months, I download it from the dark-net sites. Sorry, but if the publishers cannot find the time, energy or money to make the back-list titles available, I'm not going to deprive myself of an e-book version. Their loss.
Now the interesting point is that I have made it a habit of those ebooks I read more than once, if they become available commercially, I buy them. Why? Because I prefer to know that the authors are being compensated.
(And yes, I'd love a donate-to-the-authors clearinghouse for titles the publishers just "can't seem to get around to e-booking". I think a $1-$3 donation choice would be fair compensation.)
Derek