Quote:
Originally Posted by Xanthe
Actually, you might just need that loan. I recently paid $10+ for an urban fantasy ebook. That's a ridiculous price and I can't afford to do that on a regular basis, much less buy two or more per week. And my library system is sorely lacking in regard to that genre in both print and ebook versions, so that is not an option. Folks who pirate don't always do so because they can pay but choose not to; they might be doing It because they can no longer pay the over-priced cost due to a change In their financial circumstances. Not everyone who retires, for example, is in the same financial place they were as when they were working - not everyone has investment income and paid-off homes or an income commensurate with the one they had when they were working. Yet the desire to read what they want is still there. Ditto folks who have been laid-off or who've become ill or disabled.
Avid readers are just people with a socially-sanctioned addiction. And they will feed that addiction no matter how their financial circumstances change, just like any addict.
I think that's the point that is consistently overlooked in all of these discussions.
Organizations (and writers) can try to demonize and attempt to criminalize uploaders and downloaders all they want, but as long as they keep coming at the issue from the wrong direction, they're never going to be able to effectively deal with their perceived problem.
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I can actually sympathize with this argument (to some extent), and I don't believe personally that unauthorized downloading is really the same as theft (due to lack of marginal costs with digital goods and all of that).
But you do, of course, realize that some on this forum, not without justification, will gleefully pounce on what you say and reply "just because you can't afford something doesn't mean you have the right to steal it."