Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Let me propose a question. When Harry Potter 7 was released, we saw a lot of people on this forum piously proclaim that of course the only reason they were reading a illegal copy of this book was that it wasn't available as an legal e-Book.
Suppose Ms. Rowling were to have a change of heart and permit all 7 HP books to be released as e-Books. What proportion of the people who have illegal copies of them do you believe would buy the legal versions?
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To be honest, I don't see all that many people going out and purchasing a electronic copy should a legal copy be available. But I can see people purchasing a legal copy should one have been released at the time the pbook was released.
Once the money is spent on the pbook, a lot of people don't think twice about owning the ebook. They thing that "I've paid for the content so why pay twice". But if the ebook comes out at the same time as the pbook, then people have a choice as to which to purchase. There are some books I might purchase as pbooks and some I'd purchase as ebooks. But I would have the choice to make.
A lot of the ebooks available on the darknet are books that were/are not legally available in electronic form. The need for people to scan ebooks would greatly diminish if the books were already available.