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Quite a few of us are pirating if we take advantage of the Canadian copyright when downloading from MR or in some cases of the US copyright laws when downloading from Gutenberg. I don't feel bad about this because the authors or their family don't need the money any more.
It's different with current authors who are entitled to get paid, like anybody else working in publishing. Of course, if they are like the painter from an example stated above and got paid a certain amount to write a book, there is no need to worry about their roaylties. But afaik most authors and possibly also translators also participate in the sales.
And the publishing companies who would pay the author's salaries must add this cost and their other cost to the books they sell. And other than the painter, they cannot charge everything for the first book and then they are done.
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