[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Just wandering through this thread and am wondering how many of you who are railing against the Dark Net and lamenting the fact that writers and publishers are not being paid for the ebook, have ever bought a used book or taken a book out from a library?

This is a bad comparison. In the case of both the library and the used book sale, the author has already been paid once, and the number of additional people who can read the used/library book is quite limited as compared to e-books available for download. And of course you only keep library books for a limited period of time. I should also note - with respect to libraries - that my library purchases many more books that I do not read than books that I do read. I.e., for every author whose book I borrow from the library, there are many more authors whose books I have paid for through my taxes, but whose books I will never read.

In the first instance, you're getting the value of the author's work without paying him/her anything - in fact, you're making a third party richer on their back (you cannot assume that the person selling the used book bought it at full price themselves) - and in the second instance you have not paid anything for the book and hundreds or more people are reading the same book for the price of one book, probably similar to the number of people who actually read whatever book they've downloaded on the Dark Net. So unless you've never done either of those things, I don't see your moral high ground being any higher than those who have done so. And those who have done so are the same type of people who access the Dark Net. Especially since many view the ebook Dark Net as one huge lending library by readers for readers.

See above. The library bought the author's book. If it's likely to be popular, the library will have bought 100's of copies, in hardback, as my library did for Tom Clancy and Diane Setterfield.

The Darknet is like a lending library *except that the books are stolen.*

As has been pointed out, the prime lure of the Dark Net, IMO, is convenience. You can find all the books in a series, for instance, even those that are out-of-print. You feel like reading (or re-reading more likely) so-and-so's series? Just find it and download it.

Yeah, it's been asserted that people do this for convenience. I'm sure there are a couple of people who do so. But pretending that the fact you can get a book for free on the darknet, vs. paying $9.99 or more retail, is intellectually dishonest.

And readers who steal from authors are scum.

All thanks to the OP for starting this thread, but if you couldn't find the books you wanted, then you weren't on the top sites. Most of them aren't open registration and you have to be invited to join them.

I'm sure she didn't have access to the l33t book fencing clubs, but I think her experience is valuable because it suggests what the piracy experience will be like for more typical readers (although as a MR participant, she is already somewhat non-typical).