Quote:
Originally Posted by Xanthe
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. As for the people who put up the books? Sure there's some who do it to be first, but there are a lot more people who put up the books of the authors they love because they want to make them better known, or to share a gem that they've found, or to put up a series that only been available in their country. Rare is the person who is chuckling evilly and deliberately putting up a book by an author for the sole purpose of decreasing his/her monetary sales. In fact, there is only one author that I know of for whom that happened (and no, I didn't put any of his/her books up on the Dark Net  ). I have to say I chuckled when I saw it, but then the joke was on me because I started to see the "I never heard about that author before - I really liked that book" remarks and I knew that new fans had been created. |
I have a few thousand paper books, bought and paid for. Now that I have an e-reader, I'd like to get these books in digital form. I can't possibly buy them all again--they're not even all available, and I don't have that kind of money. I could destroy them and scan them--a daunting task (and I shudder at the thought of destroying them anyway). Or I could find copies that other people have already digitized, and donate my paper books to the library--which can then sell them and make some money to buy more books. It's hard to deny the allure of the latter approach.