Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger
A fan sent me a PDF of my novel, telling me he'd downloaded it from a torrent site and thought I might want to know, or be able to use it. Said PDF was a digitization of my novel, distributed worldwide without my permission (or even a request for permission, which I might have granted if I'd been asked). I was in the process of getting the book into ebook production at the time, so instead of using the publisher's scanning service, I converted the PDF to an RTF file and proofed, edited, and reformatted my own copyrighted novel and sent it to the publisher for production.
I have no idea who the original scanner is, but somehow--unless the person is a real jerk, which I have no reason to think--I doubt that this person would object to my making use of his/her scanning work in the creation of a licensed version of the book.
Others here have defended this action on my behalf already--and thank you. I've seen nothing in this discussion since then to persuade me that I did not have the moral and legal right to do what I did.
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Honestly, I'm sure starrigger wouldn't agree with my stance that I have no qualms about downloading the pirate-ebook-scan edition of a book of books that I already own. Sometimes I have to spend a while proofing against my physical copy of the book. But it's better than buying price-fixed DRM-infected books.
But if I consider that OK, criticizing an author for using a scan of his own books would be pretty ludicrous from me.
Anyway, I'm with starrigger on this. It's his book, and grabbing a pirate edition to save some time for an official release seems fine to me. It's just a shortcut. He still has to do the work (or pay someone else) to edit and release the final product, and he's the one that did the work to write it in the first place. It's his intellectual property, after all.
Especially because I consider the folks like him the good guys - folks with DRM free books on Smashwords and the like. I go out of my way to buy DRM free books whenever possible to support their writing (and their willingness not to hobble the consumer's rights with DRM).