Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
Yes, the author owns the modified content.
BUT! If you're going to do that as an author, maybe best not to complain about piracy with your left hand while your right hand is using piracy to save time and money on editing your own books. Maybe best to just consider the situation a wash and not sling around nasty names on the interwebs.
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There was no modified content, anamardoll. The content was the text of my book. Only the medium was changed. Actually, I did treat this incident as a wash; I didn't issue any complaints or takedown notices.
I didn't start this topic to complain about piracy, either; I find most of the discussions here on the topic incredibly tedious. I merely reported on an event peripherally related to my work, and swore I would not get into it about the piracy good/bad thing. Then molman innocently questioned my use of the word "stealing" (which I consider accurate when it refers to copyrighted work taken without permission, and he doesn't), but we agreed to disagree.
At some point, tempers started rising, and I responded to what I thought was a question about what I really thought about piracy. (I'd already said I didn't worry much about it, though the bottom line was I considered it stealing.) Against my better judgment, I said I thought it ranged from well-meaning people acting illegally at one end of the spectrum to people profiting parasitically off the creativity of others at the other end. I may have been unclear in distinguishing between individuals uploading and downloading, and those operating pirate sites. The "parasite" remark was directed at those who do this on a large scale, probably for a profit.
Anyway, I still don't worry overly much about the pirates. I think they may (incidentally) help some people, and financially hurt others. It's illegal. But it's still small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, or even the small scheme of book publishing.