Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
There is indeed both stated and oblique support for unauthorized file-sharing of ebooks on Mobileread. There are people who've said they have downloaded books they have in physical form, and will continue to do so; there are people who admit ownership of hundreds (thousands, sometimes) of darknetted ebooks; there are people who've said they stripped the DRM off paid books to give a copy to a relative or friend.
What MR doesn't allow is detailed instructions on how to do those things, not discussion about whether or not they're ethical or legal. Support for the ideas is permissible, as frustrating as it is for some authors.
The ebook-community group at Yahoo is, fwiw, very author/publisher-focused and anti-"piracy", which they seem to define as "more than one reader per purchase." Part of what I like about Mobileread is that I can say "I don't think unauthorized sharing of the text of books is the worst thing that can happen to authors, nor do I believe it will cause the collapse of the publishing industries." And in some people's minds, that translates to "support of piracy."
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i think it takes a special kind of d-bag to say "yea, take whatever you want. screw those guys! i've got terabytes worth of pirated books!" i think most people are simply able to cut through the scare tactics and realize that the "dangers" of piracy are greatly exaggerated (for the most part).
i've admitted to pretty much every example you've given. yea i share books with my wife. yea i've visited pirate sites. yes i've "taken" ebooks of paperbacks i own. but i also buy a ton of books, i just dropped $250 on paperbacks and ebooks the past 2 days. i think most people who do these things do it because they love books. yea they might take one here&there but they also support the industry heavily. i've bought entire bibliographies of authors based on "sampling" one of their works. "piracy" is the entire reason i'm into space opera. one sampling lead me to buy almost every one i come across now. i wouldn't have given it the time of day before.
am i killing the industry by taking a book here and there? hardly, i'm a rabid book buyer and i go out of my way to support the small press and indie authors. am i the exception? no, i honestly don't think so. i've come to interact with users on "those sites" and the impression that i get is that many are coming from a place of hey i like this, check it out and support it if you like it too. many simply can't get the books legally in their country.they're not sitting there doing the money squeeze and laughing at how they got one over on a publisher or took dinner out of an author's mouth.