Quote:
Originally Posted by Trenien
2. You are crazy about that book, and everything else that may exist from the same author. In that case it's very likely you'll want your own nice copy of it (them). The ebook file you have stored wherever just doesn't cut it, you need a pbook, preferably a hardcover version.
|
Why would I want to do that? I know some people prefer paper books, and especially hardcovers, but I'm not one of them. I just don't have room for all the books I like to keep physical copies. I'd buy a license for the ebook version of that book (probably), and any others I wanted to read by that author. How likely I would be to buy the license for the file the friend gave me would depend on how likely I might be to read the book again. But that system depends on knowing that books my friends and I buy get re-read the industry average of 4-10 times each, and that's already built into the author compensation model, whereas if I read something from the darknet, the number of purchases to freeloaders is probably way off the author compensation model. If I read a "darknet" file I liked but didn't like enough to read again, if the book were at my local library I might check it out and then return it a week later, just to create a record of my interest in that author so the library would be that much more likely to buy another book by that author. If I liked a book a lot and couldn't get it as a legal ebook, I might buy a paper copy (new or used, depending on what's available) and donate it to my library or give it to a friend.
I don't think any of us can assume we know what "most people would do" based on our own behavior or what we've heard about the behavior of others. This is an area that really needs a well-designed study if we're ever going to move past assumptions and into facts.