Quote:
Originally Posted by axel77
However I must say, in the past structures of society they did cater for people like you, it is the library where you could go, lend a ton of books an give 'em back 2 weeks later to exchange them for new. In my town and in my youth we hadn't to pay anything for this service, and not being U.K. the authors did not see a cent for my reading.
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They did, in that the library bought a copy of the book. For many authors, library sales form a very significant source of revenue.
Many people compare piracy to libraries, but this is a very misleading analogy. If 1000 libraries buy a copy of a book, that's 1000 sales for the author. Very often too, publishers produce special "library editions" of books which cost more than the normal book. If 1000 people download an illegally scanned copy of a book, that's zero sales for the author (well, perhaps 1 sale if you count the original book).