Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilbo1967
Jeez. Every time somebody mentions they have a lot of books the holier-than-thou brigade start jumping up and down screaming "pirate". Do you all get a warm fuzzy feeling from thinking you're so much better than him?
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No, in fact I'll fess up to having downloaded books now and then (generally if no vendor will sell it to me [out of print, geo-restrictions, etc] no matter how legit I want to be, or if I already have a paper copy and don't feel like buying it again -- understanding that there are costs to creating the ebook as well). That said, yes, I do feel better than I would otherwise due to the fact that I pay for the vast majority of my books, music, movies, and software. When I was younger and couldn't afford software, and my parents couldn't/wouldn't buy it, I pirated (there was no online music/movies back then, and ebooks were extremely niche and rare). Now that I can, I pay.
As a software developer, if somebody who honestly can't afford my work pirates it, I'm OK with it. If they can otherwise afford it and get value from it, then I hope for them to pay. (though most of my work is basically impossible to pirate as it's tied to specific hardware, unlikely to be pirated as it's used in regulated medical devices, and it's my employer who would incurring the direct loss, not me).