Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
Now you are disapproving of wealthy people? All wealthy people are wealthy by choice, not by how much income they have availlable. Same with poor people, most poor people are poor by choice. The only difference between a poor and a wealthy person is the ability of the wealthy to stay within their means when it comes to spending money. So I highly doubt that a wealthy person would download pirate copies even though they would and could have easily paid for them. The decision is a moral choice, not a financial choice.
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I'm retired, living entirely on Social Security, and I spend my money very carefully. I'm way down there below the poverty line. I could double my income and still be below the poverty line. And yet, most months, unless I have medical bills, I end up with $50 to $100 left over, even after adding a bit to my meager savings. So am I poor or am I wealthy?
Honestly I don't care. I'm enjoying my retirement and getting to live the way I want to and, all in all, it's been the best part of my life.
I buy most of my books. The exceptions are those very few books that aren't available to buy in ebook from legitimate sources. Usually I'll just wait because I have so many books waiting to be read that there's no reason to rush. Sometimes, though, I'll get impatient and get one through other sources, which shall be nameless, simply because it's the only digital source I can find.
Interestingly, the two books I did that with last year became available as ebooks before I got a chance to read them so I bought them. My evil intentions were foiled!
Over the years I've known quite a few pirates and I can tell you for sure that they don't pirate books because they can't afford to buy them. Most think of books in kind of the same way someone might think of oranges while walking through an orchard: they're there to be plucked so they pluck them. I'm sure there are probably those who do download pirated books because they can't afford them but none of the people I've known were in that situation. They downloaded books and music illegally because they could. I think piracy is much more a state of mind than a thing of need.
The vast majority of people I know who read ebooks or listen to digital music pay for it. But not all.
Barry