Quote:
Originally Posted by LazyScot
If I was your employer and declined to pay you for a day's work you have done, have I taken anything away from you?
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Yes, because my work is, and probably most work is done physically and involves time and labour. I am not a product that is infinitely reproduceable, nor is my time or my labour. Now, if they could clone me, or make a robot copy, then we'd have another argument altogether.
The argument always seems to get confused when analogies are made that don't fit the digital age.
What I think you're driving at is the work put into the writing of the book, creation of the work and the recompense that's warranted because of this. But, as I've said earlier, you can't lose a sale if there is no sale. If somebody reads your book without paying, you haven't lost anything, because they didn't pay in the first instance, or more likely, wouldn't have paid anyway. But what you might get is someone reading for free and then paying in the future. You might gain a devoted fan who then passes on your work to somebody else who then in turn buys your book. Its win-win for the author.