Let me quote something:
Quote:
Booksellers hawked their wares in the shadow of St. Paul's. Most of them sold pamphlets denouncing Protestantism and hair-raising accounts of witches out in the countryside. Some others offered the texts of plays -- as often as not pirated editions, printed up from actors' memories of their lines. The volumes usually proved actors' memories less than they might have been.
Shakespeare ground his teeth as he walked past a stall full of such plays. He'd suffered from stolen and surreptitious publications himself. That he got nothing for them was bad enough. That they mangled his words was worse. What they'd done to his Prince of Denmark ...
He'd added injury to insult by buying his own copy of that one, to see if it were as bad as everyone told him. It wasn't. It was worse.
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This is from
Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove. When I read this part, I was immediately reminded of this thread (and many more of this kind).
I think book piracy is from all ages. It's also something you just can't stop.