[Guns4Hire]

You know I have a friend from High School (22 years ago) that I am still in touch with. We are both avid readers (then and now). We would buy books and then swap them back and forth. One of my favorite series was bought by him, Riftwar Saga and was borrowed by me. One of his all time favorite books was Battlefield Earth which I bought and he borrowed from me. Anyway enough of the back story.

We haven't seen each other since High School but we stay in contact via email and facebook. He went the downloading and torrent (besides what he considers his favorites which he buys - pbooks) route and I continued to buy books and then buy ebooks. So while for the most part the Author's and Publisher's aren't making any money off him. They are making a ton off of me. Since I buy everything he recommends (always have, always will) he has never steered me wrong. And he has never ever said to me to go download 123 from XYZ site. So he doesn't promote it (at least to me).

So he passes recommendations on to me (which a lot I have never heard of) and then I pass it on to my brothers and sisters (2 brothers and 2 sisters) and they all end up buying these books as well (we have very similar taste lol). One of my brothers is in a local Sci Fi book club they read 2 books a month and meet once a week. And he passes on these recommendations and the 13 members go out and buy this book. I also pass it on to about 10 other friends of mine and at least half of them go out and buy what my friend originally recommended to me. So quite a bit of revenue is being generated by this friend of mine the pirate. And I have to wonder without his recommendations if I would of ever stumbled onto these books. I mean sure I would of ended up buying something but it might not of been these gems my friend recommended. Its hard to know which series of books to get interested by just reading the jacket. Some series is 10 books deep. Who wants to decide to read a series that big just to find out after the 4th book that the series isn't for you. So you have just invested 40 dollars into this series and find out its ugh. Recommendations by friends is the way to go. Finding the one or two friends that has the same taste in books that you have. Then you latch on to em and ride him/her for life lol.

I sure wonder how much revenue actually gets generated by these pirates in the long run. And then I wonder how much is actually lost by piracy. There is no easy answers. How much 'HARM' is there? Is there 'HARM' in the long run?

I am not condoning piracy, I just try to look at it realistically. Digital piracy is here and it won't be stopped. Never happen. Making and calling it a moral issue won't change it. Author's and Publisher's have to compete against piracy (they do it now whether they want to or not) wishing it wasn't there or hoping it goes away wont change anything.

Pirates have friends and pirates make recommendations. There is revenue there, not just loss. Food for thought maybe.