Quote:
Originally Posted by rationalbiker
In contrast to Colin's idea of the best way to address piracy, my opinion on the best way to address piracy is for society in general not to be so apathetic about the people who are actually doing the wrong. I've read on here people blaming the publishers and the authors (absolutely ludicrous in my mind) but very few people actually blaming the thieves. I'll never understand this kind of "blame the victim instead of the culprit" kind of thinking. I have no way of understanding what the concept 'justice' even means to these people or if the even value that concept at all.
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I don't disagree with that either.
I wasn't really trying to comment on that point, only to clarify what had gone before.
That being said, while I do see some
extremely narrow limits where I don't feel I'm doing an author harm with ... unofficial e-versions (like when I own the paper book and there
is no official e-version), I also see that that is an extreme minority circumstance.
From the perspective of someone who
wants legal e-versions, the obvious answer is for the publishers/authors to release such so that I can buy them and everybody wins.
I don't really consider making the observation that there would be less "piracy "if there were more legit e-versions to be blaming the victim, per se, but I
do see that it would look that way from some perspectives.
I also agree that there would be less "piracy" if there were more societal disapproval. But the only way to really stamp it out completely from that direction would be do convince 100% of the populace that it's wrong and shouldn't be done. As long as one person doesn't share that view, that approach won't fully work. Again, that's just an observation,
not an attempt at justification.
I'm afraid that there will always be some level of this behavior. Yes it's wrong, but so is murder, and that still goes on despite a really widely held view of it
as wrong. People do wrong stuff.
I've reached the conclusion that the most effective way to address "piracy" is by removing the incentives of it. It's actually a pain in the sitter-downer to scan a book (which is why so many folks will download one that they already own, rather than scanning it themselves), very few people will take the trouble to "pirate" a book if they don't see any gain to it.
I do try to keep my "conclusions" open to review, however: I find that it keeps me in the habit of thinking, which is a good thing, and it reduces the amount of time I end up looking like a donkey for inflexibly holding a bad position, which is also a good thing.
