Quote:
Originally Posted by lilac_jive
Maybe (and this is just a thought) people actually like their authors and want to see them get paid. Musicians who are popular are obscenely wealthy so no one pities them. Not a lot of authors actually make that much money. I would never pirate books for that reason.
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that is a good point, but there are some obscenely wealthy writers as well (JK Rowling, anyone ?), and just like in writing there are plenty of struggling musicians. i imagine there is a class of very successful writers who are the equivalent of the obscenely rich rock star (not just Rowling). i agree with you that it's important to support authors by buying their works however more and more of them seem to be embracing p2p as a way of gaining readers and exposure ; a form of free, viral advertising of a sort. many of them argue that it's actually beneficial to them (including via increased sales) to have their work distributed for free in those networks because otherwise a lot of people probably would never even know who they are.
i think that ebook sharing is probably relatively low-profile for the moment, partly because it's a different demographic that is interested, but i wonder if there won't be some sort of oroubos-style phenomenon wherein the increased popularity and awareness of liseuses will lead to more ebook sharing which will in turn lead to more interest in ebooks in general and potentially more sales of liseuses, which will lead to more interest in ebooks and potentially more sharing...
it would be quite ironic if the deciding factor to reach the tipping point were precisely the phenomenon which the industries claim to be so frightened of, but it does seem to be a compelling argument...
i'm curious about just how widespread the phenomenon of "pirated" ebooks is though. outside of the obvious sources i don't know where they are hiding, but people seem to think they are everywhere... maybe i should do some research. in the name of science, obviously.
