Quote:
Originally Posted by Man Eating Duck
[*]False advertising from Amazon
I hate region price gouging. I get emails all the time from Amazon, advertising really good offers on books I'm interested in. Well, whaddyaknow, when I actually click the link the price is suddenly 3-6 times higher than what I was offered. That is false advertising, which entails heavy punishment for companies where I live (Norway, which is of course why Amazon feels it can up the price -- Norwegians can pay). Amazon knows perfectly well where I live from my account info, and thus they hope I will just pay the higher price anyway. Sorry, no sale, and I now suddenly have no scruples getting similar bytes from elsewhere.
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Hm. So, basically, you're saying "Screw the author because Amazon dashed my hopes for a bargain. The writer did nothing wrong, even so I'll steal their work from them and if they don't like it, they can suck it." Personally, I find this a very weak straw-man argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Man Eating Duck
[*]Not available as ebook.
This is a bit more iffy for me. On several occasions I've emailed authors prior to reading a pirate-produced ebook, telling them that I would like to reimburse them for the pleasure reading their book will surely incur. The responses are generally of the variety "I can't take a donation for you. Sorry, no plans for an ebook" (or the equally useless "just wait, and a legal ebook will eventually be available"). Not good enough. One author responded with "Pay for a pbook and have it sent to a good cause, and I'm fine with your reading a pirated version".
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This one isn't as bad as the previous one; it's merely a rephrasing of the "I want what I want, exactly the way I want it, whenever I want it and I want it immediately" mentality that's so prevalent these days. I'm not sure this sense of entitlement is justified, but I don't think I'll convince you of that.[1] It's just a different set of values; you obviously value your own need of having a certain book as an ebook (and not in paper) higher than the right of its writer (or publisher) to determine when and how to sell it.
We could argue this in circles for ages, all I'm saying is the world doesn't just revolve around me, you or anyone else in particular. There's no ebook version of a certain book? Fine, you could always buy the pbook, go to a library or don't read it.[2] Life will go on.
I'm not trying to judge you here (even if I sound like I do), I'm merely stating how I feel about these things.
Matt
[1] If you're visually impaired and can't possibly read a paper book, you might have a stronger argument. But even then, see footnote 2.
[2] Or buy the pbook, give it to someone else (or a library; these usually take new books) and
then download a "pirated" copy (It'd be just like scanning an OCR'ing it, only cutting out the whole scanning and OCR'ing). Copyright nerds will still take you to task for not destroying your copy, but you can either wait with the whole giving-it-away thing until after you've read your ebook or you coudl tell those copyright nerds to go screw themselves and find some real criminals to prosecute
