Book Piracy BAD

[Mad Swede]

This is really more of a semantic argument than an ethical or legal one - it's obviously a criminal act, but whether that crime is 'theft' or something more like 'copyright infringement' or 'illegal reproduction of materials' is more the point I am arguing.

You mean you'd rather not admit to being a thief.

I have nothing nice to say about Proudhon or the United Nations, so I won't say anything at all, but this is why I didn't say 'property is theft', haha. I agree that it is amoral to steal a person's personal property... well, I suppose I wouldn't consider it amoral if you stole a billionaire's car or something, but that's not pertinent.

Yes, well, the idea that stealing a millionaire's car or something is OK is in fact what is called illegalism and individual reclamation and these are Anarchist concepts...

 

[casval]

You mean you'd rather not admit to being a thief.

Oh no, I'm fine with that! It's true! I used to be the kind of poor where I was shoplifting half my veggies, and broccoli is an actual, physical object.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

*takes stage*

Audiobooks.

*drops mic*
*Exit Stage Left*
*The bear quits*

 

[Prince of Spires]

In fact, I'd argue that stories only exist as thoughts. If I write a book, but in a language no other human on earth can read, it's a book to me. To everyone else, it's gobblygook. Everything that gives a book "substance" exists in the mind of the writer and reader. Nothing "physical" (using physical extremely loosely here to include the code that makes up an ebook) about a book inherently holds its meaning. Without thoughts and ideas, a book is nothing more than squiggly marks.

This is a complete misrepresentation of what writing and publishing a book actually entails.

Thoughts and ideas don't make a book. They can serve as a basis for a book. But as long as they're just thoughts and ideas, they're just vague concepts floating around in the air. Only when you start putting them down on paper do they actually take shape and can you share them with a wide audience.

It's the hard work of actually sitting behind a keyboard for hours, typing away that creates the book. It's the editor reading through it, writing comments and suggestions for improvements. It's the author making those changes (or ignoring them). That is how you get a book. Sitting in a chair dreaming up ideas might be how popular culture depicts writers, but it's about as far removed from what a writer actually does as you can get. The dreaming up ideas part is the easy bit.

And each of those steps takes time and / or money. Mad Swede mentioned earlier that publishing a trad novel costs around $100.000. That sounds about right once you factor in all costs. For an indie author, you can do it a lot cheaper, I'd say between $500 and $5000, depending on your cover and how much editing you do. But the reverse is that as an indie author you have to pay all that out of your own pocket.

That is how you get a book. Saying that it's only the ideas that matter is wrong on pretty much all levels. Those are the things that matter the least.