Literary Piracy

I have always thought that there is no gray area with downloading movies, or music. It was wrong in my mind, and even though I did it I felt very guilty. But I have at many times lent people books, and borrowed books. I never considered the two the same thing but they are. I mean they should by a book, it will help the author. Of course the rational for I used to make for this is that you only read a book once and that is it, which is not true in my case. What I do now with movies and tv series is that I will get it downloaded and if I like it I will buy it. So in my opinion letting people borrow books is just as bad as illegal downloading. For the reason I mentioned above. But what do you think. Please say why.

And Libraries are the napster of the book reading world! I smell law suit!!!

Most people will read a book and if they like it, buy it. In fact books unlike mp3s gain a cult like following and people will actually buy multiple copies for different covers or releases. I have always said that sharing doesn't hurt a business it helps grow it. Heck half of the music I have bought has been because some one else sent me a clip or link to a stream, not because I followed the band from birth and mindless followed their music..or heard it on the radio. The reason the music industry is hurting is because they aren't adapting to the new technologies...cds are 26 years old (October 1982) so yeah cd sales are down, start selling mp3's online and wow they make money again. ITunes isn't hurting.

Start offering multiple versions of songs (live, unplugged, special events like woodstock, studio, etc...) and you will actually sell more of the same product!

Will people steal it? Sure but then again google & file sharing works both ways, find them and shut them down.

I personally own every Star Trek novel since the start the Deep Space Nine and Voyager Relaunch (Pocket Books continuous universe, much like Star Wars' expanded universe), which is just under 40 books, 2 full shelves and more on the way this fall. I buy books I like, especially series' that I like.

Downloading books online is a little difficult to get your hands on, considering its only the popular, classics, or E-Novels (Like the Star Trek Corps of Engineers series) that find them selves with digital copies.

Comic and Manga on the other hand is a little easier, you simply scan them on to a computer and put them in a zip file and any good comic book reader will display them.

They should rent out books like they do at a movie store. I am not a big book fan, I own one book about fashion so it mainly has pictures in it. I havn't read it yet and its been like 3 months since it was given to me for my birthday. Which is sad because in high school I was the librarians assistant for my senior year, and the only thing I read were the magazines.

I agree with Chief on this one, if I read a magazine I like, I will subscribe to it. If I actually bothered to read a book that I liked, I might buy it. So I think it boosts the sales, because people want to buy things they know they like and will enjoy.

They do have a place where you can rent out books, it's called the library, and it's free! Books are predominately real, physical objects. Every book you've bought and every book at the library physically exists and has been purchased and payed for. When you lend your friend a book, you are not lending them a copy you've made while retaining a copy yourself. In this way, lending out your books is not the same thing as downloading movies and music. While your friend has your book, you no longer have it. Printing a whole, separate copy of your book and distributing it to your friends would be piracy.

Ha! The Library is only free when used appropriately, I owe them money right now... They dont like it when you dont give stuff back on time.

Does anyone remember making mixed tapes? Or, ever hurry and hit record on the tape deck when your favorite song came on the radio? Ah... good times, good times. Was that illegal?

Anyway, I don't own an mp3 player. But I do burn CDs. and, well, I never buy 'em. God no. I woulda thought by now, the fight would be given up... and CD's would have lower prices. If they were cheaper I prolly would go buy complete albums, instead of scouring search results for decent copies of songs.

But nooooo. New releases are still like 15 bucks (give or take). Thats basically like BEGGING me to go home and burn CD's. At least I know someones making money with all the blank discs I go through. <That's right, Im ol' school like that!

As far as movies. There's always the theater. People are always gonna want to see a good movie on the big screen. And while I admit, lately I watch more streamed movies than anything... I will still hit up a Red Box if something sparks my interest, and I have a few dollars to spare.

I agree to a certain extent...I know my friends who have wanted to borrow a book from me and I know that they would not have bought the book even if I didn't lend it to them.they would have probably gone to a local library but they wouldn't have bought it.

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Originally Posted by beast

I have always thought that there is no gray area with downloading movies, or music. It was wrong in my mind, and even though I did it I felt very guilty. But I have at many times lent people books, and borrowed books. I never considered the two the same thing but they are. I mean they should by a book, it will help the author. Of course the rational for I used to make for this is that you only read a book once and that is it, which is not true in my case. What I do now with movies and tv series is that I will get it downloaded and if I like it I will buy it. So in my opinion letting people borrow books is just as bad as illegal downloading. For the reason I mentioned above. But what do you think. Please say why.

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I'm not sure I completely agree with this.

Anyone that writes as a profession (no matter what kind of writing it is) are pretty much giving their thoughts/ideas away the moment they take the last look at a final copy of the finished product and say "I like it and let's go ahead and get this out there to the general public"
And sure yeah they hope to get paid or acknowledged for their work but they won't make too great a profit if not many people are aware of them. So the sharing of books is something of a good thing for them. It generates awareness of their existence.
Further more if you buy a written book or an electronic copy of it you are buying a medium that is yours to use and abuse however you want. You wanna burn the book go for it, you wanna leave it out fo r your dog to eat you've wasted your money but still go for it, you wanna loan it to a friend so they can experience entertainment you can do that too.
However inr egards to your feeling like a criminal for borrowing or lending out books, get over it. Most popular reads circulate in high numbers anyway. Just look at Harry Potter books. I assure you that while money generated from the movies are a big factor in the author's wealth, at the price of her books and the number of fans, the book only makes her a small fortune. I know not every author has that opportunity . . . . if they were they'd be complaing less. :D:

As for music. . . there's a lot of gray area and I think a lot of problems that arise from sharing files could be avoided if musicians didn't upload their music themselves or picked much more honest people to affiliate themselves with.
Movies. . . aren't as problematic. . . . .