I've always felt a bit guilty pirating books and taking money from writers. But outside of the US and the UK its hard to get books that aren't mainstream romance, self-help or YA. People who pirate books were likely not to buy it in the first place.
At the same time, I don't think that's a good justification for piracy, especially as writing careers tends to become cheaper and less paid for.
What do you guys think?
by PaperSense
17 Comments
I pirate as much as I can.
My local library has just about everything on either ebook/regular book or both.
If you don’t want to pay for books, get them from the library
Well, life is hard.
Honestly, there is a thing called Libraries. buy books used etc
Yes. I read a lot and books are too expensive. I also usually read on my kindle so I don’t like paying their prices for something that I’m not going to own
If I do really like the book, I’ll buy it after the fact and put it on my bookshelf
I never have, but… think of borrowing it from the library vs pirating. I don’t suppose it makes much difference. Especially when books have waitlists of months sometimes. Usually, I don’t buy books until after I read them and know I like them. 🙂
I pirate like 80% of the books I read, but then buy the ones I liked.
Yes, all the time. I feel nothing.
I never pirate books. I have the highest regard for literature so I don’t mind spending money on it. Moreover, I prefer the feeling (looks, touch and even smell) of paper books.
The way I feel about pirating books is the same way I feel about pirating anything. Buy it if you can afford it, rent it if you cannot (library). If it is out of print and unavailable through any means other than secondhand, then pirate it because then only resellers profit.
I don’t feel bad about it if the author is already dead. But if it’s a lesser known book or an author I think needs more attention, I usually buy it, I want to support the authors I like as much as I can.
(Other than textbooks) I’ve only ever pirated one book, then a few weeks later bought a hard copy for my little sisters. Idk, just don’t do it all the time.
Some of the books I want to read are not available in my country and I’m not paying over $60 if I can just get the PDF.
Way too many thieves in here. I wasn’t really expecting that.
I typically only pirate stuff that I’ve bought (which imo is totally ethical) since I paid for a license by buying the book, I’m just using it in a convenient format for when I don’t have the book with me. Also if it’s a book I cannot find and has gone out of print and has no ebook, I’ll get that.
Only when the pre-order is delayed. I got Rhythm of War like 2 months late in 2020, so I just torrented an ePub. There was another book I pirated too because i’d ordered the next book in the series and it was in reprint. Couldn’t wait