Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Still stealing.

There seems to be a rash of it lately. A few weeks ago I linked to Karin Kallmaker's blog posts on book stealing. She's not the only one to suffer. Lynn Ames has been hit. Joan Opyr's had her books ripped off.

And so has Xenaverse author S X Meagher. S X is generous enough to leave her first-draft books online - and post her new ones online too - which has to hurt her sales. And yet some lowlife piece of scum is still ripping her off.

And now Andi Marquette is suffering. And if you think it doesn't hurt anybody. This is Andi's blog on the subject.

You think that it doesn't really do any harm. Well - These are living people. They're private individuals working their guts out and not even making a living at it. They're not some long-gone-to-dust old-time Shakespeare or Tolstoy. Not some million-dollar major corporation. They're me and you and the woman who drives the bus, works the checkout, bandages your sprained wrist, operates on your sick pet. They're the cashier at your bank, the teacher in your school, the grad student writing a thesis by day and a novel by night. They work all day and write like crazy in their spare time. They make very little - and still scum steal that by uploading books to torrent sites and sharing them to several hundred of their closest acquaintances - and probably congratulating themselves on being so clever with it.

It isn't harmless. It's theft. Theft of Intellectual Property to be precise. And it hurts people. You've got the book?? Pay for it. Or pretty soon there won't be any books to read.

End rant.

Enjoy your (legitimately) free reads folks. There's a lot to read tonight.

Ze

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