A Note on Piracy
Mar. 5th, 2020 05:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_sherwoodI try not to get upset about people pirating my books. I accept the idea that not all of the downloads are actual lost sales, and I think that the measures I've seen to combat piracy do more harm than good. So, since I can't do anything about it, I try to ignore it.
But, for the record: I do NOT give people permission to upload or download copies of my books. If you want to share with a friend, like you would do with a print copy, that's fine with me (as long as it's fine with my publishers). But if you don't know the person with whom you're sharing, if you're making the book widely available or are downloading it from some random internet site for free: that's piracy, and it bothers me.
So. I can't stop you, but I ask you not to. And if you go ahead and do it anyway, please don't call yourself a fan; please don't justify your decision by saying that you're doing me a favour (!) because of the publicity; and please don't say that it's all fine because you're not stealing a physical item. You're engaging in piracy. It hurts authors. I wish you would stop.
But, for the record: I do NOT give people permission to upload or download copies of my books. If you want to share with a friend, like you would do with a print copy, that's fine with me (as long as it's fine with my publishers). But if you don't know the person with whom you're sharing, if you're making the book widely available or are downloading it from some random internet site for free: that's piracy, and it bothers me.
So. I can't stop you, but I ask you not to. And if you go ahead and do it anyway, please don't call yourself a fan; please don't justify your decision by saying that you're doing me a favour (!) because of the publicity; and please don't say that it's all fine because you're not stealing a physical item. You're engaging in piracy. It hurts authors. I wish you would stop.
