So if I share that book with 50 friends over the course of the year that’s not taking income, but if it copy it 50 times and share it in a day it is? I could also sell it to my friends or even rent it out to them, that’s all money in My pocket and legal, until I copy it instead.
No, it still is. You’re just physically limited to one person until they finish reading which limits the damage. You can’t physically share it to them in one day. Either way, the author isn’t getting paid for their work.
If you actually like the book, you should encourage people to pay for it so that the author can make more of what you like. The way you’re doing it, the author will have to get another job and won’t be able to write because they can’t pay their bills.
Edit (since OP edited): The point still stands. You can’t sell one book to multiple people and “renting” it is still taking money from the author even if the damage is physically limited to one item.
“renting” it is still taking money from the author even if the damage is physically limited to one item.
I do see where you're coming from, but not necessarily. If my friend has zero interest in ever buying said book (or can't afford to) and would never become a paying customer, there is no downside to sharing a copy. In fact, if they like the book enough, they may even become incentivized to buy themselves a copy or look into the author's other work legitimately when they otherwise wouldn't have.
This is how/why I pirate most games. I don't have the type of pocket money to spend on games I don't know I'll love, so I pirate them first. If they're good enough, I'll buy the actual game on steam later. Spider-Man, Baldur's Gate 3, Cassette Beasts, etc. are all games I plan to buy when I can afford to. And I can promise I never would have bought Slime Rancher 2 if I hadn't pirated the first one at some point and enjoyed it.
I’m exactly the same way. The point is that you’re paying for the things you want to see more of. That’s where my prior comments about value matter in this context. If your friend wasn’t interested in purchasing and you share a copy, then there’s no difference on the value side other than, without your purchase, they wouldn’t be able to ingest that content. The risk of the opposite, though, is far greater when there are no physical limitations. Even in the library scenario someone mentioned earlier, the libraries are still paying for the initial purchase and the number of rentals inform their future purchases so the author still retains some value from that and their livelihood is still supported.
Mind you, I’m not against piracy. What I’m against is people pirating and then pretending that it’s not stealing. You may not be stealing a physical item but you’re still stealing value and income from the creator. What you’re doing at least returns value and income to creators whose work you enjoy. I feel like people here ignore that because they’re not personally affected by it.
I own a production company. We make everything from graphics, video, audio, 3D models, to custom per-project hardware builds. A few years ago, a small subset of my team decided we wanted to make a video game for iOS/Android. We released it at 99 cents. On Android, it was available for pirating on day 1 and we had planned for that inevitability so our player stats included a tag in our reporting that recognized that. We only got about 300,000 downloads worldwide on Android and, of those, about half were pirated plays. If 100,000 of those people had paid the 99 cents, that would have been life changing for us, at the time. We could have paid off the house we were using as an office at the time. We blew it off initially as “eh, they probably wouldn’t have paid for it anyways” or “they probably pirated it just because they could and tried it once and stopped playing” but, much to our surprise, the player population that played it the most (over 70,000 that played for at least 10 minutes every day) were the pirates. We even added cosmetic transactions after the fact to try and recoup some of those users and made packs for 99 cents. They kept playing but pirated the packs and used them for free. The game studio side of things died and we shut it down afterwards. If even half of the half of people who pirated and played the game daily had paid any one of the 99 cent costs, we could have funded more content or more games. I find it hard to believe that that many people hated our game but still played daily and didn’t even like it enough to pay slightly more than the cost of a stamp for our team’s work.
You know who pays for our work every time? Movie studios, production companies, video game developers. People shouldn’t be surprised when they’re feeding the very monster they’re complaining about and killing the alternatives and, worse yet, attempting to justify their theft as being moral. Just admit you’re stealing and let’s be adults and figure out a way to not have to keep the existing, shitty system afloat.
Either way the person is losing out, so the end result is the same so it shouldn’t matter in the end. I’m sorry you missed this point. If I can lend someone a book, there is no reason why the situation should be different if it’s digital or a copy. The artist isn’t missing out since they never had the intention of buying in the first place.
But hey, throw insults, that’ll get people on your side.
The end result is not the same. You can’t physically reproduce and share a book fast enough, for free to create the same dent that you can by digitally reproducing something ad infinitum. I didn’t miss the point. Again, you missed the point of the thread that you responded to. You didn’t respond to the main thread on this post, you responded to a comment that the authors of this content deserve the income and value of the media you’re ingesting.
You’re just a dishonest person. I don’t want you on my side. You don’t see the harm you’re causing and then attempt to justify it because you’re a bad person who doesn’t care if you’re hurting people and stealing their livelihood just so you can have something like an entitled child. On top of that, you keep pretending like I missed the point when you keep ignoring the point you responded to. Just go away.
Why are you assuming it’s being done for profit? I already said it was to share with my friends. You can’t take money from an artist if they never had the intention of buying in the first place.
If lending a book isn’t theft, sharing a digital copy isn’t either. Obviously making a business and profiting from it is entirely different, but that shouldn’t have to be specified.
No. My argument centers on people being paid for the work they create. It has nothing to do with profit. If anything, it has to do with revenue. Please keep up. If you don’t know what’s being discussed, stop interjecting yourself.
You responded to a comment that literally says that people deserve to be paid for the things that they create and that you're stealing that. Learn to read.
I never said libraries and used book stores were illegal, you dunce. Nice straw man.
You missed the entire premise of this thread (which you responded to) - authors need to make a living. If they don’t, they stop writing. You’re causing your own problem. You responded to “authors won’t get paid” with “but people stealing it aren’t claiming they’re the authors”. I think it’s pretty obvious who missed the point here.
If I can lend a book to someone and that’s not illegal, how is copying it and lending it to them any different? Either way the writer is missing out in both scenarios.
But hey, insult me since you missed the entire point of the piracy angle here.
I already answered this question. Lending a book is physically limited to one book and copying is limited to that one book and the supplies needed to reproduce it. Digital piracy is not. Whereas a physical book only loses the author one sale for every person who handles the book, copying that book (especially digitally where there’s no physical cost for production either) is still wrong and takes away income from the author.
I didn’t miss the point of anything. Copying something without the creator’s permission, whether it’s done physically or digitally, is wrong and takes away income from the person that deserves to get it for creating it. If it was good enough for you to “share” it with others, why doesn’t the author deserve to get paid for it?
You entirely missed the point of the conversation you replied to.