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I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbi

I know this won't be a popular take on HN, but while I can understand and to a certain extent sympathize with pirating movies (the intentional friction and arbitrary geographic limitations on access imposed by the multinational movie-industry conglomerates), I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Sure, people get hung-up about DRM (which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools), but e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world. I'm in Sweden but buy most of my e-books from the US. But often buy books directly from publishers (hopefully they, and the author, get a better cut that way). The fact these people were trying to personally profit (some other HN:ers have documented this), while trying to present themselves as some sort of "information wants to be free" info-warriors doesn't make the whole thing any better. An enormous amount of work goes into producing a book - through a close friend who works in book-publishing I know a couple of authors who pretty much starve for a year or two to produce their work - and then the editing, typesetting, designing, proof-reading etc is all an enormous and personal investment. In spite of what people think, authors are not all budding J.K.Rowlings with movie-deals and a couple of billion in the bank, and if we don't buy their books, they won't be able to produce the next one for people to pirate.

connorgutman 4y ago
It's very simple actually. You (and most of HN) live in a tech industry bubble. Living wages in the U.S are terrible and disposable income is non-existent. I work a 9-5 just like everyone else but when it comes down to it I don't have the money to buy new books. I can either buy used paperback from a second-hand store, go to the library, or pirate an epub. None of these options pay the original author and are effectively the same. Given that I was never going to pay anyways, why do you find the third option unethical? It hurts absolutely no one but greatly enhances my quality of life and (in some cases) helps society by making me a more educated individual. The only thing piracy costs authors is opportunity (which in my case was always 0).
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  BetterWorldBooks.com is excellent. I have bought from them for years. I recommend you try it. Also, you wrote: <<None of these options pay the original author>> Libraries buy millions of books per year in the US -- expensive hardbacks. They must be the single largest buying group. That money pays authors. Also, I never once saw an author upset that a library was lending their book. The same is true for second hand book selling.
  - dublinben 4y ago
    Here's an example I found in less than a minute of an author railing against used book sales: https://authorkristenlamb.com/2015/12/pay-the-writer-pirates-used-bookstores-why-writers-need-to-stand-up-for-whats-right/ https://authorkristenlamb.com/2015/12/pay-the-writer-pirates...
- Barrin92 4y ago
  If you're pirating Stephen King or a 300$ textbook from a guy who has tenure at Harvard I doubt anyone probably including the author cares but a fair amount of authors aren't making any more than you make. Friend of mine published her own graphic novel basically living in her parents attic and a day after it was out someone had ripped it and thrown it on a comic piracy site. That's not ethical. If you live on a 12-15/hour salary which I have too you still can afford the occassional book here and there, you can't tell me you spend zero on recreational stuff. I don't care if anyone fleeces Marvel studios but if people start pirating independent works from people no better off, often worse, that's iffy.
  - connorgutman 4y ago
    I appreciate your sentiment, and trust me I really do want to support people like your friend, but no I literally do not have any money for recreational activities (and if I did I would buy a videogame or boardgame because it would last longer). I make $13.50 / h (which is above minimum wage here in Arizona) and go to school full-time. Rent is $1,000 (absolute cheapest I have found in my college town), groceries are roughly $500, gas is $50-$100 depending on world affairs, utilities are $250,public transportation (so that I don't have to pay for parking at shool) is $50, and the list goes on tbh. I'm lucky enough to have a Prius that was given to me by my family so no car payment even. I'm one of the lucky ones for being in college at all. This is the America that most people live in. Well even that isn't true, I have it way better than most.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      Checking out from a library and grabbing a pirated version are different in that checking out from a library generates demand. The library may respond by buying additional copies of a given work, and you can put in requests to your local library to buy work if they don't currently stock it. Even if a library refuses to buy the work, it's common for libraries to loan works to each other-- so a library from another city or further out may buy the book and let you borrow it for example. It all generates demand for libraries to buy more.
    - gameshot911 4y ago
- trabant00 4y ago
  I'm going to pretend you are serious and genuine so: - living wages in the US are something most of the rest of world only dreams about. And most can afford to buy a book once in a while, even new (of course it depends on the book). Source: eastern Europe. - second hand and library books have generated revenue for the author already. Going full piracy and decreasing demand for the those two hurts the author, hurts the second book stores and hurts the libraries. I pirate books as well but at least I'm honest about the consequences of my actions.
  - connorgutman 4y ago
    I am absolutely genuine, and I think you do not understand the average American. The rest of the world may dream about our wages but it's still putting lipstick on a pig. Most the people I know can't even feed their families right now, let alone buy a book for pleasure. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but the lives of college-educated middle-class Americans and above are not representative of the majority. I will clarify, I obviously DO NOT think that my situation compares to someone in another country, specifically under-developed ones. In the context of books and recreational activities, however, I think you are vastly overestimating the US.
    - aquariusDue 4y ago
      I agree with you, even if it is unethical to pirate books I'd make the case that pirating books you can't afford to buy is what helped a non-trivial amount of people escape the generational cycle of poverty. In this particular case, stealing knowledge for a chance at a better career, the end might justify the means. Programmers from poor countries and poor backgrounds are were they are today making a good living from this career probably because of torrents with collections of programming books back from 10 years ago or more when free video learning on YouTube wasn't as developed as it is today. I made some sweeping generalizations but I hope I got my point across at least. This criminal avenue of pirating books and stealing potential revenue from authors is what allows some people to enjoy a better living.
      - 4y ago
- connorgutman 4y ago
- nickkell 4y ago
  Renting from a library does in fact pay the author, at least in the UK
  - connorgutman 4y ago
    Unfortunately, here in AR-15 land that's considered dirty communism.
achenet 4y ago
Not sure the authors are getting much money, compared to the publishers. Perhaps it depends on the nice - I heard sci-fi is rather low margin, whereas academic publishing tends to be rent-seeking. Still, with the world wide web, it's possible to cut out the middleman, get the book and directly support the author is he puts a Stripe button on his site. Not sure why we need the publishing company middleman anymore.
prisoner655321 4y ago
> if we don't buy their books, they won't be able to produce the next one for people to pirate. This is a false dichotomy. Book piracy and traditional book publishing co-exist. If book publishing wants to better compete with piracy, they can innovate like other industries have. As well, your implied prediction —- that if we don’t “stop all the downloading” [0] then books will disappear —- is decidedly ahistorical. Books have existed since long before publishing houses existed, and indeed it’s easier than ever to publish a book and get money for it. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90
- beej71 4y ago
  Put another way, there's no difference in profit between: 10,000 book sales and zero pirated copies. 10,000 book sales and 10 million pirated copies. The only thing left to argue about is what percentage of those pirated copies would have turned into book sales if the free versions had not been available.
wellareyousure 4y ago
> I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. I sympathize with this sentiment. I have writers in my family. Anyone who wants to be making money in writing is either (1) doing something else, like being a celebrity, and selling a book directly to their pre-existing audience (2) writing for TV, movies or went to law school. So few authors make money on their books, that the existence (or non-existence) of piracy has no impact on the aggregate experience of authors. > if we don't buy their books The truth is there is no audience for the vast majority of paid-up-front books, games, movies, music or other creative media. There is a large audience for TikToks. Part of the journey is coming to terms with this. The reality is people are writing because they like to, and the money doesn't matter, and the piracy doesn't matter, and they are not on Hacker News complaining about it anyway. That said, I believe these sentiments, expressed elsewhere, about being American and being poor or whatever. The commenters have limited empathy and bandwidth.
zerotolerance 4y ago
I'm an author. Steal my book. The whole point of writing is to hopefully help anyone learn something that you've shared. Authors aren't writing for the money those who do are selling at such volumes that they'll never even notice the dip. In most cases they'd be trying to get blood from stone. Steal it every time.
lezojeda 4y ago
10 USD is the average cost for an e-book from my anecdotal experience, some even 20. 200 USD our average salary range approximately. It's not easy for us, you can say "well if you can't afford them then tough luck" which I could understand but that'd be your point for most of the third world. There's a reason Steam videogames regional prices exist for example (which people with VPNs ruined it exploting the system)
sombragris 4y ago
> e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world That would be true if and only if there's an ebook version for the book you want. There are lots of books (even essential works for some fields) out there for which there are no legal ebooks. Your only hope would be to get a digitized PDF from zlibrary or libgen. Even if you had the cash to spare for purchasing it, you can't. One interesting case is what happened with books such as James Livingston's "Modern Christian Thought" (Fortress Press). I need it as an ebook. Well, they have (and I have purchased) volume I as an ebook, but they have Volume II only as paperback. I reached out to the publisher to inquire whether they are going to release Volume II as an ebook. Someone there answered, telling me that they "forgot" to release Volume II in electronic format, and that they plan to release it "soon". I'm still waiting...
thescriptkiddie 4y ago
They're burning a thousand libraries and you're complaining about hypothetical lost profits?
dredmorbius 4y ago
It takes but a few moments thought to realise that there are many alternative remuneration models available for authors and creators. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33647625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33647625>
charlieyu1 4y ago
I’m a poor author that nobody pays a lot for my books anyway. Copyright should be protected, but current piracy laws and enforcements are disgusting.
prvc 4y ago
> I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Thankfully, the topic is book "piracy", which is something completely different from the above description, so you're right in some sense.
the_arcadian 4y ago
Media publishers (and I use the term in the broadest sense) knew, going in, that the Internet was designed to distribute and copy information, in many cases completely anonymously. But they embraced the platform and chose that business model because they knew that it would lower their costs dramatically, even once piracy was taken into account, and they've been largely successful. Also in my experience CEOs really know their businesses, which makes me think they also understand the economics and dynamics of piracy to a greater extent than the rest of us, even pirates. From what observe, I think that they see pirates largely as hobbyists and influencers rather than lost customers or individuals out for economic gain, and are really only concerned with piracy at scale, like in this Z library case.
sec400 4y ago
Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information? I agree, as always there is nuance, but zlib et al fulfill a need for certain people. In b4 public libraries, they aren't equal around the world, depend on geographic proximity and add latency to the learning process.
- null_object 4y ago
  > Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information? Imagine I want whatever you do for a living? Should you work for me for free?
  - benibela 4y ago
    I do research at an university and develop open-source software. Everything I work on is free to download
  - braingenious 4y ago
    “Imagine a completely different question! Check mate!” GP asked a simple yes or no question: Do you think knowledge should be denied to people that can’t afford it? Your answer is “yes.” I don’t see the added value of trying feeble linguistic jiu jitsu to justify your position that yes, society should deny knowledge to those who can’t afford it.
  - theCrowing 4y ago
    I would be on board with you if only we got access to the public founded papers.
  - jliptzin 4y ago
    That analogy doesn’t work when the marginal cost to do that work is literally zero, in fact he wouldn’t even know he’s performing the “work”
    - rsj_hn 4y ago
gizmo 4y ago
Artificial scarcity is still bad. Imagine a world where books are free for everybody, not just for people who live in prosperous areas with good libraries. Would you then advocate making books nonfree thereby placing books out of reach for 2/3rd of the world population, which is more or less where we are today?
- trabant00 4y ago
  > Imagine a world where books are free for everybody I imagine it will go the same way of the other internet content that is free: adds, spam, clickbait, low quality, etc.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  For fiction, I almost exclusively read online serialized fanfiction/webfiction. This is already the world I live in. And I can confirm: it's pretty great.
theCrowing 4y ago
The price spike on comics and graphic novels after the comiXology acquisition by Amazon is over 150%...
- bentley 4y ago
  They removed the DRM‐free download option too.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Maybe I'm thinking wrong but I expected digital editions of books to be like $3 or something since there are no printing/shipping costs of the equivalent printed book. In the old analog world, authors might expect 15% of gross sales. You figure the publisher needed the 85% to cover printing, shipping of the physical book. (Oh, and they should make a profit there too.) But if you no longer have to deal with pulp, I would naively expect an electronic book to sell for something like 30% of the cost of the physical book — splitting the sale between author and publisher. Presumably both parties still make a comparable profit. I know I've dropped advertising on the floor in the above discussion and perhaps that counts for a significant cost to the publisher. But at the same time, assuming DRM, a digital book sale should benefit the publisher/author as it is typically non-transferable (unlike the physical books that end up in Little Libraries or Goodwill). I might add that if eBooks dropped to $0.99 a book, I would be buying them faster than music tracks. Maybe Jobs got two things right. ;-)
  - mmmlinux 4y ago
    Download video games have the same issue. same price as physical release, cant resell it, never goes on sale, still the same price it started at 4 years later when a physical copy is 50% discounted. Already have a physical copy? no you cant download it.
    - tintor 4y ago
      Physical copy degrades over time and can be destroyed or lost. Download can't.
auggierose 4y ago
Many of the books I am interested in have actually been financed by tax payers, because their authors are professors. These days publishers are not adding much value here, actually they often make high quality publishing harder by terrible off-shore handling of LaTeX. I've bought quite a few ebooks from the AMS (American Mathematical Society), just to get very angry about the annoying small print on the bottom of EVERY FREAKING PAGE stating that I am the owner of this book. I don't feel bad about replacing these damaged goods with the real deal.
- gnramires 4y ago
  Not only that, but many publishers, specifically scientific ones, seem to get in the way of the natural near-0 marginal cost of digital publishing. Information should be available to all by default, because the value of having it freely available is much more than even what people could be expected to individually all pay for it. In the end, having a million paywalls and restricting information for disadvantaged individuals is not rational (or ethical), or effective for a society.
noodlesUK 4y ago
A lot of the usage I see of these sites is in the academic world. Academic publishing is a nightmare (especially on the journal side). The books are often not available at all in the region you’re in or if they are, they might be priced differently. It’s especially difficult because you’re going to skim a book to see if it has any relevant material, then move on to the next one. Usually university libraries are the only way of doing this, but not everyone has access to one. No individual is going to buy a dozen books nominally priced at >100 usd each just to write a paper for their masters degree or similar
- cge 4y ago
  >The books are often not available at all in the region you’re in or if they are, they might be priced differently. Also, "the region you're in" can even mean the same country as the publisher, or even anywhere in the world. Publishers may be unwilling to sell the books to individuals at all, or may sell them only as part of larger sets with very high prices. They may only be willing to sell hardcover copies, for a premium, even if they do produce softcover ones. It's simply not feasible, in most cases, to purchase the books you need to do scholarly research as an individual. And if you're looking at digital publications, the situation becomes even worse. I recently had someone tell me that their father, in the US, had been looking, not wanting to ask them, for a copy of a book they had just published a chapter in. The book could only be purchased by individuals as a set of six books, all in hardcover, for around $500. Part of the problem here is that individuals are often not the target customers for academic publishing: libraries are. Publishers can be worried that if they do sell in ways that are convenient to individuals, that might reduce their profits from libraries. If they sell books individually, instead of as larger sets, then university libraries can order only the volumes that people request, rather than needing to purchase all of them. If they sell softcover copies, libraries can buy them and rebind them in-house, or simply have them as softcover, rather than needing to pay that premium. If they have prices that are reasonable for individuals choosing books to buy with their own money, the prices will need to be far lower than what they can be for libraries being instructed to buy books by others and needing to figure out how. And, as you mention, the journal (and reference) side is even worse. Outside of very high profile journals, which are simply expensive for individual subscriptions, many otherwise quite reasonable journals from reputable publishers simply won't offer subscriptions to individuals at all: their only option for individuals may well be article-level purchases at prices that would be utterly absurd for actual research. In some cases, they also won't offer subscriptions to institutions, except as a (potentially very large) package of journals. At a small university, I can remember the library pointing out that getting access to one yearly proceedings publication very important for our field would cost a five figure yearly amount per year, because it was only sold as a package of hundreds of publications. Larger universities can have problems with this in the six or seven figures.
reisse 4y ago
> but e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world. I'm in Sweden Sorry, but by "pretty much anywhere in the world" you clearly mean "first world". If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally. Publishing agreements usually cover specific countries, and no-one cares about, for example, selling books in English in Central Asia. So even if you have means to pay for the book (which can be challenging - and I'm not talking about "having money" here, I'm talking about "technical possiblity" - Visa and Mastercard are not as universal as they might seem from the first world), most of the time no-one can or wish to sell it to you legally. Interesting that Steam solved most of that problems for game distribution though. They have worldwide publishing agreements, regional prices AND good support of local payment providers in many countries. I think a lot of people underestimate how these factors allowed Steam to overtake piracy.
- lezojeda 4y ago
  >Interesting that Steam solved most of that problems for game distribution though. They have worldwide publishing agreements, regional prices AND good support of local payment providers in many countries. I think a lot of people underestimate how these factors allowed Steam to overtake piracy. Sadly it is being ruined by people from first-world using VPNs. Many AAA stopped using regional prices and we're stuck paying the same cost as in the first world.
  - Calamityjanitor 4y ago
    From the other side it feels just as unfair. When I lived of ~AU$200 a month, $100 towards rent, a new game was ~$100 in Aus. It was often much cheaper to buy physical copies from Asia and import.
- anhner 4y ago
  > If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally I completely agree and even though I imagine countries outside of these have it much worse, even within the EU you can find massive differences between countries. For example, there is a much smaller selection in Eastern European countries vs. Western, and books are the same price or sometimes even pricier while wages are significantly lower.
smeagull 4y ago
It's human culture. The idea that it should be the sole provenance of rich multi-nationals to decide who can afford to read is disgusting. It should all be freely accessible. Removing money from the equation would also solve other quality issues.
- sabellito 4y ago
  How would the authors pay rent?
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    A huge majority of book authors (especially for technical writing) are not professional authors, and barely get any money from book sales. Ask any university professor that has had a book published.
  - jobs_throwaway 4y ago
    selling physical copies, in-person speaking events, selling the rights to their IP to filmakers to name a few. Freely accessible =/= profitless.
- jasmer 4y ago
  It's 'disgusting' to suggest others should have to labour for you for free - and suggesting 'removing money from the issue would solve' issues is more than naive, it's glib. IP is not 'corporate protectionism'. The entire system absolutely depends on it, moreover, the vast majority of IP holders are very small entities. Particularly in this case, authors. The internet is actually a greatly liberating opportunity for authors, especially those on the 'long tail' to develop an audience that they would never have an opportunity to otherwise. And of course - anyone who wants to create for free, as many do, can do that. But if there's no concept of IP, then it implies 'creative work goes unpaid' and paradoxically, flushes surpluses into those that have much more material power in the value chain - a bit like 'open source' devs who work tirelessly on projects whereupon the surpluses are mostly captured by large corporate institutions. Of course there's always grey areas, and on some level 'release valves' for information is appropriate, but on the whole, IP protections are reasonable. Vast amount of the works we are used to in our daily lives both professional and private, upon which we depend, would immediately vanish, lacking any kind of viable business model. Finally - there's much ado in Africa on so many fronts, if you want to help to solve IP distribution issues there related to price discrimination, there's a lot of opportunity there.
Mandatum 4y ago
This is the most American take I’ve seen on the debate yet.
criddell 4y ago
> which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools Even if that were true today, it's a cat-and-mouse game and it may not always be true. I don't know if FairPlay DRM that Apple uses or Adobe's DRM has been thoroughly cracked, but last time I checked, Amazon's KFX hasn't truly been cracked yet. The best I've seen are workarounds to get Amazon to deliver the book in an older format that has been cracked, but then you lose the typography improvements that are tied to the new format.
christophilus 4y ago
I bought a Kobo for its easy public library integration. Jokes on me. My public library doesn't have most of the books I want, and the way ebooks are leased to public libraries is a disgrace-- something I only found out after buying the Kobo. So, what's a guy to do? I buy the books wherever I can find them at the cheapest price (usually on the used market, sometimes via Kindle store, sometimes via Kobo store). Then, I pirate it, since that's a much more convenient way to get a DRM-free format that actually works on my device. In my case, at least, I paid for every z-library book I ever downloaded--with one exception. Z-library also made it easy to browse books the way you would in a physical book store. Sometimes, you think, "Looks interesting." You open it up, read a few pages and realize, "Not for me." Z-library was a good way to do this. Both of those are legitimate use cases. Probably not the most common use case, but it sure was handy, and now I've got to find a replacement.
- andai 4y ago
  Most of zlib's content was from libgen, zlib had a nicer ui though.
jpgvm 4y ago
Your geographical white privilege is showing. Getting access to books for instance in SEA or Africa is an entirely different story to one of the richest countries in the world with some of the highest standards of living (in your case Sweden but could apply to most EU/NA/AU/NZ). I would say the vast majority pirating couldn't afford the work in the first place, meaning nothing is lost from the perspective of the author. It's not a sale stolen, it's someone that would otherwise simply go without.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > Your geographical white privilege is showing. Although I fully agree with the points you make I just want to point out that being wealthy (from a world average wealth standpoint) is dissociated from being white. The issue is limited access to resources due to lack of wealth, or geo-location with bizantine distribution contracts. Race has little to do with this discussion. Plenty of white poor people across the globe, plenty of non-white rich people across the globe.
  - jpgvm 4y ago
Tomte 4y ago
> but e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world. English and local books at least. Can I easily buy Swedish-language books in Germany? I really don't know.
nathell 4y ago
I think we can have our cake and eat it too. https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/ https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/
- mavhc 4y ago
  This is the simplest solution, get a drm ebook, and pay the person who wrote it directly, they'll get way more money from you that way than if you bought the book
phpisthebest 4y ago
>>An enormous amount of work goes into producing a book So your saying books should be protected because they take alot of work, but movies should not because they dont? I am highly confused by your ethical position here. Either creative works should be protected by copyright or they should not. It seems your personal connection to authors have clouded your judgement in favor of that medium over other creatives mediums, I wonder if you would feel the same if you had personal relationships with independent film maker, to toss your analogy back, not ever filmmaker has a J.K Rowling book to make a film about which comes with a built in audience Now me personally I think copyright is WAY over protective, I think the US original copyright law was a good balance, 14 years, with 1 extension if the physical person that created the work requests it (i.e corporations get 14 years only, individuals can get up to 28 years of protection)
psychphysic 4y ago
If I can access a book for free at a library. Why can't I read it online for free? Ultimately the answer will be about rights and really suggesting the author can put arbitrary restrictions in content that's been purchased. Those restrictions exist for financial reasons not moral. As such this is not theft in any ethical sense but a quirk of the laws. A law apparently many people disagree with...
- gglitch 4y ago
  Careful. They'll come for the libraries next.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    It's already happening: <https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishers-ebooks-e-books-macmillan-protest-amazon-bezos https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishe...>
- aliqot 4y ago
  It's not free at the library, the book was purchased with your taxes.
  - connorgutman 4y ago
    It was purchased a single time, just like the original e-book that you pirate.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      Every person in the world doesnt use a single library with a single copy. Every local library purchases one or more. How many did Zlib purchase? How many Zlibs are there?
      - connorgutman 4y ago
        That's a logical race to the bottom that makes me think you have never checked out a book from a US library. If you were to calculate how much an author makes from their book being in libraries it's miniscule. For starters most library books are donated secondhand and not purchased new by libraries. Secondly, most libraries only have a single copy of a given book unless it is a major title (It's not uncommon for waitlists to be booked up for months where I live). Additionally, most titles are shared across multiple libraries in a state or city. Where I live you can return a book to any library because they just circulate copies around the state. Regardless, there are roughly 9,000 public libraries in the U.S. let's pretend that every single library purchases 1 copy of a given book new (an extremely generous estimate). Most authors are not self-published and earn 10-12% royalties, but let's pretend this author is self-published and earns around 40% from their printer before operational expenses. Let's also pretend it's an absolute banger of a book and is selling for a whopping $20/copy. That means they make $8/copy before taxes, bookstore fees, shipping, and other expenses that the self-publisher does not pay for. Let's be generous and say they somehow make $8/copy after all of that. If every library bought 1 copy (which, again. They do NOT) the author would earn $72,000. That's absolute peanuts compared to what they earn on Amazon from people who can afford firsthand books. The point of libraries and piracy is not to stop people who CAN afford books from buying them. It's supposed to enable those who CANNOT. A more productive approach would be to publicly fund authors but according to Americans that's filthy communism.
nudpiedo 4y ago
Although I agree with you, tell me now how can I find "The book of Gossage" which is a singular classic book nowadays out of catalogue.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Agree, forget copyright, there needs to be an "abandonware" clause similar to the (unauthorized, I know) way software is treated. Plenty of books I have only been able to find on eBay and at sometimes insane prices.
  - sitkack 4y ago
    Not only that, I looked into republishing some books from the 80s, it is impossible to know who currently could possibly have legitimate rights to do so! For any work out of print, one should be able to republish it and pay a nominal fee directly to the library of congress.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
try buying Italian books in USA. Hell, it's hard to find them even in France!
tuyiown 4y ago
I'm french. I occasionally buy ebooks, but the price of eBooks is maintained artificially higher to protect traditional (paper) channels. The things is, that extra money does _not_ go to the authors, which I would finance way more wholeheartedly. Basically you get taxed because of your medium preferences, and the money is pocketed by the worse actor of the whole business.

connorgutman 4y ago

It's very simple actually. You (and most of HN) live in a tech industry bubble. Living wages in the U.S are terrible and disposable income is non-existent. I work a 9-5 just like everyone else but when it comes down to it I don't have the money to buy new books. I can either buy used paperback from a second-hand store, go to the library, or pirate an epub. None of these options pay the original author and are effectively the same. Given that I was never going to pay anyways, why do you find the third option unethical? It hurts absolutely no one but greatly enhances my quality of life and (in some cases) helps society by making me a more educated individual. The only thing piracy costs authors is opportunity (which in my case was always 0).

throwaway2037 4y ago
BetterWorldBooks.com is excellent. I have bought from them for years. I recommend you try it. Also, you wrote: <<None of these options pay the original author>> Libraries buy millions of books per year in the US -- expensive hardbacks. They must be the single largest buying group. That money pays authors. Also, I never once saw an author upset that a library was lending their book. The same is true for second hand book selling.
- dublinben 4y ago
  Here's an example I found in less than a minute of an author railing against used book sales: https://authorkristenlamb.com/2015/12/pay-the-writer-pirates-used-bookstores-why-writers-need-to-stand-up-for-whats-right/ https://authorkristenlamb.com/2015/12/pay-the-writer-pirates...
Barrin92 4y ago
If you're pirating Stephen King or a 300$ textbook from a guy who has tenure at Harvard I doubt anyone probably including the author cares but a fair amount of authors aren't making any more than you make. Friend of mine published her own graphic novel basically living in her parents attic and a day after it was out someone had ripped it and thrown it on a comic piracy site. That's not ethical. If you live on a 12-15/hour salary which I have too you still can afford the occassional book here and there, you can't tell me you spend zero on recreational stuff. I don't care if anyone fleeces Marvel studios but if people start pirating independent works from people no better off, often worse, that's iffy.
- connorgutman 4y ago
  I appreciate your sentiment, and trust me I really do want to support people like your friend, but no I literally do not have any money for recreational activities (and if I did I would buy a videogame or boardgame because it would last longer). I make $13.50 / h (which is above minimum wage here in Arizona) and go to school full-time. Rent is $1,000 (absolute cheapest I have found in my college town), groceries are roughly $500, gas is $50-$100 depending on world affairs, utilities are $250,public transportation (so that I don't have to pay for parking at shool) is $50, and the list goes on tbh. I'm lucky enough to have a Prius that was given to me by my family so no car payment even. I'm one of the lucky ones for being in college at all. This is the America that most people live in. Well even that isn't true, I have it way better than most.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    Checking out from a library and grabbing a pirated version are different in that checking out from a library generates demand. The library may respond by buying additional copies of a given work, and you can put in requests to your local library to buy work if they don't currently stock it. Even if a library refuses to buy the work, it's common for libraries to loan works to each other-- so a library from another city or further out may buy the book and let you borrow it for example. It all generates demand for libraries to buy more.
  - gameshot911 4y ago
trabant00 4y ago
I'm going to pretend you are serious and genuine so: - living wages in the US are something most of the rest of world only dreams about. And most can afford to buy a book once in a while, even new (of course it depends on the book). Source: eastern Europe. - second hand and library books have generated revenue for the author already. Going full piracy and decreasing demand for the those two hurts the author, hurts the second book stores and hurts the libraries. I pirate books as well but at least I'm honest about the consequences of my actions.
- connorgutman 4y ago
  I am absolutely genuine, and I think you do not understand the average American. The rest of the world may dream about our wages but it's still putting lipstick on a pig. Most the people I know can't even feed their families right now, let alone buy a book for pleasure. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but the lives of college-educated middle-class Americans and above are not representative of the majority. I will clarify, I obviously DO NOT think that my situation compares to someone in another country, specifically under-developed ones. In the context of books and recreational activities, however, I think you are vastly overestimating the US.
  - aquariusDue 4y ago
    I agree with you, even if it is unethical to pirate books I'd make the case that pirating books you can't afford to buy is what helped a non-trivial amount of people escape the generational cycle of poverty. In this particular case, stealing knowledge for a chance at a better career, the end might justify the means. Programmers from poor countries and poor backgrounds are were they are today making a good living from this career probably because of torrents with collections of programming books back from 10 years ago or more when free video learning on YouTube wasn't as developed as it is today. I made some sweeping generalizations but I hope I got my point across at least. This criminal avenue of pirating books and stealing potential revenue from authors is what allows some people to enjoy a better living.
    - 4y ago
connorgutman 4y ago
nickkell 4y ago
Renting from a library does in fact pay the author, at least in the UK
- connorgutman 4y ago
  Unfortunately, here in AR-15 land that's considered dirty communism.

achenet 4y ago

Not sure the authors are getting much money, compared to the publishers. Perhaps it depends on the nice - I heard sci-fi is rather low margin, whereas academic publishing tends to be rent-seeking. Still, with the world wide web, it's possible to cut out the middleman, get the book and directly support the author is he puts a Stripe button on his site. Not sure why we need the publishing company middleman anymore.

prisoner655321 4y ago

> if we don't buy their books, they won't be able to produce the next one for people to pirate. This is a false dichotomy. Book piracy and traditional book publishing co-exist. If book publishing wants to better compete with piracy, they can innovate like other industries have. As well, your implied prediction —- that if we don’t “stop all the downloading” [0] then books will disappear —- is decidedly ahistorical. Books have existed since long before publishing houses existed, and indeed it’s easier than ever to publish a book and get money for it. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90

beej71 4y ago
Put another way, there's no difference in profit between: 10,000 book sales and zero pirated copies. 10,000 book sales and 10 million pirated copies. The only thing left to argue about is what percentage of those pirated copies would have turned into book sales if the free versions had not been available.

wellareyousure 4y ago

> I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. I sympathize with this sentiment. I have writers in my family. Anyone who wants to be making money in writing is either (1) doing something else, like being a celebrity, and selling a book directly to their pre-existing audience (2) writing for TV, movies or went to law school. So few authors make money on their books, that the existence (or non-existence) of piracy has no impact on the aggregate experience of authors. > if we don't buy their books The truth is there is no audience for the vast majority of paid-up-front books, games, movies, music or other creative media. There is a large audience for TikToks. Part of the journey is coming to terms with this. The reality is people are writing because they like to, and the money doesn't matter, and the piracy doesn't matter, and they are not on Hacker News complaining about it anyway. That said, I believe these sentiments, expressed elsewhere, about being American and being poor or whatever. The commenters have limited empathy and bandwidth.

zerotolerance 4y ago

I'm an author. Steal my book. The whole point of writing is to hopefully help anyone learn something that you've shared. Authors aren't writing for the money those who do are selling at such volumes that they'll never even notice the dip. In most cases they'd be trying to get blood from stone. Steal it every time.

lezojeda 4y ago

10 USD is the average cost for an e-book from my anecdotal experience, some even 20. 200 USD our average salary range approximately. It's not easy for us, you can say "well if you can't afford them then tough luck" which I could understand but that'd be your point for most of the third world. There's a reason Steam videogames regional prices exist for example (which people with VPNs ruined it exploting the system)

sombragris 4y ago

> e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world That would be true if and only if there's an ebook version for the book you want. There are lots of books (even essential works for some fields) out there for which there are no legal ebooks. Your only hope would be to get a digitized PDF from zlibrary or libgen. Even if you had the cash to spare for purchasing it, you can't. One interesting case is what happened with books such as James Livingston's "Modern Christian Thought" (Fortress Press). I need it as an ebook. Well, they have (and I have purchased) volume I as an ebook, but they have Volume II only as paperback. I reached out to the publisher to inquire whether they are going to release Volume II as an ebook. Someone there answered, telling me that they "forgot" to release Volume II in electronic format, and that they plan to release it "soon". I'm still waiting...

thescriptkiddie 4y ago

They're burning a thousand libraries and you're complaining about hypothetical lost profits?

dredmorbius 4y ago

It takes but a few moments thought to realise that there are many alternative remuneration models available for authors and creators. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33647625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33647625>

charlieyu1 4y ago

I’m a poor author that nobody pays a lot for my books anyway. Copyright should be protected, but current piracy laws and enforcements are disgusting.

prvc 4y ago

> I can't see stealing some poor author's work in the same light. Thankfully, the topic is book "piracy", which is something completely different from the above description, so you're right in some sense.

the_arcadian 4y ago

Media publishers (and I use the term in the broadest sense) knew, going in, that the Internet was designed to distribute and copy information, in many cases completely anonymously. But they embraced the platform and chose that business model because they knew that it would lower their costs dramatically, even once piracy was taken into account, and they've been largely successful. Also in my experience CEOs really know their businesses, which makes me think they also understand the economics and dynamics of piracy to a greater extent than the rest of us, even pirates. From what observe, I think that they see pirates largely as hobbyists and influencers rather than lost customers or individuals out for economic gain, and are really only concerned with piracy at scale, like in this Z library case.

sec400 4y ago

Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information? I agree, as always there is nuance, but zlib et al fulfill a need for certain people. In b4 public libraries, they aren't equal around the world, depend on geographic proximity and add latency to the learning process.

null_object 4y ago
> Imagine the person who cannot afford a book or paper on a particular topic. Should they not have access to the information? Imagine I want whatever you do for a living? Should you work for me for free?
- benibela 4y ago
  I do research at an university and develop open-source software. Everything I work on is free to download
- braingenious 4y ago
  “Imagine a completely different question! Check mate!” GP asked a simple yes or no question: Do you think knowledge should be denied to people that can’t afford it? Your answer is “yes.” I don’t see the added value of trying feeble linguistic jiu jitsu to justify your position that yes, society should deny knowledge to those who can’t afford it.
- theCrowing 4y ago
  I would be on board with you if only we got access to the public founded papers.
- jliptzin 4y ago
  That analogy doesn’t work when the marginal cost to do that work is literally zero, in fact he wouldn’t even know he’s performing the “work”
  - rsj_hn 4y ago

gizmo 4y ago

Artificial scarcity is still bad. Imagine a world where books are free for everybody, not just for people who live in prosperous areas with good libraries. Would you then advocate making books nonfree thereby placing books out of reach for 2/3rd of the world population, which is more or less where we are today?

trabant00 4y ago
> Imagine a world where books are free for everybody I imagine it will go the same way of the other internet content that is free: adds, spam, clickbait, low quality, etc.
FeepingCreature 4y ago
For fiction, I almost exclusively read online serialized fanfiction/webfiction. This is already the world I live in. And I can confirm: it's pretty great.

theCrowing 4y ago

The price spike on comics and graphic novels after the comiXology acquisition by Amazon is over 150%...

bentley 4y ago
They removed the DRM‐free download option too.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Maybe I'm thinking wrong but I expected digital editions of books to be like $3 or something since there are no printing/shipping costs of the equivalent printed book. In the old analog world, authors might expect 15% of gross sales. You figure the publisher needed the 85% to cover printing, shipping of the physical book. (Oh, and they should make a profit there too.) But if you no longer have to deal with pulp, I would naively expect an electronic book to sell for something like 30% of the cost of the physical book — splitting the sale between author and publisher. Presumably both parties still make a comparable profit. I know I've dropped advertising on the floor in the above discussion and perhaps that counts for a significant cost to the publisher. But at the same time, assuming DRM, a digital book sale should benefit the publisher/author as it is typically non-transferable (unlike the physical books that end up in Little Libraries or Goodwill). I might add that if eBooks dropped to $0.99 a book, I would be buying them faster than music tracks. Maybe Jobs got two things right. ;-)
- mmmlinux 4y ago
  Download video games have the same issue. same price as physical release, cant resell it, never goes on sale, still the same price it started at 4 years later when a physical copy is 50% discounted. Already have a physical copy? no you cant download it.
  - tintor 4y ago
    Physical copy degrades over time and can be destroyed or lost. Download can't.

auggierose 4y ago

Many of the books I am interested in have actually been financed by tax payers, because their authors are professors. These days publishers are not adding much value here, actually they often make high quality publishing harder by terrible off-shore handling of LaTeX. I've bought quite a few ebooks from the AMS (American Mathematical Society), just to get very angry about the annoying small print on the bottom of EVERY FREAKING PAGE stating that I am the owner of this book. I don't feel bad about replacing these damaged goods with the real deal.

gnramires 4y ago
Not only that, but many publishers, specifically scientific ones, seem to get in the way of the natural near-0 marginal cost of digital publishing. Information should be available to all by default, because the value of having it freely available is much more than even what people could be expected to individually all pay for it. In the end, having a million paywalls and restricting information for disadvantaged individuals is not rational (or ethical), or effective for a society.

noodlesUK 4y ago

A lot of the usage I see of these sites is in the academic world. Academic publishing is a nightmare (especially on the journal side). The books are often not available at all in the region you’re in or if they are, they might be priced differently. It’s especially difficult because you’re going to skim a book to see if it has any relevant material, then move on to the next one. Usually university libraries are the only way of doing this, but not everyone has access to one. No individual is going to buy a dozen books nominally priced at >100 usd each just to write a paper for their masters degree or similar

cge 4y ago
>The books are often not available at all in the region you’re in or if they are, they might be priced differently. Also, "the region you're in" can even mean the same country as the publisher, or even anywhere in the world. Publishers may be unwilling to sell the books to individuals at all, or may sell them only as part of larger sets with very high prices. They may only be willing to sell hardcover copies, for a premium, even if they do produce softcover ones. It's simply not feasible, in most cases, to purchase the books you need to do scholarly research as an individual. And if you're looking at digital publications, the situation becomes even worse. I recently had someone tell me that their father, in the US, had been looking, not wanting to ask them, for a copy of a book they had just published a chapter in. The book could only be purchased by individuals as a set of six books, all in hardcover, for around $500. Part of the problem here is that individuals are often not the target customers for academic publishing: libraries are. Publishers can be worried that if they do sell in ways that are convenient to individuals, that might reduce their profits from libraries. If they sell books individually, instead of as larger sets, then university libraries can order only the volumes that people request, rather than needing to purchase all of them. If they sell softcover copies, libraries can buy them and rebind them in-house, or simply have them as softcover, rather than needing to pay that premium. If they have prices that are reasonable for individuals choosing books to buy with their own money, the prices will need to be far lower than what they can be for libraries being instructed to buy books by others and needing to figure out how. And, as you mention, the journal (and reference) side is even worse. Outside of very high profile journals, which are simply expensive for individual subscriptions, many otherwise quite reasonable journals from reputable publishers simply won't offer subscriptions to individuals at all: their only option for individuals may well be article-level purchases at prices that would be utterly absurd for actual research. In some cases, they also won't offer subscriptions to institutions, except as a (potentially very large) package of journals. At a small university, I can remember the library pointing out that getting access to one yearly proceedings publication very important for our field would cost a five figure yearly amount per year, because it was only sold as a package of hundreds of publications. Larger universities can have problems with this in the six or seven figures.

reisse 4y ago

> but e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world. I'm in Sweden Sorry, but by "pretty much anywhere in the world" you clearly mean "first world". If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally. Publishing agreements usually cover specific countries, and no-one cares about, for example, selling books in English in Central Asia. So even if you have means to pay for the book (which can be challenging - and I'm not talking about "having money" here, I'm talking about "technical possiblity" - Visa and Mastercard are not as universal as they might seem from the first world), most of the time no-one can or wish to sell it to you legally. Interesting that Steam solved most of that problems for game distribution though. They have worldwide publishing agreements, regional prices AND good support of local payment providers in many countries. I think a lot of people underestimate how these factors allowed Steam to overtake piracy.

lezojeda 4y ago
>Interesting that Steam solved most of that problems for game distribution though. They have worldwide publishing agreements, regional prices AND good support of local payment providers in many countries. I think a lot of people underestimate how these factors allowed Steam to overtake piracy. Sadly it is being ruined by people from first-world using VPNs. Many AAA stopped using regional prices and we're stuck paying the same cost as in the first world.
- Calamityjanitor 4y ago
  From the other side it feels just as unfair. When I lived of ~AU$200 a month, $100 towards rent, a new game was ~$100 in Aus. It was often much cheaper to buy physical copies from Asia and import.
anhner 4y ago
> If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally I completely agree and even though I imagine countries outside of these have it much worse, even within the EU you can find massive differences between countries. For example, there is a much smaller selection in Eastern European countries vs. Western, and books are the same price or sometimes even pricier while wages are significantly lower.

smeagull 4y ago

It's human culture. The idea that it should be the sole provenance of rich multi-nationals to decide who can afford to read is disgusting. It should all be freely accessible. Removing money from the equation would also solve other quality issues.

sabellito 4y ago
How would the authors pay rent?
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  A huge majority of book authors (especially for technical writing) are not professional authors, and barely get any money from book sales. Ask any university professor that has had a book published.
- jobs_throwaway 4y ago
  selling physical copies, in-person speaking events, selling the rights to their IP to filmakers to name a few. Freely accessible =/= profitless.
jasmer 4y ago
It's 'disgusting' to suggest others should have to labour for you for free - and suggesting 'removing money from the issue would solve' issues is more than naive, it's glib. IP is not 'corporate protectionism'. The entire system absolutely depends on it, moreover, the vast majority of IP holders are very small entities. Particularly in this case, authors. The internet is actually a greatly liberating opportunity for authors, especially those on the 'long tail' to develop an audience that they would never have an opportunity to otherwise. And of course - anyone who wants to create for free, as many do, can do that. But if there's no concept of IP, then it implies 'creative work goes unpaid' and paradoxically, flushes surpluses into those that have much more material power in the value chain - a bit like 'open source' devs who work tirelessly on projects whereupon the surpluses are mostly captured by large corporate institutions. Of course there's always grey areas, and on some level 'release valves' for information is appropriate, but on the whole, IP protections are reasonable. Vast amount of the works we are used to in our daily lives both professional and private, upon which we depend, would immediately vanish, lacking any kind of viable business model. Finally - there's much ado in Africa on so many fronts, if you want to help to solve IP distribution issues there related to price discrimination, there's a lot of opportunity there.

Mandatum 4y ago

This is the most American take I’ve seen on the debate yet.

criddell 4y ago

> which can easily be removed by widely-accessible tools Even if that were true today, it's a cat-and-mouse game and it may not always be true. I don't know if FairPlay DRM that Apple uses or Adobe's DRM has been thoroughly cracked, but last time I checked, Amazon's KFX hasn't truly been cracked yet. The best I've seen are workarounds to get Amazon to deliver the book in an older format that has been cracked, but then you lose the typography improvements that are tied to the new format.

christophilus 4y ago

I bought a Kobo for its easy public library integration. Jokes on me. My public library doesn't have most of the books I want, and the way ebooks are leased to public libraries is a disgrace-- something I only found out after buying the Kobo. So, what's a guy to do? I buy the books wherever I can find them at the cheapest price (usually on the used market, sometimes via Kindle store, sometimes via Kobo store). Then, I pirate it, since that's a much more convenient way to get a DRM-free format that actually works on my device. In my case, at least, I paid for every z-library book I ever downloaded--with one exception. Z-library also made it easy to browse books the way you would in a physical book store. Sometimes, you think, "Looks interesting." You open it up, read a few pages and realize, "Not for me." Z-library was a good way to do this. Both of those are legitimate use cases. Probably not the most common use case, but it sure was handy, and now I've got to find a replacement.

andai 4y ago
Most of zlib's content was from libgen, zlib had a nicer ui though.

jpgvm 4y ago

Your geographical white privilege is showing. Getting access to books for instance in SEA or Africa is an entirely different story to one of the richest countries in the world with some of the highest standards of living (in your case Sweden but could apply to most EU/NA/AU/NZ). I would say the vast majority pirating couldn't afford the work in the first place, meaning nothing is lost from the perspective of the author. It's not a sale stolen, it's someone that would otherwise simply go without.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> Your geographical white privilege is showing. Although I fully agree with the points you make I just want to point out that being wealthy (from a world average wealth standpoint) is dissociated from being white. The issue is limited access to resources due to lack of wealth, or geo-location with bizantine distribution contracts. Race has little to do with this discussion. Plenty of white poor people across the globe, plenty of non-white rich people across the globe.
- jpgvm 4y ago

Tomte 4y ago

> but e-books can be purchased pretty much anywhere in the world. English and local books at least. Can I easily buy Swedish-language books in Germany? I really don't know.

nathell 4y ago

I think we can have our cake and eat it too. https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/ https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/

mavhc 4y ago
This is the simplest solution, get a drm ebook, and pay the person who wrote it directly, they'll get way more money from you that way than if you bought the book

phpisthebest 4y ago

>>An enormous amount of work goes into producing a book So your saying books should be protected because they take alot of work, but movies should not because they dont? I am highly confused by your ethical position here. Either creative works should be protected by copyright or they should not. It seems your personal connection to authors have clouded your judgement in favor of that medium over other creatives mediums, I wonder if you would feel the same if you had personal relationships with independent film maker, to toss your analogy back, not ever filmmaker has a J.K Rowling book to make a film about which comes with a built in audience Now me personally I think copyright is WAY over protective, I think the US original copyright law was a good balance, 14 years, with 1 extension if the physical person that created the work requests it (i.e corporations get 14 years only, individuals can get up to 28 years of protection)

psychphysic 4y ago

If I can access a book for free at a library. Why can't I read it online for free? Ultimately the answer will be about rights and really suggesting the author can put arbitrary restrictions in content that's been purchased. Those restrictions exist for financial reasons not moral. As such this is not theft in any ethical sense but a quirk of the laws. A law apparently many people disagree with...

gglitch 4y ago
Careful. They'll come for the libraries next.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  It's already happening: <https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishers-ebooks-e-books-macmillan-protest-amazon-bezos https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishe...>
aliqot 4y ago
It's not free at the library, the book was purchased with your taxes.
- connorgutman 4y ago
  It was purchased a single time, just like the original e-book that you pirate.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    Every person in the world doesnt use a single library with a single copy. Every local library purchases one or more. How many did Zlib purchase? How many Zlibs are there?
    - connorgutman 4y ago
      That's a logical race to the bottom that makes me think you have never checked out a book from a US library. If you were to calculate how much an author makes from their book being in libraries it's miniscule. For starters most library books are donated secondhand and not purchased new by libraries. Secondly, most libraries only have a single copy of a given book unless it is a major title (It's not uncommon for waitlists to be booked up for months where I live). Additionally, most titles are shared across multiple libraries in a state or city. Where I live you can return a book to any library because they just circulate copies around the state. Regardless, there are roughly 9,000 public libraries in the U.S. let's pretend that every single library purchases 1 copy of a given book new (an extremely generous estimate). Most authors are not self-published and earn 10-12% royalties, but let's pretend this author is self-published and earns around 40% from their printer before operational expenses. Let's also pretend it's an absolute banger of a book and is selling for a whopping $20/copy. That means they make $8/copy before taxes, bookstore fees, shipping, and other expenses that the self-publisher does not pay for. Let's be generous and say they somehow make $8/copy after all of that. If every library bought 1 copy (which, again. They do NOT) the author would earn $72,000. That's absolute peanuts compared to what they earn on Amazon from people who can afford firsthand books. The point of libraries and piracy is not to stop people who CAN afford books from buying them. It's supposed to enable those who CANNOT. A more productive approach would be to publicly fund authors but according to Americans that's filthy communism.

nudpiedo 4y ago

Although I agree with you, tell me now how can I find "The book of Gossage" which is a singular classic book nowadays out of catalogue.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Agree, forget copyright, there needs to be an "abandonware" clause similar to the (unauthorized, I know) way software is treated. Plenty of books I have only been able to find on eBay and at sometimes insane prices.
- sitkack 4y ago
  Not only that, I looked into republishing some books from the 80s, it is impossible to know who currently could possibly have legitimate rights to do so! For any work out of print, one should be able to republish it and pay a nominal fee directly to the library of congress.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

try buying Italian books in USA. Hell, it's hard to find them even in France!

tuyiown 4y ago

I'm french. I occasionally buy ebooks, but the price of eBooks is maintained artificially higher to protect traditional (paper) channels. The things is, that extra money does _not_ go to the authors, which I would finance way more wholeheartedly. Basically you get taxed because of your medium preferences, and the money is pocketed by the worse actor of the whole business.