7 ms·
Almost the worst thing about Amazon and this gouging way of renting books is that it ‘legitimizes’ piracy. My partner works in publishing and we know a lot of a
by phony-account 2y ago
Almost the worst thing about Amazon and this gouging way of renting books is that it ‘legitimizes’ piracy. My partner works in publishing and we know a lot of authors. If you think piracy is going to sustain that industry and give you and your children books to read in the years and decades to come, you’re very mistaken.
- DetroitThrow 2y agoPlenty of books I've tried to purchase epub or PDFs of only have Kindle rental versions. If the publishers of these authors wanted me to let me own a PDF, I'd gladly purchase, but until they actually do that I have several easy alternatives to getting sucked into Amazon's ridiculous ecosystem. And this is a larger subset of books I want to buy than I would want, surprisingly.
- jazz9k 2y agoI say the same thing about GNU licensed software: if the author just gave me my preferred licensing terms, I wouldn't be forced to use it in proprietary software without compenstion.
- OKRainbowKid 2y agoHow is pirating books to read them by myself comparable to proactively selling other people's work?
- drawkward 2y agoNeither belonged to you in the first place.
- OKRainbowKid 2y agoAnd yet, one of these options is much more benign than the other.
- jazz9k 2y agonope.
- OKRainbowKid 2y agoIndeed, it is!
- fc417fc802 2y ago> without compenstion A key point here is that GP expressed a willingness to pay. The analogy would be attempting to license a piece of GPL software that you've decided to integrate into your proprietary stack and being outright refused for ideological reasons. Still illegal but people are probably going to perceive it a bit differently.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoAs an author, I barely get any money from Amazon. In some cases, with the cut Amazon and the publisher take, I make a few pennies on a $30 book. If you buy my book directly from my publisher's website, I'm extremely grateful. I get a fair amount for that. If you buy it from a local bookstore, at least they benefit. But if you buy it from Amazon, you might as well just get it from Anna's Archive. At least you're not supporting the jungle.
- Flimm 2y agoI would love to buy ebooks directly from publishers, but publishers generally sell ebooks with DRM just as bad as Amazon's DRM, if not worse. If publishers insist on vendor lock-in, then I might as well stick with Kindle where most of my ebook collection already is.
- GolfPopper 2y agoYou can buy a copy of the ebook from the publisher (or whatever source the author tells you is the best for them), and then acquire a useable copy by other means. You get an ebook, the author (and publisher) gets a sale.
- Marsymars 2y agoCan you clarify if you're talking about physical and/or ebooks?
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoBoth.
- llm_trw 2y agoI contacted a well known author about the shit latex rendering of his ebooks on Amazon. He said sorry and send me the a pdf copy he build with my name on all the pages. I really like the fact that I have a book dedicated to me by the author, but why the fuck do we need Amazon in this interaction?
- mystraline 2y agoWhat's that capitalist moniker: adapt or die. When we pay for a good, be it digital or physical, we want possession and ownership of that good. When your class of people demand 'licenses to read' instead of the actual ownership of the book, you can shove it. I would rather pay pirates to get actual non-DRM books than buy the temporary permission to view., especially since the eBook is more expensive. I will buy physical books, drm-free books, and pirate. I'm not paying hard earned money for a temporary license. If your publishers and authors can't understand first sale doctrine and actual ownership, then you can close up shop and quit.
- autobodie 2y agoMoniker or not, I don't see Amazon or Kindle going anywhere anytime soon.
- DennisP 2y agoWe need an AI that produces the text of a book, from a video of it as you flip through its pages. No special hardware, just a phone and a thumb. If a few pages get missed it can ask you to do it again.
- matwood 2y agoI think it’s wrong to pirate books, but making it harder and harder to use the thing someone buys will push people to pirate. The onerous DRM from the likes of publishers and Amazon will eventually back fire on them. They are fighting hard to not have books end up like music, but I feel it’s inevitable.
- MyOutfitIsVague 2y agoI think it's contextual whether it's even wrong to pirate books. A new book that just came out? Sure. If I want to read a copy of "Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake, who died in 1968, you'd have to do some marvelous convincing to make me feel bad about pirating it. Piracy would be wrong if the copyright system was reasonable. As is, it's the lesser of two evils compared to following the law as written.
- matwood 2y agoNo argument from me around copyright being too long. My point was mainly saying the publishers are working hard to avoid their Napster moment, but missing that it wasn't only about 'free' music, but convenience. The harder publishers make it to use their content legally, the more people they will push to the pirate sites.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoWell it does - if the business of Amazon is immoral, buying from them is immoral. Therefore piracy becomes the lesser evil.
- GeoAtreides 2y agowell, patreon definitely sustains the industry people on royalroad make $10K a month, many more make over $1K... and then there's AO3, the monster in the dark with everything for everyone