Book Piracy

In response to a comment on "Satyr's Sermon" below, I tried but failed to leave a comment in reply. I'll have to work that out later. But here is my reply:


"Anonymous said... how do you come to terms with the fact that these kind of books are now being pirated as pdf versions?"

Mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I generously support the publishers by buying these quite expensive books whenever possible. However, there is a problem when I want to read a book that is unavailable except at exorbitant prices - like "Qutub" was until a couple of years ago. I was grateful to stumble across a pdf, then went to some trouble to convert this to text and rebind, matching the upside-down and back-to-fronting needed to sew into signatures. By the time I was finished, I think this could be covered under "derivative works" use, but I figured nobody would mind as the publishers werent being put out (the book was out of print, so they werent losing a dime) and this was only for my personal use. When the new edition came out, I bought a copy for $100 or so.

Although I had some issues with Scarlet Imprint coming out with second editions of limited runs on a regular basis, I think they have solved the issue since - providing hardbacks for book afficionados, but with a cheaper paperback version for those who are purely interested in the text.

That to me could be applied to the general schism between the wealthy and poor; the poor are accommodated with basic necessities, while the rich get exclusive versions with a few extra knobs and whistles thrown in.

In short, pirating is OK in my opinion, so long as it does not interfere with the legitimate interests of the creator of the works. If you're not going to buy the work, because you cant, then it is pseudo-legitimate to obtain a crappy copy for personal use. However, if you can reasonably afford to purchase the product from the creator, one is obliged to do so or forego the privilege.

Legally, of course, corporations can and do patent the use of turmeric and other things they never created. I'm talking morally here, not legally. And the publishers I'm talking about here, in the main, are moral people who understand the issue.

A side issue is that some corporations like the OTO consider some books to reveal "their" secrets (although they did not write the rituals on which these are based). If someone writes something they have a right to restrict its distribution. If they inherit it, I personally feel not.