Yo ho, heave ho: International Please Don't Pirate My Book Day.

[seanan_mcguire]

My beloved Chuck Wendig (he upon whose shoulder I ride always, invisible, intangible, and whispering horrible profanity into the jellyfish-like ridges of his ear) made a post about book piracy yesterday, declaring today, February 6th, International Please Don't Pirate My Book Day. He asked people to post about their experiences with piracy. And as I am an amiable blonde, I am posting.

I've talked about book piracy before, and at the end of the day, it really does come down to a pretty simple statement for me: I don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable, and it makes me sad, and it makes me feel like the hours I spend working hard to write good stories would be better spent doing something else, like say, watching Criminal Minds. I do recognize that piracy is a huge, complicated issue, and that no one is innocent, because everyone who exists in the modern media world has committed some act of digital piracy, whether intentionally or accidentally.

Books are a luxury item. When I was a kid below the poverty line, if I'd had access to book torrent sites and an e-reader, I can guarantee you that I'd have been one of the biggest pirates around, making me the biggest hypocrit around. And those authors would not have been losing sales, because my money was never on the table to begin with; I didn't have any money. Instead, they would have been gaining my undying loyalty, and I grew up into an adult with a passion for owning things. I love owning things. I want to own all the books I love, so that I can stroke them and loan them to people and yes sometimes, give them away when somebody loves them more than me. (No, Bill, this does not apply to any of my folklore collections.) But I am not the norm. My housemate hates owning things, and if he hadn't been conditioned that free books come from the library, not the internet, I think we would have a very different set of things to fight about.

But you know what? "I'm sorry I downloaded your book, I couldn't afford it" sounds very different coming from the teenager in tatty jeans than it does coming from the thirty-something fan with a Starbucks in their hand (and I have heard this statement from both these people). There's a point at which we have to make choices about our luxury items, and sadly, those choices sometimes involve going without. My book or your fancy coffee: please choose, and don't tell me you chose "ENJOY ALL THE THINGS" when it meant that your choice didn't help me feed my cats.

It's funny, but for a culture that's obsessed with wealth and fame, we view money as somehow crass. I love money. I am terrified of slipping back into poverty; terrified enough that I sometimes have trouble remembering that I can afford to buy brand-name cereal. I didn't become a writer for the love of money, but it's the need for security that's kept me working two jobs. I write four books a year. I write a lot of short fiction. I put in, easily, forty hours a week at my keyboard, and that's after I spend forty hours a week at my day job. I pray to the Great Pumpkin that my books will sell, because I want to get out of that day job, I want to spent sixty hours a week at my keyboard and have twenty hours to do stupid shit, like sleeping. And no, it's no one's responsibility to pay my bills but me; I have to do that. I have to make my budget and live within it, and while the things I'm most likely to share with the internet (dolls! Disneyland!) can seem financially silly, I assure you, they happen after I pay the power bill.

If I wanted to write for free, I would have stuck with fanfic, where I was paid in a loose publishing schedule (I.E., "whenever I wanted to post") and with immediate, unrelentingly positive comments, because no one wants to stomp on a fanfic author. I became a professional author to get a wider audience, to share my work with more people, to be someone else's Stephen King (the way Stephen King was mine), and yes, to get paid. I do a job, I really, really enjoy getting paid for it. And yet I see more outrage over someone not tipping their waitress than I do over someone not wanting to pay an author.

(It's horrifying that we pay restaurant staff under minimum wage because "they'll make it up with tips." When you add up the time it takes to write, revise, edit, polish, and promote a book, many authors also make below minimum wage.)

So please, don't pirate my books. When you buy them, you feed my cats and you pay my bills and you let me sleep a little easier and you keep me sitting down at the keyboard, ready to slam out another story. And if you really feel you have to pirate my books, if your situation is such that you can't buy things and this is the only joy you have, please buy them later, when you can, even if you're not normally a re-reader. Please make it possible for me to keep doing this job. I am a human too, and I could really use the help.

I will close with a quote from Chuck:

"If you find that some component of the books doesn’t work for you—some kind of DRM or issues of access, I might suggest pirating the book but then paying for a physical copy. And then taking that copy and either using it to shore up a crooked table or, even better, donating it or passing it along to a friend. Don’t donate directly to me; my publisher helped make my books exist. Publishers catch a lot of shit for a lot of shit. Some of it is deserved. But the truth is, my books—and most of the books you’ve loved in your life—are due to the publishers getting to do what they do. They’re an easy target but they deserve some back-scratchings once in a while."

Thank you.

Comments

[ckd]

As a cheering counter-note, I've bought paper and/or electronic copies of books that I already had legitimate-but-unpaid-for ebooks of (Hugo nominees that I got in the voter's bundle, Tor books that were freebies during the Tor.com launch, Baen Free Library) because I wanted to support the authors and publishers.

Your books have been among them.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You are awesome.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

If you're going to pirate, pirate booty, not books! Yar!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yar!

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

(And thank Chuck for the nice comments about those of us in the publishing biz. We do it cause we love books too. Yar!)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Ah will do this thang.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Heh. I have this bad habit of buying multiple copies of your books because I keep lending them to friends.

And I need to finish my Verity costume so I can wear it to Vericon!

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

That is an EXCELLENT habit. :D

[herefox.livejournal.com]

I never pirated books and have done my best in recent years not to pirate music largely in part because now a days I know enough authors and musicians, at least on the internet if not personally face to face to find it appalling to do so. I think with both these things most people assume that authors are raking in money like Stephen King or J.K.Rowling and not just barely making minimum wage or less for the time they put into doing something they love.

I like to think that even if I didn't know people involved in making awesome things I still wouldn't pirate (and it's probably true with books, I like having them to pet far too much. I can't even get used to getting them in e-reader format!) but who knows? I do think it's important that people like you do speak about the effects of piracy on the smaller name authors and musicians. And I totally want you to be able to write sixty hours and sleep occasionally. ;-)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Sleep would be AMAZING.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Information wants to be free.
And so does the grocery?

I'd say that, even if I weren't married to a writer, and I remember the dismissive way my wife's concerns about copyrights were treated by a well-known political blogger.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I've tried that before. Sadly, Safeway does not accept that argument.

[la-chica-08.livejournal.com]

Something I never thought about, but while I have a pretty 'eh whatever' opinion on music/movie piracy, the only books I've ever pirated were ones that I already owned the hard copy and the digital copy wasn't available legally (and if it was, I would've bought them)

I don't think it would even occur to me to pirate if I could get them legally because ebooks are so cheap (and Kindle has lots for free) that it's not worth the hoops to jump.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Movies/TV are so different, though. Almost everyone I know who pirates those does so before the movie/show is available to buy with moneydollars. And then they buy copies when they can.

[dejadrew.livejournal.com]

I'm... kinda confused about the sheer social cluelessness involved here, as much as anything else. I mean, I get why people pirate. Some have what they think are good reasons, some people have crap reasons, but I understand the basic concept. But what, in heaven's name, possesses them to, well, TELL the creator of the thing they stole? There's no way in hell that's going to make them happy.

Why not just, y'know, say "I loved your book/song/movie" and not elaborate? Or lie, if they must, say that they got it from the library/borrowed it from a friend? Best of all, if you're in a situation where you KNOW you might meet a creator of stuff you like, why not scrimp and buy a legit copy of something so you can have something to get signed, sort of a cost of admission thing? Why the hell would ANYONE, even someone who thinks it's okay to pirate, ALSO think it's okay to walk up to someone and say "That thing I stole from you is great!"

Ideally, nobody would ever pirate stuff, but if they do, what the heck is wrong with a LITTLE polite shame and discretion?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

WHY DID YOU TELL ME?

[dulcimeoww.livejournal.com]

As self-employed, self-published webcomic people, we make well below minimum wage. We also make well below industry wages. Just for kicks, last night I tallied up what it SHOULD have cost to pay us low-end industry rates to do the same jobs we already did for free on the first volume of Errant Story... simplified down to just writing, art, and lettering. The answer? $43,000, give or take, before it ever goes to print. There are about 180 content pages in a volume, which is a little more than a year's worth of updates. So, essentially, every year since 2000, my husband has put about $40,000 worth of work up on the internet, 100% free for the enjoyment of his fans. That's $480,000 worth of comic work. And yet we still get complaints if we miss updates, and get landed on if we say, "Hey, if you like the comic, could you buy our stuff or donate or something? We kinda need to pay our bills."

I love our fans (I was one!), and I love what we do... but the attitude of entitlement about it sometimes makes me want to chew through iron. Books always came from the library growing up, and these days they mostly still do (see above lack of income), but when I love a series, I buy those books.* New. Then I lend the first one to everyone I know. It's not about a need to own things, it's about a need to support what I love. That matters.

* Yours are on that list.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Entitlement makes me cry tears of blood. And then the blood turns into snakes, and people die.

[andelku.livejournal.com]

Uh, the thirty something with the Starbucks is probably more broke than the teenager with the tatty jeans. Because the thirty something probably has a kid and the Starbucks is so he or she won't physically keel over from sleep deprivation.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

No single image tells a complete story, and my mother, who is dead broker than broke, sometimes has a large Starbucks in her hand, because I bought it for her, or because it's plain coffee, which is only a buck fifty. You get to prioritize your spending however you see fit.

But if you're someone holding a huge fancy drink that I know costs five dollars because I go to Starbucks too, and you're telling me to my face that you pirate my books because budget, I don't really think "gosh, you must be so tired from your hard life, you need that caffeine," I think "gosh, you're going out of your way to see if you can make me cry."

[lianneb.livejournal.com]

I will admit to having downloaded pirated ebooks from time to time. Mainly it's because I've bought a great big hardcover (Michelle West, Tom Clancy -- so sue me, I like Clancy for fluff reading) and my back won't let me haul the hardcover around for lunchtime reading or the like.

Now, if the publisher would offer an option of 'buy the hardcover and get a bundled download code for the ebook', I would jump on that. I would even pay a little extra for that. Kind of like the DVDs that come with a download code for the digital download of the movie for your portable device.

But when I've spent $30 for the hardcover, I do balk at at extra $15 for the ebook. I *want* the hardcover for my shelf, but I want that ebook for portability.

And then there's the side issue of pirated ebooks that are scans of books that have been out of print for decades with no sign of an ebook ever coming. Sure, I could hunt down the book through ebay or other sources of used books, but the author doesn't get money for that either.

BTW, there have been a few cases where I have bought both the ebook and the paper book, mainly when it's a new author I *really* want to support. Or the ebook goes on sale for a limited time.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

That's part of the gray zone that currently exists, and that makes me wish we'd start the bundling NOW, rather than waiting until later.

[scarybaldguy.livejournal.com]

One of my ebooks has been randomly turning up on book-pirating blogs in various countries (Japan and SKor are the biggest offenders). These blogs include a spamtastic, irrelevant description and a link to a download site in another TLD, which links to a download site in yet another TLD. On attempting to download, the site wants the downloader to install an executable in order to fetch the book. None of the host sites claim responsibility for policing the material stored there, not even very obvious malware, but they've all been cooperative when I submit a formal takedown notice. None of the blog hosts even acknowledge when I report the blogger for TOS violations.

OK, on the one hand, exposure. But, and it's a big one, my book is only 99 freakin' cents and I'll happily send a free copy to anyone who just asks politely. Also, you just don't EVER attach my work to gorram viruses and spam. That shit is unacceptable.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...ugh.

Agreed.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I think this is very fair towards piracy.

Yet there are options: libraries, buying second hand print versions and waiting for the digital price to come down (which it almost always does).

Not everyone has these options, but I wonder how many people really pirate because they've exhausted all others. The dominant motivations are free and/or not wanting to wait for an affordable legal copy.

Consider the angry Wheel of Time fans who claimed they'd resort to piracy because the digital release is after the print one.

I think entitlement is understandable, as e-capitalism has been sold on fast and cheap and the cost of tech and access is enough to make one resent additional charges for content. But justified entitlement is not necessarily social justice. It's also interesting the technology which makes piracy possible is also part of what make piracy necessary, i.e. reducing options like used and libraries and requiring high non-book costs before one can even start book shopping.

[hoppytoad79.livejournal.com]

Consider the angry Wheel of Time fans who claimed they'd resort to piracy because the digital release is after the print one.

Awww, the poor butthurt babies! [/sarcasm] They need to get over their profound sense of entitlement. They don't want to wait? Then they can buy the print copy, and download the digital copy when it's released. There, problem solved. They don't want to do it that way and only want to buy the digital copy? They can wait for the digital release, then.

[beasting-quest.livejournal.com]

I've wondered for a while if the issue of being unable to buy a book you would love to read (and can't get for free through a library or something similar for whatever reason) could be remedied at least somewhat by some sort of "borrowing chain" through the internet. I mean, I have various ways to find the books I want to read, and one of them is looking through recommendations of internet friends or look what people on lj have read and liked, and maybe you could have groups of people who sort of buy stashes together for others who can't afford to buy a copy by themselves? It would require a lot of organisation, obviously. Maybe someone has already thought of something like this (I'm sure someone did)? I know that this is likely only a bandaid...

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

There are some sites for lending/borrowing e-books that are allow lending. CNet did a review of several a while back http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33153_7-57373446-10391733/four-matchmaking-services-for-e-book-borrowing-and-lending/

[juglore.livejournal.com]

I don't pirate. I'm just a paladin that way. But there have been many times when it was a choice between new book or lunch and lunch lost.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[meredith44]

I am a preschool teacher. I make virtually nothing and work multiple jobs (always 6 days a week, usually 7; my last day off was January 5th), and I still feel guilty getting the vast majority of my books from the library instead of supporting authors by buying them. (I try to make up for it by rec'ing the ones I love, and buying them when I can, such as when I bought the Toby Daye books with Barnes & Noble gift cards parents of the kids I teach got me for the holidays.) I can't imagine pirating them outright.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I think nobody should feel guilty for using libraries! That's what they're there for! Supporting libraries is A+ goodness. And recommendations and reviews of the books you love are always awesome things, in my opinion.

[peter hansen (from livejournal.com)]

I would of probably soon anyways but I went to pre-order Midnight Blue Light Special but I can't pre-order it on for kindle. Thank-You for your wonderful books (and to your alter-ego Mira too)

[joyce.livejournal.com]

No e-preorders anywhere, that I can see. But March 5 is on my calendar. :)

[hoppytoad79.livejournal.com]

What pisses me off about those who have enough pocket money to buy books but *gaspsobweep* don't want to, other than they're being cheap SOBs, is why don't they go to the library? If they want to read it but not pay for it, why not take advantage of a resource their tax dollars are paying for? Libraries are love and when I want/need something to read, the first place I think to go is the library.

Like you, money was so tight growing up I could rarely buy a book growing up. As an adult, my own personal collection is small because I'm still very frugal about what books I actually spend money on. Libraries keep me in reading material well enough I rarely have to purchase any of my own, so I usually purchase what I know I'll go back to again and again and useful research books. Textbooks collect dust on the lowest shelves. ;)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

And the more people use libraries, the more funding they'll get. We need our libraries.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

I might suggest pirating the book but then paying for a physical copy.

I know someone whose shelves are full of physical books he's never opened, for exactly this reason. He prefers reading digitally and doesn't want to support a DRM-infested model, so he buys the hard copy in the name of both supporting the author AND being able to lend the copies to other people. (And then he sometimes buys more copies to give as gifts. This past Christmas that included him buying the Newsflesh box set for two different people. ^_^ He also uses his own hard copies to supplement my lending copies when more than one of our friends is reading through the trilogy. It's very efficient!)

There are things I download, but it's along the lines of a comment you made to someone else: it's stuff I can't buy yet due to availability. When it becomes available, I'm glad to fork over the money for it.

May your cats feast well for years to come!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I hope that they feast on everything but my flesh!

[aliciaaudrey.livejournal.com]

I approve.

I try to make it a point to buy the e reader copies of short stories that were posted for free and I already read even (I bought the velveteen collection for instance and will buy sparrow hill rd as well) because i can andI want you to KEEP AMUSING ME. I don't have much discretionary money (thank you high cost of living plus student debt) but I feel good when I can support an author I like.

It's like kickstarter. Only not kickstarter. I pay money and in exchange a publisher knows someone will pay money for the continuing adventues of a goth lolli waheela. Makes sense to me.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

The other nice thing about buying the "official" versions is that I edit them dramatically before publication. So Sparrow Hill Road is going to be dramatically different from what you remember.

[anna-en-route.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you say (although as someone who has...er bent the truth about my country of origin in order to purchase books, I don't really have much room to criticise pirates).

I would suggest adding "request my books at your local library" as a positive action that people can take (as well as making donations to their local library and of course buying your books). Libraries (especially those who lend e-books and audiobooks) are a wonderful legitimate way for people to compromise on piracy.

[archangelbeth]

If you pay for books, then you have a fair amount of room, is what I'd say. *has bought Pratchett books smuggled from Overseas more than once; the covers are better*

It's taking them for free -- and not buying them when money becomes more available -- that's just... not on.

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

Personally, I make it a rule not to pirate an ebook if I can buy the ebook. Generally the ones I pirate I've got in hardcopy, and just want to be able to carry them around in my reader.

Your books (and other authors whose work I particularly enjoy), I buy twice, once as ebooks and once as hardcopies, and generally "lend" hardcopies to friends who can't afford them, and not necessarily expect them to come home. (Not infrequently, I eventually buy audiobooks as well.) If I'm only going to buy it once, I buy it as an ebook. But a book I love, sometimes I'm going to want to curl up with a paper copy of, or someone else is, so they're nice to have.

There are some books that have never officially been published as ebooks, but somebody's scanned them in, and I can download a copy. Most of the ones like this I bother to go looking for are things I've loved for years, and have probably bought multiple hardcopies of (Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott, Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, Chronicles of Amber, etc), because copies never come back, or get damaged, or fall apart because I've been reading them two or three times a year for ten years or more. And truly, if they ever get published as ebooks, I'll probably buy them again, because I love my favorite authors and want them to be able to feed their cats and kids and selves.

But I do share ebooks with my wife, across our devices, and sometimes with the friends who miss this hardcopy because I gave it to my mom instead, or whatever. My wife and I wouldn't buy separate copies of a hardcopy, and my friends wouldn't be able to afford the books at all (yes, in their thirties or more, no, not with Starbucks in hand; those friends can get their own), but will probably buy hardcopies when they eventually can, because they, too, love physical books. I don't upload them, and I don't share them with people who can afford them.

I dunno. I know quite a few authors personally at this point, and I would not want to cheat authors out of their money even if I didn't, but there's also, as you said, would this author be getting money for this book anyway? I try to strike a balance, ethically. Not saying I'd never, ever cross the line, but I do try to make a point not to.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You are splendid.

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

This reminds me I need to go 'noooo *shake fist*' belatedly and then follow with 'thank you' for pimping Ludo. "Broken Bride" and "Ludo" are available on UK iTunes, but "Prepare the Preparations" isn't. (Nooooo). So I had to jump through a few hoops and get a US friend involved to acquire it. Definitely worth it, though!

(On topic: had I not had a US friend who was willing to help out, I probably would have sighed, grabbed a torrent and then felt really bad until such time as I could afford to ship a physical copy over from the US^*. For me, at least, finally having a stable income and a belated developing sense of budgeting (thus unlocking the Saving Up For Cool Stuff ability) has meant I've developed a strong personal dislike for piracy. But I also feel there are...not mitigating circumstances, but at least understandable justifications. If that makes sense.)

^*$40+ shipping and customs charges push a simple $15 CD into "...Really? That's a week's worth of food".

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, do you have a copy of You're Awful, I Love You yet? Because it, too, is awesome.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Well said, as always.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[lianneb.livejournal.com]

PS. In terms of supporting authors, I bought the ebook of Velveteen from the publisher, even though I can read them for free right here, simply because I love the stories and want to support getting more. And this was despite the fact that the price was pushing my comfort limit for ebook prices.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much.