Pirating ebooks?

[schneefink]

I was talking about this recently and I'm wondering what you guys think.

Poll #20275

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 38

It's okay to pirate an ebook when:

never
3 (7.9%)

you already own the ebook but it's on a different device
27 (71.1%)

you already own a physical copy of the book
17 (44.7%)

you used to own a copy of the book but don't anymore
4 (10.5%)

the library has a copy of the book
2 (5.3%)

the author is a terrible person that you don't want to give money to
16 (42.1%)

you can't afford to buy it
9 (23.7%)

you can't afford to buy it right now but plan to buy it once you can
11 (28.9%)

you can't buy it for technical reasons
21 (55.3%)

other (please explain in a comment)
8 (21.1%)

Comments

[lilysea]

When you've tried to buy the ebook legally, but the ebook is not available legally in your country.

(Less of an issue since I discovered that if you have a friend living in the US, you can tell Amazon you live in the US at that address, and thus be able to pay for ebooks that are only available to US residents...)

[schneefink]

I meant to include that in "technical reasons." I've fortunately never run into that issue, but it's nice to know there's theoretically a workaround.

[lilysea]

I used to run into it CONSTANTLY - situations where the ebook was only available to US residents on Amazon US, and not available at all on Amazon Australia.

About 50% of ebooks on Amazon US had this issue... :(

[schneefink]

That sucks :( I didn't really encounter it on Amazon DE, but I also didn't buy that many ebooks there.

[lilysea]

Apart from graphic novels, I ONLY buy ebooks.

a) I need large print;

b) holding paper books open and turning pages is bad for my chronic hand/wrist pain

[schneefink]

Yeah, ebooks are convenient for that :)

[jesse_the_k]

I am so much happier since adopting this same policy!

[sheron]

This! All of this!

In similar fashion, I had friend buy me amazon music (which is for some odd reason not available in Canada) and send me the mp3s by email like...wtf.

[schneefink]

I'm sure there's some legal reason with contracts for it, but it's annoying -.-

[theladyscribe]

Other: you want to read it, it's not available in any of the libraries you have access to (and ILL will take too long), but you're not sure you are interested enough to actually buy it. Or, the above, except it's book 5 in a series and you don't own the first four because they were all available via the library.

[schneefink]

"I'm kind of curious about it but not enough to actually pay money for it so I just won't read it - hey, there's a pirated version..." is very tempting at times.

[theladyscribe]

I have legit run into the second bit I mentioned - books 1-4 are available at one of the 5 libraries I have access to, books 5-9 are available at none, and afaik the books have never been print, only digital - and it's extremely frustrating. I put in order requests, but it's been over a year and none of them have picked them up. :(

[melannen]

A lot of public libraries all really bad at that;they usually get ebooks through basically subscription services with publishers, and if it's not offered on a service, they can't get it. It needs solved, especially with more and more ebook originals.

[marginaliana]

Just seconding the country restrictions thing since I've heard it so many times from Australian friends. People want to pay for it! Why won't Amazon take their money???

(This is my problem with BBC shows, too. As an American, I would pay quite a bit of money for legit access to the BBC shows online. But they have no method of doing that. And I'd get BBC America, except that their programming selection is All Wrong and doesn't include 99% of what I'd want to watch. It's so frustrating.)

[schneefink]

I think the industry is probably still figuring out how best to offer/distribute stuff, but they should do it faster.

[sheron]

The whole device thing drives me crazy. I will literally buy a book and then get a pdf or mobi of it to actually use/read because it's more comfortable across my various computers and tablets.

[schneefink]

Yeah, that's annoying :(

[sheron]

Kobo is much better about formats than Amazon, so I tend to buy my ebooks there:

https://www.kobo.com/

[schneefink]

I always try to buy my ebooks somewhere other than Amazon (usually at Thalia), but there are some not available anywhere else and it's annoying.

[sheron]

Hmm never heard of Thalia and google reveals nothing that looks relevant. Is that an ebook site?

[schneefink]

It's a large bookstore in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. I got my ebook reader there so it's easy to buy directly from them.

[ambyr]

I tend to let my reading be driven by what’s available, not get my heart set on specific books, so this doesn’t really come up. I pretty much exclusively read ebooks from the library; if the library doesn’t have it, I read something else.

[schneefink]

Unfortunately I often want to read specific books that the library doesn't have. But they're steadily increasing their ebook collection so it gets easier to find something there.

[melannen]

Also: it was offered to you by a friend, the equivalent of them passing you their physical copy;
You don't actually want to read it, you just need to look up that one quote/scene, and you can't find it on gbooks;
The publisher is a terrible person, and the author/editors aren't getting money for it anyway (I have zero shame pirating academic journals)
You paid for a copy, but the drm/formatting/editing issues make the Russian pirate site a better experience to read.

[schneefink]

I don't even consider exchanging ebooks with friends pirating if one of you got the book legally, and the other doesn't spread it to more people. (Of course it can be tempting not to ask where they got it from...)

And uh, nice of the Russian pirate site to at least clean up their ebook copies, I guess ^^

[melannen]

Well, I also include in that things like "uploaded to share with everyone in the chat room" or whatever. :p but it's technically illegal either way.


The pirate fiction websites aren't great, but some pro ebooks set a Really low bar. The websites tend to a) be really basic web-formatted, so they don't have, like, pagination or font issues; and b) be in a format where you could easily, say, search-replace to fix obvious unicode issues. Sometimes it's still easier.

[momijizukamori]

No legal ebook was ever produced, which frequently comes with 'this book is no longer in print and not available for a reasonable cost second hand'

[schneefink]

Very convenient in such cases that illegal ebook versions exist *nods*

[momijizukamori]

Yup - even if sometimes they're just PDFs I have to clean up and convert myself to epub, lol

[naye]

I probably wouldn't vote for the library option ever, but it would sound better to me if it read "you have borrowed a copy from the library". Circulation matters! (Swedish authors even get paid for loans in Swedish libraries. Not much, but it's like royalties.)

[schneefink]

I didn't know that! Makes sense though. I was thinking of moments like "the library has this ebook and I'm on the waiting list but there are ten people before me and I'm too impatient to wait that long."

[yuuago]

Nthing the bit about region restrictions/inability to obtain it legally.

Additionally: If the ebook costs more than the printed version. There is one book I was looking at a while ago - printed version is 30CAD, ebook is... 68CAD. I ended up not buying it altogether (library has it in print) but in such a situation I would not fault anybody for pirating that.

[schneefink]

That is weird. Was the printed version used? *scratches head* I've seen ebooks that were slightly more expensive than physical copies, but not that much.

[yuuago]

No; that's the current price direct from the publisher.

It's a niche subject from an academic press, so that might have something to do with that - if they're only expecting the ebook to be purchased by, like, academic libraries, or something. :|a But even then, it's quite a discrepancy.

[eleanorjane]

I answered yes to if I already own it in another format, and other. The other reasons would be:

* geolocked so I can't buy it from US/UK sites, and Australian sites either don't have it or are charginng 50% more than any other country (the Australia Tax is such bullshit, I can't even tell you)
* sampling to see if I want to read/buy it, and a sample chapter isn't available for free
* no legit ebook is for sale (or was ever produced)

[schneefink]

Good point about a sample chapter (idk how common those are, since I very rarely read them. Not sure why, maybe I should start.)

[enemyofperfect]

For myself, I don't think I've done it except when I owned the ebook on another device, but I feel like pirating ebooks must sometimes fall into almost the same category as stealing a loaf of bread in terms of legitimate acts of desperation. (How many of us could name books that acted as lifelines?) And I had to add technical reasons after I saw people in the comments talking about geographic issues, yeesh.

[schneefink]

"sometimes" underlined, but I can see that too.

[amalthia]

Some people I know horde ebooks, they don't actually read them at all, they just collect them...

[schneefink]

With physical books at least libraries look impressive to have, but with ebooks?

[amalthia]

No clue...digital hording is a thing.

[lian]

I once downloaded the next book in a series -- even though I had already bought the physical copy. There was a delay in the delivery and I would have DIED if I hand't been able to continue RIGHT AWAY after the cliffhanger!!

haha.......

[schneefink]

Completely understandable ^^

[morineko]

Other: very much in the “legal copies of this are not or are no longer available” and its close kin “book is OOP in any format.”

[schneefink]

Yes, same. If they're not legally available, what else am I supposed to do? Not read it? Hah.

[frith_in_thorns]

I have pirated lots of ebooks where I already own the physical copy. Because I want to both have a paper copy to admire on my bookshelves and lend out, and also I find ereading much more convenient most of the time (I can do other stuff at the same time). But I don't want to pay twice!

I really think paper books should come with a code where you can one-time download an e-version, like you can with CDs now.

[schneefink]

Agreed! I'd even be willing to pay a little bit more if it means I get both physical copy + ebook

[frith_in_thorns]

Definitely! It's such a no-brainer to me.

[cesy]

Yes, this would be so useful.