This is not strictly speaking a guest posting - it's more of a kidnap posting.
More on piracy anon, but here is a message from a pirate I criticised for referring to a book I had written and he had illegally uploaded as one of 'my books' (ie his books):
Dear Friend...
Thanks for your comment on “1001 Horrible Facts - By Yukkopedia”.
First of all, I must clear that when I say my books, meant my books collection which I share on scribd.com, for sharing book on scribd.com it is not necessary that one must also be a writer of that book. (you could see my profile, I didn't wrote any of book, as i am not a writer). We are here to share knowledge and education.
Secondly I didn’t say anywhere that “this book is written by me”, “I got its copyrights” or “I own this book” but in-fact neither change a word of your book given you a credit of writing this impressive & great book (see first page, writer name).
Thirdly, Your Book is available for free download on many different sites on net…if someone want to download one just have to run a search on net, then how could one defend against privation or copyright.
Well... still no hard feeling… it was not my intention to cause you distress. Cheers.
Faisal (Memonz Mind)
(His full name is Faisal Shazad and he lives in Karachi.)
Incidentally, the book is not 'By Yukkopedia', it's by me. As for 'given you a credit of writing', that means reproduced the title page. (This book has been taken down by scribd.com in compliance with a take-down notice.)
What is interesting is that Faisal clearly doesn't see anything wrong with his piracy activities. I particularly like the 'no hard feeling' in the last line to indicate that he is not annoyed that I challenged him on his use of the phrase 'my book'. Of course, I am violating Faisal's copyright by reproducing his message here. What a shame. He can issue a take-down notice and I will comply. But I thought I'd let him make his case ;-)
What irritates me about piracy is that it's all one-way. It would be different if pirates were rampantly creative, churning out books of their own and giving them away. I still wouldn't agree with piracy, but I could at least see it was an ideological standpoint. In the vast majority of cases, piracy amounts to nothing more than greed and theft.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Sean and with the points in the post. But, I do remember how pleased I was when itunes became a decent third option. Previously, with music, you either illegally downloaded, or bought the CD in a shop. itunes and legal mp3 was a brilliant invention. Books are still waiting for that and until a serioius third option exists neither real books nor piracy will die out.
ReplyDeleteHave to agree with Sean, too. But the tone of Faisal (once one penetrates the idiosyncratic style) does suggest that he and his ilk really don't see that they're doing something that's wrong. Scary.
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