Piracy, Again
Today I saw yet another post on Tumblr with a link to a site with “Free PDFs of Witchy Books!”, which had over 93,000 notes (likes and reblogs, for those not familiar with Tumblr speak).
Many of the books on this list are still in print, and the publishers are fairly vigorous about enforcing copyright and taking anti-piracy measures. Publishers share these links and lists with each other, because while we’re all competing for the same audience, we’re also trying to stay in business, individually and collectively.
If you want to read books for free, check them out from your local library. If your library doesn’t have one, ask about inter-library loan.
Check out Libby, an app that lets you check out ebooks and audio books for free from your local library.
Every time you download a book for free, you are picking the author’s pocket. You wouldn’t like it if someone stole your work, so why are you okay with stealing someone else’s work?
Speaking as a publisher, I pay a lot of money to bring a book into print and ebook form. My authors spend years writing, and the artists spend a great deal of their time creating the art. When people pirate our books, I’m unable to cover the costs to create new books, and my authors and artists make no money. Right now, we have no new projects in the queue because, like most small businesses, we’ve been slammed by the pandemic, sales are down, and people still think it’s okay to pirate our titles.
If you want the information, pay for it. If you can’t pay for it, borrow it from your public library. But don’t pirate it—that’s theft, and what you are saying is that you are the kind of person who is okay that their spiritual practice is based on theft of others’ work.
And I bet that most of the people who pirate the books are also super-concerned about spiritual theft due to cultural appropriation.
Theft is theft.
Have a nice day.
