Authors and publishers usually do not like the idea of having their books pirated.
But when author Lloyd Shepherd got the dreaded Google alert linking to a request for an eBook version of his book The English Monster on file sharing site Mobilism, he decided to respond directly.
In an essay in the Guardian, Shepherd recounted how he told the book pirate how much time he spent writing and editing the book. Shepherd wrote: “This is my first book, and this is my first experience of someone attempting to produce a pirate version of it (I do not use the word ‘pirate’ pejoratively, mind). Is there any reason why I shouldn’t expect to be compensated for the time I have put into this?”
eBookNewser has more: “The reader responded and explained his position. He wrote: ‘Bottom line is, there is no justification or reason that would or should ever satisfy the author of original content. Anyone that tries to make sense of this process (that publishing houses are greedy; that knowledge should be free … just two reasons that I have seen bandied about) is just fooling themselves. There is also a Robin Hood aspect to this, that perhaps you may understand. Either way, I don’t think there is a way of putting this digital information era genie back into the bottle.’”