Arrr, Let's Talk About Pirates!

Book pirates that is.  [collective groan]

Ironically I pirated this picture from somewhere...

In their continuing quest to convince us that eBooks are just a fad, not to mention dangerous and immoral, Writer Beware linked to another article about plagiarism on Amazon, which apparently is just rampant.  Also very lucrative!

A lot of people like to blame Amazon, but I don't see where's a lot they can do.  What they're supposed to match the text in the book to be uploaded to the text of every book in existence and determine if it's plagiarized?  They could probably do more to prevent it, though why would they when they get to wet their beak from the sale of the book, no matter who wrote it?

Still the real people to blame (besides the plagiarists) are you people.  That's right, you people who buy shady eBooks without knowing a thing about them or who wrote them just because the price is right.  Sure a book isn't like a car or a stereo system.  Most eBooks don't even cost as much as a DVD.  That doesn't mean you should just buy them in bulk without thinking about it.  (Like you jerks who buy MY book on Amazon and then "return" it.)

Put it this way:  if you were walking down the road and some scruffy dude in an overcoat said "Psst, hey buddy, over here" and then opened the overcoat to reveal a bunch of "genuine" Rolex watches he's selling for $10, would you buy one?  Maybe if you're a sucker.  Buying an eBook from someone you've never heard of and spent no time looking up is pretty much the same thing as buying a watch from some shady character on the street.

And you might say, "Well people buy your books without knowing who you are, right?"  Sure, but if they bothered to put any effort into it they could see my Amazon author page, Goodreads page, Twitter account, Facebook account.  They could do a Google search and probably find old interviews I did for the book.  I mean really, I'm all over Cyberspace!  I sincerely doubt a book pirate is going to go to all the trouble of setting up all those accounts.

All the eBooks I've bought so far are either ones I know are legitimate or if it's from an "indie" author it's someone I've communicated with on Blogger or Twitter or Facebook.  It's not just some random dude on the corner with an oversized overcoat.

The best way to end piracy of books is just like all those illegal DVDs:  just don't buy them!  Obviously if people stop buying them then the piracy would come to a halt.  So really, put a little bit of effort into your book purchases, you lazy cheap bastards.  Until then it's Buyer Beware.