I know what side I'm on. Buy the damned paperback.

Same guy who lectured us all a few years ago about how computer books in ebook form were a terrible idea because they would spread all over the Internet for illegal downloads.

In the end, nearly all computer books are available often in DRM-free ebook formats that, yes, are spread all over the Internet, but an early practitioner of this, O'Reilly, found that it didn't seem to hurt sales curves, and may have helped.

But people can decide what to pay. The information that is the content of that book is floating around out there, and people need only to dip their cup into the river of information to scoop it up. Then, they can pay whomever they like whatever they like.

That Pogue sent $9.99 instead of $10 is rather annoying.

I'm with you on not knowing the right answer, and I feel bad that I can't stop thinking "Fuck it, Ludlum's dead. Just steal the damn book."

Because theft is always the right thing to do if someone's dead, evilvolus?

@5: I've professionally sold a couple short stories (it paid for a whole tank of gas!), and despite having a full-time job, still hope to publish a novel someday. And let me tell ya, if after kicking the bucket the easiest way for people to get my stories read is to download then for free from other people, I hope they do it!

I'm pretty sure that there is pretty good legal support for the idea of "format portability". In other words, it is perfeftly legal to convert a digital file like a song, movie or book to another format, even if the publisher doesn't approve. For example, ripping a DVD, then watching it on your iPhone is perfectly legal, assuming you legally purchased the DVD, don't share the digital version, and don't double up (copy) the movie by keeping the digital copy and selling/giving away the original DVD.

Seems to me that the same principals apply here. He should have bought the paperback, then "copied" it (taking a shortcut by getting the torrent, I guess) then destroyed/set aside the paper copy.

The idea of authors getting paid at all for writing is comparatively young - Voltaire pulled off a coup by simultaneously publishing Candide in multiple countries to defeat bootleggers. The publishing industry has forgotten that for the majority of post-Gutenberg history they weren't getting paid at all, not the writers, not the editors, not the other useless flacks that now exist.

I just feel in my gut that drastic measures are necessary or Robert Ludlum won't be read at all by 15 year olds.

Steal it. Rip it. Smuggle it in like a microdot embedded in your retina. Whatever it takes to open up the world of this important literature generations to come.

I have a Rhapsody, an Amazon Prime and a Netflix subscription, which I sometimes use as a justification to listen or view media on YouTube or GrooveShark.

I am also of two minds on this. According to Rhapsody, they pay good money to many artist who do "quite well" on there, but still there are holdouts who leave the total collection with holes. Even with these services I find them all more cumbersome to use than say YouTube which is so fluid and natural.

My idea is that we would subscribe to media by purchasing an Internet Media License...this would give me free reign to download or use anything I find there, and it would be up to various regulators to send the appropriate people their share of the fee. I guess it would be Romnobamacare for movies and albums.

@5 - To begin with, I clearly said I feel bad about it. But frankly, if I'm not supporting the author anymore, I have a hard time giving a fuck. He's dead, both his wives are dead, and I can pick up a used paperback for $0.50 at Value Village. So, yeah. Go ahead and steal it.

@7 - Would that it were so, but it's not. A number of laws, the DMCA foremost among them, make plenty of things that should be legal, illegal. Case law has clarified the "anti-circumvention" clause of the DMCA somewhat, but I'm hesitant to declare ANYTHING that involves digital media "perfectly legal" at this point.

This doesn't have to be hard.

If there is DEMAND, someone will SUPPLY. Authors who don't accept the premise that once they've made their arrangement of words (maybe images) available to the public, they really aren't going to have any meaningful control over how that arrangement of words is disseminated, much like how they can't control how their arrangement of words will be interpreted. The proliferation of distribution options for books is the logical extension of literary criticism into the commerce of literature, which is to say it's all up for grabs now. This is painful, and frustrating for the kind people that value "book culture," whatever that is/was. Personally, I've always experienced literature as a lugubrious business, breaking bread with the dead, so I'm not inclined to lament these change. What is the utility of resisting e-books? Realistically, what's the end game?

Uhh...wut?

This has little to do with resisting ebooks, and more about a publisher too lazy to do the ebook conversion. Which is still better than the publishers exactly lazy enough to do a shitty ebook version.

Oh, sorry. Greedy estate, not lazy publisher. Whatever. Same shit.