There's a New Thief in Town
So… There’s this website that some of my author friends have their hackles up over. It is the personal website of gentleman that has put his entire e-book collection up on the web, and thrown it open as a lending library. My friends are upset because they feel this will cut into an author’s earnings and that it’s not right to distribute the author’s work without the author’s express permission. But before passing judgment myself, I felt like I should look at the website and be able to know what was going on first hand.
The opening page has a long list of books to click on and download and the express instructions that users cannot “borrow” more than 5 e-books in a 2 week period (violation will result in banning from the site) and that after the user is finished with the e-book, he/she is on the honor system to delete the book from his/her e-reader. My first thought was that this is not so different from what I do when I buy a hard copy book and then loan or pass it on to a family member or friend who I think will enjoy it. It also follows closely to the absolutely legal brick and mortar library model. But as I cruised through the website I noticed a few things -
1) The size of the list - it’s huge. I find it really hard to believe that this man has purchased and read every single one of these books since the advent of e-readers. Not impossible, but hard to believe.
2) Throughout the website there is inflammatory rhetoric about the “thieving publishers.” All publishers are thieves? Really? While I don’t defend or condone any shady business practices on the part of any business, and publishing is a business, I don’t think that we can paint ALL publishers with such a broad brush. There are plenty of snakes in the grass out there, but there are also a lot of editors and publishers who are honestly in love with the written word and who just want to get good books into the hands of eager readers.
This was all starting reek of scam, not someone who was just trying to share the joy of reading. Then came the part that got my hackles up…. He begs for donations to keep the website up, citing having to pay for bandwidth because of all the downloads and also spending so much time sourcing the e-books. And then he lists different donation amounts and what extra perks come with those amounts, which pretty much amounts to buying a membership in the site - And for 90 euros you can receive a DVD of the entire collection. WHAT?!?!?!
This now goes way over the line, my friends. A blank DVD does not cost much, and while postage (depending on where it’s going) can be more than a pittance, the cost of both of those together is not even close to the 90 euro mark. He does not write the book; nor does he participate in typesetting, editing, or proofing the book; nor does he bear any of the cost of promoting or distributing it, and yet he’s making money off it. And that, my friends, in my humble opinion, amounts to thievery.
The man is a thief and a scam artist. He’s not just magnanimously spreading the joy of reading and helping people in 3rd world countries have access to literature. I hope he gets shut down.
I’m all for making sure people have easy access to books. As a writer, it’s in my best interest to increase the reader culture, not do things that prevent it from growing. But at the same time, I want the people who are doing the work - the writing, editing, proofing, promotion, distribution, etc. - to be fairly compensated for that work. I don’t want some lazy, unethical jerk to ride on their backs and make an easy buck (or euro).
I’ve included a link to the website so you can decide for yourself. But count me among those who are angry and have their hackles up.
http://www.truly-free.org/