Humanizing the Author Behind the Screen

Article: ‘I can get any novel I want in 30 seconds’: can book piracy be stopped?

Source: The Guardian 

Date Published: March 6th 2019

Author: Katy Guest 

The article begins with an anecdote of Abena, a young girl who pirates her books claiming “I wouldn’t take food or clothes without paying the people who made them, because they’re physical things. I believe real life and the internet differ.” From the beginning, we can notice an immediate disconnect between cyberspace and real world consequences. Does this make Abena a bad person? Absolutely not—she is a young person who probably grew up being partially raised by the internet, so she is obviously desensitized to the nuanced and complex practice of illegally downloading books. Despite the main selling point of illegal books being their low (and sometimes free) price, studies find that most illegal downloaders tend to be from well-off socio-economic classes. This fact corresponds with the other articles found, confirming that most readers are not cheap but rather lazy and looking for convenience. 

Some of the people questioned about pirating had some controversial opinions on the matter, claiming that they didn’t feel bad about pirating books because “culture should be free to all,” even going as far as accusing authors of being greedy. As a long time reader, a writer, and someone studying publishing at the moment, I have strong opinions about this point of view. I believe these feelings are a result of a vast disconnect between the reader and the publishing process. Many people live blissfully ignorant of the struggles and effort it takes to publish a book—from the infant stages of manuscript pitching to the days of marketing it onto a bookshelf. This does not happen without a tremendous amount of work from a wide variety of people, and more importantly, this does not happen without money. It costs a lot of money to publish a book, and I do not believe it is “greedy” of authors or publishers to wish for some compensation for their work. I agree that culture should be widely available to anyone who seeks it, but realistically there also needs to be a string of income for those who create the culture. For everyone to get what they want, government funding assistance would be necessary, but that’s a whole other can of worms to open. 

The article continues to cite that this is a billion dollar issue for publishers, and that’s not surprising considering some people brag about illegally downloading over ten thousand books. Authors have been asking their publishers to be more actively tough with pirates, but the endless legal tie-ups paired with a cat and mouse chase of cyber criminals have made it seem hopeless. As we know being an author isn’t the most well-paid job, and many writers are struggling even further. due to e-book pirating This is when it is crucial to recognize the human behind the book and ultimately show some compassion; behind all the arguments about convenience or cost, there is a person who is the victim of creative theft. I can imagine it is hard to not feel frustrated when one successful take-down of an illegal site only inevitably results in countless more popping up like weeds.

The article makes an interesting point regarding the path to solving this issue: education. As we’ve discovered, many people download illegal e-books due to ignorance, so it is more realistic to “get the reading public to understand why using them is dishonest, wrong and is killing publishing and killing diversity in publishing.” I tend to agree that changing the minds of readers will positively affect industry, but I believe that there must also be a campaign to humanize the authors behind the books so people may fully comprehend the consequences behind their seemingly innocent online download.