No, seriously.

[lagilman]

Dear Person (or Persons Using the Same Account Name):

Please do not attempt to claim that uploading downloads of my audiobooks over half a dozen share-sites is "helping me" or anything other than what it is -- distributing stolen material. Yeah, I agree, Audible charges too much for individual audiobooks, but you need to take that up with Amazon.com, who owns Audible.

Because all you're doing by 'sharing' these files? Is hurting the ongoing career of an author you claim to enjoy/be supporting, and ensuring that there are no more audiobooks from me at all.

nolove,

Laura Anne

Comments

[varkat.livejournal.com]

I don't know why people don't grasp this concept. If artists all worked for free, they'd starve to death. No more art. Sigh.

[lagilman]

I wonder if they would be quite so sanguine if told that they had to work for free one day a week, because "we like your work" and "you're already seeing some money, you don't need any more."

(both comments that have been made in defense of pirating)

[chickwriter.livejournal.com]

EGADS! Really? That's just...incomprehensible.

::sighs::

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

Jeebus. These people are "helping" authors straight to unemployment!

[neko-san.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

On the other hand, I've never bought anything from Audible; I'm a big fan of LibriVox. (Free! Public domain! Really good reading of Moby Dick!)

On the third hand, i have bought books in both Kindle editions and paper editions, the first because i was impatient, and the second because it's nice to have a hardcopy that's easy to lend out to friends. (Which, in my group of friends, often leads to "Okay, which of the four of you did I borrow this from? We have our own copy now.")

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

"helpful people" annoy the living shit out of me..

[handlebar605.livejournal.com]

I like reading real books, way to much to stop buying them & read stuff online.

[elialshadowpine]

Oy. >_<

I have slightly less issue with people that admit that they're stealing and it's wrong. It doesn't change what they're doing, but at least they're honest about it. The people that try to argue they're doing the artist a favor, though... *makes neck-wringing motions*