A Pirate Manifesto

Today I want to talk about Piracy. No, not the Somalian/High Seas kind.

I want to talk about digital piracy/file-sharing/stealing creative content. I'm going to make some arguments that might be controversial, especially considering the hopes and aspirations of the people who read this blog, who are mostly either published authors, or, like me, aspire to be.

Before I get to the controversial parts, I want to make one thing crystal clear. Stealing is wrong. Morally, ethically, legally, logically: WRONG. What do I mean by logically? Well, if you're a pirate, then you're an idiot. I mean think about it. It's not that hard to figure out. If you love that one hard core death metal new wave punk band, and every album they've ever made is available for free on the Usenet, Bit-torrent, or FrostWire, why wouldn't you want to download it? Because, dumb-ass, how can you possibly expect the artists whose work you enjoy so much to be able support themselves, and more importantly (for you) continue to create more awesome art for you to enjoy?

If you don't pay for it, they won't be able to afford to make it. Everyone has to earn their daily bread.

The same thing goes for films, video games, and most importantly (for this blog) books. But I do have a caveat. Before I get to that I want to make a distinction. I would one day like to be an author, as in a published one. Once I am, if you manage to obtain a pirated copy of my work, and bootleg it in such a way that you are making an illegal profit from my hard work (and it is hard work, this current novel has been over two years in the making), I will make sure that you are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That's if you're trying to distribute my work, for your profit.

Here's where the controversy kicks in.

If you download my book, from whatever file sharing service, and you enjoy it, just for yourself, and you don't go to any extra effort to make it more widely available for free, I'm not going to care.

It's shocking, I know, but let me tell you why. There are actually several reasons. First, books are different. It requires a lot more word of mouth to get a book selling than it does a film or album, and you can't really loan e-books to friends, or at least the last I read they were still working on software that would allow limited ability to loan digital media out.

How many times have you borrowed a book from a friend, or won one on a blog, and discovered an author that you came to love? If you read as much as I do, it's probably a lot. If you don't it may be less, but we're not splitting hairs here.

I'm loathe to admit this, but I have a real world example. I recently got very excited about A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin, when I heard that HBO was doing the show, and because two of the readers I respect most, Bryan Russell and Ted Cross both highly recommended the books. When I mentioned this to a friend I know in the real world, he got very excited, and ended up loaning me some discs.

The discs contained the audiobooks of the first two books in the series. It's possible that they are just copies of the audiobooks that my friend legally owned, but it's also possible they are pirated. Shame on me, I know. But you know what? I loved these books so much that I went out and bought the trade paperbacks of every volume of the series that has been published so far.

Now I'm not saying this is a perfect example, because what if I hadn't loved them, and I also probably would have bought the books anyway, but I hope you see my point. And that's another reason I don't immediately write pirates off. Most people who download a book illegally never would have bought it in the first place. If they know the places to go to get these files, chances are very high that they are part of a counterculture who believes what they're doing isn't wrong. you can't stop those people. But, every once in a while, someone will download something, and love it so much, that they actually go out and buy it.

Now the bottom line here is that I'm not saying any of this is okay, and I want to repeat, as clearly as possible, stealing is wrong. Don't do it. Don't support it. Don't pretend it's okay. The artist whose career you are threatening is almost certainly a decent, hardworking person. But, as writers and aspiring authors I think we need to have an open mind about piracy and file-sharing. Look at Radiohead and their free album. Think of J.A. Konrath, Amanda Hocking, and the $0.99 e-book millionaires. Konrath, Crouch, Kilborn Strand and Wilson even released the majority of their e-book thriller, Draculas, for free, at first.

These creative people are thinking outside the box, not running around suing people for downloading a few songs, and becoming very successful for doing things there way.

All I'm trying to say is that it isn't black and white. Nothing is that simple. End rant. Thanks for listening.