On my list of ten items about why digital piracy sucks, one of those items was meant to dispel a common argument employed by idiots, which is: Durr there's no difference between pirating a book and getting it from the library.
The simple response to that, of course, being: Well stop being lazy and just get it at the library, asshole.
Except, libraries do not get books for free. They pay for books. And those sales can be incredibly important to authors. This, apparently, is not obvious to a great many people, because I still see the library gambit tossed around by the pro-piracy set.
And in doing research for this little rant, I found that it's not so obvious that libraries pay for books. So I thought it might a good idea to spell that out. The more you know, as G.I. Joe used to say.
I don't expect to change anyone's mind. No one changes their mind anymore. That's a sign of weakness. And anyway, people who contort themselves into pretzels to defend their shitty behavior, they don't care about facts. They care about the endgame: Their own entitlement.
Column by Rob Hart
Rob Hart is the class director at LitReactor, as well as the associate publisher for MysteriousPress.com. He's the author of New Yorked and The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella, and his short stories have appeared in publications like Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Needle, Joyland, and Helix Literary Magazine. Non-fiction has appeared at Salon, The Daily Beast, and Nailed. He lives in New York City, and you can find his website at www.robwhart.com.
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