Friday, June 17, 2005

God hates authors

According to the Smart Bitches, the pirate site that was selling illegal copies of books (and probably phishing for credit card information) has been shut down, hopefully permanently. But the Smart Bitches say this highly literate commentary was left at the site:

"Remeber, a coin always have two sides.
At one side, stealing from publishers is bad. At other side, we helped hundreds of people who cannot afford to pay up to $100 for a book. We make those people happy, understand it? As for our profit, some of money we earned, we send to Zimbabwe children help fund. We think publishers are reach enought already, and those money we’ve “stolen” maybe saved somebody’s life. And we could save even more lives, but say thanks to outstanding hecker and his “brave” team.
God will judge you.
with best regards, bookaza team"


How nice to know it's okay to steal, that God even APPROVES stealing, as long as you send a few pennies of your profit to help feed children in Zimbabwe. I had somehow forgotten there was an exemption of that sort in the commandments. But of course it's necessary that these guys steal our royalties from us, since we "reach" authors never give a cent of our earnings to charity-- I guess it's because we're already blowing all our vast riches on limousines and similar trappings for our glamorous but utterly selfish lives. Thank Heavens that these morally upright thieves helped to redistribute our income in the fairest possible way!

On a more serious note, readers, please do be wary of pirate sites. Some warning signs are a site offering an unusually good price on books, offering books in ebook format that aren't offered anywhere else, no ISBNs listed, and poor-quality cover images. Pirate sites should be avoided, not only because the authors won't get their royalties, but also because your credit card number and other personal info may be at risk. If someone's dishonest enough to steal copyrighted material and resell it, odds are he won't have any compunction about stealing your credit card number, either. So please don't do business with a suspicious-looking company just to save a few bucks!

1 comment:

  1. Um, who pays $100 for a book anyway? In the words of Bugs Bunny..."What a maroon."

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