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Author Strips Down to Protest Piracy (NSFW)

While I usually despise publicity stunts, sometimes they work.

TorrentFreak is reporting that one female Brazilian author is taking an extreme approach to her protest of piracy. She recently stripped down in Lima, Peru, as a symbolic and pointless gesture.

Of course, this is more likely just a stunt to get attention for her latest book, so I won’t be mentioning her name or the title of her book. But I do think you should read what she said about piracy; it shows she doesn’t really understand what she’s talking about.

A country is made with culture, with books. When people pirate books it puts the culture in danger. This is the first country where I see this. In Brazil there are no pirated books.

First, I seriously doubt that there are no pirated ebooks in Brazil, but I’m going to let my readers confirm that. But more importantly, sharing doesn’t destroy culture; it helps it to grow.

And I think it rather sad that her definition of culture is limited to commercial activity and nothing else. Even assuming there’s a translation error in the concept, she’s still wrong. If you use her definition of culture then free concerts, freely given away ebooks, and other gifts from creators to consumers don’t qualify as culture.

via TorrentFreak

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Comments


Karl July 21, 2012 um 4:55 pm

Her position may be insupportable, but you’ve got to admit that her points seem to stand up pretty well even without any support.

[trombone whistle, cowbell, rimshot]


Afrânio July 21, 2012 um 5:53 pm

Of course we have pirated books here in Brazil, but most of them are scanned and available online, most of them in PDF files. Few people here have tablets and the knowledge to find those pirated books online so many people think that there is no such thing here. I believe she was talking about printed pirated books. Now, we don’t have that here. A pirated copy would be more expensive than the original. But the academic community pirates books at will here. They use copy machines and full copies of very expensive books are copied even inside the Universities. In fact, it is a practice that is largely supported by Professors. Why? It is like that here Because Brazil knowledge, as everything else, is very expensive.

Books, like everything else here, are expensive.


Holly July 30, 2012 um 7:47 am

Sounds like a PR stunt.

Book piracy is rampant in Latin America. As Afranio says above, universities and students make full copies of books. Sometimes because photocopying a book is cheaper than purchasing the original, but perhaps more often because it’s an imported book, a foreign language book, or an out of print book that is difficult to find.

Some artists and authors are against piracy. Others just want to get their work out to readers, and don’t mind how their work is shared. Author Tahir Shah said on his Reddit IAMA (http://bit.ly/Q3LlPr) a couple of months ago when asked how he felt about Pirate Bay, "I want people to read my work, and so if that’s how they’re getting it, let them."

Along those lines…I also disagree that piracy hurts culture. Yes, it’s illegal. I’m aware of that. But if it helps spread an author’s work to people who wouldn’t have read it otherwise…that doesn’t sound like an altogether bad thing. And who knows how many people who have read a pirated book will end up purchasing a copy of that same book or of another of that author’s book.

It all depends on whether your primary goal as a writer is to make money or to share your work with others. Both may be important to you, but one is generally a bigger priority.


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