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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 4699332" data-attributes="member: 9249">Does that make me an inhuman fool? I got my HARP PDFs, legally and for free, and purchased the books at retail price when I could have purchased them at wholesale. Even paid the extra $5 per book for the PDF copies.I have so little chance of being caught that my piracy may as well be legal, and among my friends and acquaintances, I am well known as a pirate and bear the moral disapproval from those who object to it. And yet I still buy, new and at retail price-- because used books don't support creators-- every in-print book that I use in my games. I have bought, and continue to buy, ebooks that I have already downloaded.I don't take "pity" on artists and writers, because I am a writer myself trying to make money in this field. I buy the books I like and use for the same reason that I keep sharing them after I've finished uploading them; because I want more people to see and enjoy them, and because it is the right thing to do.The numbers on the poll suggest that this is not as uncommon as you seem to think. Once you've already gotten a free copy, there is no legal reason to purchase a legal copy-- it doesn't validate the pirated copies-- and no reason not to buy a cheaper used copy than to pay full retail. And yet, a significant portion of the poll's respondents have done exactly what you claim noone would do-- they have purchased legitimate, new copies of books that they've already downloaded and in many cases printed out.You're absolutely right, that this is not a sustainable model and not something that we, as creators, can afford to rely upon. But, in the face of the technology that makes this wide distribution possible, we must also assess the facts and realize that copyright is also no longer a sustainable model and that we will not be able to continue relying upon it for long. Very soon, the patronage of our fans might be the only thing that we can rely upon, which would make moral condemnation of the very methods by which they are exposed to our work unwise.</blockquote>

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