I actually do think that pirating music and ebooks is wrong because of the damage it does to the creative industry. I still do it myself, more with music than ebooks, though. I like ebooks, because they're easy to get and carry and don't take any space, so I've bought a lot of them both from Kindle and smaller web stores (but if I don't buy from Kindle, I only buy non-DRM versions).
Does it make the person reading pirated versions a bad person? I don't really think so. Pirating is fairly safe and a lot more painless than any other kind of thievery, not to mention socially acceptable, so of course it happens. The power of social acceptability is so strong that even though logically I think it's wrong, I still do it (same with eating meat). It's also a question of means. If you don't have money to spend on entertainment, it's not that the entertainment industry loses: you get it for free or you don't get it at all, either way they can't have your money. So there are always circumstances that change the effective value of each action.
I hope to offer my original books to publishers if I ever finish and polish them enough. I wouldn't expect big sales, but it would kind of bug me if 30 people pirate them and 5 pay for them. I'd be bugged for myself if I get a percentage, and for my publisher if they paid me a lump sum. I know writing for me is mainly a hobby, but well, there comes a point where it would be nice to be paid for your work, too - such as when one is otherwise unemployed, like I am now. Authors and publishers never made a lot of money, but it's not entirely justified, in all situations, to diminish what little they do make by pirating a book you could afford to buy, even if the production of a copy didn't cost the publisher anything after the first one.
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Does it make the person reading pirated versions a bad person? I don't really think so. Pirating is fairly safe and a lot more painless than any other kind of thievery, not to mention socially acceptable, so of course it happens. The power of social acceptability is so strong that even though logically I think it's wrong, I still do it (same with eating meat). It's also a question of means. If you don't have money to spend on entertainment, it's not that the entertainment industry loses: you get it for free or you don't get it at all, either way they can't have your money. So there are always circumstances that change the effective value of each action.
I hope to offer my original books to publishers if I ever finish and polish them enough. I wouldn't expect big sales, but it would kind of bug me if 30 people pirate them and 5 pay for them. I'd be bugged for myself if I get a percentage, and for my publisher if they paid me a lump sum. I know writing for me is mainly a hobby, but well, there comes a point where it would be nice to be paid for your work, too - such as when one is otherwise unemployed, like I am now. Authors and publishers never made a lot of money, but it's not entirely justified, in all situations, to diminish what little they do make by pirating a book you could afford to buy, even if the production of a copy didn't cost the publisher anything after the first one.