This is a rather shameful post to write, but it also feels good coming clean about it, and it’s about time someone raises awareness about what’s going on in some countries, in my country. It was also very difficult writing it. How to say you used to download books in pdf illegaly without sounding like a complete asshole?
The band-aid method it is.
But yes, that’s the truth.
What the hell? Why?
I know, I know. Believe me, I know. You see now why it’s so embarrassing? Back in 2010, 2011, I used to do that, a lot. And I didn’t give it a second thought. Maybe in some deep part of my mind I knew it was wrong, but this is the reason why I was 99% okay with it: Since in that time I hadn’t started reading in english yet, some really ‘helpful’ and ‘kind’ sites had taken it upon themselves to translate some books, and were so amazing as to provide a download link for us spanish-speakers to be able to read the book.
It was, it was amazing. Because like I’ve said before, Ecuador doesn’t get a lot of books, and my inner bookworm had just woken up, and I just NEEDED to read, and these awesome people had gone through the work of translating them! (They had a ton of odd words that didn’t even made sense, but they tried).
Make no mistake, it was wrong, wrong wrong on so many levels
Of course I’m aware of it. Since I realized how wrong it was, I’ve managed to make some progress towards actually buying the books, for a change. I don’t think the sites, the people got any profit from it. But still, the single fact that it was a reproduced copy and that I wasn’t paying for it was so, so wrong to begin with.
I felt so horrible when I started getting involved in the english-speaking bookish community and I realized how harmful it really was for the industry, and specially for authors. I wasn’t dumb, I mean, piracy was, and continues to be a thing in movies, music, and yes, books. But it hadn’t seem wrong at that time, which brings me to the point I wanted to talk about more in detail.
Book piracy is a thing everywhere, but…
How many times have we heard about ARCs going on sale in eBay, and so many other awful things? That’s the english bookish community problem. Some really weird bloggers taking advantage of their opportunities. But we know it’s wrong, because we have more contact with authors. They do signings, they talk to us on twitter, and there are giveaways and they’re people.
The situation here is different.
Of course, authors are still people. But since people here are so detached from what’s going on there, those authors are just a name on a paper, and maybe a nice picture on the back cover; so that’s why some people here don’t really stop to think a lot about how this will hurt others, since it seems innocent on the surface.
There’s not enough communication from publishers and authors with countries like Ecuador. I know it’s not fair, or right; again, but I have friends and I know how they think. They’re like I used to be (I’m trying to fix that), so I know what I’m talking about. Not even the publishers from Spain do a lot of effort to solve this problem and that’s sad.
Wait, what? So you’re blaming authors and publishers now? Piracy is wrong, whether you speak english, spanish, or elvish!
I’m not saying it’s right, or that because of this situation, we’re entitled to free books. No one is entitled to anyone’s hard work for free if said person isn’t okay with it; but after thinking this whole thing through for a while, I know this is one of the problems here, if not the main one.
It’s no one’s fault, really. I repeat, it’s wrong, but that’s exactly why we must work to raise awareness about this, everywhere. I found this discussion about how the book industry is overly focused on catering to the U.S by Sophie at Sailing through Books; and it partially inspired me to write this.
You can find there a lot of opinions, and also facts. Why publishers, whether they want to, or not, are bound by legal stuff to keep things national, and by financial stuff, to keep the costs low. Those are all valid reasons to leave out other countries. I mean, be grateful they shipped the books to sell them at all, and that’s it.
But I think it’s in their best interest to branch out, to search for solutions, to organize and expand. Not only for the sake of eliminating piracy, because while some people who get books they shouldn’t really are clueless, there are people who consciously profit of selling things they don’t have a right to and won’t stop. I support Sophie’s argument on this. We’re aware of the limitations, but there are ways, to make the book industry, including both authors, publishers, everyone who works on making awesome books, and readers from all over the world; a more equitative place for everyone.
Wrapping up,
- Piracy is wrong
- Countries like Ecuador need a reality check, undoubtedly.
- Blogs in spanish that translate english books are really nice, but please stop
- The big important people in the book industry can attack piracy by taking legal action against the people selling the illegal goods, true. Take down the offer and where are you going to get them from, right? But what about working on the people who acquire? Sway the demand and down goes piracy.
Your post made me aware of issues I had never thought about, being from the U.S.. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. I never thought about how it would be difficult to obtain books in your native language.
I know some people who downloaded books from websites that look legitimate, only to find out later that they weren’t. Also, I think there are still some people who don’t know it’s wrong. It’s great to bring all these issues to the attention of the public.
This is a fabulous post, and you are seriously amazing for writing it. And it’s SO true. I have talked to bloggers from all over, and they all agree that it is SO hard to find books in their countries. And that isn’t right! Not that piracy is, like you said, but I can totally understand someone not knowing how big a deal it is- how could they? If I stumbled upon a site saying “here, read this awesome German book in English, I have translated it!” well, that sounds like a great opportunity, right? And sure, as a book blogger, I know that isn’t how it works, but if you’d asked me the same thing 5 years ago? I probably wouldn’t have the same answer.
And people in other countries SHOULD have access to books. I mean, here in the US, you can borrow them digitally with a library card. I assume that is NOT the case in Ecuador, or virtually anywhere else. But it could be- and rather easily, I feel. Because while I know the “big” books are sometimes available in other countries and languages, that’s about it, and that isn’t fair. I get that book publishing IS a business, but I think that there are cost-effective ways that could help other countries have access to books AND help the publishers’ bottom lines. The real issue is that The Powers That Be need to care enough to find a way. And I sure hope they do! Thank you SO much for sharing this amazing post!
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First off, thank YOU for reading it 🙂 And yes, that’s right, we can’t borrow the books digitally. And I couldn’t have said it better! ‘They need to care enough to find a way’! Of course, I mean, with the rise of book to movie adaptations and how cool reading YA is nowadays everywhere, it’s the perfect opportunity to do something.
Awesome post, Pam. Piracy is such a huge thing, honestly, it’s really difficult to prevent it completely. However, I do agree with you – there are steps that authors and publishers can take to prevent piracy – I know that in Australia, I dunno if maybe it’s just me, but I always don’t think of the author as a person really? It just seems like the book is produced by some other entity, so I never really thought of book piracy to be a big deal until I joined the blogging community! :/
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It was the same for me too. At first I couldn’t believe authors talked to normal readers if they tweeted them. It was a big deal to discover that.
It was very brave of you to write this post and admit that you were a part of the problem. It helps for the rest of us to see where you’re coming from and understand how people really don’t realize that they’re necessarily doing anything wrong – that certainly doesn’t make it right, but it makes it more understandable. Access to books is something most of us in English speaking (and relatively affluent) countries take completely for granted. We tend to forget that there are places in this world where it isn’t so easy to just pick up the latest novel whenever you want. This is a very good reminder!
Thanks, and I’m glad I did. I firmly believe that the bookworms here who don’t realize what they’re doing will have no problem going to the bookstore and libraries for their amazing books if we actually had them. Of course, with the rise of kindle, some are switching to that, but we still have a long way to go until they get it into their heads that Book piracy=Bad. Downloading pdfs here three years ago was as common place as going to a B&N is there.
I totally get where you’re coming from. I mean it’s the same thing with manga. I read manga all the time that’s taken from its ‘raw’ form and translated albeit illegally, but I know a lot of people who love reading it and staying up to date don’t have the advantage that I do where I have Japanese bookstores. I think it’s the same thing with books (I mean that’s A LOT oF translating).
Though I think the biggest thing to do is to show that there are audiences across different countries and that they want to read these books. Now I don’t know how Ecuador does with censorship but a bigger issue can be that the government itself doesn’t want certain things to be published. I feel like the issue with books being translated is a lot more complex than most people think. Though I’m in the opinion that there should be more books published internationally.
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Yes, you’re right. I’m sure there are a ton of complications. This continues to be a problem but I hope that with more involvement of us readers and a little help from big international publishers, we might get somewhere. Thanks for stopping by!
WE SHOULD MASS-SHIP BOOKS TO ECUADOR
My logic, specifically about book translations:
There aren’t a lot of publishers in non-English-speaking countries. Those publishers only take English queries / manuscripts. Foreign writers have to write in English so they can get published. Which means a lack of Spanish writing.
So pretty much, the problem is the lack of publishers / editors. Which is also a lack of interest in books.
THEREFORE, WE SHOULD MASS-SHIP BOOKS TO ECUADOR
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I SECOND THAT MOTION. But YES you’re totally right! Most latinamerican countries depend on publishers from spain to get the translations, plus the very latent we-don’t-read-national-books-bc-they’re-boring thought here, it leads to us being massively behind in terms of literature. If big publishing companies were to risk it and have a presence in one of our countries, they’d receive literally a thousand of ms submissions from latinamericans, and people would read those books, because they were published by that publishers. And it’d be a WIN for the industry as a whole as well! Lol, sorry, I have many opinions.