>>>Speaking as an author whose work has absolutely been pirated (big downside of having e-books), I don't see anything wrong with Mike's idea. In fact, I suspect it will sell books as some of those who read it decide they need to own their own copy.
>>>
>>>Do you object to user groups having a lending library? In my view, this is pretty much the same thing.
>>>
>>>
>>>Tamar, speaking as an author who had ebooks versions of his books found on different torrent sites (where the publisher went after the site).... <s>
>>>
>>>On the user group issue - it is well known that publishers send a certain # of copies to user groups to begin with, as a way of marketing their publications and spreading good will.
>>>
>>>A question: do you feel your frequent-mantra of "common good" trumps the concept of property rights?
>>
>>You are speaking of a "right" which does not exist. Neither authors nor publishers retain control of an individual copy of a book once it is sold. If someone takes the contents and posts it online for all and sundry, that's one thing -- I would object to that along with any other reasonable person -- but there is nothing wrong with passing a book along. As Tamar and I have both said already, the concept is no different from that of a library. It just involves mailing instead of everyone picking it up at a common location. (And even that isn't strictly true; many of the books I borrow from the Round Lake library are sourced from different libraries in the area).
>>
>>Not to beat a dead horse, but I side with those who think this will translate to increased sales of Sara Ford's book, not fewer. As Al D. put it so aptly, he had not heard of the book before and now has not only heard of it, he has heard it recommended.
>>
>>For sure there has been one additional sale. Flipping through the book before boxing it up for Matt, I decided there are lots of good tips in there which are far from committed to memory. I am not an Indian giver (the situation with Tracy was different because the book was not for her but a coworker I don't know) so ordered myself a new copy from Amazon.
>
>You probably want to stop using that phrase "Indian Giver"
>
>from wiki
>
>The phrase is sometimes offensive[3][4], particularly to Native Americans.

I completely agree that this phrase should be scotched as it obviously gypes Native Americans.