The Internet Archive’s announcement of a National Emergency Library to give students access to reading material during the quarantine has run afoul of a certain Witch.
Courtesy of @Dataracer117 on Twitter:
Not a good look–especially since archive.org is in fact offering Wendig’s books through their lending library–not via direct download.
TL; DR: archive.org is getting these books from the same sources as libraries, which do indeed pay publishers lending fees. There’s no moral difference between checking an eBook out from your local library and borrowing it from archive.org.
Other Twitter users attempt to explain:
Mad at a library. “Old Man Yells at Cloud”
… Over twelve borrows.
Capitalism for me but not for thee.
Where else have I seen oldpub witches waxing hypocritical about piracy? Oh, yes. It was last year when some SFWA denizens actually did pirate one of Richard Fox’s books and then accused him of harassment when he told them to stop.
From Richard Fox by way of Larry Correia:
I am the copyright owner of the story Going Dark. I never gave permission (nor was I asked) for File 770 to distribute that work.
Ellen Campbell edited the Backblast Area clear anthology, she’s not the one that published it, that’s JR Handley.
I don’t know who on the SFWA page made the link to the story public facing. The story was posted in forums for SFWA members to read for their consideration. As the Nebula’s are voted on and determined solely by SFWA members, it really does stretch credulity that File 770 would insist that authors want their work read by the general public for this award. The Nebulas are not the Hugos or the Dragons. This is pretty basic and you’d think a SF site would know the difference.
Those Google drive links have been taken down after my piracy complaint. Did you read that carefully? The Google drive links and the hosted PDFs have been removed following my piracy complaint. I as the copyright holder did not give permission for those files to be hosted or made available to the public. Piracy. Full stop.
Putting up links to pirated material is piracy. File 770 was told that their link (which went specifically to the Google doc and not to SFWA’s page) was pirated and to remove it. Yes, that is piracy by legal definition.
There can be no rational discussion with fanatics. When their books are on loan at an authorized library for the sake of students during a pandemic, the Witches cry piracy. When they are caught red-handed pirating a non-Cultist’s book, they cry harassment. Heads they win, tails you loose.
The only winning strategy is not to play their game. To that end …
Coming soon. Some of the players in today’s comedy of errors may make an appearance, as well.
In the meantime, please avail yourself of archive.org’s extensive collection of digital books, movies, music, and more!
And if you’re in the mood for newer but also free SFF fare, pick up Corona-chan: Spreading the Love now!
