Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

But again, even if a phone could be used as an ereader, my point is that for most people it is likely not. Even for bibliophiles, they might not get so much reading done on a phone due to the distractions that phones bring.

From the learnings, I did a fulfilling and enriching side coding gig for a couple of years spending a couple of hours every week that matched 50% income from my full time job (managing a large US real estate portfolio). It was related to increasing health awareness in the US and later to help immigrant families to prepare for the new administration.

I make every effort to buy content nowadays as an attempt to pay back the authors. That is the main reason, I totally love Medium, Spotify, Netflix and other content providers. They allow me to pay as you go and are on-demand.

> they might not get so much reading done on a phone due to the distractions that phones bring.

Short of notifications, there are no distractions on my phone when reading a book. No clock, no battery indicator, no nothing. If I really want to read, I can just go into DND mode, and even notifications have gone away.

Despite this, I strongly prefer a physical copy. Except for some of the books on Safari which I use as a quick reference, I mostly use PDF copies as a sort of extended preview before purchasing (or not!) a physical copy

But the interviewee is spot on when he argues that a pirated download != a lost sale. The idea that it is is just pure silliness. Before I got into tech, if I couldn't find a PDF of a $70-120 book I simply wouldn't read it. Period.

Don't feel bad at all. Intellectual Monopoly laws are morally wrong (and I would argue counterproductive if the goal is progress of the arts and sciences and/or economic growth). I hope that when the generation that grew up with the web is making the laws we'll get rid of these abysmal systems.

The author of the comment you referencing is wrong. Copying a book that has been released to the public is not stealing. It makes zero sense without complete bastardizing the definition of property (but I'll admit—that analogy has been an effective lie, other unscrupulous marketers should take notes!). Transistors are property. Telling me how I can arrange my transistors is almost the exact opposite of property.

Ideas published cannot be "stolen". Don't let anyone lie to you and tell you otherwise. The outrage of that comment is not justified. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. If anyone thinks their book is so amazing, let me ask how great it would be if it removed all ideas that were "stolen" from other books? How great would their book be if they couldn't steal from Leonardo Pisano's Liber Abici from 1202, the first sentence which is "The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1?"