[lbo-talk] Leftist books and copyright violation (was: Lefty library of pdfs)

Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 18 11:15:45 PDT 2012


Doug wrote:


> I was just denouncing this shit on Facebook. How are publishers supposed to pay writers and editors if stuff is given away for free? I hate this idiocy.

Agree 100%.

I've noticed that PDFs and Torrents have started popping up of Michael Heinrich's Introduction Capital from MR Press.  This really pisses me off.

MR Press took a real chance on a good book by a writer virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, and from what I understand it's selling quite well, but I wonder how many sales have been lost because of the "gimme" attitude of people immediately asking for a free PDF of a book that's been out for barely two months.

General audience leftist publishers like MR Press (or Haymarket Books, or PM Press, etc.) are performing a valuable service by putting out quality Marxist books in print form, but people ripping off left publishers are ensuring that publishers will be less willing to take a chance on good material in the future. I think the Internet is a legitimate distribution mechanism for out-of-print material that would otherwise never reach a wide audience (I'm thinking in particular of the Sojourner Truth Organization archive), but there's just something shitty and lacking in solidarity about pirating in-print and readily available material from small left outfits.



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