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.