Actual paperback cost:

2. The Monk who sold his Ferrari: Rs. 175/-
3. Tipping point: Rs. 220/-
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Total: Rs. 200/- (this is what I had to pay!!!)

Welcome to the world of Book-Piracy! And who said piracy sucks? It rocks! It rocks because it saves me so much of money (earned so dearly by my dad).

The Quality

In general the quality of the pages and the print is ‘decent’. But then pirated copies of some hot-n-latest best sellers are so good that you would not even consider the print quality as an issue to be worried about!

The Statistics

An estimated loss of about 400 crore rupees results each year to the 7000 crore ‘legal’ publishing industry because of book piracy. So what? As a consumer, piracy still rocks!

My Take

Give me a single reason why I should be worried about the publishers and authors who suffer losses. They are rich people (at least not poor) and I don’t care about them. They are anyways making profits because there are enough more rich people who are ready to get original copies at whatever we-will-leave-you-with-a-begging-bowl costs they are asked for.

Ethics

If the publishers can do something to stop their profits form leaking, that’s good. But if they can’t, then I really do not see any reason to be ashamed of purchasing pirated books. Let’s discuss morality.

Is it morally correct to devoid myself from a source of knowledge just because I cannot afford it if I try to get an original copy?
Or is it morally correct to get for me a pirated copy which will make some rich guy lose few bucks (though adding to the source of living of a relatively poor person)?
Go talk about morality to your mom now.

To me getting a pirated book is not the same as purchasing stolen leather jacket. I should attribute such an attitude of mine to the culture that has seen me grow. Culuture...well, let’s peep some more into this 'culture' thing.

Let’s talk about the photo-copying culture prevalent in IIT and for that matter in almost all the Engineering colleges in India (and may be other developing countries as well). How many of us knew this: Under section 63 of the Copyright Act of India, selling and buying photocopied books is a criminal offence.

Our culture never taught us about this law! The Profs (who frequently lend costly text books to the Class-Reps to get them Xeroxed for junta) never talked about this law! And all the time we continued the offence: the criminal offence.

Personally I think this law is crap (once again that who-cares-about-piracy attitude of mine; go blame the ‘culture’). I have the same question to repeat: Is it morally correct to devoid myself from a source of knowledge just because I cannot afford it if I try to get an original copy?

A photo-copy helps creating an Engineer out of me! Piracy helps me in gaining knowledge trapped in ‘costly’ books. And so I reiterate: Piracy Rocks!