Terry Goodkind Smites an eBook Pirate | Good E-Reader - eBooks, Publishing and Comic News
Jul
11

Terry Goodkind Smites an eBook Pirate

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Terry Goodkind is quite famous in literary circles for his Sword of Truth series of books. Recently he self-published a new edition to the franchise with the First Confessor. It was released earlier this month and quickly rose to the top of Amazon’s best seller list. With any digital content, piracy runs rampant.

Goodkind employed the “shame game,” as quoted by the Guardian, against one particular ebook pirate. He posted private details, a picture, and made some disparaging remarks that sparked a huge outrage. Terry posted the following, “So Josh, how about it—no respect for a hard-working author and fellow racing enthusiast? Not even for someone that is emphatically trying to reach out to people that might consider pirating our hard work? Can’t be bothered to read and consider our note on piracy in the front of the book? How ironic you claim to be a fan of books that uphold truth and honor above all else. We hope the price of fame is worth the cost of your infamy.”

Within a few hours of the scathing remarks “Josh” had deleted his Facebook account and took down the links.  This entire situation poses an interesting conundrum. Should authors take it upon themselves to single out specific individuals, condemning their piracy and publicly outing them? It is obvious that Terry Goodkind has sold over 25 million books in his series and one book being shared does not hinder his financial well-being.

Should authors spend their time hunting around for people pirating their works? Is it justified to employ a witch-hunt mentally in getting your legion of fans to jump on the bandwagon and crucify someone who shared a book? What would happen if J.K. Rowling publicly outed someone for putting her books on a file sharing site? She would have legions of fans from all walks of life threatening the ebook pirate. Going one step further, what would happen if Goodkind ripping into someone resulted in one of his overzealous fans physically hurting the pirate? Authors in their own rights are celebrities, and have a social responsibility to not single out specific people and rip into them for stealing their works. Do you see Brad Pitt or Al Pacino posting on their Facebook account that someone watched their movie without paying for it?

Michael Kozlowski (3022 Posts)

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last four years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the Huffington Post, CNET and more. Michael frequently travels to international events such as IFA, Computex, CES, Book Expo and a myriad of others. If you have any questions about any of his articles, please send an email to michael@goodereader.com


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Categories : Digital Publishing News, E-Book News
  • Jean Wike

    Sounds fair to me, theft is theft.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000110073910 Ryno Bones

    We should totally start throwing rotten eggs at kids that never return books to the library, too.  Paste people’s faces on the news for taking those little bars of soap from hotels. Public outing of everyone who posts a picture to facebook or their websites that they didn’t take themselves.  Sounds fair to me.  Theft is theft.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000110073910 Ryno Bones

     Darn, I didn’t source that quote from the original author….Better put me on the front page of the newspaper.

  • Jean Wike

    Let me put it another way, piracy is theft. Replace the phrase “I pirate books” with “I steal books”. Doesn’t sound so nice, does it?

  • Marci

    Piracy or PRIVACY ?!?

    It is going to be done regardless of whether an author outs the person or a publisher does it.  Look at piracy within the movies and Music, the artists and people behind the scenes are still making oodles of money, regardless of it.

    Me thinks that it will be around as long as the internet is and computers.  Sure, they are getting something for free from someone else who knows how to hack, etc., I don’t think it will be stopped regardless of the type of locks used or made for any type of media.

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  • Matt

    I’m all for stoping piracy, HOWEVER, what Mr. Goodkind did on facebook makes me weary of providing true ciriques of his works for fear I may be outed with private details posted for all to see just because he didn’t like my review.  

    Sure reviews and piracy are completely different, but it just rubbed me the wrong way and so I’ve stopped reading Mr. Goodkind’s books.  There are better, more productive ways to go after book pirates, one of them would to call the authorities, because Mr. Goodkind could in possibly be sued for defamation.  In my opinion it was the wrong way to go about it and unfortunately he lost one reader and maybe more as there were other posting their displeasure with his tactics and Mr. Goodkind responded to these defensively without hearing many people.  To each their own I suppose, but in my opinion it was a brash and reactionary decision that didn’t seem thought out thoroughly.

  • dave c

    I’m sick and tired of people “having a go” at people who pirate. The simple fact is that some people cannot afford to spend £8 every week in order to read. what people like terry are doing is telling us that people in the lower classes dont deserve or should not be purmitted to read. I say this as someone who has had considerable amounts of work stolen and who has not pirated ebooks.

    I just wish that Josh had not deleted his facebook as we could all use a banner to flock behind. for all terry knew this was a six year old boy whos parents could barely afford the food on his plate who could only read if he downloaded the books. Terry, you are all that is wrong with the world, you should be writing for the love of writing, not for the money. you clearly have enough to get by.

    after hearing this i will certainly not be purchasing ANY books by terry goodkind.

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