Ron Hudson asked:
"Let's pretend someone got a hold of a bootlegged, unlicensed ebook of one
of your books (or diagram collections). Assuming the item is available for
sale (but maybe not in this format), would it be acceptable to pay the
author directly for the copy, if that venue of communication were available?"
I think you'd find that pirating the book, or abbetting pirating,
would constitute a problem. Most boks state on the reverse of the
title page hat it is illegal to make unauthorized copies. You can
make a copy of part of a work for yourself under fair use conditions,
but certainly not sell it. If the author were to accept payment, that
might seem fine in terms of copyright, but the publisher would be very
unhappy. An author I know did something along these lines, and the
result was that his publisher now won't have anything to do with him.
So my advice is, buy the book, even if the author seems to get less in
the short run, because otherwise they might be cut right off in the
long run.
Any help?
best,
Andrew Dewar
