The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

Some time ago I got a 9-to-5 job, and was excited at the idea of starting a respectable life, but soon after I started, I quit and went back to my illegal business. This is because of the pain I felt at giving up my illegal business that I had built and nurtured for five years. I owned it, and I couldn’t find a job that gave me the same feeling of ownership. Needless to say, I could really relate to your research on ownership.

But something else was equally important in pushing me back to the illegal retail business. In the legal retail store where I worked, people often talked about loyalty and care for their customers, but I don’t think they understood what this means. In the illegal industry, loyalty and care are much stronger and more intense than anything I encountered in legal retail. Over the years I have built a network of about 100 people who kindly buy from me. We have become real friends with real connections and developed a level of deep care for one another. These connections and friendships with my clients made it very hard for me to give up the business and their friendship in the process.

I’m happy that I listened to your book.

Elijah

After receiving this e-mail from Elijah, I searched the Internet and found a few free downloadable versions of my audiobook and a few scanned copies of the printed version (which, I have to admit, were high-quality scans, including the front and back covers, all the credits and references, and even the copyright notices, which I particularly appreciated).

No matter where you stand on the “information wants to be free” ideological spectrum, seeing your own work distributed for free without permission makes the whole issue of illegal downloads feel a bit more personal, less abstract, and more complex. On the one hand, I’m very happy that people are reading about my research and hopefully benefitting from it. The more the merrier—after all, that is why I write. On the other hand, I also understand the annoyance of those whose work is being illegally copied and sold. Thankfully I have a day job, but I am certain that if I were to rely on writing as my main source of income, illegal downloads would be less of an intellectual curiosity and much more difficult to swallow.