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Comment by yonaguska | Hacker News Reader

I never buy e-books unless they include it with the purchase of a dead tree book. If I'm going to pirate a book, I'll at least buy the paper copy to support the author and publisher. For all other media, excluding games because steam is so easy, piracy it is.

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This is an interesting approach since you're likely paying more to buy the paper copy than you would to buy the ebook. This seems like it would be a pretty uncommon practice. However, as a self-published writer, knowing there are people like you out there is encouragement for me to release paperback versions despite the additional initial expense of paperback covers.

Many ebooks are surprisingly expensive these days, often costing more than the paper copy, at least on Amazon. Since I'm a Kindle owner, that's where I buy ebooks...and later strip DRM so I can actually own what I've purchased.

I exclusively buy physical books and then pirate the ebook. If I'm going to own a book, I'm going to OWN the book. Reading on a proper e-ink device is just too nice to give up, though.

But then you use a service (reading a digital version) which you did not pay for. You only paid for the paper version.

That's morally acceptable for me and probably for the GP.

For what it's worth, I do the same and I have multiple friends who also do this. We also buy band t-shirts and pirate music.

Lots of people want to support the artist and have a convenient system.

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