It helps if everyone tries to understand everyone else's perspective
I know you want everyone to understand "your" perspective, but your interests aren't the only ones at stake here
As a purveyor of information myself, it gets hard watching people copy and steal your work.
Understand this fact: anyone who takes the time to put out a magazine, or a book, or whatever, is usually
a cut above the average person, who never lifts a finger to do anything.
Try to imagine spending days, weeks, months, and/or (in some cases) YEARS putting together information ... only to have some bozo "copy-n-paste" your hard work, and then offer it up for sale, for less!
It kinda takes away the motivation to go through all of that bullshit ... only to have it stolen by the click of a mouse.
Therefore, a creator is either going to do something to protect his work, or he is going to stop creating and save himself the aggravation.
Therefore, while you want everyone to understand "your" perspective, sometimes it is helpful to understand
the other guy's perspective.
It's not all about you; other people's interests are important too
Let's face it: people take the time to put together magazines, books, etc. for
3 basic reasons:
interest/passion;
creative expression;
profit.
Back in the days of purely physical books, you either bought the book or you didn't have the information. This means the author always got paid.
Nowadays, you can (literally) take 2 years of a guy's work and effort and right-click his info and dispense it to other people.
So get over yourself, and your $30, and think about it from A CREATOR'S perspective!!
There is more at stake here than just "your convenience" ... there's an assload of
somebody else's time, effort, and rights that need to be protected ... that is worth a whole lot more than a measly $30.
I mean, suppose you boycott the guy ... or me ... or whomever ... and you send him, or me, or whomever into bankruptcy ... and then what?
NO MORE MAGAZINES. NO MORE BOOKS. NO MORE DATABASES.
Is that really what you want?
The truth is, if people keep pirating other people's work, and if every time THE CREATORS OF THE WORLD try to adjust things to protect themselves ... if every customer becomes a boo-hoo crybaby ... and "refuses to buy" anymore ... is it really a "good" thing to ruin AND HAVE NO MORE creative people in this world?
I don't think so.
Therefore, all things considered, you might be better-served to be more UNDERSTANDING of a man's plight, and less "demanding," and try to work with and HELP the creative people of this world ... rather than to burn them and boycott them every time every wish of yours isn't granted.
On my end, I know there isn't a single person on the face of this earth ... who "pirated" my books, or who "scanned copies" of my DVDs, etc. ...
who can kiss my ass as an author, breeder, or source of information on the subject of these dogs.
And yet there still are broke-dick, crumb-grabbing pieces of shit will pay "some thief" less money for
my work than they will to reward ME for my efforts in learning, creating, and amassing the colossal amount of effort/materials it took to create my books, DVDs, etc. Makes me want to kill somebody, actually, but instead all I can do is keep rolling and hope there are enough honest people in this world who pay ME for my work, rather than someone else for not doing shit besides stealing it.
IMO, those people who cry "boo-hoo" (or who buy from thieves) are, ultimately, shooting themselves in the foot by their actions.
They're taking
all the motivation away from truly creative people to BE creative
Do you have any idea what it takes to create a book or a magazine from scratch (as opposed to right-clicking)?
How would you like to spend $1,000 on Adobe In-Design, spend
months creating and publishing a body of work, design a website to make it available and offer it up for sale ... only to have some asshole pirate that effort, spend no money (and make no effort) himself, and yet be able to profit by selling YOUR work online, thanks to a right-click?
Think that might piss you off?
Think you might want to protect yourself from that happening to you?
Or would you just quit and say, "Why bother?"
I know I damned sure don't like it when it happens to me.
The truth is, most people are pieces of unthinking shit.
They "want everything" but they give (and understand) nothing.
Just because most people are like that, doesn't mean
you have to join that club
You can actually choose to join a different club, the club of people who
try to understand another man's plight, another man's perspective, and who APPRECIATE honest effort and hard work.
You can choose to realize that, hey, here
is some guy trying to put out a magazine ... and you can choose to understand WHY he's protecting himself ... and not let it bother you that much.
If you really think about all that's involved, you might conclude that
you would do the same thing yourself ... to protect
your own efforts ... if "you" put all that hard work into something
Jack