Wil Wheaton vs. A Pirate: Clash of the Internets
You'll have to excuse me. I decided that I wanted a Dvorak keyboard instead of a Qwerty keyboard and I am basically relearning how to type.

From Clairvoyantwank.

Someone posts a pirated download of Wil Wheaton's audiobook Just a Geek. Wil finds out and is Not Happy.



an open letter to the guy who put just a geek the audiobook on his website for people to steal

Hi there, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons,

I'm Wil Wheaton. I wrote Just A Geek, and I created the audiobook you're helping people steal. You may not know this, but I 'm just one guy, without a publisher, so when you help people steal this copy of Just A Geek by making it available for download, you're basically stealing directly from me. You're not stealing from some big publisher with deep pockets who is trying to rip you off with overpriced stuff; you are stealing directly from me, an indie artist and publisher who counts on every sale to make a living. I have to tell you, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, what you're doing sucks. It sucks a lot.

I worked hard on this audiobook. I invested almost 50 hours into the production, spread out over several weeks. I priced it under the average market price for audiobooks of its length, and I deliberately did not put DRM on it, because I don't believe in treating my customers like they are criminals. I mean, let's face it, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, DRM only punishes honest customers, because people like you, who steal from people like me, always find a way around it.

I notice that you have a nice big banner at the top of your webpage, imploring the people who are visiting your site to click on the ads you've put there, so you can keep the site running. I also see that you have a link for people to donate money to you. That's, um, that's rather ironic, isn't it? You are stealing from me and other authors, and then asking your fellow thieves to click on ads and give you donations, so you can make money from our work. Maybe it's just me, but that strikes me as what we would call "a real dick move."

I realize that I can't stop you from doing what you're doing. Even if I went through the hassle of filing DMCA takedown notices and filing complaints with the various authorities who handle this sort of thing, you'd just open up a new site somewhere else, and start all over again. But listen, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, maybe you don't realize that you're actually taking money right out of my pocket, and maybe you don't realize that what you're doing is no different than walking into a store, putting an audiobook under your jacket, and walking out with it. You're stealing from me, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, and I hope you'll read this, and stop.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd take these links down, and replace them with links to the place where people can purchase it from me, support my work, and ensure that I continue to release audiobooks without DRM or other annoying restrictions.

Thanks for listening,

Wil Wheaton




Well naturally Wil's fan's dogpile the offending site, and just as naturally there is mass deletage. Thank God for ScreenGrab.




Last but not least, the FARK thread which, being FARK is full of such comments as:

If I have an apple, and you take that apple, then you now have it and I don't. That's theft. If I have an apple, and you make a perfect copy of it without affecting mine, then we both have apples and it is not theft. If you don't want people to make copies of your work, perhaps you should release it on papyrus instead of in digital form. I mean, if I leave the keys in my car, and someone steals it, although they have committed the crime, I am not blameless. Same thing here. Good thing we have these intellectual "property" laws, as everyone knows that there were no songs or stories before their advent. We're lucky Plato, Shakespeare, Moses, and Mozart had good intellectual "property" lawyers.

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Ed Grubermann [TotalFark] Quote 2009-10-07 03:08:40 AM
James F. Campbell: It's not theft. It's copyright infringement. If someone breaks into your house and steals it -- well, that's theft.

Let's play: Spot the guy with the moral development of a 5-year-old! Congratulations! That turd you left in the toilet has a more developed sense of right and wrong that you do!

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CheeseEatingBulldog Quote 2009-10-07 09:50:33 AM
zuce: Does anyone else see the irony of Wil posting about this on Fark, a news aggregate.

I see him making the same mistake as Pamela / Paris and their sex tapes. No one (very few) would know about it, and thus the impact would be minimal, if they had not drawn attention to it. Now, by whining about it, thousands more know of its existance and will want to see what the fuss is about. Thus epic failing himself by making the problem far bigger and drawing attention to it being there for free.

It is sort of darwin in action.

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rynthetyn: It's like there's a great disturbance in the Force. Fark does not know whether to support Wil or argue that downloading is ok.



No word yet from Lee Goldburg, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.