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Stop to publish digitally because of Piracy?

Should we all stop to publish digitized material such as books because of piracy?
After reading the article on CNN.com > that the book by Dan Brown ”The lost Symbol” got downloaded on Amazon.com more than it was bought as paperback book in stores when it first hit the shelves, I asked myself this very thing: Should we all stop to publish digitally. But more interesting and scary maybe, is the fact  that Dan Browns book got out on piracy sites like Rapidshare and BitTorrent and downloaded in the same timeframe more than a 100.000 times, and counting.

Before the digitized era, piracy in copying vinyl & CD/DVD records, books in all kinds of subject matters, famous clothing brands and what have you flourished like crazy. So its not a new thing. For example a book filled with stolen images of illustrations and articles about illustration got printed and published on paper and distibuted and sold around the world on e-stores. Images and articles that the ”pirates” had simply stolen and taken from illustrators own websites all around the world without even asking anyone, and consequently not payed anyone. They who printed and published the book simply couldnt give a dam about the creators. But of course THEY got payed. Which for me is key: people like to get everything free and if possible to make money out of what they aquire for ”free”, without even thinking of paying those who created it. Its a very egoistic act.

In Sweden and now some other European countries, the new Swedish Pirate Party, (which actually is their name) got one parliament seat in the European Parliament 2009. They have only two issues they fight for. Complete anonymity by law for those surfing the net. Which at first sounds great, but which in fact at the same time would make it even easier for criminals like pedofiles, Maffia gangs and others to hide from the law. And the other issue is to dismantel and completly rewamp and change the law of Copyright simply because material are digitized. The so called digital copy. The Pirate Party was founded out of The Pirate Bay. Now said to be two different things, but still thats where they came from.

I will continue to run my own website and I know some of my illustrations are being used illegally, but what joy is it to sit and work and then not get payed for the work you have put down.

Article about the party in LA Times
Article in The Sydney Morning Herald

Stefan Lindblad
illustrator & artist

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