The ethicality of book piracy is a question that is more difficult to answer than one would initially think. It’s cumbersome to properly measure if public opinion swings in one way or the other, but it would be safe to say that if one is capable of acquiring a book, movie, song, etc, then no, it is not ethical to consume a product that has not been paid for.

According to data from the Authors Guild, 300 million dollars of profit annually is lost due to the pirating of books, and this loss of income is not limited to the United States. In the United Kingdom, approximately 85% of ebooks are paid for (about 66 million), while about 17% of ebooks are pirated, equating to about four million digital copies. This is only a peek into how much pirating can affect profits. Occasionally, a series might never be completed due to the lack of financial incentive. That means in this case, consuming illegally procured ebooks is somewhat detrimental to both the industry and the author of the work itself.

But is the book piracy dilemma really that simple? What about areas of the world where book access—most especially books written in English—is not as easy as heading to the bookstore or library? Despite how much more connected the world is now, there are places where the possibility of profit does not exist. In that case, it’s a question incumbent upon the author and publisher for whether or not they would want their product to be consumed for free, or not consumed at all. 

While the publishing industry loses out on millions yearly due to piracy, cracking down on such websites might not actually lead to book sales growth. There was an interesting experiment conducted by Cory Doctorow, a science-fiction writer and journalist, where he uploaded his book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom online for free. His publisher was naturally against the idea at first, but it led to an outcome that very few could have predicted—an increase in physical book sales. This contradicts the idea that consumers who pirate are wholly uninterested in paying for books point blank. Of course, there would be consumers who are of that nature, but there are others who simply do not have the means to legally obtain a copy of a book they are interested in. Alternatively, there are consumers who are more selective in where they choose to spend their hard-earned money. The cost of the average paperback in the U.S can be roughly the same amount as an hour’s worth of work, or even more. And so, some may wish to only purchase a book after they’ve ascertained that it’s monetarily worth it. This doesn’t justify piracy of course, as the existence of libraries should theoretically combat such a viewpoint. However, the issue of inconsistent funding should also be considered. Not all counties in the U.S have the exact same access, let alone other countries. 

Books in English are generally more difficult to obtain in other countries, save for extremely successful titles. Then, there is also the issue of book banning in the U.S and in other countries. Due to legislation passed in 2021, the largest bookstore in Hungary in 2023 began to wrap young adult and children’s books containing LGBTQ+ material to stop people from reading them. How else can one expect these citizens to be exposed to marginalized stories? Ideally, having a more streamlined process where general and copyright laws don’t drastically differ from place to place would be beneficial, but that is not how the system currently operates.

It’s easy to understand why an author may feel protective about their work being shared without their consent, but if there was one small silver lining, it would be exposure. Exposure may lead to more interest in an author’s other works, possibly leading to an increase of sales naturally through social media hype or convincing a consumer to spend their hard-earned money on an author’s book. While some take for granted their ability to access book content legally, and continue to pirate, many others simply find themselves at a loss either way—they cannot afford the book, the book is not available where they are because of copyright laws or because of book banning, etc. So, should we really condemn overseas (and even American) book “piraters” for wanting to enjoy something that others get to, simply because of their serendipitous circumstances?