I saw this and thought it was interesting. She's a Spanish writer and apparently piracy is a very big problem there. I think she is perfectly entitled to stop writing if she wishes to. What's interesting is that she has attracted vitriol from the downloaders! They are angry that she won't write any more books, but they're not prepared to pay for them (or get them out of the library - I assume there are libraries in Spain?!) Here's the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/20/spanish-novelist-quits-piracy-protest

Also, the fact that she won a big-money prize a few years ago is irrelevant. It doesn't mean she has an obligation to give her future work away for free.

Wow!! That is interesting.

Gutsy of her to take a stand.

Likely to raise the issue to some prominence, too, with her having won a few big prizes. Maybe the politicians will find it harder to sweep the problem to one side, if someone so prominent draws attention to it like that. Especially if a few other Spanish authors join her, or if international authors take the cue and begin refusing to let their work be translated into Spanish.

I assume there are libraries in Spain?!

Not necessarily, at least not libraries as we know them (Jim). There are none here in the south of Italy. That is, there is sometimes a shelf of religious and local history books available to look at in the local town hall, and that is called a library. I saw a somewhat larger library in a very remote village - still history/ religious, and only about a hundred or two hundred books in total - which had been set up by a volunteer not for profit organisation. For a big library you would need to drive two hours or so to the nearest city, and even then I am sure it would be more like the British Library, with restricted access and no lending.

We don't appreciate what we have in England...

We don't appreciate what we have in England...

God knows if it's still true, but in something like 1990 we had the best public library system in the world by a very long way, as measured by libraries per capita (or should that be capita per library?) and number of books.

Well, that's very interesting, re the libraries. And very true that we don't appreciate what we have over here.

I can see why that would create a culture of piracy. But it is always the writer (and publisher) who suffer though, isn't it?

Should writers give their work away in countries where there are no libraries?

You wouldn't expect a top chef to give away their food, would you? Or even just charge the price of raw ingredients. And yet writers are supposed to be people who do it for the love and therefore should be happy to have their work stolen (this seems to be the view of some of those who have attacked her - I'm not ascribing it to anyone here, tho I would be interested to know if anyone does think that).

Could I suggest a suitable punishment might be to force the downloaders to write a novel to publishable standard while in prison? If the work is not to a high enough standard, they stay in.

Or if you prefer punishment to rehabilitation; they could be forced to read slush piles till their eyes bleed.

Joking aside, the downloaders are immoral parasites. There are plenty of free books on the web, ones that are no longer under copyright. Anything pre 1923.

In my experience, the kind of people who will claim a moral right to copy or download books, music, films, software, etc. from pirate websites, or from friends who have copies of what they want, are also the kind of people who will scrounge cigarettes, drinks, favours, etc, from friends and acquaintances. It isn't about a moral stance, but about an excuse to get something for nothing, with no obligation to anyone.

If anyone does feel they have a genuine moral right to do this, they would presumably have no objection to an employer asking them to work, say, 3 extra hours overtime per week with no extra pay. Particularly if they happen to enjoy their jobs.

"Literature is not a profit-making job, but a passion," said Kelly Sánchez, one of the least vitriolic critics. "If you had a real vocation then you wouldn't stop writing."

I think this belief is such a problem for writers and other artists. Many people really do believe that we should do it for free.

Many people really do believe that we should do it for free.

No, many people claim to believe that because they think such a belief justifies stealing a copy of a story. People with the same mindset also steal music, software, and anything else they can lay their digital mits on. When they were at school, they probably used similar arguments to justify plagiarising other people's work to "write" an essay. Which is how they come to need to steal stuff instead of buying it - cheating at school just denied them the wits to make their own way in life.

"Literature is not a profit-making job, but a passion," said Kelly Sánchez, one of the least vitriolic critics. "If you had a real vocation then you wouldn't stop writing."

Maybe for her, and for her toffee-nosed upper-class friends. For the rest of us down here in the real world, who don't have vast stockpiles of inherited wealth to sponge off, we need some way to support our literary pursuits, to justify the sheer amount of time and effort we invest in our writing.

And piracy isn't just an issue in Spain, it's getting to be a real issue everywhere. With the release of devices like the Kindle, this whole, why purchase when you can download attitude is taking a hold throughout the literary establishment. Our industry is now in exactly the same state as the music industry was around ten, fifteen years ago, when the first mp3 players started coming on the scene. Plenty of people back then thought that it was a good idea, that the industry would become more accessible as a result.

Instead, what happened? Every high-street music retailer went bust, because people couldn't be bothered to pay for it any more. Virtually all of the music labels couldn't support themselves any more, and either followed suit into oblivion or got swallowed up by the conglomerates- and the conglomerates only cared about their A-list artists, so any real opportunities of breaking through onto the big stage for the next generations just dried up. X-Factor & Britain's Got Talent aside, how many new artists have come to the fore in the last decade? Have there been any at all who've got there on the basis on their talents, or have the privileged few just got there after getting into the tabloids?

People today say that ebooks are a good idea. That they'll revolutionise the industry, that things will be more open, more level, more profitable than they have ever been before. But the lessons of the past are there to learn. If we follow the path, we know where it will lead...

The thing is Newdawning, yes the lessons of the past are there to be learned from, but one lesson that the publishing industry has learned from the music industry is that you can't hold back the tide.

If publishers and book retailers don't take control of the ebook market, then that leaves it wide open to the pirates. It's already a really common "excuse" trotted out by downloaders - oh, well, there's no ebook available so this is the only way I can access it.

Yes, ebooks is a whole open can of worms and I think many people share your concerns. But ignoring the can isn't going to make it go away - or make it magically close itself again.