Author Hates eBook Piracy but Pirates Music

When the topic of piracy is raised, it’s often music and movies that come to mind, along with applications and games. But, while those things do seem to be hit the worst, there are other materials just as often traded online, including eBooks and even real products (luxury goods, namely). You could imagine that those who are involved with such legal works would be against piracy, and discourage it, but do they themselves stick to their own judgements?

In the case of Norwegian author Anne B. Ragde, the answer is sometimes “no”. During an interview given to a newspaper, she condemned piracy and stated that she feels she’s lost a good sum of money as a result of it. She even went onto say, “I cannot stand the thought of someone stealing something. I look at Norwegian musicians who have to do live concerts. We have nothing to live on other than the physical product.“

I can agree to a certain degree with that statement. But the problem here is that Anne is a bit of a hypocrite. During the interview, her son spoke up and said, “You have a pirated MP3 collection. We copied the first 1,500 songs from one place and 300 from another.” Whoa, could that have been more perfectly timed?

Sure enough, that statement is true, and Anne does have a lot of pirated songs on that iPod. Whether it’s hers, or her son’s, isn’t too clear. Either way, stating that you’re against something is one thing, but it’s another thing to condemn it and be guilty of it yourself.

For Jo Ragde reportedly offered: “You have a pirated MP3 collection. We copied the first 1,500 songs from one place and 300 from another.” And so there we had a twist that any crime author would enjoy. Initially, Ragde apparently admitted the family enjoyed an iPod positively brimming with questionably obtained material.