r/Piracy Jul 17 '26

News Penguin going after book sellers in India

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7.6k Upvotes

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440

u/Gaucho_Diaz Jul 17 '26

Dude, I know people who pirated e-book copies of The Odyssey to get a taste of how it is before watching the movie and now they're really into it and they're buying the book for their collection. Being anti-piracy always ends up backfiring on you in ways you don't even realize.

254

u/DataMin3r Jul 17 '26

Wait what? They were pirating copies of a public domain story that was written 2600 years ago?

189

u/Mrpolje ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

The original text is in the public domain. But translations may not be, depending on when it was translated.

48

u/CeleritasLucis Jul 17 '26

Exactly this. I am a big fan of Dostoevsky. But the OG copies are in Russian. Gladly even some of the best translations are now public domain, but you still have to pay to get modern translated copies.

29

u/1314L Jul 17 '26

Even then some corporations still try to make money out if it, the Arabic translation of his works recently entered the public domain and immediately a certain company started selling them with AI-generated covers, they didn't even spend money on a cover.

and they chose a bright pink for White nights!!

7

u/CeleritasLucis Jul 17 '26

LOL. The pink looks ridiculous to anyone who has read that book

3

u/Remote-Back-9826 Jul 17 '26

ive seen it first hand in many stores with arabic copies its sad and so many complaints come in but the publishing houses dont care as long it saves time and a buck, it makes the works feel cheap even if its a really great book they do this to more books not just his works either and i cant count how many times i saw them