It was a rare display of truly industrial strength chutzpah. Cheek of such force it’s breathtaking. A kind of work of art.
I don’t often publish multiple projects within days of each other, but it just happened that the MEAP version of Manning’s “Learn AWS in a Month of Lunches“, my “Using Docker on AWS” course on Pluralsight, and Apress’s “Practical LPIC-1 Linux Certification Study Guide” all appeared around the same time.
When the LPIC-1 book appeared, I thought I’d see what I could learn about it from my smart friend, Google. Among the first page or so of search results were links to a few sites offering the book as a free download. Strange. I didn’t remember “free” as a standard Apress pricing model. But who am I to question the wisdom of the marketing gurus?
Whoops! My mistake. It seems these had nothing to do with Apress marketing after all, but were links to downloads of pirated copies of the e-book version of my book. Well, we all have to make a living, I guess. Clicking on the link to the ebookee.pro site, however, I was surprised to be told that I wouldn’t be able to continue enjoying the page, because I was using an ad blocker. ebookee.pro wants me to help them continue to “keep making this site awesome” by participating in their ad display campaign. How heartwarming.
I am sympathetic to the problems facing the owners of many of the sites I often visit, and I will sometimes open up my ad blocker for them. After all, I enjoy reading the regularly-updated content that they work so hard to produce, why shouldn’t they get something back?
But begging me to help support the wholesale theft of intellectual property…MY intellectual property?
C’mon.
