This morning, when Tiger scrolled through his WeChat Moments, he saw an article from Bao Jian Feng's WeChat reposted by Nandu Digital News — "Tieba Crazy Piracy of Online Literature, Writers Can't Be Moderators of Their Works."
This was an article denouncing the damage that piracy had done to online literature. Tiger clicked on the article and read it from beginning to end. He felt sad and couldn't calm down for a long time. He always felt that something was surging in his chest, and he wanted to say something to everyone.
The problem of piracy, perhaps from the day that words could be uploaded online, had attached itself to the entire literature industry like a shadow. Online literature was the hardest hit area of piracy. Articles denouncing online piracy, from "A Letter from Han Han to Baidu's Mr. Li Yanhong" a few years ago to today's article in Nandu Digital News, Tiger had seen many of them. I believe that besides Tiger himself, everyone had seen many similar articles or messages over the years.
All these articles, when discussing the harm of online piracy, were generally focused on three aspects to criticize the phenomenon of online literature piracy. The first aspect of criticizing online piracy was the moral aspect, the second aspect was the legal aspect, and the third aspect was the economic aspect — mainly focusing on the huge losses that online literature piracy had brought to the entire industry.
After reading these articles denouncing piracy, all the readers would have the same thought. As the victims of online piracy, it was nothing more than authors and online writers, publishing houses and official websites, and the entire online literature industry — and these victims, for a reader, were too far away.
Even if they were reading pirated versions, it didn't matter. Anyway, those articles were placed there and could be read without paying. On Tieba, on those pirated literature websites, pirated articles were everywhere. Anyway, they weren't pirated by themselves, so they couldn't be blamed. Even if online literature lost 10 billion due to piracy last year, what did that have to do with them?
You, and your friends around you, have you ever had such thoughts before or even now?
If you really think so, then you are gravely mistaken.
From Tiger's point of view, the biggest victim of pirated literature was not the authors and web writers, nor was it the publishing houses or official websites, but the readers who read pirated literature. That's right, the biggest victim of pirated literature was the readers who read pirated literature. It was you, or the friends you knew. Once those readers came into contact with pirated literature, they would continue to suffer from the harm caused by pirated literature. They didn't realize this, and no one had even told them about the dangers of pirated literature.
Before writing these words, Tiger had also considered whether he should write it or not. Should he talk about the harm of reading pirated novels from the reader's perspective? In Qidian, Tiger was not considered a guru, and his influence was limited. If he hastily wrote such an article, would people think that he was pretending to be a bigshot?
But after thinking about it, Tiger still decided not to hold it in.
He remembered that when he was writing "Snow Wash", there was a sentence in "Snow Wash" — Knowing is power! It was this sentence that encouraged Tiger to finish writing "Snow Wash".
Now he was writing "Castle of Black Iron". The entire "Castle of Black Iron" was based on one word — — cause and effect.
The word "cause and effect" was the predestined relationship between Tiger and the readers. Because of the word "cause and effect", Tiger determined to tell the readers the real harm of reading pirated literature.
The biggest harm of reading pirated literature was the word "steal".
What was "steal"? If you don't take, you will steal.
One chapter after another was the culmination of the hard work and sweat of the author, as well as the hard work of the website's editors, back-end technical staff, and marketing staff. Only then were the chapters and the books presented so that the readers could read them in peace and enjoy the joy of reading. It could be said that every chapter of a book was the result of the hard work of many people. Therefore, there was a fee for reading, and the money was earned or legally owned by the readers. In essence, this was a process of trading goods and exchanging the fruits of labor. This process was no different from buying things in a shop.
This process was destroyed by pirated literature.
After sitting in front of computers for 7-8 hours or even more than 10 hours, the online authors exchanged their labor achievement with you for a few cents. However, you didn't pay for it. You didn't fulfill the commodity exchange relationship. Without the authors' consent, you enjoyed the authors' labor achievement. That was stealing.
Millions and millions of dollars were thieves, one or two cents were thieves, and even a few cents were thieves.
Perhaps someone would feel wronged and say, "How could I be stealing? It should be others who pirated literature. I'm just taking a look."
It was like a family had some goods in their yard that could only be bought with money. One day, someone used a bulldozer to push down the wall of the family's yard, exposing the goods in the yard to the public without any protection. Then, the person driving the bulldozer said to the onlookers, "Go ahead, you can take out the things piled up in the yard. It's yours. No one will care about it. You can take whatever you want, and no one will know." Thus, the onlookers entered the courtyard and took away the goods in the courtyard with a clear conscience. Don't you think that's stealing?
The convenience of the spread of internet technology was that bulldozer. The goods in the courtyard were chapters and chapters. They were the fruits of the combined labor of the authors and the website platform. The people who walked into the courtyard and took away the goods were the readers who read pirated literature.
Bodhisattva feared karma, and all living beings feared karma!
Everything was empty, only karma was not empty!
What was the karma of stealing? It was poverty and suffering!
Why do I say that readers who read pirated versions are the biggest victims of piracy? It's because those readers who read pirated versions have unknowingly planted the seeds of poverty in their own karma. They have planted seeds of evil in their karma …
This was the stupidest thing in the world.
Was it because the readers who read pirated literature were poor and lacked the few cents for each chapter of the original?
Of course not!
Tiger believed that many readers read pirated literature out of their reading habits, not because they were stingy or couldn't afford a few cents.
Because they felt that it was convenient to read pirated literature and were used to reading on some websites, or they didn't know how to read the original, they read pirated literature. Take those book friends and readers in the Tieba of Castle of Black Iron as an example. Although they read pirated literature, many readers would always tip Tiger together. Many people tipped dozens of yuan to hundreds of yuan each time, which was enough for them to read the original.
And it was precisely because of this that such a heart-wrenching scene occurred in the process. Many readers who read pirated versions didn't even know that their actions were "robbing" and that they were planting bad karma for themselves. The few cents and dollars that they saved from reading pirated versions today might be repaid a thousand times over in the future.
The 8th commandment of the Ten Commandments in the Bible was "Don't steal".
Buddha vividly expounded the karma of "stealing" in such classics as "Ksitigarbha Sutra" and "Ten Good Karma Sutra". He told all living beings that stealing would not bring them wealth and convenience; instead, it would bring them poverty and hardship.
All the wise people in all the sects in the world regarded stealing as an extremely serious crime. This was not without reason.
All those who did not believe in this cause and effect could observe the lives of those around them who had a criminal record of theft and see whether they were poor or rich.
There were such people around the tiger, and without exception, they all lived very poor lives. Even though these people no longer stole, because of the crimes they had committed in the past, their lives, especially in terms of wealth, were very difficult and full of ups and downs. All of them worked very hard, but the pay was very low, and it was very difficult for them to get the approval of others.
— — Tiger, you're talking nonsense. I have a friend who often reads pirated literature for a few years. However, he won 5,000 yuan in the lottery a few days ago!
— — That's right, I also read pirated literature, but my current job is not bad …
Perhaps some readers would ask Tiger this, but what Tiger wanted to tell these readers was that if that person didn't read pirated literature, perhaps he would have won more than a few thousand yuan in the lottery. If that person didn't read pirated literature, perhaps he would have a better job now.
Reading pirated literature was like eating poison. You could read a few pirated literature chapters every day and steal a few cents every day. In a short period of time, this did not seem to have any effect on your life and fortune. That was because the dose of poison in your stomach was still very low. Even if there was an effect, you wouldn't feel it and think that everything was normal. However, once you accumulated it over a long period of time, from a few cents to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands, there would definitely be a process of quantitative change to qualitative change in your life and career, making you pay back a hundred times or a thousand times. No one was an exception.
— — I really don't have money now. My monthly income is only enough for me to live on, but I like it. The cost of reading each chapter is a huge burden for me. What should I do?
If some readers are in this situation, Tiger's advice is: If you are still a student, then put it down, study hard, and train your skills. If you don't have a job, then quickly find one and face your own problems. You can treat it as a hobby, but don't use it as a tool to escape from the world. You can't indulge in your own world and ignore the problems in reality. No matter what, don't read pirated literature anymore. Don't destroy your own fortune and let yourself fall into a vicious cycle.
In the novel, everyone can see a plot where a white-bearded old man full of wisdom or the protagonist comprehended the power of the law at some point, making himself very powerful.
In fact, in reality, such wisdom does exist. All wisdom is current, fresh, and closely related to our lives. Everyone can grasp and use it. Don't read pirated literature, stay away from all crimes of theft. This is the wisdom and law closest to every reader.
The rich create wealth, the poor create poverty. What you create is what you are. Each of us, when we create others, we are also creating ourselves.
Why did Tiger write this article? That was because Tiger hoped that all the readers who read this could have a happy and rich life.
Tiger also hoped that the millions of online writers in China who were still typing every day like Tiger, those who used the keyboard to create their own world, would have a better and broader world in the future.
Finally, Tiger shared with everyone a sentence that he had seen before — — Being on the right path is the most auspicious!
The right path, the right knowledge, the right action, the right view, the genuine, the positive energy. With these in a person's life, how could he not be happy, not sunny, and not rich?
What do you think …
(To be continued.)
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