Pirated

There's a lot of fuss about pirating scanned and electronic copies of books right now. And it's not an activity I condone. Sharing a book with friends is one thing; turning a profit on illigitimately obtained copies is quite another. But the image above is of a very special case of piracy involving one of my short stories.

Some ten years ago, the French newspaper Le Monde published as fold-out supplements several long science-fiction stories. One of them was mine: 'Second Skin'. A couple of months after it was published, I was invited to a small sf convention in France, and came across an entrepreneur selling for a few francs each little pamphlets he'd made up from those supplements. The pages are handcut and bound in handcut blue card, and pasted to the front were cutouts of what I assume is the advertisment for the supplement.

Strictly speaking, I suppose, it isn't a pirated edition. I'd already been paid for the reprint of the story. The entrepreneur had paid for copies of the newspaper, and enhanced the value of supplement. He turned a small profit from his labours and I received several copies of a unique artifact. Result: a small increase in human happiness.