"It's all right to just make a copy of a few pages."OK, rant off....They're a big company, they won't notice the income loss."
I'll just send a copy of this page to a couple of my friends, no big deal."
Well, it IS a big deal!
Not only that, it is THEFT!
and it will eventually KILL THIS HOBBY.
We have never placed, or allowed to be placed, pages from our book on the internet or anywhere else. We spent 1000's of hours and drove 1000's of miles and walked at least a hundred more to get the information used in that book Then countless more hours in front of a computer drawing maps (MUCH more time consuming than with pencil and paper) and writing up the sites. Then we have to pay a printer for the paper and printing. We end up making very little on the book, certainly much less than we could have made working at minimum wage for those hours. But we feel that the hobby needs such information if it is to survive -- if you can't find sites from which to collect, how will you become a collector? So we sell the book cheap. But that does NOT mean that we will allow someone to steal our work and post it on the internet or copy it in any other way. If the common attitude is that this behavior is OK, then I doubt that much new information or books on collecting locations will become available. Stealing information is not helping the hobby, it is hurting it.
In case you think this type of theft has no direct, immediate consequences:
From United States Code on copyrights:
(2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.