Curses

An author of a book on magic declared publicly that they had put a curse in it to damage anyone who got it through piracy.

My take: loser mentality!

Why would you curse the people who wanted to read your book? When you could embed viral sigils in your book and then spread them through global piracy channels.

Really though, it seems dangerous to tie your karmic balance to such a negative-sum game. In what way does this benefit the author? Do you really make that much more money by threatening your audience?

Does it really protect your work? Or merely satisfy your ego?

Is it incredible threat of defection? If it is, what Nash equilibria does it lead to? Should I just preemptively curse you to reduce your cursing ability, and then steal it while you can’t curse me back?

Or maybe the book teaches how to do curses, so the person who’s reading isn’t as good at cursing yet. Are you so confident that the student could never surpass the master? What if I curse you later out of spite for threatening me, once I am more powerful than you ever imagined?

In any case, why wouldn’t you tie your karmic balance to mutual blessings? What if you could bless the person who stole your book into more money, so they can send you some? Or what if you created an uncursable amulet of protection to share with the world?

I guess the curse has one major advantage over the traditional Wendig-style anti-piracy freak out: The persons deploying them thinks they’re being surreptitious, so we don’t have to hear about it all the dang time.

On the other hand, if people don’t know that you have set a trap for them, then there’s no reason for them not to walk into it. So, if you want the curse to dissuade people from pirating your book, you have to talk about it. But that author said elsewhere that most keep it secret…

Aw, I hope that person muted this thread. I’m not trying to be so mean. 😔 Just, seeing shit like this too many times before. Makes me weary. Please don’t curse me, author people. I got a lot of other shit to do.

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