Your don’t have a right to read any book
I’ve followed this week’s debate on the merits and justifications for piracy, and it is probably one of the more balanced arguments Nigerian Twitter has had in a while.
There were good points everywhere. Some people argued that piracy is plainly wrong because authors already earn very little from royalties. Others conceded that piracy is technically wrong but defended it as understandable when readers simply cannot afford the books they want to read. A few insisted that piracy is not morally wrong at all, especially in countries where exchange rates make books prohibitively expensive.
And then there was the take that seemed to provoke the most anger.
Someone said something along the lines of: if you cannot afford a book, maybe you should not read it.
Predictably, people were furious.
It is easy to see why that statement feels offensive. Reading is widely treated as an unqualified...



