About once a month my wife and I go into the local B&N book store and sit and read books and magazines for 3 hours. We’re not the only ones doing this. I see alot of people there just reading. I even see students using their books for study/research. I’m an extremely fast reader thanks to an excellent class I took many years ago. So, I really get through a lot of magazines in the few hours we’re there. If I bought/subscribed to all those magazines, it would cost me a hell of alot of money. And that’s the debate question: By reading their books, am I in a sense, stealing from them?
I have never, and I mean never, purchased anything from this place. I don’t physically remove the books from the store like an outright thief, yet I use them and receive thier information and entertainment value, without compensating them in any way. Is that the same as stealing?
Verdict: Guilty, off ya go swine …
Sentence: 5 yrs as prison librarian, forbidden to read while incarcerated.
Good debate question BTW
Heck no.
BN is one of those places that promotes sitting down, taking your time, reading… so much so these places even put in coffee shops. While I don’t think they want you to sit down and read entire books (no matter how many visits it takes), all you’re doing is taking advantage of their policy. They want you to read, and you are. But I have to ask… ever heard of a library? 
Sure. In fact. Milwaukee has one of, if not the best library systems in the nation. But it’s not open on saturday night. Those monthly trips to the book store are kind of like a night out for us, which is why we usually do this on the weekend. Afterwards we usually go for a late dinner or a couple of drinks. To tell you the truth, I’d rather be in a library. It’s quieter!
Unless you leave the store with the books/magazines, or are asked not to spend so much time reading, it’s not stealing.
Here’s where morals come in to it. You must be feeling a little guilty to even think about it. To a person without morals they wouldn’t even think they might be doing something wrong. One of these times your conscious will get to you and you will buy a magazine.
This is not stealing; this is simply calling the company’s bluff. It is like when a grocery store sells ground beef for 79 cents a lb, on the assumption that most of the people that come in to buy it will also buy other, profitable, things. B&N is playing the odds: overall, they sell more books/magazines by allowing people to stop and read them than they do otherwise. They could, if they chose, put up a sign that said “no reading unless you intend to buy”, and if you and your wife were to then smuggle magazines to the bathroom and read them, I suppose you could call that “stealing” or at least something sort of grey, morally. But they make more money if they put out big comfy chairs, and we reap the benefits.
I think a comprable question would be whether or not you are morally obligated to watch the commercials on television, and I think the answer is still no.
You are effectively stealing from the writer and the publisher when you do that. B&N or any of those chains just send the damaged books back to the publishing house when they don’t sell. The books are usually there on sale or return.
The bookshop doesn’t lose a cent but it’s pretty heartbreaking to get a royalty statement which is mostly returns.
I would agree with MandaJO if the bookshop paid for the books upfront but they don’t.
Doesn’t Barnes & Noble put at least some of the damaged books in the discount section in the back of the store?
“At least some”, yes. Not very many. In general, the only books that any large chain sells at a loss are those that are nonreturnable, which is a very small portion. Otherwise, it’s almost always better to return damaged books for at least partial credit- that way, not only do you generally lose less money, you don’t have to deal with having only scuffed-up copies of some books (art/photo books in particular). While it’s not something that’s usually brought up in conversation with customers, there’s a secondary concern that some people might well intentionally mark up an expensive book and then attempt to barter it down.
By way of explanation, I am presently an inventory manager for one of these “large chain bookstores”, though I’m not going to say which one. I can pretty well assure you that any reasonably large bookstore chain will do the same way.
As far as the OP: It’s not stealing, but if a book is worth coming back to the store repeatedly to finish, isn’t it worth buying it to read at your convenience?
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*Originally posted by Some Guy *
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*Originally posted by Lamia *
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I don’t go back and read the same book. I go back and read that month’s batch of magazines.
No, it’s not stealing. The bookstore (an agent of the publisher) invites you to read. I’ve asked a B&N clerk about this and she said that the increased revenue more than pays for any slight losses due to damage.
[ul]
[li]Taking two newspapers when you pay for one.[/li][li]Shaking a vending machine for freebies.[/li][li]Accepting overchange from a clerk.[/li][li]Taking anything that doesn’t belong to you.[/li][/ul]
Now that’s stealing.
Peace,
mangeorge
I had a sort of similar dilemma a few years ago when Oldsmobile was offering a $50 gift certificate to CDNOW to anyone who came in to test drive a new Alero. I had no intention of buying a car anytime in the foreseeable future, and if I did it sure as hell wouldn’t be an Oldsmobile, but that gift certificate would sure be nice.
I finally realized that I would be doing exactly what they wanted. It’s worth their $50 (or whatever fraction of $50 they had to pay for the certificate) to take the chance that someone like me–who would never have walked into an Oldsmobile dealer otherwise–buys a $20,000 car. Not many will bite, but not many have to.
It’s the same way with B&N. They have figured out that encouraging people to sit and read in their store will result in more total sales, even if some people read and don’t pay. It works the same way for the writers–if the bookstore is doing better because of this setup, they should be selling more books, even if some people are reading and not buying.
I do the same thing, and I know sitting and reading has caused me to buy several books that I would not have otherwise. That has to outweigh the total cost of any damage I’ve done that resulted in a return.
Keep it up, and don’t feel guilty.
Dr. J
MHO: No, it’s not stealing because that’s B & N’s whole gimmick, to get you to come in and read. What Manda Jo said, it’s like a grocery store’s loss leader on really cheap hamburger.
However, if you stand there at a newsstand for hours and hours and read magazines, then yes, that’s stealing, because the person who owns the newsstand isn’t running a lending library, he’s assuming you’re going to buy your magazine and take it home to read.
Damaged?
I didn’t read the OP to meant that pkbites was doodling with Crayolas in the margins, wiping his nose on the pages, or filling out crossword puzzles in the magazines. Is a book really unsalable because someone has leafed through it?
Don’t worry, pkbites. I spent about 2 hours reading in B&N today and walked out with WAY more books than I should have bought, so I think I’ve got you covered. 
Of course, I will admit to being occasionally ticked off at the high school kids who hold loud study sessions in those comfy chairs (preventing ME from sitting down with my stack of books for a peaceful read). Then again, getting lots of h.s. kids to hang out in a bookstore is a pretty amazing feat, so I’m learning to deal!
Let’s get something straight here folks.
Sale or return means that the bookstore assumes no risk with those books. Book gets damaged = the book goes back to the publisher, the publisher absorbs the cost and the writer can find that royalties have had the cost of returns deducted from the next 6 monthly royalty statement.
That hurts the publisher and the writer in the pocket. It doesn’t hurt the bookstore one little bit. The bookstore pays for those books when they sell!
And, no - allowing people to sit and read books does not increase overall sales to the extent that it makes up for damaged books.
If anyone thinks this is a Good Idea from the perspective of the writer and the publisher, go and post the question on one of the writing mailing lists. There’s not a single published writer I’ve ever met who prefers their books to be read and possibly damaged in the store. We get the royalties when you buy the freaking book, not when you page through it.
Magazines are a different kettle of fish though.
And if I sound crabby, well I am crabby. It’s pretty obvious from my perspective that reading books in a bookshop doesn’t increase my royalties and people defending it gets my goat.
I disagree with Primaflora saying that it doesn’t cost them a cent because they can send the books back. They still have rent, payroll, insurance and other overhead to cover. If their policy is that you can browse without buying then it isn’t stealing, but why not go to the library where there isn’t any reason to feel guilty?
The bookshop has those costs whether or not they allow their customers to sit and read the books which are not yet paid for.
You can run a bookstore where customers cannot sit and read the books you know. There’s a world of difference between sitting with a cup of coffee and reading a book or browsing the books while deciding what to buy.
I agree with primaflora that publishers and authors can be hurt by this behavior, but that is a consequence of the terms which publishers negotiate with bookstores. The customers are abiding by the expressed policy of B&N. Now, I have no idea whether the number of damaged books returned to the publisher due to in-store reading is significant, but if it is, then the place to apply the remedy is in the return policy extended to B&N.
Of course, B&N represents such a large market share that for now publishers are almost certainly going to eat the costs. Which means authors eat the costs. So, it is certainly possible that taking extreme advantage of the in-store reading policy might not be the most ethically advanced action a person can take. But it is not stealing.