ePiracy

While reading up on piracy on the internet, I stumbled across two different blogs. One of these, by the author Sherry Soule,  talks about her personal difficulty that arises when people illegally download her book over the internet rather than buying a copy of her own. She appeals to the rhetoric principal of pathos because she tells the audience how they are essentially taking food out of he children's mouths when they illegally download her book because she gets no money from this. She also tells them that when they do this they are also squelching her dreams of writing because if she doesn't get any money coming in she can't continue to do the thing she loves the most, write. She also appeals to ethos by reminding the audience that stealing in any form, including illegal downloads, is wrong. She then empathizes with the audience saying she is having financial trouble too and she can't even afford her own reading habits, which is why she set her book price cheaper than others.

The second blog was by Karen Dionne. It similarly discusses many of the same arguments that Sherry Soule's blog did, about how piracy on the internet is illegal and there is no way to justify otherwise. She uses logos when she presents many different facts about illegal downloads which in turn produces its own sense of pathos because the reader realizes how many self published and indie authors are getting cheated out of what is rightfully theirs. This blog does differ from the other one though in the sense that it is told in a way that is merely presenting information to the reader. The first blog is a first hand account of an actual author and how she is getting cheated out of her paycheck and how it is physically effecting her. I believe that the first blog is more effective in stopping someone from illegally downloading because everyone can clearly see the immediate consequences of their illegal downloads and she makes the people doing so feel guilty that they are taking away from what she has worked so hard to obtain. I believe that both blogs are successful in conveying the same message but the first one is more powerful in its delivery.