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Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

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Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#21

Post by 6d6b73 »

guelo wrote: post #16
6d6b73 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is theft whether you like it or not. They don't have to provide you with the service if they don't think you're not the right customer or if you can't afford it. You are in no way entitled to watching that single TV show if you don't have the subscription.

I mostly agree with your sentiment but copyright infringement is not "theft".

While you're not stealing in a sense that you're taking something physical, you are stealing in a sense that you are not compensating author for their work. Let's say you are graphics designer. You are hired to create logo for a company. Company likes your work and they just copy the file you've sent to them but they decided they are not going to pay you. Are they stealing from you or is it "just" copyright infringement ?

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#22

Post by lossolo »

In my country you can download any pirated game, movie, tv show, ebook or music legally and store it for 48 hours but you can't share it/upload it. And i am doing it with one exception. There is a company CD Project RED that made Witcher series and even that their games are without DRM (that is their choice - "we can't force you to buy our game but we can convince you") i am buying their games and i will buy them in future also. I could just download and do not pay for it but their product is so good, their policies, customer care is just great. I can see they have put their heart and souls into this games, they don't force you to buy with DRM that's why they get my money. They sold 10 mil copies of Witcher 3 without having any DRM. If you make good product you don't need to worry about piracy.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#23

Post by deepnet »

segmondy wrote: post #12
tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #5

There's a huge amount of books/music/movies/games that I have no means of obtaining legally. There's also tons of stuff I don't have convenient way to buy (e.g. no way I'm paying full HBO NOW subscription for watching a single TV show). We are 16 years into 21st century now, it's about time for big-name producers to stop calling people "thieves" and offer them an acceptable service instead.

Listen, you have no right to someone's else own work. If you don't want to pay HBO NOW to watch a single TV show. No problem. If you do however pirate their show, then that's stealing and the owner has a right to call you a thief. If HBO decides to charge $1,000 per episode, that would be very outrageous, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal their show. BTW, I know the pain, I really want to watch Sh…

Everyone has the legal right to view something.

Copyright only prevents producing and distributing unlicensed copies, i.e. uploading or sharing.

Downloading, streaming, or attending an unlicensed performance is not copyright infringement.

Without Copyright, and when it expires, the natural state of culture is to be copied, that is how it evolves - all works exist naturally in the public domain.

Copyright is a limited right to encourage the arts by providing a temporary monopoly.

The word theft is entirely out of place in discussions of copyright.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#24

Post by chris_va »

imgabe wrote: post #14
6d6b73 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is theft whether you like it or not. They don't have to provide you with the service if they don't think you're not the right customer or if you can't afford it. You are in no way entitled to watching that single TV show if you don't have the subscription.

Theft deprives the owner of something. Making a copy leaves the original intact. Technically HBO would not be providing them with the service. HBO provided the service to someone who paid for it. That person then made a digital copy and gave it to someone else. HBO is not involved in the second transaction. After I purchase something, am I not entitled to do what I wish with it, including giving it away?

> After I purchase something, am I not entitled to do what I wish with it, including giving it away?

There is clear precedent that you are not.

In this case, HBO is a business trying to make profit. It spends enormous amounts of money producing shows. Giving away a copy of their product for free arguably reduces their ability to stay solvent. Thus, theft.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#25

Post by danthejam »

y7 wrote: post #2

Article from 2014, which looks at people engaging in digital book piracy not as thieves but as modern-day librarians or collectors, who are focused more on preservation than providing easy access to the materials. Mainly, the authors write about various online libraries and how they're organized, with a small amount of technical details. I found it a somewhat interesting article, but I'd hoped they'd go a little more…

There was a very nice spanish community that would scan/ocr books and convert them into epubs. They had very high standards and their forums were full with epub documentation, best practices, boilerplate/skeleton files, scripts, etc. To the point their curated epubs were better than those of some publishers.

It all died when one of the founders was arrested.

Edit: it seems my information was incorrect, the site's owner sold it and the new owners wrapped the download links with malware and closed the forum. Users left and the site closed.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#26

Post by wolfgke »

segmondy wrote: post #12
tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #5

There's a huge amount of books/music/movies/games that I have no means of obtaining legally. There's also tons of stuff I don't have convenient way to buy (e.g. no way I'm paying full HBO NOW subscription for watching a single TV show). We are 16 years into 21st century now, it's about time for big-name producers to stop calling people "thieves" and offer them an acceptable service instead.

Listen, you have no right to someone's else own work. If you don't want to pay HBO NOW to watch a single TV show. No problem. If you do however pirate their show, then that's stealing and the owner has a right to call you a thief. If HBO decides to charge $1,000 per episode, that would be very outrageous, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal their show. BTW, I know the pain, I really want to watch Sh…

Not allowing to redistribute data is a form of censorship.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#27

Post by 6d6b73 »

deepnet wrote: post #23
segmondy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listen, you have no right to someone's else own work. If you don't want to pay HBO NOW to watch a single TV show. No problem. If you do however pirate their show, then that's stealing and the owner has a right to call you a thief. If HBO decides to charge $1,000 per episode, that would be very outrageous, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal their show. BTW, I know the pain, I really want to watch Sh…

Everyone has the legal right to view something. Copyright only prevents producing and distributing unlicensed copies, i.e. uploading or sharing. Downloading, streaming, or attending an unlicensed performance is not copyright infringement. Without Copyright, and when it expires, the natural state of culture is to be copied, that is how it evolves - all works exist naturally in the public domain. Copyright is a limited…

You only have the right to view something if someone who created that wants you to view it. If they say that you can view it after you pay, that's their right. If you pay and are allowed to view it you can describe it in any way you want to other people, but you are not allowed to spend that time you had for viewing it to make a copy of it and show it to some other people that did not pay the original author. If you at the same time use your copy to make money, taking that potential income from the original owner how is that not a theft?

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#28

Post by imgabe »

chris_va wrote: post #24
imgabe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft deprives the owner of something. Making a copy leaves the original intact. Technically HBO would not be providing them with the service. HBO provided the service to someone who paid for it. That person then made a digital copy and gave it to someone else. HBO is not involved in the second transaction. After I purchase something, am I not entitled to do what I wish with it, including giving it away?

> After I purchase something, am I not entitled to do what I wish with it, including giving it away? There is clear precedent that you are not. In this case, HBO is a business trying to make profit. It spends enormous amounts of money producing shows. Giving away a copy of their product for free arguably reduces their ability to stay solvent. Thus, theft.

Reducing a business's ability to remain solvent does not constitute theft. If a competitor emerged and offered better shows for less money, that would also reduce HBO's ability to remain solvent, but is obviously not theft. HBO does not "own" expected profits from their business.

Spending an enormous amount of money does not entitle anyone to a profit, just ask Webvan.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#29

Post by te_chris »

tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #5

There's a huge amount of books/music/movies/games that I have no means of obtaining legally. There's also tons of stuff I don't have convenient way to buy (e.g. no way I'm paying full HBO NOW subscription for watching a single TV show). We are 16 years into 21st century now, it's about time for big-name producers to stop calling people "thieves" and offer them an acceptable service instead.

So you want an 'acceptable service', despite admitting you're not willing to pay for multitude available to you already (iTunes/Play/Amazon for one offs and then all the Sub ones for library access)?

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#30

Post by wolfgke »

seren wrote: post #18
imgabe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft deprives the owner of something. Making a copy leaves the original intact. Technically HBO would not be providing them with the service. HBO provided the service to someone who paid for it. That person then made a digital copy and gave it to someone else. HBO is not involved in the second transaction. After I purchase something, am I not entitled to do what I wish with it, including giving it away?

What about identity theft ?

> What about identity theft ?

This is also a inconvenient word, though for different reasons.

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