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Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

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Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#71

Post by angersock »

muddyrivers wrote: post #46

I have family members who are writers. By association, we know many writers. They are in a dilemma. From talking to them, I think they agree, in principle, that books ought to be "distributed, [...], spread abroad, given to all, given cheaply, given at cost price, given for nothing." They are book-lovers in essence. In reality, most writers can hardly make a living from writing. Their book deals are essentially decid…

Maybe they should accept that the market has low demand for their work, and move on.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#72

Post by Freak_NL »

Gargoyle wrote: post #39
imgabe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The victim of identity theft is deprived of their credit rating, reputation, etc. Credit is a resource that gets used up as you use more of it or take out loans and don't pay them back. Making a copy of a digital file has no similar effect on the original owner of the file.

Time and labor are resources that get used up too. You're paying for the creator's time and labor. Taking the product of that time and labor without compensation is theft.

That is the common rebuttal, but if someone illegally downloads a film he or she never intended to purchase or rent anyway, then that argument does not hold. Even if the choice is between buying something legally and downloading it for free illegally, that word does not apply.

Loss of income does not equal theft.

Whether you have then been wronged or not is another discussion with valid arguments on both sides.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#73

Post by gakada »

muddyrivers wrote: post #46

I have family members who are writers. By association, we know many writers. They are in a dilemma. From talking to them, I think they agree, in principle, that books ought to be "distributed, [...], spread abroad, given to all, given cheaply, given at cost price, given for nothing." They are book-lovers in essence. In reality, most writers can hardly make a living from writing. Their book deals are essentially decid…

Today must be a golden age for writers. Many local libraries are struggling. With the historical source of free books in peril, writers can once again prosper!

Most fiction writers don't face a piracy problem, they face a marketing problem (nobody knows their book exists) and an economic problem (there is an abundance of supply of novels).

Every new novel has to compete not just with novels released that year, but with all novels still in print. In that way it is unlike most other markets. If you make soap, you only have to compete with the soap manufacturers of today.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#74

Post by globuous »

Mithaldu wrote: post #4
The_Hoff wrote: post #3

One sees this kind of thing within niche P2P communities. For example, on a popular BitTorrent tracker dedicated to music, one often sees indie artists "leak" their content. Consequently, the artists receive more recognition and appreciation for their work. I'm not claiming that piracy is victimless, nor that P2P sharing is more beneficial to the preservation of arts/academia than it is harmful. There is, however, so…

I have a friend who doesn't only preserve media, but also makes it more accessible. Specifically DVDs of the non-english sort are digitized, translated, and subtitles added, without removing any of the existing content. If there are space limitations, existing content is slightly compressed (for example audio commentary tracks). Additionally great care is taken to strictly adhere to (or even make adherent to) industr…

Going off of that, it'd be really cool to have a wiki for movie transcripts that covers multiple languages. I just searched real quick for a wiki for transcripts and found transcripts.wikia [0] but it doesn't seem to have transcripts translated in other languages. Would such a wiki for transcripts be legal anyway ?

[0] http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_VI:_Retu...

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#75

Post by orcdork »

Wildgoose wrote: post #55

I used an App on my old iPod to BUY and read the first in a series of books. I then tried to purchase the second volume, only to have the transaction declined because I don't live in North America. I wrote to Penguin USA to complain about this, pointing out that the book I wished to purchase was freely available on download sites so Why were they refusing to sell it to me? Their response was that I should find a US b…

Someone refusing to sell you something is not a permission to steal it.

(I do agree that the situation is ridiculous though)

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#76

Post by ehnto »

angersock wrote: post #59
ehnto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is no, you are not entitled to do that. Whether or not you agree with them, laws were brought in that stop you from doing that for the sole purpose of protecting the copyright owners. The laws were brought in, because people were abusing the ability to copy digital media and profiting off of it. Essentially making money off of someone else's hard work. That is what the laws are there to stop. The unfortuna…

The laws you are referring to were basically just Autodesk enforcing a monopoly position, and these laws directly harmed consumers. The big elephant in the room is that distribution and maybe even production do not require publishers anymore...and so instead of changing to adapt to the market they are out cracking down on supposed pirates. It takes a lot of ignorance of the business model of publishers to defend thei…

I wasn't defending publishers, I was defending the artists. The publishers are the (often unfair and exploitive) proxy to the artists. I wish they weren't and I wish publishing would catch up with the digital world too. That doesn't change anything about my post though.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#77

Post by 6d6b73 »

Wildgoose wrote: post #55

I used an App on my old iPod to BUY and read the first in a series of books. I then tried to purchase the second volume, only to have the transaction declined because I don't live in North America. I wrote to Penguin USA to complain about this, pointing out that the book I wished to purchase was freely available on download sites so Why were they refusing to sell it to me? Their response was that I should find a US b…

"I wanted to buy copy a famous painting from the museum for the market price but they did not agree to sell it to me because they don't ship to my state. So I drove there and took it when nobody was watching. How is that not a theft?"

That's pretty much what it boils down to.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#78

Post by GFischer »

6d6b73 wrote: post #54
kofejnik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

watching/reading something without authorization is not theft; redefining the words to suit your cause feels no less wrong than 'pirating'

It's you who is trying to redefine the words to make theft acceptable.

The crux of the issue is whether intellectual creations are "property" or not.

For people that believe something written can be property, then theft is an appropriate word (theft : the act or crime of stealing).

If, OTOH, you believe intellectual creations should not be treated like physical property, then theft is not the correct word.

Definitely not clear-cut.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#The_term...

"Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman argues that, although the term intellectual property is in wide use, it should be rejected altogether, because it "systematically distorts and confuses these issues, and its use was and is promoted by those who gain from this confusion". He claims that the term "operates as a catch-all to lump together disparate laws [which] originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues" and that it creates a "bias" by confusing these monopolies with ownership of limited physical things, likening them to "property rights""

Economists Boldrin and Levine prefer to use the term "intellectual monopoly" as a more appropriate and clear definition of the concept, which they argue, is very dissimilar from property rights

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#79

Post by ehnto »

Dolores12 wrote: post #58
ehnto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is no, you are not entitled to do that. Whether or not you agree with them, laws were brought in that stop you from doing that for the sole purpose of protecting the copyright owners. The laws were brought in, because people were abusing the ability to copy digital media and profiting off of it. Essentially making money off of someone else's hard work. That is what the laws are there to stop. The unfortuna…

What kind of profit do i get giving my copy of something to my parents to watch?

I don't think there is anything wrong with that and I don't think that is what we are discussing here. Maybe I read the parent post wrong, but my argument is against distribution of many copies not just handing the one copy around.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#80

Post by deepnet »

softawre wrote: post #45
deepnet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no law prohibiting 'watching infringing material'. One may think downloading is immoral or should be illegal, I am simply stating there is no law against it. Thus you can and do obtain it legally, so long as you don't publish or share the work. The original uploader or unlicensed streaming site or seller of unlicensed DVD copies is commiting copyright infringement - the downloader or viewer is not. Drug user…

> Drug users are punished with posession That's a counter-example. Drug punishments aren't related to this at all, but we do charge people for possession AND we charge people for distribution.

You would be right if there was a law 'watching infringing material', equivalent to 'receiving stolen goods' - but there is no such law.

I have received a lot of emotive disagreement and conflation of terms but where is the statute or precedent that says downloading is illegal ?

There is none. Sadly or happily depending on ones position.

Yet I don't understand all this disagreement with the facts.

Please if you believe I am wrong it would be quite easy to substantiate the argument by a citation of statute or precedent.

I have looked into this matter quite extensively and there is no such legal prohibition.

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