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Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

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Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#91

Post by 6d6b73 »

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?

>Theft deprives the owner of something. Making a copy leaves the original intact.

When you create that original you estimate that you have to sell X-number of copies to get back your money that you put into creating the original. If you want to watch/listen to/read that work you at least partially agree with the author that it's worth something. It may be in your opinion worth less then the price, but it's not up to you to set that price, as you have no idea how much work and resources did the author put into creating it. You have only one right - agree or disagree with the author and either pay him for this work or look for something else that was priced in your range.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#92

Post by speeder »

Doom, has Denuvo DRM, a very heavy-handed DRM, that is a bit buggy, and has been locking legitimate costumers out of the product, and also blocks many common uses of PC games (Denuvo blocks running the game with custom DLLs, including using Wine, and graphics-altering wrappers, and also blocks any modding that affect the game in-memory binary in any way)

I made a post on Steam, about it, avoiding commenting on piracy, saying only about the problems Denuvo creates for legitimate costumers.

Quickly, got accused of being a pirate.

So I just went ahead, and admitted that I actually own pirated copies of Doom 1 and 2, and explained why, and how I got them (it was very expensive and hard actually), got piled-up by people using many of the most absurd arguments I ever saw, but that I guess are result of never seeing how life in the third world works.

For example, many people asked me if I would steal a car, I replied that yes, if I needed one urgently, I would, gave for example if my mother needed to go to the hospital immediately, I would happily steal a car and drive her there.

Lots of people then replied I am evil, because they would just call 911... and that any argument about third-world emergency services was a lie. (while today we have on the headlines, Brazillian police kidnapped New Zealand Jiu Jitsu champion in Rio de Janeiro and stole 2000 BRL from him, and now he is requesting protection from the NZ embassy).

Also another argument I saw a lot, is that "if you really want it, you work to get it", I mentioned for example a poor kid that might work reselling trash from landfill would want pirated photoshop, and pirated photoshop books, to get a better life working with photoshop.

Lots of people told me that this kid should just get a better job and buy photoshop, or that should work harder to get money to buy photoshop with the current job...

I concluded that many people that defend DRM and is very strongly anti-piracy, don't know how the rest of the world works, that people that are strongly anti-piracy, lived lives where their suggestions: "just move out of the shitty country", or "just get better job", or "just save money", or "just ask help of the government", as things that work, and don't know how it is to be stuck in a country where calling 911 is a good way to get killed, instead of getting help.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#93

Post by duozerk »

Nelson69 wrote: post #85
duozerk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule. I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available…

Sure, it's all virtual, you're not actually 'stealing' their money since you weren't actually going to pay for it anyways, but if we're pedantic about it you are depriving them their rights. As the owner, they can copyright it, they can specify the terms by which you're allowed to view it or not view it. They can decide to not let you view it. You are taking that right from them. You are saying your right to access t…

"You are saying your right to access the content is more important than their rights, it's pretty simple."

Not exactly; I'm saying the benefits to society as a whole offered by the post-scarcity nature of data on the Internet (infinitely copiable with negligible cost) is so large that, in my opinion, their right to decide who should access the content is far less important and so should be ignored.

It certainly sucks for them; and it certainly means that we need to think about new models to finance content creation (since we are living in a definitely scarcity-based society in real life, for now at least); but there you go.

And you say they are the "owner" of the content; given the current laws, yes, "they" usually posess the content. But the "they" in question is very often great industry behemoths constructed on the old, physical model of distribution; regularly offering incredibly bad deals to content creators.

As I said, when a content creator distributes its content directly or with a non-DRM intermediary (such as GoG) - and I consider, for example, both netflix and steam as little more than new forms of DRM - then I always pay for it. I pay for it because we still don't have a new model allowing free distribution of data while providing incentives for content creators (a global licence mechanism or something similar - easier said than done), and so I see it as a compromise in the meantime. It also encourages those new means of distribution.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#94

Post by danthejam »

jackfrodo wrote: post #32
danthejam wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 own…

Sounds awesome. Any links to remaining documentation?

I just googled and it seems like the users have moved over to https://www.epublibre.org/foro/

On the front page it shows a warning about how applications for editor are closed due to having too many. So it seems the community is still alive and well. Here's their documentation as an epub (in Spanish): https://www.epublibre.org/libro/detalle/2398

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#95

Post by 6d6b73 »

Freak_NL wrote: post #72
Gargoyle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you did not want "to purchase or rent " legally why is it ok to do it illegally? Is it that you did not purchase or rent it because you knew that you could simply steal it?

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#96

Post by frosting »

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…

Historically speaking, the only reason anyone "owns" media is due to literally hundreds of years of lobbying. Books, stories, and songs were all once free to copy. This is the nature of religious books, fairy tales, and folk songs.

Ethically speaking, "ownership" has a tenuous position. I find it easier to argue that ownership is a construct of society than it is an innate part of anything. That means it's flexible to what society decides. Right now, on this issue, that's definitely in flux.

From a utilitarian perspective, it's really pretty weird too. Ignoring economics for a second (that's my next point), it is probably better for all society to have information free of barriers. A lot more people can enjoy it if more people have access, particularly when the cost of copy and distrubution is so cheap.

Economically it costs a LOT of money though. HBO would not produce game of thrones without being able to get said money back. And they're only going to put as much money into it as they expect to get back. Why don't we have more CGI dragons? because HBO, while rich, is not an endless supply of money. and CGI dragons are really expensive. Yes, to reiterate the point, if HBO had enough money we'd have more dragons.

And as for the cost? $15/month for one show is actually VERY reasonable. Remember it costs millions of dollars to produce - just that one show. Even if you don't watch any other show you are still getting more than your money's worth. If you do watch other shows (And I highly recommend it), it's still easily worth your money. BTW, Netflix, HuluPlus, etc are also all worth their relative costs relative to what you get out of them.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#97

Post by theandrewbailey »

lossolo wrote: post #22

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…

CD Project is perhaps the best video game company ever. They have earned all the praise they get.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#98

Post by bleachedsleet »

Nelson69 wrote: post #85
duozerk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule. I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available…

Sure, it's all virtual, you're not actually 'stealing' their money since you weren't actually going to pay for it anyways, but if we're pedantic about it you are depriving them their rights. As the owner, they can copyright it, they can specify the terms by which you're allowed to view it or not view it. They can decide to not let you view it. You are taking that right from them. You are saying your right to access t…

You are assuming that everyone agrees copyright is a good thing...

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#99

Post by frosting »

Freak_NL wrote: post #81
lately wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People just want to find some noble reason for their behaviour. Pirating is wrong, but I do it because I don't have the money to spend.

Then why are you labelling it with the negative moral qualifier wrong ? It may be illegal or considered reprehensible by the society you live in (i.e, someone else may call it wrong ), but why would you do it if you consider it wrong?

Because it disagrees with the ethical principles someone might want to live their life by.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#100

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

6d6b73 wrote: post #84
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and when I don't hire you, that means that you won't have money to buy food, so you will starve. So, I am not murdering you in the sense that I am shooting you, but I am murdering you in the sense that I am not hiring you. Words have commonly accepted definitions, and copyright or contract violation simply does not fall under theft. "I think it's bad, theft is bad, therefore, it's theft" just is an incoherent a…

Oh, so if you go to a dealer and took the car that you never wanted to buy because it's too expensive, only for a one drive, without asking anyone you were not stealing because this would not deprive anyone of any money?

If you use someone's property without authorization, but don't intend to deprive them of it permanently, that indeed in most jurisdictions is not theft, that is criminal conversion.

It's really not that difficult, you can simply look up what these terms mean instead of inventing your own definitions. "Depriving someone of money" is not the definition of theft. And it not only isn't, it would be a braindead definition if it were. Suddenly, buying from your competitor would be theft. Accidentally dropping your dishes would be theft. Pretty much everything would be theft under that definition.

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