“The books will stop working.” • Hacker News Board

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#301

Post by asdff » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

docker_up wrote: post #90

docker_up wrote: post #13

I have a close friend who published an engineering text book. He worked a couple of years on it and it was well received in his particular field. The book was pirated within months and is freely available on PDF. It's unfair that his hard work is being used globally for free. So yes, having books shut off sucks but so does piracy.

The lack of empathy in the responses is staggering to me. It's as if the idea that a content creator should be financially rewarded for his or her hard work is some sort of moral crime. Yes, DRM sucks, but what other way can content providers ensure that they get rewarded for the hard work and good content that they provide?

It shouldn't be when you consider that the topic is textbooks. I agree, work hard, give good content that's better than the competition on the market, and I'll gladly pay for that value. However, textbooks are not a free market. They are a captive market, where the professor decides what textbook is ordained for the course.

Students usually have the choice of the brand new print edition $$$ that they can resell for $, the ebook edition ($$) that expires after the term and you cannot resell, or fighting for one of the two copies of the book on 2 hour loan from the main campus library. Some professors do not let you use an older copy, and for some classes, they make you do your homework on proprietary publisher websites that charge for temporary access codes. So even if you pirated your book you would still have to pay McGraw Hill their cut to get full points in the class.

Curious how well textbook prices correlate to the maximum federal loan you can apply for.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#302

Post by mirimir » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #112

carom wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer Library Genesis.

PG has the advantage of being legal.

That's arguably more of a limitation than an advantage.

If your OPSEC is adequate, legality is irrelevant.

And if that seems shocking, consider that legality morality.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#303

Post by mirimir » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #284

cyphar wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Gutenberg self-censored themselves to all German users in protest of the lawsuit.

If they did not have servers in Germany couldn't they have just ignored the lawsuit? They can make it illegal for Germans to use the site if they wish, but they can't go meddling in foreign media content. If Saudi Arabia serves you a lawsuit because you have a picture of a woman's face on a webpage without hijab, would you fly there to go to court? I'd just trash their lawsuit and never go there. They can block my si…

That's one of my go-to examples as well. I mean, even excluding porn and soft porn, the vast majority of Western media is likely illegal in Saudi Arabia.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#304

Post by modsiw » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

la_barba wrote: post #201

ajuc wrote: post #7

This is why DRM isn't just anti-consumer, it's also morally evil using the same logic that says libraries are a good thing. This is also why I buy games on gog.com instead of steam if they both have them.

Have you found a solution to piracy that doesn't involve DRM? What was its success rate? I'm sure the publishers would love to switch to a better system if it exists.

Have you found a solution to piracy that does involve DRM?

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#305

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:26 AM UTC

patmcc wrote: post #223

tolmasky wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we merely had the same copyright we had when the country first formed, this entire "your books turn off thing" would possibly be completely acceptable: a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them. Key here is that this means that within your lifetime this would quite possibly be the case. This also means that a very large var…

>>>a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them. Unfortunately, what would probably happen is more like what is happening to video games now; they are no longer profitable to publish, don't exist in an easy-to-backup, easy-to-share format (like an epub file with no DRM, for example), and so are essentially lost to time. If an ebo…

I thought all the console games get dumped so they can be emulated?

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#306

Post by modsiw » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:31 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #245

hyperman1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying the car factory is allowed to take an old timer from you if they refund its original price. Can I use the money to buy the same book? Is my time lost searching for this replacement worth nothing? If I added annotations, do they end up in the new book? If you answer any of these questions with 'no', its not fair enough.

That analogy is loaded because classic cars appreciate. Ebooks don’t. Toyota can feel to take back my 03 4Runner for the original purchase price.

Ebooks can appreciate.

You could have originally bought it on sell and that sell is no longer available.

You could have added value to the ebook by way of adding annotations.

The ebook could have had better display than its competitors, if it and all other equal quality displays vanished, they are now very rare. Someone would be willing to pay more than your original purchase price if they could now get that display experience.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#307

Post by swalladge » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:38 AM UTC

People need to be made aware that "purchasing" something with DRM means that you aren't purchasing the item, you're only purchasing a revokable license to access the item though software controlled by the vendor.

In a way, it's good that we're actually seeing the predicted issues with DRM (losing books, etc.). Hopefully it will help raise awareness.

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#308

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:38 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#309

Post by sjy » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:48 AM UTC

modsiw wrote: post #247

sjy wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be longer than 100 years. I recently tried to find a copy of an article published in 1932. I can't find any version online and the nearest print version is in a library 1,000 km away. I asked the library if they could scan it and email it to me and they said no, it's still covered by copyright. This work was published early in the author's life; she died in 1983. So the Berne Convention would protect this wo…

I’m guessing an inter library loan wasn’t possible? What are you looking for? There’s a decent chance someone here lives near a copy.

The article is Joan Robinson, 'Economics is a serious subject: the apologia of an economist to the mathematician, the scientist and the plain man' (1932). It's footnote 1 in Coase's 'The nature of the firm,' which I was prompted to read in more depth by a recent HN comment, so it's not an especially obscure document! The university library I spoke to does do inter-library loans, but I need to find a local library that will take one out for me. I haven't got around to doing that since I moved states 18 months ago, and I'm no longer affiliated with a local university. It's a pain, but something I probably would have resolved sooner if there weren't so many books digitised in the various proprietary databases!

Re: “The books will stop working.”

#310

Post by cyphar » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 2:56 AM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #282

cyphar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern human history is more than 50 years old. While I do appreciate that more modern examples of media might get children more interested in critical analysis, claiming that all of the "valuable" thoughts made by humans only started 50 years ago is incredibly narrow-minded. Hamlet talks about the human condition and coming to terms with your own mortality. Where in Super Mario does that come up? Before or after wor…

> Hamlet talks about the human condition and coming to terms with your own mortality. So? Who cares? I don't think I ever read Hamlet. It was just entertainment, no different than a television show today.

There are definitely very good and thought-provoking television shows today. I would definitely be in favour of students watching them in class too.

But that doesn't mean that books and other creative media made more than 40 years ago are useless. For one thing, books written in the past give us insight into our history (I hope we can both agree that learning about our history is a good thing). For another, some of the greatest thinkers are already dead -- the only way we can learn from them is by reading what they wrote. Our society is built on the foundations of our ancestors, and it's ridiculous to say that their thoughts have no worth. For one thing, history has a tendency to repeat itself -- so maybe learning a bit more about our history would help avoid future problems.

I can't imagine anyone trying to apply this logic to any field other than literature. "What's the point of learning calculus and kinematics? Newton died 300 years ago!"