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Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

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Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#51

Post by LittlePeter »

musicale wrote: post #45

It's a major embarrassment for humanity that we've created an astonishing library system – books in scanned or native digital format, inexpensive smartphones/e-reader devices, and the internet – that could give billions of people on the planet the ability to read nearly any book ever published essentially for free, but for narrow business reasons we're doing the best we can to prevent that eventuality from ever happe…

Weren't most of those books created to begin with for "narrow business reasons"?

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#52

Post by mbar84 »

musicale wrote: post #45

It's a major embarrassment for humanity that we've created an astonishing library system – books in scanned or native digital format, inexpensive smartphones/e-reader devices, and the internet – that could give billions of people on the planet the ability to read nearly any book ever published essentially for free, but for narrow business reasons we're doing the best we can to prevent that eventuality from ever happe…

Do you believe in copyright law? Maybe you're part of the problem. https://questioncopyright.org/

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#53

Post by Broken_Hippo »

mirimir wrote: post #46
bambataa wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the book is freely available from a library does it really matter if you find it more convenient to get it by pirating?

Sure, but libraries must buy books to loan. For physical books, there's only one concurrent user. And for ebooks, licenses specify allowed numbers of concurrent users. But still, that is an interesting argument. So why aren't libraries considered to be pirating?

IIRC, there have been that claim: Libraries, of course, were going to put book publishers out of business because all of their patrons were reading books they otherwise would have purchased. We simply don't hear of this pushback much anymore and we more see it as a public good - though not always good enough to fund them properly or make sure everyone has access to one for free.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#54

Post by pjc50 »

musicale wrote: post #45

It's a major embarrassment for humanity that we've created an astonishing library system – books in scanned or native digital format, inexpensive smartphones/e-reader devices, and the internet – that could give billions of people on the planet the ability to read nearly any book ever published essentially for free, but for narrow business reasons we're doing the best we can to prevent that eventuality from ever happe…

Sure, but how are writers to get paid? It's hardly the most lucrative business to start with.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#55

Post by sam_lowry_ »

LittlePeter wrote: post #51
musicale wrote: post #45

It's a major embarrassment for humanity that we've created an astonishing library system – books in scanned or native digital format, inexpensive smartphones/e-reader devices, and the internet – that could give billions of people on the planet the ability to read nearly any book ever published essentially for free, but for narrow business reasons we're doing the best we can to prevent that eventuality from ever happe…

Weren't most of those books created to begin with for "narrow business reasons"?

Nope

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#56

Post by vector_spaces »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #34
vector_spaces wrote: post #17

Safari Books Online (I think recently rebranded as O'Reilly Online) is a pretty decent value -- about $49 USD a month for access to most O'Reilly, PragProg, Manning, and quite a few other non-programmer focused publishing houses like Academic Press. Between that subscription, my scribd subscription (which has plenty of unauthorized titles in addition to its authorized titles), and PDFs I'm able to find elsewhere, I'm…

I have Safari, and find it to be a poor value. Here are a few reasons (1) you can't read books in your browser while offline (2) many publishers don't contribute to Safari (Springer, MIT Press, etc) (3) publishers that are technically on Safari don't publish their whole catalog (Wiley) (4) Publishers that are on Safari, and do publish their whole catalog, may take months, a year even to put their books online (Wrox).…

I wish Springer titles were available on SBO -- that would make the service worthwhile for me. As it stands, I consider it a good value, but only barely, and for many of the points you have raised.

That said, I can't fault them for having every publisher's catalog, since their focus seems to be on software and software-adjacent subjects. The publishers you mentioned have vast catalogs largely in areas outside of their sweet spot.

With regard to your account being corrupted, yikes -- I'm sorry that happened, and I can't say I'm super surprised. I've always found their playlists and "recently read" UI to be buggy to the point that I don't really bother much with it. For example, items "recently read" on their mobile app don't seem to sync with desktop/browser and vice versa.

I will also say that their recent embrace of dark patterns has been bumming me out -- aggressive marketing modals on login goading me into attending one of their live seminars, and breaking basic browser functionality (eg copy -- you can surprisingly copy text from inside books in SBO, but it will almost certainly be a bad time for you when you eventually try to paste it somewhere), among others.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#58

Post by VvR-Ox »

pjc50 wrote: post #54
musicale wrote: post #45

It's a major embarrassment for humanity that we've created an astonishing library system – books in scanned or native digital format, inexpensive smartphones/e-reader devices, and the internet – that could give billions of people on the planet the ability to read nearly any book ever published essentially for free, but for narrow business reasons we're doing the best we can to prevent that eventuality from ever happe…

Sure, but how are writers to get paid? It's hardly the most lucrative business to start with.

Probably like musicians and a lot of them use platforms to publish their songs to listen to for free to gain momentum and attract enough people who will be delighted to get a Vinyl (in case of books it would be a hard cover).

When I personally used pirated stuff it was because I couldn't afford to buy it or there was no other possibility to get a digital copy that is easier to search and transport.

It is only greed that is stopping our world from becoming something with all the good features of series like "Star Trek" including access to all those books for free.

The greedy people think they can gain even more money by forcing poor people to buy their stuff by punishing them. The greedy who have money influence governments to make laws against this piracy and investigate against them with public money.

In the end the poor can still not afford to buy the books, music etc. and will just be punished which costs more public money than giving them free access in the first place.

This is just another thing that is very wrong in our world.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#59

Post by easymodex »

freetanga wrote: post #42
sillysaurusx wrote: post #6

Book piracy is a big reason I've been able to learn as much as I know about ML. I don't know how to feel about it. All I know is that I'm more effective than I would've been if I had to pay for the books, since I wouldn't have read anything. It's common on HN to pretend that everyone here is an affluent programmer working for FAANG with $500k/yr in stock vesting. In reality, I've spoken to many who are more along the…

Many authors also live paycheck to paycheck, and dropping 50 bucks on their utility or supermarket bill might be very important to them. You don’t need to make 500k at a FAANG to pay for a 50$ book. While I understand some people could be in such a spot, I think many people use this argument to wash their conscience.

How much of those 50$ get taken by the publishers, managers, etc.? I'd much rather pay for stuff if i knew it actually went to the person who wrote it.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#60

Post by vector_spaces »

alecco wrote: post #50
vector_spaces wrote: post #17

Safari Books Online (I think recently rebranded as O'Reilly Online) is a pretty decent value -- about $49 USD a month for access to most O'Reilly, PragProg, Manning, and quite a few other non-programmer focused publishing houses like Academic Press. Between that subscription, my scribd subscription (which has plenty of unauthorized titles in addition to its authorized titles), and PDFs I'm able to find elsewhere, I'm…

$49 a month sounds like a lot if you read ~1 book a month and that catalogue is quite narrow. Audible has a similar narrow catalogue but a more aligned price. When reading more (e.g. traveling) I buy extra credits at a reasonable price. I think Safari is close to the fitness gym upfront year plan. Are most people who subscribe really going to read $49 worth of their material per month?

I think Safari's content has a greater value density than Audible's. For example, I've been referencing a half dozen textbooks the past month or so on theory and implementation of risk models for the insurance industry via Safari. The information I've learned from some of these books is easily worth $49 and then some.

I could imagine someone learning to code for the first time might find better value elsewhere with that $49 a month, but in my case I think that it works out.

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