Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

themillions.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 88 posts

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#61

Post by Synaesthesia »

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.

I think it’s been found that people who pirate a lot of music, often buy a lot too, and just because libraries existed, people didn’t stop buying books, in fact it might even encourage it.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#62

Post by Synaesthesia »

breck wrote: post #19
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…

> I don't know how to feel about it. Don't feel bad at all. Intellectual Monopoly laws are morally wrong (and I would argue counterproductive if the goal is progress of the arts and sciences and/or economic growth). I hope that when the generation that grew up with the web is making the laws we'll get rid of these abysmal systems. The author of the comment you referencing is wrong. Copying a book that has been releas…

But then we need a new system, for example governments could pay writers a salary to create, rather than have them rely on selling books.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#63

Post by jnurmine »

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 tried Safari/O'Reilly Online and I think it is too expensive.

The time I can spend every month for "extra" reading translates to roughly one book. For 49 USD a month, I could just buy the book secondhand every month (and even sell it further when done).

I would have happily paid 5 USD a month, but 49 USD, that's way too much for the value, for me.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#64

Post by Cephalopterus »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #61
pjc50 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it’s been found that people who pirate a lot of music, often buy a lot too, and just because libraries existed, people didn’t stop buying books, in fact it might even encourage it.

It's kind of like the insane amount of privacy of Adobe products is what gave them their current near absolute monopoly over the entire market. A huge number of today's graphic designers started off with pirated copies of Photoshop only to start using legitimate copies once employed, be it cause they purchased a license or because their employers paid for a seat.

Without piracy, which was essentially a for education free trial of sorts many graphic designers would probably be using other free or cheaper alternatives

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#65

Post by Cephalopterus »

jnurmine wrote: post #63
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 tried Safari/O'Reilly Online and I think it is too expensive. The time I can spend every month for "extra" reading translates to roughly one book. For 49 USD a month, I could just buy the book secondhand every month (and even sell it further when done). I would have happily paid 5 USD a month, but 49 USD, that's way too much for the value, for me.

I wish they had pricing based on countries PPP instead of a flat international pricing, it's kinda expensive if you're not from a first world country cause atleast where I am, $588 (49x12) would easily pay for a semester of college. O'Reilly does have local reprints of the books for slightly cheaper through their partners here but I wish they would also implement a similar pricing discount for Safari

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#66

Post by acomjean »

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…

It always bugged me a little that I used to be able to by un-drm-ed books on OReilly, now I have to subscribe to get drm. (My work has a subscription and it’s ok...)

I understand they’re was probably so much piracy it forced their hand (books being small files, easy to distribute).

According to the article people are scanning books now and uploading.. which I didn’t realize was happening.

There are a few sellers that sell you a un drm es books. Manning though puts a “licensed to ______” on each page in a attempt to make me not share.

It’s kinda a tragedy that behaving badly puts you at an advantage (free books more money for me) vs those that buy. There are people that legit can’t afford the books and it’s kinda nice to have that option.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#67

Post by cptnapalm »

jnurmine wrote: post #63
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 tried Safari/O'Reilly Online and I think it is too expensive. The time I can spend every month for "extra" reading translates to roughly one book. For 49 USD a month, I could just buy the book secondhand every month (and even sell it further when done). I would have happily paid 5 USD a month, but 49 USD, that's way too much for the value, for me.

If you have a local library system, it might have a subscription. It saves the library a lot of money versus physical copies and gives the user a lot more possibilities.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#68

Post by Multicomp »

Cephalopterus wrote: post #64
Synaesthesia wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s been found that people who pirate a lot of music, often buy a lot too, and just because libraries existed, people didn’t stop buying books, in fact it might even encourage it.

It's kind of like the insane amount of privacy of Adobe products is what gave them their current near absolute monopoly over the entire market. A huge number of today's graphic designers started off with pirated copies of Photoshop only to start using legitimate copies once employed, be it cause they purchased a license or because their employers paid for a seat. Without piracy, which was essentially a for education…

I'm curious how long that state will continue, because after all with creative cloud, even students are having to pay an exorbitant amount of money in order to learn how to use the software.

Pirating CS6 can only go on so long, right? After a while its ui will simply be too out of date compared to the current cc offering right?

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#69

Post by dsabanin »

VvR-Ox wrote: post #58
pjc50 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I think you should become the change you want to see in the world and stop charging for your work. I wonder how that will go.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#70

Post by RandomBacon »

Multicomp wrote: post #68
Cephalopterus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of like the insane amount of privacy of Adobe products is what gave them their current near absolute monopoly over the entire market. A huge number of today's graphic designers started off with pirated copies of Photoshop only to start using legitimate copies once employed, be it cause they purchased a license or because their employers paid for a seat. Without piracy, which was essentially a for education…

I'm curious how long that state will continue, because after all with creative cloud, even students are having to pay an exorbitant amount of money in order to learn how to use the software. Pirating CS6 can only go on so long, right? After a while its ui will simply be too out of date compared to the current cc offering right?

Interesting thought.

How is GIMP coming along these days?

Any other open source projects people recommend?

Post reply on HN