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Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#71

Post by route66 »

moistgorilla wrote: post #64
citricsquid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. 1. If a musician doesn't want to have publishers taking a cut of the revenue from their music they are free to not have a publisher involved. 2. If a musician wants to distribute their music for free or have a pay what you want system they can. If a musician chooses to use a publisher or big label then you should respect that;…

You completely misunderstood. I'm not justifying pirating by "pretending" the publisher is a worthless middleman. Did you not read my post? Piracy is not unethical. The fact that a middleman exists gives me more incentive to not purchase through the traditional means. Piracy is not unethical. It's not wrong. It's not stealing. If the musician wants to own the content they should simply not release it. I could care le…

Does repeating a statement as "Piracy is not stealing" make it true? Does echo-chambering the meme "Artists just ask for this" make it true after enough mindless repetition here and elsewhere?

Why would any content creator (except, of course, producers of software, they laugh at you from their SaaS cloud) want to create anything if a pompous and self-righteous "respecting" in quotes is the spit in the face?

Or could you care less? If so, why do you consider payment-or-not-download not an option? (hint: "because I can" was already answered but not considered satisfactory)

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#72

Post by DanBC »

moistgorilla wrote: post #2

I'm tired of this. I am not going to pay for any product I can pirate anymore. I don't even feel guilty about it. If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen. I'm also tired of people preaching about how piracy is unethical. A copied piece of data is not equivalent to a lost sale. People cannot own information. You cannot own an algorithm or i…

> If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen.

The middlemen play an important role in some industries. Many people ask cstross why he doesn't have a donation link so that people who've read a pirate version of one of his books can pay him. He is very clear - he wants you to buy a book of his (any book) so that his publisher can get some of the cash as well. Books need to be written, edited, typeset, 'printed' / 'put into ebook format', distributed, etc.

Some of this could be taken away from the middlemen. Kindles could have a "highlight typo / highlight grammar error" mode, which sends possible corrections to the publisher who reviews, then corrects them, and they get updated on the device.

I've never trawled through a slush pile. But having seen some of the rubbish that comes out the end I dread to think what goes in the other end.

> If you think piracy is unethical you are either a dolt or benefiting from current copyright and patent laws.

I am happy to pirate a lot of content. But I try hard to pay for everything I pirate. Sometimes that's not possible (out of print book, no longer distributed video, etc.) There are lots of things about content distribution that really suck. But I do try to pay for my content.

It is wrong to suggest that wanting to pay people for the work they do is something that only a dolt would do.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#73

Post by vibrunazo »

route66 wrote: post #71
moistgorilla wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely misunderstood. I'm not justifying pirating by "pretending" the publisher is a worthless middleman. Did you not read my post? Piracy is not unethical. The fact that a middleman exists gives me more incentive to not purchase through the traditional means. Piracy is not unethical. It's not wrong. It's not stealing. If the musician wants to own the content they should simply not release it. I could care le…

Does repeating a statement as "Piracy is not stealing" make it true? Does echo-chambering the meme "Artists just ask for this" make it true after enough mindless repetition here and elsewhere? Why would any content creator (except, of course, producers of software, they laugh at you from their SaaS cloud) want to create anything if a pompous and self-righteous "respecting" in quotes is the spit in the face? Or could…

> Does repeating a statement as "Piracy is not stealing" make it true?

When it's the supreme court repeating it, that certainly make it true. [1]

> Why would any content creator (except, of course, producers of software, they laugh at you from their SaaS cloud) want to create anything if a pompous and self-righteous "respecting" in quotes is the spit in the face?

For the same reason humans have been creating art since much before the existence of copyright? The notion that we can attribute as "property" on something not tangible only appeared recently in human history [2]. While we have been creating art for much longer.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_(1985)

[2] Before UK monarchy started granting monopoly privilege on printed books. The common notion among humans was that knowledge cannot be owned.

8 centuries ago, Piers_Plowman said “Human intelligence is like water, air and fire – it cannot be bought or sold;”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Plowman

2.5k years ago, Heraclitus said "the logos is common to all".

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#74

Post by JadeNB »

The scorn in the TorrentFreak article is so heavy that I thought that, surely, they were exaggerating to stir up the masses, and the method described in the patent was not so heavy-handed as they claimed. (I am a university professor, and I would like to believe that my profession is an honourable one.) Well, no. They've got a link to the actual patent (with many spaces missing, for some reason), and its text, or at least what I could bear to read of it, is just as they describe.

By the way, as someone unfamiliar with this sort of patent, is there some legal meaning to the constant reference to "a plurality of lines of code" when detailing the mechanics of the software, or is the author just fond of the term 'plurality'? (He also refers later to a plurality of teachers and students working together.)

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#76

Post by kika »

truncate wrote: post #5
norswap wrote: post #3

That's an approach... Open source textbooks are another: http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/CNP3

Students who don’t pay can’t participate in the course and therefore get a lower grade. The patent kind of forces students to buy the material.

The patent can't force students to buy the material, it only forces others with similar 'inventions' to get into license agreement with this, eh, em, ... person.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#77

Post by kika »

People, think positive. Having a patent means that no one except his genius Vogel (or his licensees) can actually implement this system. So our goal is not to bash his brilliant idea, but to convince Vogel that it's worth at least $1B (per year). To prevent this idea from implementation :-)

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#78

Post by lordlicorice »

DanBC wrote: post #72
moistgorilla wrote: post #2

I'm tired of this. I am not going to pay for any product I can pirate anymore. I don't even feel guilty about it. If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen. I'm also tired of people preaching about how piracy is unethical. A copied piece of data is not equivalent to a lost sale. People cannot own information. You cannot own an algorithm or i…

> If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen. The middlemen play an important role in some industries. Many people ask cstross why he doesn't have a donation link so that people who've read a pirate version of one of his books can pay him. He is very clear - he wants you to buy a book of his (any book) so that his publisher can get some of th…

> Books need to be written, edited, typeset, 'printed' / 'put into ebook format', distributed, etc.

The author writes the book. Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. Pirated books don't need to be printed or distributed.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#79

Post by antonb2011 »

IvoDankolov wrote: post #9

No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. I ... no. I can't even... I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that. When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I do…

Don't worry about it, man. He can patent it all he wants, but thing is not gonna fly. It's called a "tie-in sale", and the United States Anti-Trust law prohibits it. McDonald's tried this trick a long time ago with their franchise owners in order to better account for how much they sold, by forcing them to buy paper cups and other supplies directly from Corporate (i.e. prohibiting third party suppliers). I think it got really high in courts, but eventually the franchise owners won.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#80

Post by Karunamon »

lordlicorice wrote: post #78
DanBC wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen. The middlemen play an important role in some industries. Many people ask cstross why he doesn't have a donation link so that people who've read a pirate version of one of his books can pay him. He is very clear - he wants you to buy a book of his (any book) so that his publisher can get some of th…

> Books need to be written, edited, typeset, 'printed' / 'put into ebook format', distributed, etc. The author writes the book. Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. Pirated books don't need to be printed or distributed.

That time still isn't free.
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