Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#81

Post by breck » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #62

breck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The software industry is already pioneering this new system. For example, many companies pay developers to write useful free open source software in lieu of ephemeral marketing spend.

As the saying goes, the future is here, just not evenly distributed.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#82

Post by stebann » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

It's funny to think that I do books translations so others in my country (or for those that know my language) can read them, most of them pirated books. I sometimes ask my self how much would I earn if publishers would pay me for that work.

Anyway, it feels good to know that someone got his(her) exams fine, school homework done or just a pleasant read because some of my work. This is my contribution to the humanity. The invisible spark of information freedom.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#83

Post by supernova87a » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #37

sampo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Waves and Beaches" (1964 edition) is already in libgen.

No OCR.

Thanks, I'll have a look at that site and maybe upload it. I have the 1980 version which comes with a bunch more content about energy production from the sea.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#84

Post by odysseus » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

silveroriole wrote: post #49

One thing that might lower piracy is making Amazon book previews not absolutely useless. If I preview a book and I can only see the million word introduction by someone who isn’t the author, I’m not buying the book. The “surprise me” thing works ok but isn’t available on most previews.

You can usually get a usable preview on the Apple bookstore.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#85

Post by Simon_says » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #39

Simon_says wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant battery life is now longer on phones than it used to be on phones, assuming you're using it as an ebook reader, which means no radios.

That still can't be compared to an average eReader, whose battery lasts for weeks. I charge mine every two or three weeks (about an hour of usage per day).

Of course it can be compared.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#86

Post by VvR-Ox » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 11:30 AM UTC

dsabanin wrote: post #69

VvR-Ox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the world was more like disney imagines it to be then this could be possible. Or your parents are very rich and you don't have to pay rent etc. for yourself.

But in the end artists just like open source maintainers need money to pay their food and most of them can't afford to stop charging for their work.

I would love to do that but I can't afford it so I won't. If the system changes and the government gives every citizen 1k $ / month we can start this discussion again because I would really much appreciate to do things that I like without having to take money for my work.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#87

Post by dorchadas » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 3:07 PM UTC

iamiam wrote: post #12

I agree in terms of the economics of it for many readers at least. I buy a lot of books. I would buy a lot more e-books I think if prices were reasonable i.e sub $5, vs. usually being as much a print copy. I also gift many books. I recently downloaded 200+ books via b-ok.org...most of which I certainly wouldn't have bought and probably half of which I won't open for years if ever. Two months later, though, a couple o…

Have you checked Scribd? They might have some of those that Kindle Unlimited doesn't.

Re: Confessions of a Book Pirate (2010)

#88

Post by Koremat6666 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

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…

> but for narrow business reasons we're doing the best we can to prevent that eventuality from ever happening.

Authors are motivated to write books because of money. A lot of authors who are not make their books available for free in pdf and other formats. Almost all ORielly books are found as pdfs on internet too.