Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Presumably they uploaded these books to make money, and hence would have had to provide information which would allow them to be identified.
Personally, this is the sort of person I'd like the legal system lock up and throw away the key. It's one thing to illegally download books, but to attempt to make money from illegally uploading someone else's books - people who do that are just lowlife scum of the worst kind, in my view.
|
It is possible they uploaded the books to make them available, and were taking no money for it--giving a false ID and a nonexistent bank account number (because they had to know the books would be noticed, and their info traced), setting the initial price as low as Amazon would allow; it's possible that Amazon automatically raised the price when demand was high. (I have no idea how Amazon does pricing for user-uploaded ebooks.)
Even given the despicable nature of making money illegally off someone else's copyrighted material (as contrasted with the entirely-legal coercive scams that authors and musicians are often pushed into), I can't get too worked up over whatever percentage of the value of a few thousand books this person got through this scam.
Watching the US banking industry over the last year has brought me a certain tolerance for scams that cost less than a million dollars, that ruin less than a dozen careers. I'm not concerned the the prosecution of petty criminals when scheming masterminds lose their pensions--but not their mansions--when they get caught.