"The book industry is gonna get Napstered..."

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

actually i don't think that's quite accurate. as tompe said, copyright is a limited-time monopoly granted to the creator, and at the end of it (in theory, anyway, barring micky mouse lobbying...) the creative work reverts to the public domain, which is its original and final intended status ; whereas property ownership is eternal (unless you sell your property) and you can do with your own property whatever you like (sell it, chop it up, paint it, give it away, transform it to your liking...). it's really not the same concept at all.

Many would argue that property ownership is really only another form of lease. It is not time limited but is limited to the condition you continue to do what you are told by the government.

The government has every right to reposess your house if you don't pay your taxes for example. If you go bankrupt all your possessions can be sold out from under you to pay your debts.

The above is not to suggest that property rights and copyright are not different concepts though and I'm not arguing that they should be treated the same. Just an interesting side note.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by numtini

What the article concerns itself with is that most readers, viewers, listeners, etc have no problem with paying for material. We just want it to be reasonable and given the constant that piracy will exist, if publishers don't offer it on reasonable terms, the market will push people to simply pirate it.

Yes they have no problem paying for material at present. That is largely due to our society recognising that people have a right to at least attempt to make a living from their endeavours and that artists have a right to at least ask for payment for their creative endeavours.

The idea that all digital media should be free because it is easily and extremely cheaply reproduced goes against the above. As this idea is accepted by more people and possibly by the majority of people then those people will no longer be willing to pay for digital media at all with or without DRM.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Secondly, splitting hairs over the choice of words is largely irrelevant.

So call it "sexual harassment" and go on...

But I think you won't get taken seriusly if you go to the police saying you've been sexually harassed because someone downloaded something you wrote...

Words matter. And between all, you, as a writer, must know it.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

And so to copyright. When the Government "extends" the terms of copyright, at the behest of and to the economic benefit of the lessee, i.e. the copyright holders, is this not "stealing", by your own definition of Stealing? It's stealing from the people who granted the lease (through their government) in the first place.

Firstly, I'm not arguing that copyright laws are not in need of changing.

However, in your example the Government(being one party to the agreement) granted the lease on behalf of the people. Being that the government is one party to the agreement they have every right to change the agreement, again on behalf of the people. If that change is to the benefit of the other party(the creator) then they would be foolish not to accept it. Just as, if the Government changed the agreement to the benefit of the people the creators would be foolish not to attempt to stop them from doing so.

So they are not stealing simply by the fact they are benefiting from a changed agreement. Like it or not, the agreement has been changed to the acceptance of both parties.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Format C:

So call it "sexual harassment" and go on...

But I think you won't get taken seriusly if you go to the police saying you've been sexually harassed because someone downloaded something you wrote...

Words matter. And between all, you, as a writer, must know it.

By that example, a cop would ignore me if I said my copyright had been infringed. But if I told him something was stolen from me, I'd get attention.

But at any rate, I agree, let's move on.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

By that example, a cop would ignore me if I said my copyright had been infringed. But if I told him something was stolen from me, I'd get attention.

That'd be because most copyright infringement is not a crime, and cops have no ability to make arrests for it. Copyright infringement, like breach of contract, is a matter for civil court.

There are some cases where it's criminal--where there are bootleg copies of books or movies or albums being sold. But most copyright infringement isn't about copies-for-sale, and therefore isn't of interest to cops.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

That'd be because most copyright infringement is not a crime, and cops have no ability to make arrests for it. Copyright infringement, like breach of contract, is a matter for civil court.

There are some cases where it's criminal--where there are bootleg copies of books or movies or albums being sold. But most copyright infringement isn't about copies-for-sale, and therefore isn't of interest to cops.

But they ought to be interested.

Bootleg copies of a movie, say, are duplicated from an authorized or unauthorized copy. Just like with e-books, they have not stolen the original. But the police still consider the matter illegal, they can and do arrest those in possession of bootleg products, and the copyright owners can still prosecute even if you haven't "stolen" an authorized copy from them, because selling the bootleg copies violates copyright law.

So, maybe instead of theft (see? I'm conceding a point! ), we should call the unauthorized copying and distributing of e-books "bootlegging."

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

But they ought to be interested.

Bootleg copies of a movie, say, are duplicated from an authorized or unauthorized copy. Just like with e-books, they have not stolen the original. But the police still consider the matter illegal, they can and do arrest those in possession of bootleg products, and the copyright owners can still prosecute even if you haven't "stolen" an authorized copy from them, because selling the bootleg copies violates copyright law.

So, maybe instead of theft (see? I'm conceding a point! ), we should call the unauthorized copying and distributing of e-books "bootlegging."

This "disgustion" is slowly turning into verbal yoga. The choice of every single word is being analyzed ad nauseum. Anyway, we have reached a stalemate, each side is just repeating the same old arguments. Time to give that old donkey a rest?

[carld]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Time to give that old donkey a rest?

Yes, I agree.

Carl

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

So, maybe instead of theft (see? I'm conceding a point! ), we should call the unauthorized copying and distributing of e-books "bootlegging."

Bootlegging sounds like a good term for it--something that's often legal to make, just not legal to sell. Has the same "mystique" as the term "pirate"--bootleggers were sometimes glorified as rebels--but also contains a warning that there's no quality controls, no assurance of value for money, no recourse if you get screwed over. (While bootleg ebooks are generally free, there's not much you can do if you get a virus instead of an ebook file in the batch.)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

While it's obvious that not everyone who downloads, would've bought the book anyway--some of them might have, if no download were available. Publishers are not told they should give away print books because many of the people who read them would never buy them, and the same principle should apply to ebooks.

I don't believe that the torrent network is "destroying the publishing industry" or anything like that, but I also don't think it's irrelevant and should be ignored.

Unless that "some of them" is a lot larger than I've ever gotten the notion, it's a waste of time prosecuting and persecuting a group that is primarily composed of "digital serfs", for the sake of menacing a minority of economically better off peers who follow their suit out of choice rather than necessity. Which, in my book, makes the torrent network utterly utterly irrelevant--especially for the book/ebook publishing industry--threats of humanity's most precious writers ceasing to produce in protest notwithstanding.

- Ahi

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

So, back to "Napster"ing: Considering how out-of-touch and out-of-sync the publishing industry has been, it might be surprising that the "bootleggers" haven't made a big enough splash to force the pubs to work together for a solution. But the likely reason is that, compared to other media (such as music), the e-book arena has been relatively small... much like hearing a cry of "Yarr!" but from a small, isolated island.

(IOW: "Yarr!" Oooh, I'm scared. )

However, if a popular site arose that handled, among other things, anonymous file-sharing, and e-books became a significant proportion of the shared media, it could manage to capture enough of the web population to start to generate the kind of e-book transaction numbers (however fair or ilicit) that every pub would have to take notice of. That might give them the incentive to band together and create common, workable rules, prices and formats. And if not them, the indication of a large-enough market should be enough to encourage a large commercial company, possibly one already involved on the web, to create the e-book version of iTunes and bring those pubs together.

A popular-enough breakthrough of content could achieve roughly the same thing, but only if the trend was easily replicated, so as not to present an end to its popularity (IOW, it couldn't look like a fad, and it would have to have significant "bandwagon" status).

[ahi]

[anappo]

> If an ebook came with no DRM, full ownership rights, fair use ..

You missed geo-restrictions. On-selling rights are debatable - my guess would be it's better to not have those on e-books.

> would people still consider it "wrong" to "file-share" it rather than buy it?

Yes. You said yourself - folks have no problem paying for content now. You thus accept that as per available evidence the piracy has insignificant effect on sales. Why should that change in the future? You are foreseeing some massive migration from legal content to the darknet? And the reason you suspect this will happen is that people will become more greedy? Or that they become less moral?

Or maybe it could happen because they will increasingly see the content industry as less moral? As long as the prevalent e-book business model is considered immoral, it will become increasingly difficult such businesses to claim moral high ground without people spitting in their general direction.

[numtini]

You can't tell me that you have a right to take what you want from someone else just because you don't want to pay for it.

The article didn't say it was right, the article said that the lesson from the music industry was that it was going to happen and no amount of DRM was going to be able to stop it.