Regional restrictions now in the UK

[ahi]

Originally Posted by A Nonny Mouse

If I take a copy of digital media made available by a third party free of personal gain am I guilty of theft?

Seems to me only the legal profession can answer this

That question, anybody who speaks English at a reasonable level can answer.

If you do something other than steal, are you guilty of theft? No.

What you would need the legal profession to tell you is whether the *receiving* (rather than taking, which implies somebody being deprived of what you have taken) or *sharing* of commercial digital media by a somebody not authorized to distribute it would be considered illegal by your country's justice system.

In a good few countries, only the sharing is illegal, the receiving is not.

- Ahi

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ahi

Download the eBooks illegally then... if in fact doing so is even illegal in Holland. Why be upset? The respective authors will survive without the $0.25 - $1.00 per book they would've gotten from your considerably more expensive purchases.

If publishers won't sell, but your fellow human beings will share, it seems to me the situation isn't so bad.

- Ahi

Except that eventually there will be no books worth sharing, all we'll have is blogs and rants.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Except that eventually there will be no books worth sharing, all we'll have is blogs and rants.

*shrug*. Can you seriously say that you've already read the currently-released 200 million or so titles that make up the ISBN cat? or the ones that were published pre-isbn?

[gazza]

For what it is worth I am a publisher and an author and I am totally - nay, violently -- opposed to these restrictions. Note this is not the work of the authors. It is the publishers and agents acting together. This has always been true since Queen Anne, at the behest of publishers, introduced the copyright act. There is simply no logical reason why. through legal trickery, a company in the USA demands copyright payments on Happy Birthday to You. But they do.
Most authors -- and many of them are on record -- abhor copyright which extends beyond the death of the author. My publishing partner and I abhor it, full stop. We are in the process of putting all of our titles online -- sadly, at the moment they are only of interest to sinologists -- and damn the torpedoes.
That publishers can put books online littered with errors and then demand substantial payments is monstrous. A fair price is a $1 a book. A fairer price is nothing.

Gareth Powell, outraged in Sydne

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

*shrug*. Can you seriously say that you've already read the currently-released 200 million or so titles that make up the ISBN cat? or the ones that were published pre-isbn?

That's not the point now is it.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's not the point now is it.

It isn't? How confusing. What is the point then? That when everything is (de facto) in the PD, all titles will magically disappear, and we will be left with nothing? Because to me that outcome seems fairly unlikely.
That nobody will write anymore? I doubt all the world's aspiring writers have the self-control necessary to keep that particular promise.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Except that eventually there will be no books worth sharing, all we'll have is blogs and rants.

Yeah. In crazyland.

- Ahi

Ps.: I did think about it. It's so silly, I'm astonished you tried to propose it as a serious idea in a public forum.

[kennyc]

Think about it.

[nomesque]

Originally Posted by gazza

For what it is worth I am a publisher and an author and I am totally - nay, violently -- opposed to these restrictions. Note this is not the work of the authors. It is the publishers and agents acting together.

Interestly, most of the opposition I've seen to loosening Australia's import restrictions on foreign-printed books has come from Australian authors... GAH. I think they're nuts, personally

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Tuna

But they do see an (indirect) penny from you. The person who sold that book second hand may well use the money to buy another book. Or they may buy books they otherwise couldn't afford because they know they can get some money back by selling them on later.

I primarily use charity shops for second hand book shopping.

But sure, I can't prevent secondary effects. If you worry about those you end up being paralysed by indescision.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by ahi

If you do something other than steal, are you guilty of theft? No.

In the UK the term 'identity theft' is commonly used, although the victim hasn't been deprived of their identity.

Maybe it's a misnomer, and 'identity sharing' would be more correct.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Also an interesting argument to add is with a pbook you have the right to sell the book to someone else afterwards. With an ebook you buy a licence to the ebook. Legally AFAIK you have no legal right to lend or sell the ebook to someone else after purchasing.

Yea, that gets repeated a lot.

At least in the UK, it's bunk. The way the law is enforced on this sort of thing in the UK is that someone has to complain, and follow through in court. Basing a business model on your customers not being able to resell their ebooks is building it on very shaky ground indeed, because sooner or later someone will do it.

Sparrow - The better term would be "fraud and misreprisentation", true. But it's typically used to steal money from the person who's had their identity misappropriated.

I object to "theft" because it's not accurate. Unauthorised copying is the right term, and it's important to be accurate...there are times when copying is authorised, there's fair use...

[A Nonny Mouse]

Originally Posted by ahi

That question, anybody who speaks English at a reasonable level can answer.

If you do something other than steal, are you guilty of theft? No.

- Ahi

Surely the ongoing discussion in this thread is the definition of *theft* in the digital age? is copying theft?

[kennyc]

Can we stay on topic. "Regional Restrictions Now in the UK"

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

In the UK the term 'identity theft' is commonly used, although the victim hasn't been deprived of their identity.

Maybe it's a misnomer, and 'identity sharing' would be more correct.

Wikipedia says:

Identity theft is a term used to refer to fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits. The term is relatively new and is actually a misnomer, since it is not inherently possible to steal an identity, only to use it.

So the legal and and maybe ethical term for it is fraud.