A Question on ethics

[rwsimon]

Originally Posted by volwrath

100% disagree. If I own the book in hardcover (or paperback), I see no problem in downloading the ebook, as I have given the author fair compensation by buying the paper copy. Ther person who supplies the ebook is definitely doing it immorally as I believe HarryT stated earlier.

By this reasoning, if you already own the hardcover version, it is ok to steal the paperback copy.

This is a slippery slope, folks!

[volwrath]

Originally Posted by rwsimon

By this reasoning, if you already own the hardcover version, it is ok to steal the paperback copy.

This is a slippery slope, folks!

It is a slippery slope, but its also called fairuse. So if you bought the latest Rush CD, should you not be able to rip it to .mp3? After all they sell digital equivalents at iTunes, so by your reasoning, you are stealing the mp3s by ripping them.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by volwrath

It is a slippery slope, but its also called fairuse.

It may be "fair use" under the copyright laws of your country, but it certainly isn't under British copyright law. The 1988 "Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act", which is the legislation covering such things in the UK permits one to copy one chapter of a book, or one article from a magazine. Scanning an entire book - even one which you own - is illegal in this country.

[rwsimon]

It seems like fair use boils down to the source of the copy. I have absolutely no qualms about ripping a CD I own to put a copy on my iPod. But I won't go find the same CD on some internet site to get it that way. On the other hand, I probably can't give you a very convincing argument for why these two things are different, other than that using the illegal route helps sustain that channel in some sense. Of course, there is the practical distinction between ebooks and CDs that we all have the ability to easily transfer from CDs to digital files while getting from pbooks to ebooks is not so simple. I guess that just muddies the waters further though.

[volwrath]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It may be "fair use" under the copyright laws of your country, but it certainly isn't under British copyright law. The 1988 "Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act", which is the legislation covering such things in the UK permits one to copy one chapter of a book, or one article from a magazine. Scanning an entire book - even one which you own - is illegal in this country.

Yes I've heard that before. Rather draconian if you ask me

Originally Posted by rwsimon

It seems like fair use boils down to the source of the copy. I have absolutely no qualms about ripping a CD I own to put a copy on my iPod. But I won't go find the same CD on some internet site to get it that way. On the other hand, I probably can't give you a very convincing argument for why these two things are different, other than that using the illegal route helps sustain that channel in some sense. Of course, there is the practical distinction between ebooks and CDs that we all have the ability to easily transfer from CDs to digital files while getting from pbooks to ebooks is not so simple. I guess that just muddies the waters further though.

Bah you've taken all my arguments away from me

[bingle]

I think there are a lot of interesting issues here.

It seems like the motivations for paying for a digital copy of the book are mostly along the lines of supporting the author. But as others have pointed out, authors don't get any support from used book sales, library loans, or books borrowed from a friend.
If you, as a reader, used to get your books from these sources, does downloading free ebooks now change the issue? and if you don't download free ebooks, what did this change about your book reading habits/budget?
And, in some cases, does the current status of the author matter? Does a dead author need support, or does J.K. Rowling?

Another motivation seems to be to support the idea of ebooks, and maintain a viable marketplace for ebooks. Does this extend to buying your favorites whether you want to read them again or not? Does it extend to buying the BBeB version of a Gutenberg classic?

It also seems that availability can affect people's choices. If you've bought a book that you can't buy the ebook version of, do you download it? Do you buy a second copy, perhaps, to make up for it?

If you do download ebooks of books you own, does it matter whether you bought the book new or used? What if a friend loans you the book and expects it back, but you prefer to read it on the Reader?

Is the relative 'polish' of commercial ebooks a factor in anyone's decision? People have claimed that iTunes' success lies, in part, in providing reliable, easy-to-find versions of songs. Pirate music, while cheaper, isn't as reliable or as easy to use.

It seems as though legality isn't really a huge factor on anyone's mind. I'm not sure, but I think this particular activity is in a bit of a legal grey area. Format-shifting hasn't been ruled to be either legal or illegal in a decision. (I'm not convinced an MP3 is a 'derivative work' of a CD, and I know no court has ruled that way...) Time-shifting is explicitly allowed, however (which doesn't hold much meaning for books).

I don't know if I added anything here. Just trying to summarize and probe what I think is a really interesting discussion.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by rwsimon

By this reasoning, if you already own the hardcover version, it is ok to steal the paperback copy.

This is a slippery slope, folks!

Sorry but this is not an appropriate comparison. If you steal a paperback book from me then I no longer have it. However if you make an illegal ecopy of my book, I still have my ebook.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It may be "fair use" under the copyright laws of your country, but it certainly isn't under British copyright law. The 1988 "Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act", which is the legislation covering such things in the UK permits one to copy one chapter of a book, or one article from a magazine. Scanning an entire book - even one which you own - is illegal in this country.

Hey Harry, would it be legal in the UK for several of us to get together, each with a copy of one chapter - combine them for a complete book and then share the result?

[rwsimon]

Originally Posted by slayda

Sorry but this is not an appropriate comparison. If you steal a paperback book from me then I no longer have it. However if you make an illegal ecopy of my book, I still have my ebook.

That is true... But what I am trying to focus in on is the acceptance of stolen goods, not the identity of the victim.

Suppose you set up a little printing press in your basement and churned out a few hundred copies of the paperback and just started giving them away. Clearly, you would be doing something illegal and immoral. How about the people who take them from you? Do we think that if the books are given out free, we are morally on solid ground to take them? I rather doubt it. We are complicit in ripping off the publisher and author. And owning the hardcover version already doesn't seem to change anything. So, with respect to ebooks, it doesn't seem to me that the lack of physical media turns the ethics inside out.

I'm mostly throwing out strawman arguments here because, frankly, I think all of this is pretty murky.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by rwsimon

T
frankly, I think all of this is pretty murky.

I agree completely. The fact that the cost of copying an ebook is essentially nil and that the owner does not lose his/her copy is part of what makes things even more murky and the slope much more slippery.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by bingle

Is the relative 'polish' of commercial ebooks a factor in anyone's decision? People have claimed that iTunes' success lies, in part, in providing reliable, easy-to-find versions of songs. Pirate music, while cheaper, isn't as reliable or as easy to use.

Honestly, I think this is where the decisions are ultimately going to be made, regardless of the legality (or even ethics) of the rest of the arguments. I truly believe that if you make it inexpensive and simple to do the right thing, most people will, and the minority who may not won't be worth worrying about.

Unfortunately, our existing copyright structure gets in the way of doing the right thing, instead of making it easier. Disney wants to be able to control the market supply of their content to hike up the price, so works are allowed-- even encouraged-- to go out of print. And even in the case of works like books, with a single author, the author may want to get the book back into print but may have no way of doing so, because the rights may be tied up by a publishing house that's now defunct, but someone else bought their backlist and is sitting on it.

In this sense, I think sharing files can, in fact, be an act of civil disobedience. There are certainly risks and consequences, as the BlackMask story shows. But, for example, most of Rumer Godden's work is now out of print. She died 10 years ago. PG has access to none of her writings. Her estate apparently plans to put out a few new editions for the centennial of her birth, this year, but I bet most of her excellent books for children will be left in obscurity. How can this be good for anyone?

[bingle]

Originally Posted by rwsimon

Suppose you set up a little printing press in your basement and churned out a few hundred copies of the paperback and just started giving them away. Clearly, you would be doing something illegal and immoral.

Clearly? Interesting.

Let's say you're from the future. In addition to a nifty spandex unitard, you also have a replicator! It can produce any physical object once it knows the molecular "pattern". You see some poor, hungry people in the street. Appalled, you buy an apple from the fruit stand, duplicate its pattern, and begin giving the fruit to anyone who wants one.

"Stop!" The fruit stand owner shouts desperately, watching his profits vanish. "This is obviously illegal and immoral!"

Is he right? Does it make a difference if you're giving sports cars away, instead of apples? Does it matter if they are diamonds, rather than apples? Does it make a difference if you already have the pattern for an apple, and don't need to buy one from the vendor?

BTW, not-for-profit copyright infringement wasn't illegal in the US until the 1997 "No Electronic Theft (NET) Act". Prior to that, there were no criminal penalties for freely distributing copyrighted material without commercial gain.

I'd really like to see someone answer my questions - I'm not really taking a side, I just love the Socratic method ;-)

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by bingle

BTW, not-for-profit copyright infringement wasn't illegal in the US until the 1997 "No Electronic Theft (NET) Act". Prior to that, there were no criminal penalties for freely distributing copyrighted material without commercial gain.

I don't know about your apple replicator (it seems to me that the energy to produce the mass has to come from somewhere, so you're probably being charged for it, either that or everyone produces food this way already, and something other than material scarcity is driving the economy).

But I'm pretty sure there were criminal penalties in the US for distributing copyrighted material before 1997, whether for profit, for free, online, by sneakernet, or encrypted on stone tablets. The NET Act may have made this more explicit, but it really just reiterated existing copyright law, didn't it?

[aleks]

It all simply boils down to paying the author for his or her work. Everyone wants to get paid for what they produce. It is up to the author to give away freebies. It is not for others to decide that the author can afford to lose book profits.

If I were an author and someone was stealing my book profits by posting ebooks then it would sure sour me on the idea of publishing in the electronic arena.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by aleks

It all simply boils down to paying the author for his or her work. Everyone wants to get paid for what they produce. It is up to the author to give away freebies. It is not for others to decide that the author can afford to lose book profits.

If I were an author and someone was stealing my book profits by posting ebooks then it would sure sour me on the idea of publishing in the electronic arena.

But there is more to a book than simply the author. Do not forget the editor (or editors) that helped the book alone, the agents that were able to place the book for publication, and the publisher that funded all of them in the hopes of getting a return on their investment. We could add the printers, the distributors, the artists that drew the graphics, the photographers, and the sales agents to the mix. I'm sure that I'm mising some people in the chain, sorry about that.