MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

nekokami · 12-06-2007, 04:34 PM

Thanks, NatCh. I really was just trying to think of an example where "format shifting" would apply to software, and that was what I came up with.

With regards to books, I want to be crystal clear: I pay for the books I read. Either directly, by purchasing a copy, or indirectly, through taxes to my town for use to buy books in the public library. For books that I have paid for directly (not library books), I really don't see the harm of using file sharing sources for format-shifting purposes, and if there was more effort put into making a system which would, in fact, verify ownership of the physical copy before allowing download of the file, I'm not sure it would even be illegal (in the US).

Furthermore, I will go out on a limb here and say that I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who download ebooks from filesharing systems in fact own the books in paper, or will very shortly buy them-- and would have bought them in legitimate digital form if that were easy and the price were reasonable. Call me crazy, but I think the book-reading population is a lot more likely to try to keep their favorite authors in business than people downloading pop songs or cracked software. Perhaps it's because books are much more strongly tied to individual authors. We know perfectly well whose bread and butter we're impacting if we don't pay authors. With the music, video, and software industries, it's a lot easier for people to forget that there are individuals involved and assume that a faceless corporation won't even notice the missing business. (And yes, HarryT, I know that's often not true for software-- I'm talking about a mistaken perception here.)

12-06-2007, 04:34 PM	#41
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Thanks, NatCh. I really was just trying to think of an example where "format shifting" would apply to software, and that was what I came up with. With regards to books, I want to be crystal clear: I pay for the books I read. Either directly, by purchasing a copy, or indirectly, through taxes to my town for use to buy books in the public library. For books that I have paid for directly (not library books), I really don't see the harm of using file sharing sources for format-shifting purposes, and if there was more effort put into making a system which would, in fact, verify ownership of the physical copy before allowing download of the file, I'm not sure it would even be illegal (in the US). Furthermore, I will go out on a limb here and say that I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who download ebooks from filesharing systems in fact own the books in paper, or will very shortly buy them-- and would have bought them in legitimate digital form if that were easy and the price were reasonable. Call me crazy, but I think the book-reading population is a lot more likely to try to keep their favorite authors in business than people downloading pop songs or cracked software. Perhaps it's because books are much more strongly tied to individual authors. We know perfectly well whose bread and butter we're impacting if we don't pay authors. With the music, video, and software industries, it's a lot easier for people to forget that there are individuals involved and assume that a faceless corporation won't even notice the missing business. (And yes, HarryT, I know that's often not true for software-- I'm talking about a mistaken perception here.)