[Halk]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The only thing that gratifies me out of this thread is that it is providing a clarification of PD and DRM for those who do not know how it works. The rest of it, unfortunately, is all about seeking rationalizations and justification for taking something that wasn't intended for you.

We've had these discussions here before, of course, and probably will for all time. Personally, the rationalizations mystify me... I realize e-books may be "just a bunch of electrons," but that shouldn't mean it's okay to consider them as abstract objects, which are okay to steal because "you're not really stealing anything." They still represent a product, and if they are intended to be sold, anyone who takes one without paying is stealing.

Our societies are based on commonly-accepted understandings, such as the concept of the sanctity of property (you know: Thou Shalt Not Steal?). The fact that you can steal something easily, or that you know you won't get caught, is no justification for stealing it. If you can get it fairly, get it. If you cannot... go without. We're talking about books, not food.

Every time I decide I want a book, I check to see if it's available as an e-book. If not, I check to see if it is available in print. If not, maybe I'll try the few used bookstores I know of. But if I still don't find it, I just won't get it. Maybe I'll call the publisher, and ask them to re-release it. But I'm not going to go and steal it, for two reasons: One, it doesn't get back to the publisher, so they don't know it's in demand; and Two, if the publisher does find out, they will NOT release the book, because of the demonstrated tendency for theft.

As long as there's a "darknet," there will be publishers who will not want to release titles into it. That will not help the publishing industry, nor will it help the consumer. So it's worth while to play "by the rules" and shun the darknets, thereby encouraging e-book publishers to give us more legal books.

Sure, it's not a perfect system. Sure, it means waiting seemingly forever for some books, and maybe literally forever for others. But in this case, it's better than the illegal alternative: A continued stifling of the e-book market thanks to the operation of scofflaws.

What I've taken from this thread is that people generally run the same way as me. They'll make an effort to pay for it if they can.

Our societies are based on not depriving someone of something. If I have a loaf of bread, and someone steals it, then I no longer have a loaf of bread. It's the same with a service. If I give financial advice, and someone comes to me for financial advice, and then does not pay me... they've deprived me of my time and effort, that works out the same as stealing the loaf of bread. If I produce media and someone does not pay for it, because they can get away with not paying for it... then again, it's like the loaf of bread. If, however, I produce media and sell it, however someone cannot pay for it, but they take it anyway, then they have gained, but I have not lost.

The key difference here is impact. I'm no expert on your works (although I notice you do have a couple of short stories available free, they'll be snagged and if I like em I'll buy the whole lot for what seems to be a ludicrous price of $10). If you were to pass away, and your estate decided not to continue selling your works - i.e. it became unavailable to buy... Let's say I'd purchased book 1 in a series, and I wanted to read book 2... what do I do? In my head it's acceptable to go ahead and get it from the darknet, as I have not deprived someone of something. However, I do accept that by doing that I am participating in a system which would prevent a "glut" of consumers demanding (demand in an economic sense, not in a GIMME IT NOW sense) collecting, and your estate saying "Hmm, there's thousands of people itching to read Mr Jordan's books". If everybody was to say "It's not available, I'll pirate it" then that's not going to happen.

However it doesn't have to work that way. Someone in your estate may happen to notice that your books appear non stop on usenet, or there's hundreds of hits on p2p software and say "Hmm, big interest still around, let's cash in". That has happened in the past, an example I would give would be "Capcom Generations". In the arcade game market Capcom were a leading producer. They made "coin op" games such as 1942, Black Tiger, Street Fighter II. A project called MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator) was released in 1997, with the intention of "preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten." It was not originally intended to be used for people just to play the games. However over time interest snowballed in the project, and indeed many, many people were keen to play the games of their youth. The ROMs (books if you like) contained the information on these games and were not legal to upload or download. However it was considered that these were no longer seen as profitable and companies showed no concern (although very few actually came out and said it was legally ok). However companies later realised that this was a huge untapped market, and began enforcing rights, issuing cease and desist orders to sites distrubuting them, and CapCom in 1998 released a series of compilations of (mainly) arcade games. They followed this up in 2005 with more. Had people not shown interest in obtaining these ROMs illegally then CapCom may not have known a demand for this existed.

Ultimately though you're not wrong, and you've given me a bit of food for thought - which was the intention of the thread. Your point, I believe, is that by participating in piracy of books (even if I'm just receiving and not delivering) then I may impact the future of electronic book availability.

I don't quite know yet if I'm unwilling to give up on books not available on electronic format, but I'll make the concession that if I'm just looking for some reading material, then I'll stick to books legally available electronically. As a result I'll browse ebook stores for books, rather than browse for books and then try to buy them electronically. At the end of the day it's quite true that there's a great many books not available. But equally true that there's far, far more books available electronically that I might like than I could ever hope to read.