Quote:
Originally Posted by Sil_liS
Language is important. The books that you buy from retailers are downloaded as well.
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That is very true. Almost all of what some may call "pirate" sites actually operate in countries where they are PERFECTLY LEGAL and are called in those countries FILE SHARING sites.
There are many sites which allow uploads of large files for storage and then allow others to download them. They claim no knowledge of what their users are doing. However, a few of those operators have been prosecuted outside the nations from which they operate because some of their customers have uploaded DRM free software, songs, eBooks, games, etc. Then other customers have downloaded them.
Its probably easier to prosecute the site operators than the millions of file sharers even though it may be totally UNJUSTIFIED.
Language is different all over the planet as well. What may be perfectly legal in China may be completely illegal in the USA. As we have seen in this thread the Netherlands has passed their own laws exempting all eBook file downloaders from any restrictions whether those files are DRM protected or DRM stripped or being given away free with author / publisher permission or being given away without that permission.
The publishing industry has a big problem here. So far good solutions appear to be far in the future. One consequence of this problem is the shut down of Sony eBooks in the USA as I just read in another thread on this Forum. DRM failure leads to plunging earnings of retailers, publishers and authors.
Here is the headline from the link in that other thread:
"Sony to close Reader store and move users to Kobo's e-book platform in 'late March'"
We have come a long way from the time when a monk took 6 months to copy a Bible to where we can now make 100,000 copies of an eBible in less than 6 seconds and send them all over the planet in less than 60 seconds.