Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I understand what you're asking about perfectly well. I just don't agree with a premise that states "because pirates sideload ... then the majority of sideloaded content out there MUST be pirated."
To me, that's an unsubstantiated leap (ten known pirating test-subjects aside). It assumes one of two scenarios--either of which would be hard to verify: 1) that the majority of readers who are sideloading are pirates. Or 2) that a small number of hoarding pirates are sideloading more illegal content than a larger number of legal sideloaders combined. I don't believe either scenario is very likely, myself.
I guessing the smallish number of ebook futzers and tweakers and legal free/PD sideloaders and personal document emailers (such as ourselves here at MobileRead), and the tiny number of "I'm-dowloading-thousands-of-illicit-ebooks-and-putting-them-all-on-my-device/sdcard" pirates probably cancel each other out at the very worst.
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Personally, I'm pretty sure the number of pirates is way bigger than you might assume.
I don't know about the US.
But in Europe, there are intense discussions about ISPs capping the download capacities.
Depending on the ISP and the country in question, they typically drastically reduce your download speed after reaching a certain daily limit.
But here it comes: The limits in question are in the tens of GB. Per day! The limit I have in my business contract is 100GB per day, for example.
I don't need that, not even close. But I automatically got it, linked to my speed of 100Mb.
Question to me would be, why so many people exceed their limits. Obviously enough, so the ISPs have to react.
Yes, my neighbor as a highly sought after web developer will need this kind of capacity from time to time. But the general public?
Such capacities largely only make sense for pirates.
Downloading BlueRays of 30GB and the likes.
Of course, eBooks won't add to that volume, even 500 books per day equate to less than a single CD.
But I dare say: If movies and TV shows are pirated to such an enormous extent: Why should it be any different for books?
But again:
The MR community, largely consisting of book lovers, obviously will differ (to the better) from the general public.
And only a minority of sideloaders will be pirates.
Still I'd find it interesting to get an idea about the ratio.
A poll obviously won't give the full answer. But maybe an idea. And maybe some vivid discussions - without scatology, please.