Do you consider it to be unethical...

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Row

I think the price of ebooks are forcing people to the darkside. Books should be like songs - make a good book cheap to download and nobody would go to the darkside. You don't mind paying if it's not over the top.

Publishers may be completely off-base on their current pricing ideas for eBooks, and may be totally overestimating the value/worth of eBooks to the average consumer. They may very well have to cut prices if they expect eBooks to truly take off in the market.

But again, I don't see what greedy pricing schemes have to do with "forcing people to the darkside".

I guess I just don't buy the "it's too expensive, so I'm forced into getting it for free" thing as a rationale.


As an aside, you mentioned as cheap as songs- and yeah, I never found Amazon/Apple's .99/song to be expensive at all-but I'm sure many people do...and I definitely know that when it first was brought up people were up in arms about it

[montsnmags]

My initial reaction is that if I already own the pbook, and want to read it in ebook form, and it is not available for the reason provided, I would look for it on darknet. However, if I didn't have it, and it was available anywhere in pbook form (i.e. secondhand sources) I'd probably just buy the pbook.

Cheers,
Marc

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by meromana

I'm open...maybe someone can come up with an analogy that will make me see it another way.

--Maria

I'm just wondering if you'd think someone who brought a Van Gogh painting at auction would be entitled to destroy it if they wished?

I think maybe you'd say they were, but perhaps I've misunderstood.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I think preserving texts is more important than protecting copyright.

This.

Also, downloading a book that is still under copyright, but unavailable otherwise (e or p), is bad for who? The owner of the copyright is not making any money from it, because it's absolutely not for sale (though you might find a second hand copy, maybe, but that way you also don't pay the copyright holder).

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by kjk

"Deprive"? I just don't understand the whole sense of entitlement expressed here..."I deserve to have access to those books unless 'x or y' occurs". I just don't get it.

(not passing any judgements about piracy, or the ethics therein..I just don't get the whole "I deserve to have it because xxx" thing people bring up.."They didn't release it in English here" "She wouldn't release it in eBook form" etc. etc. )

My specific gripe is with publishers who, when releasing their backlist titles in ebook format, release books 1, 2, etc., *SKIP A TITLE*, release rest of series... Hunh?!? If you're gonna make a commitment to release a series, DON'T SKIP - because if you do, I *will* darknet the skipped title!

Derek

[Druid_Elf]

I have no objections to use the underground for out of print books.
At one time I was looking for a book and since it was out of print the only way to get it was trough people selling it on the net (book was from 1920)
Cheapest version of the book was 3.000 $
That's absurd for a book so I downloaded it.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by meromana

Yes, I had the same reaction. Just because somebody wrote a book doesn't entitle the world to read it. Most authors/publishers would like their works to be available to as many readers as possible, but they own the rights to the work, and they don't have to share it, any more than you have to share your vacation property with a homeless person. Maybe your Swiss chalet is sitting there empty and unused while some guy is freezing on the street, but that doesn't entitle him to move in.

--Maria

And I'd be happy to *buy* the titles. But if you, as a publisher say, choose to NOT release one of your titles to ebook format after d-t publication, when you've chosen to do so with the rest of the backlist, then you have made a conscious decision to NOT make further money from that title. So be it. I'm not going to deprive myself from enjoying the author's work 'just because' some publishers can't be bothered to have a consistent ebook release policy. And we know this happens.

I also realize that extenuating circumstances arise, such as the one copy remaining is so worn that it is taking a lot of effort to clean it up for e-formatting. That might well add a year to the release time. Which is why if one of my 'faves' start showing up in ebook format, I will usually wait a year for the 'missing' titles. But I'm not going to wait forever because I can probably snag a library copy or a used-bookstore (ub) d-t copy and make my own scan. (And by availing myself of a library or ub copy to make a clean scan, I'm not violating any copyholder rights.)

(Given that I routinely allocate money to replace darknetted titles with Amazon releases *when* they become available, I don't even feel guilty because *eventually* the publisher remembers that the customers are always right - as well as their lifeblood.)

Derek

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Row

I think the price of ebooks are forcing people to the darkside. Books should be like songs - make a good book cheap to download and nobody would go to the darkside. You don't mind paying if it's not over the top.
I will always pay a reasonable price if it's available - if it's not available in an electronic version from a shop then maybe I'll look at other options.

A reasonable price is the same as a mass-market paperback. Unless the author and the publisher agree it should be lower.

Derek

[HarryT]

Let me ask a related question. If you are one of those people who thinks that it is indeed ethically acceptable to illegally obtain a book that is out of print, if it did at some point come back into print, would you then buy it, even if you had no intention of ever reading it again?

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Let me ask a related question. If you are one of those people who thinks that it is indeed ethically acceptable to illegally obtain a book that is out of print, if it did at some point come back into print, would you then buy it, even if you had no intention of ever reading it again?

For me, I would say, "Probably" (I'm cautious of absolutes, seeing as circumstances always seem to be unique). But, the thing is, that bit about "no intention of ever reading it again" is not applicable to my thinking. The reason I would buy it in ebook form if it came back into "print" as one is because of the off-chance I would want to reference something in it (as opposed to fully "reading it again"), and ebooks give me that opportunity to have my library at my fingertips. I might not ever reference it...but my mind works more with "might" than "not", and so...

Cheers,
Marc

[Sparrow]

My answer to Harry's question would be 'No'.

In the market place, goods need to be available when a buyer wants to purchase - producers can't expect to regulate demand to suit themselves, although they may try.

I can't see it being any different to buying a second-hand book, and then being expected to buy it again when (if) it goes back into print.

[capidamonte]

Originally Posted by meromana

Our statements are not in conflict. Copyright would not encourage the production of art if it did not protect the financial interest of the artist. (Talking about works that have not passed into the public domain yet.)

The idea that art inherently belongs to the masses is about as socialistic as it gets. I'm just not seeing this entitlement thing. Why is the public entitled to read books or view art or hear music without the artist's or owner's agreement? No one expects my former employers to turn over statistical programs I wrote for them years ago, just because they're not using them anymore. They paid for that stuff; they own it. Why is art so inherently different?

I'm open...maybe someone can come up with an analogy that will make me see it another way.

--Maria

What's wrong with socialism? Far superior to naked capitalism. Certainly the large majority of the problems we all suffer from are the direct result of capitalism unfettered and corporate corruption.

The problem is not with having a limited monopoly for artists. It's with having an unlimited monopoly for businessmen. That is true entitlement. Why should a corporation be entitled to the control of culture? It's a soulless, sociopathic social construct devised to protect its profit-seeking minions from accountability for their selfish actions.

And "the artist" in your argument is a figleaf. No one, certainly not me, is arguing to restrict an artist's income. Pay 'em more, in fact -- get the parasites out of the equation entirely. (Go read some J. A. Konrath.) Copyright not controlled by the original creator is the problem. Gaining the permission of a third party is the problem. Permission culture is the problem. It's authoritarianism, verging on aristocracy. Measuring everything by the yardstick of money is a problem. There are other -- better -- values.

Water empires are the only empires -- and engineered scarcity is the direct result. Nothing has entered the public domain (in the US) in 87 years, nor is anything likely to in your lifetime, or your children's. The public domain has been walled off and carved up into fiefdoms.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

My answer to Harry's question would be 'No'.

In the market place, goods need to be available when a buyer wants to purchase - producers can't expect to regulate demand to suit themselves, although they may try.

I can't see it being any different to buying a second-hand book, and then being expected to buy it again when (if) it goes back into print.

I see it as entirely different.

For example, as I've said in another thread, I don't personally believe that owning a paper book gives you some "God-given right" to the equivalent eBook. I own several different paper editions of "The Lord of the Rings", and had created a eBook version for my own personal use long before it was officially available as an eBook. But as soon as the official eBook was released, I bought it. Not because I wanted to read it (my own version is a lot better!), but because it was (in my personal code of ethics) the right thing to do.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I see it as entirely different.

For example, as I've said in another thread, I don't personally believe that owning a paper book gives you some "God-given right" to the equivalent eBook. I own several different paper editions of "The Lord of the Rings", and had created a eBook version for my own personal use long before it was officially available as an eBook. But as soon as the official eBook was released, I bought it. Not because I wanted to read it (my own version is a lot better!), but because it was (in my personal code of ethics) the right thing to do.

Fair enough, opinions differ as previous threads have shown.

Just wanted to say, as an atheist, I wasn't suggesting any of my rights are 'God-given'.

Maybe a better solution would be an option to pay what would be the copyright costs (e.g. 20 pence / 50 cents) when downloading a book - to be payable to the copyright owner if the work goes back into print. At the end of a certain time unclaimed funds could go to some worthy cause.
Then we could do away with the idea that the copyright owner could demand downloaders buy their pbook at £50 a pop when they decide to reprint it.

[Stitchawl]

Call it what you will, using the Darknet is unethical. So is taking an extra 10 minutes of your employer's time at lunch, bringing home copy paper from work to use in your printer, using your cell phone while driving if that is against the law where you live, parking your car where you know you should NOT be parking it, even if you are 'just running in for a few minutes,' fudging on your taxes, and a host of other things that people 'rationalize' away every day.

Almost everyone has their own 2-3 little 'rule bends' that they feel are OK for them to do. It's just that some folks just don't need to rationalize them. They accept that they are violating some rule or law and call it for what it is.

When you get right down to it, Robin Hood was a criminal!

Stitchawl