Massive wave of ebook piracy?

[hidari]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Does everybody here have friends who like all the same books? I mean I loved "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy", but most of my friends found it strange.

I would say you have NORMAL taste in Novels and your friends have strange taste....

Hitchhiker's is a Classic.......

[NVash]

Indeed it is. Though I would rather act like 'And Another Thing' never happened, that doesnt count because Douglas Adams didnt write it.

[asjogren]

If it is available, but priced too high - I will not buy it. I will wait. I will wait for the Public Library. I will wait for used paper copy. I will wait for a friend to finish a paper copy. Or, I will wait for a price drop.

If it is NOT available because of where I am, but IS available in my language elsewhere - then I feel ZERO remorse from getting it in an unapproved way.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Blue Ray probably won't have much of a chance against direct downloads.

Music is a lot more download-friendly than dvds or blu-ray, but even now the download market still only accounts for about 35% of the total sales compared with 65% for CDs so it seems more than a little premature to declare physical media is going to be dead anytime soon.

[Sil_liS]

500 posts!

[JaneD]

Congratulations, Sil_liS! Sending karma your way!

[Sil_liS]

Thank you!
This is fun.

[Grimm]

Originally Posted by Ankh

If I understand correctly Canadian legal practice wrt piracy, the passive download of copyrighted material (from Rapidshare or from Usenet, for example) will not put you in jail, putting copyrighted material to the public server will.

The participation in torrent sharing, in any way, shape or form, is considered participation in the distribution (your machine is offering bits and pieces of copyrighted material to others, never mind the seeder status), and you are a target, if there is someone willing to bring you to the court. The copyright law is protecting any part of the copyrighted material, even things like the plot of the novel.

Interesting, I don't know Canadian law as it does not pertain to me, but thanks for the info!

And you're only a target if you can be traced. Simply put, I've yet to hear (in the USA anyway) of someone who, using PeerBlock properly, that has been tagged for file sharing with regard to torrent files.

Seeder status is what distribution of file packets is. If you're a seeder, you're sharing the bits of the file. I am honestly not sure what the law is in the USA ragrding packets that are pieces of shared files.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by Grimm

Not going to happen. Limewire is severely dated technology and it took YEARS of legal action to get to this conclusion. Keep in mind Limewire is a fully enclosed peer to peer software package like Napster and Kazaa. Those are indeed easy to shut down because they do have centralized servers.

Other torrent sites like Demonoid or ThePirateBay do not operate off portal software like Limewire nor do they have central servers that can be shutdown (and ThePirateBay is not US based, therefore the US courts really can't touch them). All you need for them is a torrent client such as uTorrent. Everything is spread out amongst the peers/seeders without going through any centralized servers. Turn on PeerBlock, load up uTorrent, and good luck to anyone trying to stop you.

Not suggesting anyone should or should not do this, just showing how easy it is to use and how difficut it is to stop with pure torrents.

As for pirated books, honestly I think it's a very, very, very small segment of ebook users. Face it, the music industry got hit hard with this because music is more popular than reading. I truly don't see pirating of ebooks as having a big impact on the industry (not right now, at least).

Or you can put on your Johnny Depp / Jack Sparrow costume and use a dead drop.

http://datenform.de/blog/dead-drops-preview/

I'm just kidding. I wouldn't use that thing. Who knows where it's been?

[Grimm]

Hahahahaha! That is nuts! I wouldn't be too comfortable plugging into one of those.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

How do people find the torrents though? Through Google. What would happen with sites like rapishare or megaupload, if Google started removing pages containing links to them from search results? What would happen with torrent downloading?

Actually, Google is the last place I'd look for a torrent (that tends to lead to way too many dodgy sites), and if you're downloading a torrent you're not accessing Rapidshare or Megaupload, you're taking the file from someone's computer just as they're taking files from yours. That's the basis of the P2P networks - sharing your files with your 10 million closest friends.

RS, MU and the rest are mainly used by membership-only sites who code their links so that the Google spiders don't pick them up. Google could remove the torrent links without affecting filesharing at all, so that's why it's not a big issue. And if a filesharing forum goes down, it usually reappears under another name with the website server now located in a less restrictive country.

Filesharing websites are found, usually, by word-of-mouth if you are on a forum where the information is discussed. It helps if you are a regular on the site, people are more likely to give you the information. Sort of like finding a speakeasy in the Roaring Twenties, I'd imagine.

Then, of course, there's always Usenet. It would be very difficult to shut that down.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Then, of course, there's always Usenet. It would be very difficult to shut that down.

Getting a lot easier with every ISP that gives up on it though. When there's only a few pay-per-view companies left providing access it will be a lot easier.

[monkeyluis]

Originally Posted by Grimm

Other torrent sites like Demonoid or ThePirateBay do not operate off portal software like Limewire nor do they have central servers that can be shutdown (and ThePirateBay is not US based, therefore the US courts really can't touch them). All you need for them is a torrent client such as uTorrent. Everything is spread out amongst the peers/seeders without going through any centralized servers. Turn on PeerBlock, load up uTorrent, and good luck to anyone trying to stop you.

Or TOR. I've heard that works well.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Grimm

Seeder status is what distribution of file packets is. If you're a seeder, you're sharing the bits of the file.

That's not how the torrent works. Most of the modern clients provide a current upload/download indication and you can easily verify what I am about to say.

The protocol is optimized to create and then use as many sources/copies as it is possible. In other words, the shared file is divided into chunks. As soon as you download a single chunk, you are offering it to other nodes, and you get "credit" for any chunk that is served from your machine. If you completely disable upload from your machine, the protocol/network will recognize you as passive downloader and will penalize you. The transfer will take forever. Try it.

"Seeder" is the node that has finished it's download (100% of the file was downloaded) and now only serves the chunks to the p2p network.

You are actively participating in copyright violation (if the content is copyright protected), the moment you have finished download of the first chunk.

PeerBlock filters out known IP addresses used by legal/monitoring bodies. The folks in business of catching/prosecuting piracy know how the technology works, and are trying to adapt. They change IP's, use proxies, etc.

There is no such thing as an absolute security for a machine connected to the Net (every security measure just "raises the bar" for hacker/malware). Similarly, there is no safe way of practising digital piracy.

[eGeezer]

Originally Posted by JaneD

Congratulations, Sil_liS! Sending karma your way!

Uh. I believe he meant the thread is 500 posts long. You are just giving him karma for reading a number.

Not saying, of course, that the karma isn't deserved. Sent some myself, just to show I,too, appreciate someone on the board who can read. lol.