Could the Kindle spark book piracy?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

You are "justified" to make a copy from the material you own, for yourself, in another format. You are not "justified" to take someone else's copy, any more than you are justified to walk into a bookstore and steal a paperback because you already own the hardback. You are also not "justified" to take your copy and give it to others without compensating the original creator/publisher (which, based on your comments, I suppose we can assume you do).

Just because it's easy, doesn't make it right, or "justified." What part of this isn't sinking in?

Is this a legal or moral argument? In some countries it can be perfectly legal to get a electronic copy from somebody else of a book you own (if they are giving the copy to you). Why is it not justified to do something that is legal?

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

You are also not "justified" to take your copy and give it to others without compensating the original creator/publisher (which, based on your comments, I suppose we can assume you do).

Just because it's easy, doesn't make it right, or "justified." What part of this isn't sinking in?

This is an entirely ridiculous assumption. Where, in ANY post I have made, have I EVER claimed that I distributed any electronic copies of any texts? You can't assume this at all, because it is a fallacious assumption.

How much money have YOU spent on ebooks in your life? Care to bet that I have spent more?

[bingle]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

You are "justified" to make a copy from the material you own, for yourself, in another format. You are not "justified" to take someone else's copy, any more than you are justified to walk into a bookstore and steal a paperback because you already own the hardback. You are also not "justified" to take your copy and give it to others without compensating the original creator/publisher (which, based on your comments, I suppose we can assume you do).

Just because it's easy, doesn't make it right, or "justified." What part of this isn't sinking in?

OK, I'm interested in where you think the "justified" line is drawn. I'm going to put up a series of scenarios. Please tell me which ones you think are morally justified. I'll use CDs instead of books, because that's easier. (But please tell me if you think there's a difference between CDs and books in this sense).

1) A person buys a CD, and then buys the DRMed digital version of the album on iTunes in addition.

2) A person buys a CD, and then buys the non-DRMed digital version of the album on Amazon.

3) A person buys a CD, then rips the CD to MP3s for their own personal use.

4) A person buys a CD, then gives the CD to a company which provides them with MP3 files from the disc.

5) A person buys a disc from a company, which forwards their details to another company, which has MP3 files of every CD available. The person downloads the files separately, for free.

6) A person buys a disc from a company, scans in the barcode for verification, then downloads the MP3s from an unaffiliated company.

7) A person buys a CD from a company, then goes online to download the MP3s from an unaffiliated site.

[wgrimm]

Speaking of the Kindle, here is a blog response from ZD:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1023&tag=nl.e539

[NatCh]

Okay, this is a good discussion and I'm getting a lot from it. However, I want to interject a general statement encouraging calmness in continuing it.

Not because I think anyone has gotten out of line, and not aimed at anyone in particular, just because this seems to be a topic that folks can easily get all het up about, and that would kill the discussion, which would be a shame.

So, please, let's each make a particular effort to keep the discussion on a hypothetical basis, so that we can keep trading ideas without unintentionally getting anyone worked up by even seeming to get personal with it.

Thanks!

[wgrimm]

From the ZD Blog:

When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.

Jeff Bezos, Open letter to Author’s Guild, 2002

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

Amazon, Kindle Terms of Service, 2007

[rlauzon]

Which just validates my assertion that when you pay money for a DRMed eBook, you are licensing the eBook - not "buying" it.

It is no different than any other rental and should be priced accordingly.

[ginolee]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

From the ZD Blog:

When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.

Jeff Bezos, Open letter to Author’s Guild, 2002

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

Amazon, Kindle Terms of Service, 2007

When you buy a physical book, only one person can be in possession of that book at any given point in time. This is why it's legal to loan it out, or even to give it away.

When you buy an electronic book, without DRM, it's all too easy for one purchase to turn into one purchase + multiple copies. If you "loan" an e-book to someone and you forget to delete your own copy permanently, you've now bought one copy from the ebook-seller and stolen one from publisher. If you "loan" it to 10 other people, you've bought the one copy from the e-seller and stolen 10 from the publisher.

In a world where 99.9999% of people would actually physically remove their electronic copy when they "loaned" it even temporarily to a friend, DRM would be unnecessary. Do you think we live in such a world ?

By the way, in terms of "loaning" your ebooks, the one outright legal way to do so would be to physically loan your Kindle to someone. I'm pretty sure Bezos, and the law, would not have a problem with that.

Gino.

[nekokami]

On this forum, many people seem to re-read books (see the poll in my sig line), but I'm told that most people don't. My mom is a good example. She reads books once, then gives them away. Since she wouldn't read the book again in any case, does it matter that she still has a copy?

Ok, I suppose it does matter, because she could forget that she gave it to me, let's say, and give it again to my brother or a friend. But if Amazon wanted to, they could make it very easy to "send" an e-copy of a book to someone else with an Amazon account, which function would mark the book as "removed" and might even actually remove it from the Kindle (and associated account) after receipt confirmation. This could be done without any DRM.

If you start from the premise that most of your customers are honest, there are many ways to make managing digital content easier, including helping your customers stay on the right side of copyright law, without introducing the system fragility that DRM imposes.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by ginolee

When you buy a physical book, only one person can be in possession of that book at any given point in time. This is why it's legal to loan it out, or even to give it away.

When you buy an electronic book, without DRM, it's all too easy for one purchase to turn into one purchase + multiple copies. If you "loan" an e-book to someone and you forget to delete your own copy permanently, you've now bought one copy from the ebook-seller and stolen one from publisher.
Gino.

So we do not buy the drm book and everyone is happy. The book is not stolen after all; well the publisher loses a sale, but what the heck, he does not get 100 lost pirated sales. He does not get any sale in the end but of course that's much better than making a sale and having a potentially pirated book.

Just too bad that despite all drm and actually despite a book not being offered digitally at all, the popular books somehow make their way to the net while the obscure ones remain obscure. Think of how much income a popular author loses in piracy, would it not better for he or she not to be popular at all, and not lose that income. And the obscure authors should be so happy that they are not pirated at all, so they are so much better than JK Rowling and similar authors after all

Actually the same argument has been made very seriously about those bargain bin books you see at the bookstore, where the author gets no royalty. So what the heck, all those popular authors in the bargain bin at BN should be mad as hell as how does the bookstore dare sell their books without them being compensated...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Okay, this is a good discussion and I'm getting a lot from it. However, I want to interject a general statement encouraging calmness in continuing it.

Actually, I'm going to assume that's aimed at me. I know, I've gotten a bit feral in this thread, and I apologize for any instances (and yes, there were some) where I went over the top. Mea Culpa.

And speaking of which: The worst instance was my response to wgrimm, suggesting that he must be illegally giving away e-books, etc. You have my apologies, that was clearly out of line, and I shouldn't have said it. That apology goes for everyone else in here, as well.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by bingle

OK, I'm interested in where you think the "justified" line is drawn. I'm going to put up a series of scenarios. Please tell me which ones you think are morally justified. I'll use CDs instead of books, because that's easier. (But please tell me if you think there's a difference between CDs and books in this sense).

Here's the line: Items 4, 5, 6 and 7 require a specific statement from the CD creator, stating that those actions are permissible. If you do not have that permission, you are not justified in taking those actions. And yes, they go for CDs and books.

(This assumes that the MP3s on iTunes and Amazon are legitimately obtained, of course.)

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

Perhaps in Britain. But here, no. Prove that the mp3 I had is illegal, while I am waving my 100% legally purchased cd in front of you. How will you prove that I didn't create the mp3 myself?

Actually, I don't use mp3s, only lossless formats, but let's just assume for the case of argument. The traditional rules are changing, whether publishers like it or not. The big gain for the actual producers of content that I see is the potential to pull in vastly more income. If authors play their cards right, I think they can greatly reduce what the middlemen now keep for their own.

Whether it can be proved or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is illegal or not. It does effect the ability to prosecute but that is not the criteria for morals or the law.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by ginolee

By the way, in terms of "loaning" your ebooks, the one outright legal way to do so would be to physically loan your Kindle to someone. I'm pretty sure Bezos, and the law, would not have a problem with that.

Actually, it would be nice if there was a way to use your Kindle to send your copy to someone else... logically, there would be no reason why the file couldn't be removed from your Kindle and sent to someone else, since the owner doesn't have the ability to get into the Kindle and make copies.

Of course, the moment the Kindle is hacked, that plan's over.

[bingle]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Here's the line: Items 4, 5, 6 and 7 require a specific statement from the CD creator, stating that those actions are permissible. If you do not have that permission, you are not justified in taking those actions. And yes, they go for CDs and books.

(This assumes that the MP3s on iTunes and Amazon are legitimately obtained, of course.)

Interesting! That's a different place than I would have assumed. I'm glad we cleared that up.

So, you're drawing a distinction between someone performing the action of copying for themselves, and having a company do it for them. What is the relevant moral principle that you see in play here, the essential difference that makes that line?

What about the argument that this gives free MP3s to people who are tech-savvy enough to rip their own CDs, while giving less-tech-savvy types no alternative but to buy from a service? (Or go without, if no legal MP3 version is available). Is that a fair division?

(For the record, I'm not arguing whether you're right or wrong, I just want to feel out your views. These are not 'attack' questions, they're innocent.