Piracy Experiment

[Anke Wehner]

Originally Posted by bucsie

I agree to this. I would pay a small monthly fee on such a site. I usually read a book then discard it, so it would be like subscribing to a library.

I wonder how many quick readers have tried using Amazon as a free library. They say you can return ebooks within 7 days, but I have no idea if they're looking for people making a habit of returning all their purchases after a few days and take that privilege away.

[Xanthe]

Reading and participating in this thread has gotten me thinking about my own attitude toward ebooks, and I've realized that I don't really think of them as "true" books at all. I realize that I think of a "book" as being a physical object that takes up physical space in my living environment and has the potential to remain in existence for decades.

I don't view ebooks the same way. I think it's because I realize, from experience, how easy it is to lose data on a computer due to hard drive failure or computer infection or DRM restrictions. Ebooks just seem to be ephemeral objects to me, merely a data file and not on par with a paper book. I know where all of my paper books are, and can usually pinpoint the bookshelf or box from memory. I don't know precisely where a particular ebook is - it can be on one of two computers, on one of the multiple external drives I have, or it can be burned off with multiple files to a CD or DVD and stashed in a drawer or in an album somewhere here. I find that if there is an ebook I particularly like, I'll subsequently buy it in paper so that I have a "real" copy of the book.

So perhaps that's why my attitude toward the Dark Net is much less rigid than that of others here. I might be part of a cusp generation that thinks for something to be real and of value, you have to be able to actually hold it in your hands and I'm not able to place the same monetary value or importance on a data file as on a physical object.

I know people enjoy portraying their choice of not participating in the Dark Net in the guise of a superior moral or ethical choice (witness the earlier "scum" name-calling), but that sort of holier-than-thou attitude just makes me smile. Very, very few of us can say that we are morally and ethically pure in all aspects of our lives; we all draw our lines in the sand in different places based upon our understanding of our world.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by Anke Wehner

I wonder how many quick readers have tried using Amazon as a free library. They say you can return ebooks within 7 days, but I have no idea if they're looking for people making a habit of returning all their purchases after a few days and take that privilege away.

There have been regular reports of Amazon refusing to sell to a customer because they have sent back to many items. The reports I have read seem to be people buying big ticket items and returning them in the 30 day window.

My guess is that someone who is continurally buying an ebook and then returning it in the 7 day window would send up a flag and that persons account would be disabled. I have no idea what the number of books would need to be or the frequency but if it were to become a trend then I think the account would go away.

[Anke Wehner]

Buying a license to an ebook - no DRM, freedom to back up and convert to formats as I wish, ideally with an option to pass it on to someone else - would not seem ephemeral to me. It's my job to make sure I keep it available, like it's my job to make sure my paper books are not accidentally dropped in the bathtub, or gnawed by budgies, or covered in fatty fingerprints.

Having a book permanently available on those terms is worth to me about as much as a paperback book.

A copy with short temporary access, to read the book once, is totally and obviously ephemeral, and not worth terriblmuch. I can borrow paper-books for free from friends & family, and for hardly-anything-per-loan from the local library.

Ebook files with DRM are somewhere in between. They will be available to me for a couple of years, but depending how fast ebook readers break, I don't think I'll be able to re-read them 20 years down the line, which I do with some books on paper. (On top of the jumping through hoops stuff).
Definitely not worth as much as a paper book.

I used to see no difference between downloading a book to read it once, and borrowing it from the library. I'm moving away from that after an author explained how having books checked out from a library benefits the author.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I know where all of my paper books are, and can usually pinpoint the bookshelf or box from memory. I don't know precisely where a particular ebook is - it can be on one of two computers, on one of the multiple external drives I have, or it can be burned off with multiple files to a CD or DVD and stashed in a drawer or in an album somewhere here. I find that if there is an ebook I particularly like, I'll subsequently buy it in paper so that I have a "real" copy of the book.

Ah, the signs of a hoarding pirate...

As soon as I buy a book, I download it and put it into Calibre so it's organized and I know right where it is. Just as I would carefully place a paperbook purchase on my bookshelf. But if I downloaded 1,000's of files of mixed quality and burned them to a disk and stashed them in a drawer... then yes, those are worth nothing to me.

Perhaps your problem is not that you don't/can't value data files, but that you don't value the specific files that you have. Easy come, easy go, and all that.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I know people enjoy portraying their choice of not participating in the Dark Net in the guise of a superior moral or ethical choice (witness the earlier "scum" name-calling), but that sort of holier-than-thou attitude just makes me smile.

You are stealing from people who spent months or years writing books. It's not holier-than-thou to point this out, nor to point out that "smiling" at book stealing is, well, kind of chilling.

Interesting rhetorical device though - where you imply that people who *point out* the stealing are worse than the book stealers. Why? Because they point out the theft? Very post-modern. Morally bankrupt, but still.

Very, very few of us can say that we are morally and ethically pure in all aspects of our lives; we all draw our lines in the sand in different places based upon our understanding of our world.

Stealing from authors is bad. The fact that other people do other bad things doesn't make it good.

And what understanding of the world allows you to draw a line and claim that stealing from authors is *good?*

It's easy to develop a world view that provides a justification or rationalization for anything you want to do, of course. And, obviously, there are grey areas in a lot of matters. But I don't see how stealing from authors falls into a gray area at all.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Interesting. Sometime in the next few months I'm going to do a wipe of my laptop, so maybe I'll try out Linux then.

No need to wait till you wipe: Live CDs let you boot from the CD and play, leaving your system untouched, and things like WUBI let your Linux install live within Windows, without requiring a repartition to make a separate Linux slice.

The layers that I have are the ones that are useful to me. As you said, with the router a software firewall isn't really necessary but I too keep mine to control outbound access by my programs. I have an aversion to programs calling home unnecessarily; I tend not to allow auto-updating of programs. I like to know when changes are being made to my programs.

I have an assortment of apps blocked for outgoing in SPF, as there's no real reason for them to go outside.

Some apps I do auto update. I use Microsoft Update instead of Windows Update, for example, and so get patches and updates for MS Office as well as Windows itself. Other apps can be told to check for updates, and inform me when a new version is available. I tell them to, and update as new releases occur. (In general, I prefer to stay current.)

I like WinPatrol because of the alerts it provides to changes to my start-up list and to various bits and pieces programs try to quietly add to IE and my computer. It also is a good information source for what's going on at the moment. Spyware Blaster is just set-and-forget passive protection, so it's not using resources. Mamutu is a behavior blocker/zeo-day monitor; it tends to provide alerts when programs have changed or when installations are doing suspect things. Zemana is behavior-based too, so it picks up on things that AV's tend not to. So those two programs are only activated when an anomaly occurs. There's actually not that much redundancy; it's more a matter of making sure specific security aspects that I'm concerned with are covered well.

I have other ways of monitoring my startup list, so WinPatrol isn't required for that, and I don't use IE save for very occasional compatibility tests, so things that try to update it aren't factors. Not using IE also does for spyware. Every spyware infestation I've seen used IE to get in. I use Firefox because it's a more powerful browser, but the fact that it doesn't support Active-X controls or BHOs is a major secondary reason.

I tend to try out a lot of downloads from various sites and sometimes the software is dodgey. So NIS does trigger alerts in that instance and they seem to be precise. Some AVs I've used in the past tend to automatically label everything a generic trojan or virus from those sites, when they clearly are not (and when they also test clean on sites like Jotti's).

Okay, that's reasonable. By preference, what I run is free and open source, and what isn't is known good, from known good download sites. Dodgey software isn't a concern because I don't run it or try it. If I did, I'd do something like your setup.

Well, that's the way mine is set up, because I have had updates screw up my computer. Vista is an odd bird. That's when I've given thanks for System Restore.

Oh, right. You run Vista. Yes, that would make me more cautious, too.
______
Dennis

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I don't know precisely where a particular ebook is - it can be on one of two computers, on one of the multiple external drives I have, or it can be burned off with multiple files to a CD or DVD and stashed in a drawer or in an album somewhere here.

There's a program called whereisit that I use for cataloguing radio shows I've put on CDR. It works best if you write a number on your CDRs and keep them in numerical order in a folder. I've never bothered using it for ebooks, they are small enough to keep in an ebook directory on my computer.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by ruel

Also, I'm pretty sure there are no fiction ebook torrent websites.

There's two that I know of, one of them is specifically for scifi and fantasy ebooks, the other is any type.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by queentess

Ah, the signs of a hoarding pirate...

As soon as I buy a book, I download it and put it into Calibre so it's organized and I know right where it is. Just as I would carefully place a paperbook purchase on my bookshelf. But if I downloaded 1,000's of files of mixed quality and burned them to a disk and stashed them in a drawer... then yes, those are worth nothing to me.

Perhaps your problem is not that you don't/can't value data files, but that you don't value the specific files that you have. Easy come, easy go, and all that.

Jump to conclusions much?

This is what I meant earlier about attitudes here.

Did I say anything about downloading "1,000's of files of mixed quality"? No, I didn't. I was trying to figure out and explain why the nature of the media itself devalues itself in my mind, trying to figure out why I don't place the same importance on a digital ebook file that I place on a physical book. But all you took from that was what you wanted to see - I must be a "hoarding pirate" because I have large storage needs and can't readily locate items ergo I don't sufficiently value things like you apparently do.

Just because I have a lot of storage sources and don't have a black-or-white attitude toward the Dark Net doesn't mean that I am a "hoarding pirate". I've had computers for a few decades now (my first computer was a Commodore 64); what hard drives that still work from previous computers are in external cases - with all of the data from those periods of time. I buy MP3 albums online. I buy ebooks online. I buy audiobooks via my Audible.com subscription, and I buy MP3 audiobooks. I buy games from online gaming sites via subscription. I buy software. I've digitalized my purchased music and video collections (LP's, 45's & CD's, VHS & DVD's) and my over-the-air TV recordings. I've digitalized my purchased cassette audiobooks. I create digital art images - that takes up a lot of storage space, as do all of the digital images and videos that I upload from my camera and phone. I love freeware and shareware and am constantly trying out new programs. I keep copies of all the applications I've ever installed, all the fonts, all the plug-ins, all the extensions, prior versions of consistently used programs, etc. I periodically burn off and delete book and music folders that are on my HD. I burn off copies of purchased DVD's before I give them to the kidlets in my family. I periodically do complete backups of the drives on both computers. I need GB's & GB's of storage, so I use external drives and burn items to CD/DVD.

It's nice that you have "a bookshelf" to carefully place your book. I have bookcases where my books are placed. I have plastic storage boxes where my books are placed. I have rented storage space where my books are placed. I keep every book I've ever bought. I keep every form of music media I've purchased. So I do "hoard" - only not in the manner you'd like to believe.

It's nice that you use Calibre to keep your books; I find it to be a very good program for conversion but consider it to be awkward, storage-wise, when used in conjuction with multiple readers, and see no point in keeping ebooks in its library taking up space on my hard drive when I've already loaded them onto my ereader. Hard drive space is valuable on a laptop.

So it's not a matter of a facile "easy come, easy go" attitude. I'm sorry that that's all that you were able to take from a post where I was seriously trying to explain something.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There's a program called whereisit that I use for cataloguing radio shows I've put on CDR. It works best if you write a number on your CDRs and keep them in numerical order in a folder. I've never bothered using it for ebooks, they are small enough to keep in an ebook directory on my computer.

Ah, the signs of a hoarding OTR enthusiast.

I'm an OTR lover too and may have encountered you on a different forum.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Oh, right. You run Vista. Yes, that would make me more cautious, too.

Yup, that's the game changer. It does some things much better than XP, but there are such quirks and hoops-to-be-jumped-through in comparison that you can only ask yourself what the programmers were high on when they were coding it.

[MrsJoseph]

While reading this thread I have to say I've seen some very selfish comments. Writing books is a job. The people who write the books deserve to be paid - the same way you deserve to be paid for your day's work.

How would you feel if your boss told you that you should work for free? This is not a "moral high ground" comment; this is a "put yourself in someone else's shoes" comment. I'm not going to comment on the legality of it, only on how it would make me feel - which is pretty crappy.

You claim you love books but then you place no value on books. Of course some of you cannot locate your books on file - you don't have any value attached to those books. You did no work for the books nor did you spend any of your hard earned money on the books. You cannot appreciate something if you don’t value it.

I would feel differently if you were donating directly to the author(s) on a very regular basis – but that does not seem to be the case.

I use Calibre and I appreciate the hard work and dedicated time that the developers of Calibre put into their work. Calibre is free but I donate to Calibre because I want them to KNOW that I appreciate the work and to CONTINUE to make improvements.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There's a program called whereisit that I use for cataloguing radio shows I've put on CDR. It works best if you write a number on your CDRs and keep them in numerical order in a folder. I've never bothered using it for ebooks, they are small enough to keep in an ebook directory on my computer.

I'll look into that, thanks.

I have a program for cataloging my physical books (I use a bar code reader with it) but it wasn't originally designed for the addition of audiobooks & ebooks without a lot of modification, so I never got into the habit of adding them to it.

I knew that All Would Be Lost if I even started saving OTR - lol. The only radio programs I have are Jean Shepherd broadcasts.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Yup, that's the game changer. It does some things much better than XP, but there are such quirks and hoops-to-be-jumped-through in comparison that you can only ask yourself what the programmers were high on when they were coding it.

I don't assume they were high. I assume Vista got pushed out the door before it was ready. MS was trying to end-of-life XP, and generate a new revenue stream.

There were some grimly amusing emails leaked from Microsoft, because a lot of systems in the pipeline simply weren't powerful enough to run Vista with acceptable performance. Various OEMs complained that their systems couldn't meet the specs for Microsoft Vista Certified, and wouldn't be able to till their next generation of systems got released. So MS created a new branding level called "Vista Capable" that the systems could meet. MS SVP Jim Allchin, in charge of Windows development, was furious. He felt (correctly) that the customer would not have a good experience and MS would get yet another black eye in the market. CEO Ken Ballmer said "I had nothing to do with that decision!"

Half of the problems I heard with Vista were by products of what MS should have been doing since NT: making the default user profile Power User, instead of assuming the logged on user was Administrator with all powers. Most exploits need Administrator access, and bounce if the user isn't Administrator.

The other half were from folks running Vista on machines that just weren't up to it. When that machine is a new purchase fresh from the vendor, with Vista pre-installed...

The only thing in Vista/Win7 I could really use is support for true symbolic links in the file system.
______
Dennis