Piracy Experiment

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Belle2Be

Sorry, I edited to clarify From the perspective of real world comparisons, someone buying a book from a used book store, or getting it for free from the library giveaway box doesn't require the permission of the author.

They have the implicit permission of the Author. By publishing in physical form, the author grants an implicit right to anyone owning the physical object to read the story contained in the object.

[Belle2Be]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

They have the implicit permission of the Author. By publishing in physical form, the author grants an implicit right to anyone owning the physical object to read the story contained in the object.

So by publishing a digital form, the author grants an implicit right to anyone owning the digital object to read the story contained in the object.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bucsie

Then one can argue that there is only 1 actual thief - the one that makes the first copy available on the net - as that one doesn't have the copyright holder's permission. everyone else has the pirate's consent.

I know you have a smiley there, but just to be clear: The pirate doesn't have the right to give consent to duplication of copyright material for which they don't have a reproduction agreement with the copyright holder. That's rather the entire point of copyright: to stop the publishers (or pirates) ripping off authors completely.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Belle2Be

So by publishing a digital form, the author grants an implicit right to anyone owning the digital object to read the story contained in the object.

While some have been trying to work physical analogies the other way, it's equally wrong (not morally, but logically) to do it this way.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If your friend does this with every ebook they buy, then yes, I think that's morally wrong. Unless your friend is actually your "Significant Other" (is that phrase still used?) in which case it's OK by me.

Whilst I am all for grey areas - it's my favourite colour for decorating moral positions - I really don't understand how the moral status of an act varies with the relationship that the perpetrator has to the beneficiary of the act. If I do something that's bad but do it to benefit my mum or my husband then the badness of the thing that I did disappears, but if I do it to benefit my next door neighbour it stays bad?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by TGS

Whilst I am all for grey areas - it's my favourite colour for decorating moral positions - I really don't understand how the moral status of an act varies with the relationship that the perpetrator has to the beneficiary of the act. If I do something that's bad but do it to benefit my mum or my husband then the badness of the thing that I did disappears, but if I do it to benefit my next door neighbour it stays bad?

Grey - remember the grey!

But one way it's different is because you have a very small and (hopefully) stable number of SOs. You might have fifty friends, who vary from year to year. Also, SOs tend to live in the same household, so sharing ebooks is much more easily analogous to the sharing of paper books.

But to consider your question even more seriously.... umm. yes. I think that even if you just had one bestest best friend, and they had their family and SO and you had yours, but you happened to like the same kind of reading material, while your SOs liked something completely different.... yes, I still think it would be wrong for the two of you to gives copies of every ebook you bought to each other.

YMMV

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Morally, in my opinion, if you own a paper copy of the book in question, I see nothing wrong with obtaining a digital copy of that book from someone else, IF that digital copy came from a non-commercial scanning effort.

However, if it's a pirated copy of the commercial ebook, then (again, all IMO, as are all moral questions) there is something a little bit wrong with it, since the commercial publisher who created the ebook has spent money converting and formatting the ebook edition, and is entitled to some return on the expenditure.

And just how do you discern the source of the e-book?

[HarryT]

A commercial ebook will normally have a copyright message from the publisher saying that it is an ebook.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Like I said, nobody can "take" your ebook unless you consciously make it available (ie give permission). Your analogy doesn't work. It would need to be someone replicating the ebook manufacturer's design and handing them out for free, not just an owner's ebook reader. That's why I said it is pointless trying to force real world items into analogies about copyright violation. Even if Star Trek replicators were real it still wouldn't fit.

It's not just about replicating. It's all about the fact that you have taken the book without paying for it. You have not "borrowed" it from someone - because they have a copy of it and therefore are not being denied.

You have not been given the book by a friend, a parent, a sibling, a spouse.

We are back to making up situations to excuse the action that has taken place. Why not try this: NOT make up a situation. Let's talk about what is actually happening.

The reality: Person A is sitting at home on a rainy day and wants to read a new book. They decide they want to read “From Samarra to Sinjar: A Love Story.” Instead of going to one of several places that sells “From Samarra to Sinjar: A Love Story,” Person A goes directly to a torrent site and downloads the book without paying for it. Person A reads the book and loves it. They then go onto MR and gleefully gloat that “From Samarra to Sinjar: A Love Story” was a great book that they didn’t pay a dime for.

I say that Person A should – at the very least – go and tip the author who just made their rainy afternoon more enjoyable.

*Sits back and waits for the excuses*

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Catlady

And just how do you discern the source of the e-book?

Well, if there is no commercial ebook version of the book in question available, it's easy.

And if there is such an available commercial ebook version (of an in-copyright work), then if I want an ebook version, I'll buy that, even if I own a paper copy.

Others must use their own judgement.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A commercial ebook will normally have a copyright message from the publisher saying that it is an ebook.

Can't say as I've noticed this, but you'd only see such a notice after you downloaded the book--so you don't know if the action is wrong till after you've done it.

[unboggling]

This discussion is still going on?

Some observations to supplement my earlier post that said it's too much trouble:

After further research and experimenting, I found it's possible to obtain a lot of eBooks with relatively good to superb formatting. The problem is that most of the sources I found are large torrent files (4 to 6 GBs) containing thousands of eBooks each. Unless you pay for the privilege to selectively download items within it, you have to download the entire file then sort through it. The metadata associated internally with those eBooks tends to be inadequate and inconsistent unless you luck out, which seems rare. The file structures are different from torrent file to torrent file and usually internally inconsistent. So there is no automatic way to generate most of the metadata. Therefore "sorting through it" is not a trivial process and might take a week or more of full-time work (depending on file size) in rebuilding the author and title fields to be clean enough to fetch metadata, not to mention going through multi-thousands of books manually choosing which ones to delete once your metadata is clean enough to base a decision on.

The moral issue can't be solved by debate here or anywhere else. Morals arise from deep-embedded core values and differ from person to person as well as culture to culture. The only related issues that can be decided anywhere are what laws to make in each country regarding digital piracy and what teeth to put behind the laws. I'm not a lawyer, but even I know that laws without teeth are expensive boondoggles perpetrated on the taxpayer.

My personal opinion is that most eBook consumers will find it too difficult or too much hassle to obtain significantly large amounts of books through piracy. The key word is "significant," meaning in regards to significantly detrimental to publisher sales figures. If my assumption is true then what is the fuss all about?

[Belle2Be]

Originally Posted by unboggling

This discussion is still going on?

Some observations to supplement my earlier post that said it's too much trouble:

After further research and experimenting, I found it's possible to obtain a lot of eBooks with relatively good to superb formatting. The problem is that most of the sources I found are large torrent files (4 to 6 GBs) containing thousands of eBooks each. Unless you pay for the privilege to selectively download items within it, you have to download the entire file then sort through it. The metadata associated internally with those eBooks tends to be inadequate and inconsistent unless you luck out, which seems rare. The file structures are different from torrent file to torrent file and usually internally inconsistent. So there is no automatic way to generate most of the metadata. Therefore "sorting through it" is not a trivial process and might take a week or more of full-time work (depending on file size) in rebuilding the author and title fields to be clean enough to fetch metadata, not to mention going through multi-thousands of books manually choosing which ones to delete once your metadata is clean enough to base a decision on.

The moral issue can't be solved by debate here or anywhere else. Morals arise from deep-embedded core values and differ from person to person as well as culture to culture. The only related issues that can be decided anywhere are what laws to make in each country regarding digital piracy and what teeth to put behind the laws. I'm not a lawyer, but even I know that laws without teeth are expensive boondoggles perpetrated on the taxpayer.

My personal opinion is that most eBook consumers will find it too difficult or too much hassle to obtain significantly large amounts of books through piracy. The key word is "significant," meaning in regards to significantly detrimental to publisher sales figures. If my assumption is true then what is the fuss all about?

There are free programs that you can download to select particular files rather than the entire 4GB's or whatever

I do agree with your opinion that a minority of ebook readers are currently pulling from piracy, however. I only know one person in my entire social cirle who knows how to do it, actually.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by Belle2Be

There are free programs that you can download to select particular files rather than the entire 4GB's or whatever

Thanks, I didn't know that.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I think that more fuss is being made by those people who are morally outraged over the whole concept of someone else getting something for nothing, than by the actual effect on sales figures.

I agree! That's why I think that the current model for paying authors is broken.

In effect, I expect that we will have a new morality in this regard in the 21st century digital age, because we now have the possibility of creating an infinite supply of a good.