There's a better way to beat the ebook pirates

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by ApK

A shame. Even if they get sued and go to court, I doubt those sellers will report back to us with the results.
And they're in the UK. I'd have liked to have some US case law on it.

Here you go. These are brand new, with no missing pages.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Stephen-King-Col...item1c1b3f47b8

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Go and start a thread like this one. Remember to charge a dollar for each post ... I forgot :~)

I'm going to package it up into an ebook and sell it on Ebay.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Buy a gun (or steal one if you can't afford it) and use it to rob a bank. Apparently doing that is no worse than downloading an ebook without the writer's permission. And under Stonetools' new world order you would get a shorter prison sentence if you got caught.

And have plenty of time to read!

[NVash]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Here you go. These are brand new, with no missing pages.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Stephen-King-Col...item1c1b3f47b8

Funny thing about this, even pirates are ashamed of the guys who do this kind of thing. I remember reading that many years ago, pirates cant stand it when other pirates decide to sell their pirated goods. Id assume because it makes everyone look bad.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Go and start a thread like this one. Remember to charge a dollar for each post ... I forgot :~)

I thought that's what Blog stood for: Bitch Leave One Dollar!

[Worldwalker]

Steve, I figured I'd try to give you some assistance privately. I'm not really a heartless so-and-so. But I find you've disabled all means of contacting you, deleted your visitor messages, and gone off to sulk.

That's not professional. Hell, that's not even amateur. That's childish. It's what a teenage girl does when people tell her that her fanfic story about how Harry Potter fell in love with Mary Sue really should use the same spelling that the rest of us use. You really are trying to do an Anne Rice.

Get over it. If you want to be a successful writer, you're doing it wrong.

[kennyc]

I'm got to agree with WW on this.

[NVash]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Steve, I figured I'd try to give you some assistance privately. I'm not really a heartless so-and-so. But I find you've disabled all means of contacting you, deleted your visitor messages, and gone off to sulk.

That's not professional. Hell, that's not even amateur. That's childish. It's what a teenage girl does when people tell her that her fanfic story about how Harry Potter fell in love with Mary Sue really should use the same spelling that the rest of us use. You really are trying to do an Anne Rice.

Get over it. If you want to be a successful writer, you're doing it wrong.

He really did that? I think such a move would alienate many people and possibly even turn off some who are willing to purchase his book. I thought we were all grown ups here. Some are seriously offering advice, why in the World would he do that? What provoked such a fit, the pirates? Did I miss something?

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I'm going to package it up into an ebook and sell it on Ebay.

With, or without, DRM? No, wait, let me guess :~)

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by NVash

Funny thing about this, even pirates are ashamed of the guys who do this kind of thing. I remember reading that many years ago, pirates cant stand it when other pirates decide to sell their pirated goods. Id assume because it makes everyone look bad.

Not quite. They don't like it when people sell their hard work for a profit. There is a certain amount of irony in that, and I suppose you could call it poetic justice. But yeah, even pirates have principles.


http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/forum/i...e;topic=1057.0

http://www.fanderson.org.uk/forum/sh...ad.php?p=11681

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I thought that's what Blog stood for: Bitch Leave One Dollar!

That's not as good as Xenophon's "assume": it makes an 'ass' of 'U' and 'me' gag, so no more Karma for you tonight :~)

[kennyc]

Well I'm fresh out of karma for today...and am keeping a list...

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by NVash

What provoked such a fit, the pirates? Did I miss something?

You missed Stonetools' constant drumbeat of "You can't succeed, the pirates are stopping you, it's not what you're doing, it's all the pirates, the people on MobileRead are helping them, the pirates will keep you from ever succeeding, it's all the pirates' fault." If there is anyone to blame for Steve's ragequit, it's Stonetools and his incessant "give up, the pirates are winning" routine. And he got exactly what he wanted, too.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Lots to say about this, look below the quotes.







There's plenty of semi-relevant case law on this question (in the US, at least). Sadly, the available precedent fails to usefully clarify whether you've bought "a license" or "the book."

We do know a few things, however.

• We know that the fact that Amazon (or whomever; I'll just say "Amazon" going forward) calls it a license in their agreement has very little impact on whether the courts say it's a license. And what the courts say is what really matters. For example, if some other part of Amazon's representation to the customer calls it a sale -- or even strongly implies that it's a sale -- that can make it a sale. A "buy now" button has been enough to meet this test in some previous cases, even when the "Licensing Agreement" said otherwise.
• When the legal agreement lacks terms requiring the customer to return the item (when the license terminates, for example), the courts have often held that the transaction is a sale, rather than a license.
• Even when neither of the above applies, courts have applied a test that sure looks to me (remember that I Am Not A Lawyer!) like "If it looks like a sale to a reasonable person, it's a sale and not a licensing arrangement. Doesn't matter what the fine print says."

None of this has any bearing on the author's copyright rights in the work, of course. But it means a lot in terms of first-sale doctrine. I suppose that I should also note that current case-law is inconsistent on this front. Consequently, anyone strongly espousing any position other than "we don't really know, yet" is waaaaay out in front of the facts on the ground.

Apk's post is an interesting mix of confusion and correctness. The first three paragraphs are overly certain (see my commentary above). The 4th paragraph copyright page addresses copyright law, which is very very different from sale-vs.-license. He gets it right, too, except for the trailing " ...just as your ebook LICENSE does" which is irrelevant. The final paragraph is spot on.

The final quote from stonetools is, once again, overly certain of the applicability of the Amazon licensing terms. He's absolutely correct, however, that the author's copyright applies without regard to license-vs.-sale issues. He's wrong, however, that the question of license vs. sale is a red herring -- it's a key part of the legal questions regarding what an individual user can legally do about the DRM that may or may not be present on an ebook that they have legally acquired.

I remind stonetools yet again, that the DMCA is self-contradictory on the subject of fair-use rights and DRM. Competent legal authorities most definitely disagree, and no court has yet ruled. Stripping DRM (from legally acquired content, for personal use only) may be entirely legal, or may be against the law. Nobody knows! And nobody will know, until the legal system clarifies it for us. Period.

As for the assertion that "Breaking DRM is generally preparatory to violating the author's copyright , as in "sharing" an ebook with family and friends.", well... We already know that argument is a loser, legally speaking.

First, you've been told -- repeatedly! Over and over and over... -- that there are plenty of entirely legitimate reasons for breaking DRM. For example, as a result of technological upgrades, I'm now on my 3rd (or is it 4th?) eBook reader. None of my prior devices has shared a DRM system with my current device! If I hadn't stripped the DRM from those ebooks that had it, I'd have lost access to all of those purchases. In fact, I DID lose access to all my purchases when I moved from device #1 (a Rocket ebook reader) to device #2 (a Sony). No recourse, either, because Rocket/RCA/<whoever-the-corporate-parent-was> left the business and turned off the DRM servers. Never again!

Second, we know from the VCR case (??Sony v. Universal??? -- I don't remember the proper reference) that the existence of legitimate uses is enough to satisfy the courts. Your assumption that a non-legitimate use is "generally preparatory to violating the author's copyright" is a complete non-issue -- it wouldn't matter even if you were correct. And that's well-settled law with plenty of precedent, unlike the other issues discussed above. Right or wrong, the correctness of your assumption is irrelevant from a legal perspective -- the existence of even a single legitimate use is enough to satisfy the courts, no matter how many illegitimate uses there are.

Finally, we come to the argument about whether the above assertion is actually correct. On one side, we have the evidence presented by stonetools, which consists of (I'll be polite here) repetitively repeated redundant assertion -- not even an anecdote or two in sight. On the other side, we have anecdote from a few dozen mobileread denizens (including me). Not the most convincing evidence in the world, but it's much MUCH stronger than mere assertion.

So I'm pretty sure that your assumption is wrong, although my evidence is only slightly better than yours (all anecdotal, but I've got more anecdotes on my side!). I conclude that your a simply assuming that your assertion is true. (Remember that old saying about the word "assume": it makes an 'ass' of 'U' and 'me'.) After all, if you had any actual evidence, you'd trot it out to make your argument stronger. Wouldn't you?

Xenophon
(who is NOT a lawyer, but has taken a graduate seminar on the subject being discussed)

OK, I'm willing to backtrack here and admit that I overstated my argument about DRM.I believe that I was responding to a poster that claimed that DRM had nothing to do with copyright. I responded to that overstatement with an overstatement of my own.
I agree that there can be legit personal reasons for breaking DRM. The premier example is Xenophon's own- the company that goes out of business and leaves consumers in the lurch with a defunct DRM scheme. I think that its legal to break DRM in that case.
I have a lot less sympathy for those who want to break DRM because it's inconvenient (as in, "land sakes a mercy, I had to break DRM in order to forward a copy of an ebook from my Kindle to my husband's Sony because I couldn't just LEND him my Kindle. " WTF???)
MY concern has always been for those people who want to dispense with DRM because they were INCONVENIENCED by it, while ignoring the fact that DRM protects essential IP rights. Its like people who want levees dismantled because it interferes with their view of the river.
Ultimately, the publishers don't give a damn about dismantling defunct DRM schemes-which for the anti DRMists is the most important part of the whole DRM struggle . What they care about is that DRM is there to protect important IP rights against the dangers of large scale casual sharing. THAT they won't yield on.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I thought that's what Blog stood for: Bitch Leave One Dollar!

Noooo, that's what "blod" stands for.