Used bookstores, harbors of piracy?

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I also condone darknet downloading by people who live in countries where censorship or currency controls make it impossible to legally obtain a wide range of literature. But if you live in the United States, Canada, or Britain, where almost everyone has access to millions of titles via inter-library loan, there is nothing to condone.

EXACTLY

We live in an age where if you can connect to the network you can have access to the entire literary history of our culture.

(I could store this history on an ereader and leave it on a park bench for you if you like )

READING IS NOT THEFT.

[QuantumIguana]

No one ever said that reading is theft. However, illegal copying is theft.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

No one ever said that reading is theft. However, illegal copying is theft.

Is caching a copy of a book in my web browser copying? I hate getting into semantics, but I am sure you see where this goes...

WE NEED TO READ.

[Rylon]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Is caching a copy of a book in my web browser copying? I hate getting into semantics, but I am sure you see where this goes...

Well, yes.

Everything on the web involves copying.

No exceptions. That's how the http protocol works. There's a copy on computer A and computer B sends a request for it and computer A sends instructions on how to make a copy on computer B. That's a pretty dumbed down version of it, but, like cellular mitosis, sometimes things need to be simplified for the sake of getting on with your life.

WE NEED TO READ.

Unless you're accessing a computer illegally, anything in your browser's cache should be stuff that the owner of the copyright (unless it's in the public domain) doesn't mind you having.

Forgive me, I'm new here, so I don't know your posting history well enough understand what it is you're going on about. I mean, you sound like someone I might agree with, but whatever it may be is buried under the kind of ravings uttered by hippie homeless men in downtown Santa Cruz.

[carpetmojo]

Used bookstores, harbors of piracy?

No, harbours of sanity in a Very Silly world ...........

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Is caching a copy of a book in my web browser copying? I hate getting into semantics, but I am sure you see where this goes...

WE NEED TO READ.

We need food, shelter and clothing, but if you can't pay for the best that life has to offer, you must buy what you can afford if you are honest.

Taking whatever you want without paying the sellers priceor having the sellers permission is considered theft in most instances.

I'm not saying theft is never justified, just that I cannot see any justification for theft of a book, whether it is by downloading or actual physical theft of a physical book when there are so many legal ways to get them in most North American and European countries.

Helen

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

We need food, shelter and clothing, but if you can't pay for the best that life has to offer, you must buy what you can afford if you are honest.

Taking whatever you want without paying the sellers priceor having the sellers permission is considered theft in most instances.

I'm not saying theft is never justified, just that I cannot see any justification for theft of a book, whether it is by downloading or actual physical theft of a physical book when there are so many legal ways to get them in most North American and European countries.

Helen

Let us imagine that I am a speed reader and am able to get through the latest thriller by Author Z in an hour. Would it be theft if I were to go to my local bookstore, sit on one of their comfy couches and read the entire text without purchasing a copy.

That's a rhetorical question of course, it should not matter if I read the entire book or the first word on the first page...

Yes there are "legal" ways to get just about any book anyone could desire, as long as they live within a decent library network... But seeing as how I do live within such a library network, why can't I just imagine myself using this network and obtain the book myself by other means, is not this the same?

How is downloading a text via a torrent file theft, and checking out the same text from the library not theft? The answer is it is not. The only thing separating the two is a small fee paid to the creator... Why not figure out how send these fees to the creator per each torrent download, instead of per each library checkout?

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Rylon

Unless you're accessing a computer illegally, anything in your browser's cache should be stuff that the owner of the copyright (unless it's in the public domain) doesn't mind you having.

Forgive me, I'm new here, so I don't know your posting history well enough understand what it is you're going on about. I mean, you sound like someone I might agree with, but whatever it may be is buried under the kind of ravings uttered by hippie homeless men in downtown Santa Cruz.

Well, everything you write or post on the net is copyrighted by you. And yes the function of the network is to copy and transmit information. How is this reconciled? How does Google get away with copying the entire network and retransmitting it for us? It is in the public's interest for them to do so, just as it might be in the public's interest for all information to be freely shared.

Once we went digital there was no turning back. You might laugh at the notion admonished by some that "Information wants to be free" but this is indeed the case, why does information want to be free? So that it may infect a new host with its knowledge. The word is a virus, as are we all.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

We live in an age where if you can connect to the network you can have access to the entire literary history of our culture.

This is a whole other subject, but most of the books in a large public library are not available as eBooks. There tends to be a big gap between the public domain era and 1990 or so.

But maybe I have it all wrong. What you mean by "our culture" may not include a lot of what interests me.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

How is downloading a text via a torrent file theft, and checking out the same text from the library not theft? The answer is it is not. The only thing separating the two is a small fee paid to the creator.

How much does the author get of the $120 Random House has been charging libraries for a big new non-fiction eBooks? Enough for a decent lunch at Noodles and Company. I'd be pissed if you deprived me of that. I'd even be pissed if I were an editor or agent who could have had a side dish. It's true that Random House doesn't get $120 from each Overdrive download, but they may get a dollar or two, and it adds up.

Why not figure out how send these fees to the creator per each torrent download, instead of per each library checkout?

When I check out the book from the library, it is out. Most of the stuff I read lately has a wait list. The longer the wait list, the more likely someone will buy rather than wait. Torrent downloads do not reduce the number of copies available and thus have no such positive sales effect. To fairly compensate for this, my tax money will have to pay a much bigger fee for your torrent download than what I already pay in taxes for library support.

You live in perhaps the one country (USA) least likely to ever do what you propose. In the real world, where government is contracting, not expanding, your choices are to pay, to wait patiently for a library copy, or to go the sticky fingers route.

Now, if you pledge to avoid torrents until your scheme is enacted, our differences are small.

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Why not figure out how send these fees to the creator per each torrent download, instead of per each library checkout?

How is that different than simply buying the ebook through a retailer? Also, doesn't this go against your "books must be free" philosophy?

[yoho]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I have been thinking a bit lately about the ethics of selling used books.

On the surface of things the practice does not seem to be morally sound given that the monies transferred do not go to the creator of the text and instead go to the person who by one method or another has come into temporary possession of the container of the text.

Let us imagine a book being printed for sale, the creator deciding not to sell it and instead throw it away on the street. Would it be ethical for a passerby to pick up the book and sell it to another?

it's of course legal for people to sell used books. the second-hand market is a necessary supplement to the market in the real sense. it's horrible to think that we can only drive a car until it runs dead.

[morantis]

You can go all over the place with ethics and legality on things like this. I know that the local used bookstores here charge less than $2 for a book, so in the end the percentage that would go to the author would be very small. Also, if you think about it, you buy a car, that money goes to the manufacturer(mostly), they are not paid in full for their materials and effort, advertising, all that good stuff. For "Ford" to get paid over and over every time the car changes hands is crazy. Let us go back in time to simpler economics. Farmer Jones sells a cow valued at $25 to Farmer Cooper for $25. Farmer Jones is paid in full for the value of the cow. If Farmer Cooper decides the next season to move and sells the cow again for $20 to Farmer Smith there is no reason for the first farmer to receive anything, if he got half of that sale($10), then he would have gotten a total of $35 for a $25 cow.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by morantis

You can go all over the place with ethics and legality on things like this. I know that the local used bookstores here charge less than $2 for a book, so in the end the percentage that would go to the author would be very small. Also, if you think about it, you buy a car, that money goes to the manufacturer(mostly), they are not paid in full for their materials and effort, advertising, all that good stuff. For "Ford" to get paid over and over every time the car changes hands is crazy. Let us go back in time to simpler economics. Farmer Jones sells a cow valued at $25 to Farmer Cooper for $25. Farmer Jones is paid in full for the value of the cow. If Farmer Cooper decides the next season to move and sells the cow again for $20 to Farmer Smith there is no reason for the first farmer to receive anything, if he got half of that sale($10), then he would have gotten a total of $35 for a $25 cow.

And so in the end we are left with the the race to the bottom.

Although perhaps this maxim only applies to the digital, as well it should. The ethereal nature of the medium almost demands this nullity.

TNSTAAFL

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

How is that different than simply buying the ebook through a retailer? Also, doesn't this go against your "books must be free" philosophy?

It is not different, that is the point. Except for the "fact" that access to said torrent site would probably require a cut of your paycheck via an internet tax.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

It is not different, that is the point. Except for the "fact" that access to said torrent site would probably require a cut of your paycheck via an internet tax.

Why should we pay an internet tax, so that you can get your books for free? We prefer to directly support the authors by paying for what we read (if it is still under copyright), rather than some central book authority distributing funds according to who the current government or some bureaucrats like?