Is ebook piracy on the rise?

[pwalker8]

Coke is trademarked.

[Ramen]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I think the first section could be shortened a bit and possibly split into two parts, as you've combined severity with punishment in one case. If I were really worried about statistical validity, I'd have to rank the choices and make sure most people thought they were listed in descending order of severity to use "worse than" wording. I might use "as bad as" instead.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting with the second section, at least in terms of a survey, though I agree these are issues worth discussing.

Yes, I know. I saw it when proof-reading but didn't want to add a third section just for the one entry, sorry.

@second section: You may agree that something is illegal/bad/... but you think the counter-measures are worse than the crime/offense/.... or maybe just useless, etc.

[Ramen]

Originally Posted by hidari

The above three prove my quote from Einstein Is true. Worse than murder..? what a joke. Why not worse than Genocide?...why not add that to the list.

The problem is that some people demand extremely high sentences or extremely invasive counter-measures without balancing theses with other crimes. You'd think such a question as I stated above is ridiculous but there are people that demand punishments for copyright infringement that are worse than some for committing heavy crimes...

Clearly such penalties or counter-measures are completely out of whack but without conciously comparing them to other, more established crimes you lack a frame of reference for what is "decent". Especially in the US (monetary damages, consenting teens, etc).

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Axel is correct. If someone released the secret formula for Coke, then Coke could sue the person who released it for either contract violation or breaking and entering (the exact legal remedy would depend on who released it, how they got the formula and where it occurred), but there isn't a thing they could do to anyone who used that formula to manufacture Coke.

Yes, but it could be reverse engineered (and has) and be sold under a different name. 7-UP did it in the early 1980's under then name Like. It didn't sell well enough and was abandoned....

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Really, Steve, I couldn't disagree with you more. As more and more people produce "intellectual" rather than "physical" property, it can only become more and more commercially valued.

Take drug research as one simple example. Drug companies can spend literally billions to produce a commercially successful drug and, at the end of the day, what they are basically producing is a chemical formula - intellectual property. It's that that they "own" and which has value, not the physical chemicals which go to manufacture the drug; they often cost mere pennies.

If they couldn't profit from that chemical formula - that "information" - they wouldn't spend the money to produce it in the first place.

A more "mundane" example; the recipe for coke is "information" which belongs to the Coca Cola company and which only they are allowed to use. Once again, intellectual property which has immense commercial value.

Harry, this is what drives me up the wall about intellectual property. On one hand, it's 20 years and that's all. On the other hand, it's life + whenever (50, 70, 95, or what the next Mickety Mouse preservation act calls for.) It's not just to treat IP so differently....

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Harry, this is what drives me up the wall about intellectual property. On one hand, it's 20 years and that's all. On the other hand, it's life + whenever (50, 70, 95, or what the next Mickety Mouse preservation act calls for.) It's not just to treat IP so differently....

Not to neglect that I too consider current copyright far too long. Especially in a world turning so fast as ours today. And the current copyright length is likely the result of lobby of people interesting in long (and yes disney sure would be interested in permanent) copyrights is far stronger than any possible lobby of people interested in a shorter copyright length.

However the rights a patent grands you are extremely more far reaching than the rights a copyright grands you. So its actually quite fair that patents are shorter than copyright.

[nekokami]

"How long should copyright last" is definitely a survey/opinion item. Options might include:
- Death of the author
- Death of the author + n years
- n years regardless of death of the author
- Requires renewal every n years or lapses to PD
-- Limited renewal
-- Unlimited renewal
-- Free renewal
-- Renewal fee
- forever, to all assignees and heirs
- no time at all

[axel77]

Originally Posted by nekokami

"How long should copyright last" is definitely a survey/opinion item. Options might include:
- Death of the author
- Death of the author + n years
- n years regardless of death of the author
- Requires renewal every n years or lapses to PD
-- Limited renewal
-- Unlimited renewal
-- Free renewal
-- Renewal fee
- forever, to all assignees and heirs
- no time at all

How about the copyright lasts for 100.000 copies? Not that I would have really thought that suggestion deeply through, but it would be a pretty new approach, wouldn't it?

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by axel77

How about the copyright lasts for 100.000 copies? Not that I would have really thought that suggestion deeply through, but it would be a pretty new approach, wouldn't it?

Interesting idea. Worth including.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Boy... look how far everyone's gone in just a day! Now then:

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Here's some to add:

- Ultimately, all information will be free.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Really, Steve, I couldn't disagree with you more.

Just to be clear: I was adding these commonly-voiced opinions to Neko's list. I didn't say they were mine (and this one is not).

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

- E-books do not exist in a physical sense, and therefore cannot be "taken" from anybody.

Also not mine.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

- E-books should be considered more similar to television shows than physical products. (This is my opinion)

Yup... mine.

Carrying on:

I see a few people have started to consider the TV analogy, and time-shifting has been mentioned more than once. The TV industry, now well-aware of time-shifting, is working now to circumvent it... see those tiny ads that run on the bottom of the screen during the program? Bingo.

E-books could sell ad revenue, like TV programs, but they would also have to deal with people trying to tune-out the ads. Quite possibly, ad banners (like web sites) could be displayed on the top of each chapter of a book... that's one example of getting ads in there. Or maybe they'd just be happy grouping the ads between the cover and Chapter 1. There are all kinds of options that could be tried to make an ad-revenue model work.

And if it meant that people could download e-books for free (or really, really cheap), they might not complaign about the ads too much anyway.

[nekokami]

The ad model doesn't seem to have worked for Wowio yet, but there may have been other problems with that service (e.g. that they only had PDF).

[axel77]

My university did some ads in to scripts. That was always one of the first moves, get the script and tear out the ad pages... Because I really felt somewhat betrayed paying for that script and still have some stupid ads in there.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think that you are mixing two very different legal issues with regards to the broadcast industry. The first issue is the thief of signal issue, i.e. getting decoders to receive satellite or cable signal you didn't pay for. This is no different than taping into a power line, or water main. That issue is a very different issue that recording something on your VCR and giving the tape to people, which is purely a copyright issue.

Yes, two very different things... but in the case of e-books, both have analogies: The former can be compared to P2P and "darknet" activities; the latter compared to individually copying and disseminating e-books.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

My personal guess is that ebooks will more likely go in the direction of audio content (iTunes for music and audible.com for audio books), than it will in the direction of broadcast (radio and tv). Broadcast depends on advertising for it's review stream. Unless you think that advertising supported web sites will eventually offer ebooks for free, I'm not sure how ebooks fit in that mold.

Yes: There's no reason e-books can't be sold in something more akin to the music market as represented by iTunes and Audible. But revenue-subsidized markets are also a possibility, and one that I want people to consider. There's no reason why Random House, for example, couldn't sell ads for revenue that would be embedded in e-books. Or an independent, like me, could receive direct income from a patron or sponsor and give my books away. For the same reason that TV works to get eyeballs onto the sponsor's ads, e-books could do the same. Just an idea.

I mainly brought the TV show concept up because of the differing opinions of what an e-book represents, as far as its being property, product, tangible object. Like music, books tend to be thought of in terms of their physical media... hardbacks, CDs, etc. But as MP3s and e-books are electronic data, they have a greater similarity to television programs and radio-cast music, and when considered as product or property, objects to obtain, theft, etc, they should be thought of in similar terms.

iTunes' efforts to tie MP3s to a particular PC or iPod is an attempt to tie the MP3 to a physical object, and therefore make it a part of the physical object by extention... or, at least, to remove its ephemeral "electronic" status. If the public is happy with the arrangement, that's fine and dandy. But if they insist on being able to shift music, or e-books, from device to device, and producers do not want files to be freely disseminated beyond the purchaser, the physical object model breaks down.

At that point, a broadcast model may well be superior for e-books, and as ad-revenue has proven to be highly effective with the broadcast model, it could be as effective with e-books.

By the way: I'd like to offer everyone who has been participating in this thread my sincere congratulations, for making this one of the most even-handed discussions of e-book copyright and piracy issues I've seen in quite some time!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by nekokami

The ad model doesn't seem to have worked for Wowio yet, but there may have been other problems with that service (e.g. that they only had PDF).

Like many things, sometimes it takes time to work out the proper combinations of site content, ad products, ad techniques (snappy spots with paid spokesmen, eyeball porn, competition-bashing, straight facts), etc. It's a very new area.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by axel77

My university did some ads in to scripts. That was always one of the first moves, get the script and tear out the ad pages... Because I really felt somewhat betrayed paying for that script and still have some stupid ads in there.

What would the script have cost without the ads to subsidize them? Would you have been happier paying 2-3 times as much for the script, without ads?

Sure, some people may rip out ads... most people just ignore them. Until they see one that attracts their attention, or offers something they happen to want. That's the strength of ads, and why they have endured for so long.