When is Enough 'Enough'

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wizwor

It's not that dark in cyberspace. 'Enough' will come when your habit attracts attention to your IP address and someone knocks on your door, confiscates your computer, and closes the cuffs on your hands. It happens and your habit coupled with your desire to publicly confess your sins, post your address and occupation in your profile, and possibly pursue this hobby using government computers is reckless.

Well said. The strange desire that some people have to boast about stealing ebooks, as if it's a laudable activity that other people are going to praise, has always baffled me.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by Joan M

Well, I can relate, but in a different way. I assumed I would never get an e-reader. Not only did I figure I wouldn't enjoy the digital book experience, I simply couldn't afford new books these days and have been availing myself of all that a big-city public library has to offer.

Then, just a few months ago, a friend gifted me with a Kindle and a 500 gig hard drive containing over 62,000 titles. And that's not counting the PDF's.

Now I spend my time cleaning up the database, then I read a book I never would have thought of reading, then I clean a little more. You never know where life will take you, do you?

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Joan what a wonderful friend, what a wonderful gift!!

Happy reading

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not "wonderful" at all if they were pirated books.

Harry my response to Joan, a new member*, does not contain judgement.

I hope if contains however, a 'welcome' tone.



*At the time of posting my response to Joan she had only 2 posts to her name.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Harry my response to Joan, a new member*, does not contain judgement.

I hope if contains however, a 'welcome' tone.

It is precisely BECAUSE this is the time of year that we get people joining us who are new to eBooks, and possibly ignorant of copyright law, that I issue my warning to check what her friend has given her.

IF it's a collection of public domain works - eg from Project Gutenberg, or Google Books - then that's a wonderful gift, and I heartily wish her many happy hours of reading.

But if it's a collection of pirated books, she is potentially in very, very serious trouble. Consider that people are routinely fined $500 or so for downloading a single movie: the consequences of owning a collection of 62,000 pirated books could be financially catastrophic. If these books are not 100% guaranteed public domain (or other such free sources), I would urge her to immediately delete them from all her storage media and the Kindle, and report this so-called "friend" to the appropriate legal authorities without delay.

[soulfuldog]

The problem seems to be that people are more comfortable with ebook piracy than films, music etc. I've been surprised at a few older people I know who have bought ereaders and then quite happily accepted CDs of thousands of books given to them by friends or relatives (and very few of these things contain just public domain books). To be fair they still buy new books but I've just found it quite surprising how accepting they are of all these free books.

[alyxie]

I read fanfic and that number is not surprising to me. If I read in a moderate sized fandom, I would keep downloading 10-20 short stories, novelettes and novels at a time and be very surprised when "walah!" I've got myself 1000+ of the damn buggers for every fandom I've been following. Considering I follow around 2-3 at a time and never completely put down any that I follow, re-reading stuff years after I've gotten them. I wouldn't be surprised if I can match the number in time if not at present. I still keep paper books and have around 800-1000 paper SF and Fantasy books in storage in my room and occasionally break one out. Point at one and I can probably recite the plot of the book (unless its an anthology) to you.

I took the Strengthsfinder and found I have "Input" as a theme (which means I hoard things and never throw them out).

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by l_macd

The problem seems to be that people are more comfortable with ebook piracy than films, music etc. I've been surprised at a few older people I know who have bought ereaders and then quite happily accepted CDs of thousands of books given to them by friends or relatives (and very few of these things contain just public domain books). To be fair they still buy new books but I've just found it quite surprising how accepting they are of all these free books.

I'm not sure people make a moral distinction between copying an ebook or a movie. It happens to be easier and less expensive to copy, store, and use ebooks than movies. If you show up at Mom's with a roku and a terabyte of movies, I'm not confident she will shoo you away out of guilt.

I don't know why it surprises you that people do not have a problem with sharing of intellectual property. Most of us were raised with public libraries and educated in public schools that do all the things Big Media calls piracy. Before cable, television was free. So was music. Sears and RadioShack made a lot of money selling devices that had no purpose except to 'pirate' these transmissions. So did TDK and Memorex. What you call piracy was then called fair use. What changed?

Instead of offering exceptional value to paying customers or educating consumers on the value of compensating content creators, Big Media has declared war on their consumers.

Things that used to be free for all and are still free for some have become excessively expensive for others, the people who benefit from this are unlikable, and risk and cost of bypassing protections are low.

It's hard to imagine how Big Media could have made things worse than they have. Instead of insisting of endless protection, they should be championing more reasonable protections. Instead of charging more for DVD+BD+Digital, then charging you again to stream or watch on cable, they should introduce a portable system of licensing that ensures you can enjoy media how you like when you like -- and price this in a way that compliance is common sense. The government should ensure that the laws apply equally to all and that the market is open to all.

That won't happen. The lawyers, politicians, and lobbyists make too much money off the existing system.

Just sayin...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

I'm not sure people make a moral distinction between copying an ebook or a movie.

Some do, some don't.
People are all different; some get caught up in the whole numbers game and are dazzled by *FREE* and lose sight of the ethics of what they are doing.
Or the consequences.
Or the sheer practicality.
To many, a file is a file whether it be a movie or a tv episode or an ebook collection; they see it, they grab it regardless of quality, provenance, or whether they'll ever even use it.
It's simple hoading behavior.
Useless, really.

Even a perfectly legit collection of PD titles as can be found on ebay or on the gutenberg disk images is more quality reading that anybody (not named Barry Allen) could ever read.
Or, even on a smaller scale; the BAEN promo CDs and the hundreds of *legally* free promo ebooks that are available at any given time at Amazon.

You want 5000 ebooks? Just bookmark any of the free kindle book listing sites. Visit once a week and download everything. Rinse and repeat. A year later you'll have your thousands of books. And have read, what? 100? a dozen or two?

If you're just getting into ebooks, then by all means, do raid every (legally) free ebook site around. (Mobileread itself has a nice colection right here.) Buy a $6.99 25,000 ebook colection. Build up a monster library. Let the inner hoarder rampage for a while.

But at some point you really should get down to the business of reading.
That is the goal, no? Build a private library of worlds to visit and ideas to explore, right?

What's the point of amassing an enormous mass of files you'll never read and likely won't even enjoy (Sturgeon's Law!!) if you try?

Enough is enough when you finally sit down to read.

[Jaede]

[

Enough is enough when you finally sit down to read.[/QUOTE]

I think this is what I the answer I was looking for. Thank you for the sobering comments.

[JaneBennet01]

Enough is when you already feel satisfied

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by Jaede

I think this is what I the answer I was looking for. Thank you for the sobering comments.

I think looking for books can be almost as much of a hobby as reading them. I will often have a sudden enthusiasm for a writer, or a series, or a group of writers, or a genre, and I'll spend some time searching for books, looking up details on Wikipedia, etc. It is almost entirely unrelated to what I'm actually reading, although it does slowly percolate through.

[garrybuck]

I'm also an avid reader/collector. I'm up to about 1900 ebooks in my collection. Why? I dunno. Maybe it's a quest for immortality. As long as I have unread books I can't die, cuz that would be wrong.

I think my shrink would actually agree with me on that one!

[jeromedevine]

Well done! Hope it gives you some good hours of pleasure in fascinating reading.

[Iznogood]

On old saying is that "Too much is enough", but when it comes to collecting books I would rather say that too much is barely enough

[Jaede]

Originally Posted by Iznogood

On old saying is that "Too much is enough", but when it comes to collecting books I would rather say that too much is barely enough

That is how I felt back in the old days when there were bookstores in malls. That and Suncoast Video. Anyone remember Suncoast?

[pholy]

As long as I have unread books I can't die, cuz that would be wrong.

That is an excellent sig line. May I add it to mine, garrybuck?