DRM poll: How do you deal with it.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can I conclude, therefore, that this exemption does not apply to removing DRM from MobiPocket books?

If MOBI allows screen readers then the exception does not apply to any ebook that has a MOBI version. Even if the version you have is LIT (say), the fact that a MOBI version exists is enough to void the exception for all versions of that particular ebook.

On the other hand, if MobiPocket Reader does allow screen readers then it could be argued that this isn't an "effective" DRM scheme. The entire point of ebook DRM being to prevent access to the text.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

If they make use of the work, they should be willing to pay for that use.

Not necessarily. There are probably lots of things that you would use if they were free, but wouldn't be willing to pay for.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Not necessarily. There are probably lots of things that you would use if they were free, but wouldn't be willing to pay for.

Sure, but typically that means you either have to negotiate or go without. The seller gets to set the price. If they set it too high, you don't buy it. If they lower it to your comfort level, then you buy it. If an author and publisher want to let you choose how much to pay, or whether to pay at all, they can do that.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by tompe

Not if you borrow a book from a friend. Also you can have lawa that guarantee use of things without somebody being payed. And they are not morally wrong just because you are not paying for something you use (for example "allemansrätten", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_o...the_wilderness).

If you borrow someone else's book, you are using a copy of the work that has been paid for. You are not making a new copy. Further, such fair use is priced into the copy of the book (as is the reduction in sales due to people who read books at libraries and buy the books used). The point though is it is one copy that is used.

That was not the argument. The argument was that lost income cannot be used in an argument to motivate why it is ethically wrong.

And my point was that it holds no water. The argument that someone who downloads and uses a work is not lost income is specious. You have no way of knowing whether the person would have bought the work if they had been unable to download it illegally. Therefore it is fair game to regard it as lost income. Sure in the whole not every work downloaded and used would have been purchased, but some would have been and that is the point. Heck, because of the slippery sloap of reasoning, it is likely the downloader doesn't even know which books he would or would not have bought had it not been for the ability to download the works.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by tompe

If we keep something like copyright I think it should hold a very short time. Five or ten years maybe.

Also as have been pointed out most authors cannot live on the income from their writing. They write because they want to write and the live on something else.

Yes, most authors cannot live on their income, but some can, and those that can are usually the most productive authors (there are exceptions of course). In fact, it is the dream of becoming a full time author that might keep other authors writing. I agree that the current laws extend copyright to a ridiculous degree; no substantial increase in motivation is provided to an author knowing that his estate will control his works 50 or 70 years after his death. That being said, if you make it too short, no one but the very best sellers will be able to make a living off of their work. Further, publishing companies loose the incentive of cultivating new authors (since best selling new work often increases the value of the author's back list). As it is, the midlist author makes enough from his new works plus the residuals he receives from old works that he can continue his trade full time.

Now here is another thought. Lets remember that copyright protection does not simply protect the work in question, but it also gives the author the exclusive right to develop derivative products from her work. Ultimately, a 5 year copyright would give the author less incentive to develop stories and characters across multiple books. What incentive would J.K. Rowling have had to write 7 Harry Potter Novels if after book number 3, the first novel entered the public domain and 100 imitators jumped on the band wagon and wrote their own Harry Potter books (and a number did anyway in countries where Copyright is not enforced). Ultimately the impact of the whole story within the Harry Potter Series would have been minimized if the reader had read a dozen books where Harry killed Voldemort, or was killed himself or if in fact Dumbledor took out Voldemort? And of course, Harry Potter is one example, you could also look at Asimov's Foundation Series, C.S. Forrester's Hornblower Series, etc.

Now does this copyright protection need to be for life? I doubt it, but it needs to be long enough that the author has a real incentive to continue to try and build his writing career.

My personal thought on the matter is that copyright protection should extend for no more than the life of the author and probably should expire say 10 years after a book has dropped past a specific sales level (I use to think it should expire 10 years after a book was no longer in print, but print on demand and ebooks has essentially made this impractical). Derivative copyright should be extended for a longer period but again not past the life of the author. And then set a minimum of 10 years on any of these copyrights.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Sure, but typically that means you either have to negotiate or go without. The seller gets to set the price. If they set it too high, you don't buy it. If they lower it to your comfort level, then you buy it. If an author and publisher want to let you choose how much to pay, or whether to pay at all, they can do that.

True, but I'm not arguing that it's OK to download just because you don't want to pay. What I'm saying is that not everyone who downloads would have paid. Those are two different things.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

You have no way of knowing whether the person would have bought the work if they had been unable to download it illegally. Therefore it is fair game to regard it as lost income.

You have no way of knowing one way or the other. It's not fair game to assume it's lost income. That's the trap that the RIAA uses when they make up quotes about losing billions because of piracy.

At best you can regard it as a potential sale. Nobody knows how much real income there would have been.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

What incentive would J.K. Rowling have had to write 7 Harry Potter Novels if after book number 3, the first novel entered the public domain and 100 imitators jumped on the band wagon and wrote their own Harry Potter books...

What if some of those imitators wrote better Harry Potter novels than Rowling?

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

You have no way of knowing one way or the other. It's not fair game to assume it's lost income. That's the trap that the RIAA uses when they make up quotes about losing billions because of piracy.

At best you can regard it as a potential sale. Nobody knows how much real income there would have been.

No body knows how much of it is real income lost, but some of it is.

While, I don't their draconian methods, I actually am with the RIAA on this one; downloading and listening, or viewing or reading files that one did not pay for is a clear violation of copyright. As I have stated above, I think copyright law needs to be amended, but that being said, there is still a need for copyright. Each illegally downloaded work, represents a potential lost sale. How many of those would be actual sales? We can never know... but we do know that some of them would have been. As it becomes more acceptable to download, more and more and more people do download and thus the actual loss of sales will also increase. Ultimately creators loose a significant percentage of their income.

Further, it flies in the very face of what copyright is about. Fair use maybe fuzzy, but it is well understood. Downloading copies of a work you did not pay for is not covered under fair use. Reading a work that you downloaded without the author's permission without paying for it is stealing (even if you would never have bought the book). Yes, I know you are going to start spitting out legal crap, but it doesn't change the fact morally that you have used something you have no right to use (kind of like borrowing someone's car without their permission) and thus eroded the potential value of what you have used. It may not meet your narrow definition of stealing, but it does mine.

--
Bill

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

No body knows how much of it is real income lost, but some of it is.

Absolutely, but to say every download is lost income is false.

downloading and listening, or viewing or reading files that one did not pay for is a clear violation of copyright.

Yep, I never said otherwise.

Reading a work that you downloaded without the author's permission without paying for it is stealing (even if you would never have bought the book). Yes, I know you are going to start spitting out legal crap, but it doesn't change the fact morally that you have used something you have no right to use (kind of like borrowing someone's car without their permission)

No, it is nothing like borrowing someone's car without their permission. Yet again you are trying to think of intellectual property in terms of physical property laws. That doesn't work. I don't know if you just don't understand the difference, or if you are intentionally trying to blur the lines between the two.

It may not meet your narrow definition of stealing, but it does mine.

It certainly doesn't meet the legal definition.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

What if some of those imitators wrote better Harry Potter novels than Rowling?

Irrelevant to the question at hand. Its like saying I am a better driver that X, so by rights I should have the right to use X's car. Rowling invented Harry Potter, the law has rewarded her by giving her exclusive rights to the character for some limited term (which currently, unfortunately is 70 years after she is dead.. but that is another thread). Take away that legal protection and Rowling might not have had the incentive to create the work in the first place.

Like any limitation on our freedoms there are pluses and minuses. Considering the vast proliferation of media and inventions beginning in the 19th century and continuing to the current day, I think it is hard to argue that copyright and patent law does not serve its basic purpose; the only question is whether the current laws represent a just balance of the public interests with the incentives provided by the license that copyright provides. I personally think they currently do not, but not because the current laws do not provide the public with benefits, but rather because current length of copyright does not provide the public a real benefit beyond that which a shorter period would provide. However, an overly short copyright period would deny the public of some of the benefits currently enjoyed.

--
Bill

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Irrelevant to the question at hand. Its like saying I am a better driver that X, so by rights I should have the right to use X's car.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Absolutely, but to say every download is lost income is false.

Yep, I never said otherwise.

No, it is nothing like borrowing someone's car without their permission. Yet again you are trying to think of intellectual property in terms of physical property laws. That doesn't work. I don't know if you just don't understand the difference, or if you are intentionally trying to blur the lines between the two.

It certainly doesn't meet the legal definition.

Shaggy,
Let me be clear about something... We are not just talking about the law here, we are talking about what is right and what is not right. Legally downloaing ebooks may not be the same as borrowing someone's car, but ethically there is. There ideally should be an intersection of law and ethics somewhere.

The fact that you even use the term intellectual property implies that there is ownership of that property. If it is possible to own something, then it is possible to steal it. I am not talking about legal definitions. Get your head out of the !@#$ law book and recognize that I am arguing about the ethics behind the laws. Call it copyright infringement if you will, but ethically it is stealing just like if you borrow someone's physical property without their permission. If you are going to claim it is morally different, then explain how it is different (without simply saying that one is physical property and one is intellectual property)? If you refer to the law, I am going to assume you have no moral compass outside the law.

If I spend years developing software code, and someone else breaks into my computer, copies that code and then sells it, that might legally be one set of crimes, but morally it is still stealing, pure and simple. I don't call that person a copyright infringer, I call him a thief pure and simple. If you were a computer programmer or an author you would do the exact same thing.

--
Bill

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Shaggy,
Let me be clear about something...

I think what's clear is that we're both wasting our time.

[GatorDeb]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

OK... I think I might have hinted that I liberate ebooks.. but you want me to go on record with an official poll? My RIAA/MPAA warning horn is going off.

BOb

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