Can free e-books be pirated?

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So, lets assume you missed a giveaway, and are now a book short in a series you can never complete by any official means. A friend, who DID download the book during the giveaway, tells you about the Way Back Machine, or even proposes to just copy the book for your.

Are you going to say: "Nah, thanks man. Missed it; can't take it now. I have to live with it that the series will never be complete."

That seems awfully pretentious.

There is a big difference between stating that a rights holder has the right to withhold the right to download/copy/distribute a book, even one that had been freely available and being happy about it. I will admit that knowing what's right doesn't always equate to doing right.

Bur while I can't claim to be such a person there are people who are both scrupulously law-abiding, sincere and humble .... even when sticking to the speed limit eople

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Distributing the book is not one of the points here.

Even when you BUY 20.000 Leagues under the Sea, or get it for free from a site that made the ebook such as Feedbooks.com, you can't distribute it. Even though the text is out of copyright, you're still not allowed to actually distribute the book made by someone else as far as I know.

I'm talking about if *getting* the book for yourself, trough an old, archived copy of the giveaway page, is piracy or not, after the giveaway has ended and the book becomes unavailable or not free.

Ok. Since you rephrased I shall rephrase.
I would not consider it piracy. That to me would be flat out theft (especially if the author had the book for sale). Also fairly unethical.
So yes, the collection should remain in complete until you can obtain the book legally or buy the paper book and scan it yourself for your personal collection.

Just because one misses a sale does not entitle them to the same price next week.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

You are making a COPY when you scan / format convert.

You are making a copy when you load the book into Calibre. You are then making another copy when you use Calibre to side load that book onto your Reader. You are then making a copy when you make a backup of your Calibre library. You even make a copy when downloading via ADE and using ADE to put a copy on your Reader.

Sorry, but there's no way easy way not to make a copy.

[JSWolf]

It may be breach of copyright to use the Wayback Machine to get the eBook. I don't see it as a moral issue to get it since the eBook is not available for sale and is no longer available for free.

[cfrizz]

He isn't distributing it, he is just getting it for himself to complete his collection, I say it is just fine for him to do so.

[Cinisajoy]

Ok OP, Let me ask you a question.

The local grocery store is giving away pasta this week.
Would you go in next week and tell them that you missed the pasta giveaway last week so they should give you free pasta this week?
Same exact idea.
Or the mustard or relish also on free this week?
Format doesn't matter.

[GtrsRGr8]

It seems like the main question relates to the status of digital books that you can get via The Wayback Machine that, for one reason or another, are not available on the main part of the Internet Archive? That's an interesting question that I had never thought of. It makes for an interesting poll, although even if 100 out of 100 people said it was a certain way, but the law said that it was another, the law always wins--it doesn't matter what we think.

I wish that I could read a definitive answer to that question, although the most that I would be interested in is giving out an URL so someone else could go get the free ebook on their own.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Ok OP, Let me ask you a question.

The local grocery store is giving away pasta this week.
Would you go in next week and tell them that you missed the pasta giveaway last week so they should give you free pasta this week?
Same exact idea.
Or the mustard or relish also on free this week?
Format doesn't matter.

There is a big difference. The pasta can still be gotten by paying for it. In the case of the eBook, it's not available for sale.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a big difference. The pasta can still be gotten by paying for it. In the case of the eBook, it's not available for sale.

These books are given away for something like a week, or a month; after the giveaway, the books either become paid (like €2-3), or go 'out of print'.

That was in the OP. First example can still be bought so yes the pasta applies.
In that case just because he missed the freebie, it does not entitle him to a free copy now.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a big difference. The pasta can still be gotten by paying for it. In the case of the eBook, it's not available for sale.

The scenario laid out in the original post indicates that the book is no longer available to purchase, however the question in the poll states "or on sale", which to me includes books that are actually still available although at a higher price then previously.

[GtrsRGr8]

There is a difference in books that 1) have never been copyrighted, or their copyrights have expired (so the book is in the public domain) and 2) books which have been copyrighted, but are "open access."

With the first kind of book, I don't think that there are any limitations as to what you can do with them. People and companies are all of the time reproducing them, editing and reproducing them, etc. and charging for them many times. All legit.

Open access (there is some ambiguity in the terms, but generally they indicate that the work--ebook, digital recording, whatever--is free), however is very different. All open access books, if I'm not mistaken, have valid licenses. None of those licenses, as far as I am aware, let you do whatever you want to with them--there are always one or more restrictions on how you can use them. I don't know if there is a limit on how many years that the owner can keep the license--it may be like copyrighted books, and after a particular amount of time they become "fair game" for anyone to do with them what they like.

As I mentioned, open access books are licensed under one kind of Creative Commons license or another. The best single-webpage description/explanation of the differences between these licenses is here.

[latepaul]

Yes it's piracy i.e. copyright infringement. You're making a copy of a copyrighted work without the copyright owner's permission (and without any fair use defence).

Getting a copy from the WBM is not "getting it from the official site, even if it's an old version." WBM is not an actual time machine it's a website. A different website from the original official site with a copy of the original pages.

Also "I want it and there's no other way to get it" does not excuse you breaking the law. If you find out the last few copies of an out-of-print, formerly free, paper-only book are in a warehouse down the street are you justified in stealing one? Of course not.

(Before anyone jumps in, I'm not saying copyright infringement and theft are identical, my analogy only relies on the fact that they are both illegal)

Now if what you're really asking is - is this ethical? then I'd say, probably, but it's up to the individual to decide. Really the two questions I'd ask myself are: am I likely to be pursued over this? (No, if anyone is it'll be WBM) and am I OK with it? (probably. But as someone whose job relies on copyright I'd want to be really sure they wasn't a legal way to purchase a copy. And if there wasn't but then later it became available for sale again, I'd feel duty bound to buy a copy.)

[John F]

I wouldn't call it piracy (unless the wayback machine is the pirate).

As far as the rest, it would depend on what is in the small print when the site was archived, but I would guess that it is likely it would be copyright infringement (if the work was still copyrighted).

IANAIPL.

[DiapDealer]

The only thing I'm going to say is: the Way Back Machine can't "sell" anyone a book. As such, they can't be guilty of copyright infringement or piracy as some are suggesting. They're archiving the front-end of the store only. They're not archiving the database back-end or the payment processing back-end, or the ebook delivery back-end of a retailer's point-of-sale system. At some point, a link from the Way Back Machine is taking the user back to the retailer's current website to complete the "sale" of a free book. Which means urls still exist on the "real" site that allow the free sale of a book that was previously—but no longer—free. So those urls could be used with, or without the Way Back Machine being involved.

Thus there is no valid "it's the Way Back Machine's bad" argument.

Given the rareness of the parameters (a book you need to complete a series that you CAN'T get by ANY legal means), I vote "don't care." Anything else is cheating, and falls squarely on the shoulders of the person doing it to own up to it (or to pretend it's justified).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The only thing I'm going to say is: the Way Back Machine can't "sell" anyone a book. As such, they can't be guilty of copyright infringement or piracy as some are suggesting. They're archiving the front-end of the store only. They're not archiving the database back-end or the payment processing back-end, or the ebook delivery back-end of a retailer's point-of-sale system. At some point, a link from the Way Back Machine is taking the user back to the retailer's current website to complete the "sale" of a free book. Which means urls still exist on the "real" site that allow the free sale of a book that was previously—but no longer—free. So those urls could be used with, or without the Way Back Machine being involved.

Thus there is no valid "it's the Way Back Machine's bad" argument.

Interesting.

So you state that the WBM actually *didn't* archive the book, but only the link to it; and the original giveaway site kept the page up, but removed the link *without* removing the actual book. That would mean that I downloaded the book from the *original* website, and only used the WBM to find the actual link.

Thus, indeed, if you knew the link (by putting it in your favorites and then forgot it, for example), you could still download the book from the official site without using the WBM.

That makes matters even more complicated.

Given the rareness of the parameters (a book you need to complete a series that you CAN'T get by ANY legal means), I vote "don't care." Anything else is cheating, and falls squarely on the shoulders of the person doing it to own up to it (or to pretend it's justified).

This is indeed the case: it's a series of anthologies, released every year (except for 2015, where there wasn't one, for some reason), and after the giveaway is over, there's no way to get those books as they're not in any stores.

It's similar to The Best of Tor.com (which I also have), but those books only cost like €2.50 at any store, after their giveaway is over.

So, maybe the poll should have included books that are still able to be bought as a separate choice. My stance on the issue is this:

- If the book can be bought, you should do so, and not get it through the WBM. I wouldn't call that piracy (especially if the WBM only provides the link to the original book on the original site, and not the file itself), but it would be unethical.
- If the book can't be be bought and it's essentially out of print, I wouldn't mind getting it through the WBM, either using a link, or even a file archived there (if it does that).