I have found numerous pirated ebooks for free online. Please tell me the benefits of

[barryem]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Now you are disapproving of wealthy people? All wealthy people are wealthy by choice, not by how much income they have availlable. Same with poor people, most poor people are poor by choice. The only difference between a poor and a wealthy person is the ability of the wealthy to stay within their means when it comes to spending money. So I highly doubt that a wealthy person would download pirate copies even though they would and could have easily paid for them. The decision is a moral choice, not a financial choice.

I'm retired, living entirely on Social Security, and I spend my money very carefully. I'm way down there below the poverty line. I could double my income and still be below the poverty line. And yet, most months, unless I have medical bills, I end up with $50 to $100 left over, even after adding a bit to my meager savings. So am I poor or am I wealthy?

Honestly I don't care. I'm enjoying my retirement and getting to live the way I want to and, all in all, it's been the best part of my life.

I buy most of my books. The exceptions are those very few books that aren't available to buy in ebook from legitimate sources. Usually I'll just wait because I have so many books waiting to be read that there's no reason to rush. Sometimes, though, I'll get impatient and get one through other sources, which shall be nameless, simply because it's the only digital source I can find.

Interestingly, the two books I did that with last year became available as ebooks before I got a chance to read them so I bought them. My evil intentions were foiled!

Over the years I've known quite a few pirates and I can tell you for sure that they don't pirate books because they can't afford to buy them. Most think of books in kind of the same way someone might think of oranges while walking through an orchard: they're there to be plucked so they pluck them. I'm sure there are probably those who do download pirated books because they can't afford them but none of the people I've known were in that situation. They downloaded books and music illegally because they could. I think piracy is much more a state of mind than a thing of need.

The vast majority of people I know who read ebooks or listen to digital music pay for it. But not all.

Barry

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Nice point.

In fact I actually heard a shopkeeper complaining that a new shop which had opened up nearby was "'stealing' his trade and customers". I and other customers in the area did not agree with his description of the situation.

Yes, but arguably, that's free market competition, in a world in which, presumably, both parties are dealing from a similar--not identical--base. Each one pays rent, pays their suppliers, their employees, and they compete upon service and price. Right? It's the Tao of Capitalism

When the scanner-borrower took his actions, he borrowed (freely or cheaply) assets for which the Librarian had paid or contracted. He borrowed that asset as a borrower, not a future competitor. He then turned around, used his own sweat equity to make copies of the books, and deploys those (illegally-made) copies against the very business from which he "borrowed" them. He doesn't have the same set-up costs, nor the same ongoing costs, because he's now leasing digital copies. It isn't the same thing.

Everyone here is familiar with the concept of "damages" in law. If you drive drunk, or even sober, but for whatever reason, you are responsible for the demolition of someone else's car, and the physical injury to the driver, you've damaged that person.

This is probably, due to the endless arguments about copyright infringement NOT being theft, the best way to think about infringement. Sure--you didn't "steal" the physical book, no; but if you copied it sans payment, and enjoyed it, you got that without paying for it. You damaged the publisher and the author because they were deprived of your payment therefor. And as I said previously, if you're going to smugly claim that you would never have bought the book, fine, great--then, like everything else in the world that you can't afford, you don't get to own it or read it. Why is that hard to fathom?

If you can't afford a given object, you either save up until you can, or you just don't own it. That seems simple enough. Downloading the book for free is nothing more than having your cake and eating it, too. You don't pay for it, but you get to enjoy it anyway--whilst damaging the people who invested the time and money to create it by not paying the relative pittance they charge for the privilege.

(I actually had one guy claim that he read "too much" to be able to afford his habit. When I asked him why he couldn't use the library to feed his habit, of course, his response was it was too much like work to go ALL the way to the library, check out books, etc. Natch, ripping off the authors and publishers while ranting about "stickin' it to the man" was his much better solution. /sarcasm.)

So, fine--don't call it theft. Call it damages--but the bottom line is the same. You don't pay for something you're using, you're enjoying, and NOT paying the people who created it. Whilst a rose by any other name smells as sweet, a theft by any other name still doesn't pay the creators, and it stinks just as badly.

Hitch

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by Hitch

So, fine--don't call it theft. Call it damages--but the bottom line is the same. You don't pay for something you're using, you're enjoying, and NOT paying the people who created it. Whilst a rose by any other name smells as sweet, a theft by any other name still doesn't pay the creators, and it stinks just as badly.

This. Digital piracy might not be theft, legally and semantically. But it sure seems to me to be on an absolutely equivalent moral level - so much so that if people call it theft, it's such a narrow difference that I wouldn't argue (unless we're in a court of law where such meanings matter).

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Hitch

So, fine--don't call it theft. Call it damages--but the bottom line is the same. You don't pay for something you're using, you're enjoying, and NOT paying the people who created it. Whilst a rose by any other name smells as sweet, a theft by any other name still doesn't pay the creators, and it stinks just as badly.

Hitch

This

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Hitch

So, fine--don't call it theft. Call it damages--but the bottom line is the same. You don't pay for something you're using, you're enjoying, and NOT paying the people who created it. Whilst a rose by any other name smells as sweet, a theft by any other name still doesn't pay the creators, and it stinks just as badly.

I agree with you for the most part. I'm not suggesting that it's okay to download or share pirated ebooks. It's not, for the reasons you've said and for other reasons as well. I just think that in an intelligent discussion we should call things by their right names or we really don't have a very intelligent discussion. There are a lot of issues in US society that are so emotional that we never get anywhere with them because people can't get their emotions out of the way. Gun control is one. Abortion is another. No matter which side of any of these issues we're on it's nearly impossible to find a calm and reasoned discussion about them. As a result nothing gets done.

What I'm asking for is the use of accurate terms instead of emotionally packed terms. This is important stuff.

Copyright used to be easy. If you scanned a paper book and printed off copies of it that was obviously illegal. Now with books that are so easily copied society has had to pass new laws to deal with copyright and that's a very touchy and difficult thing to get right. We don't have it nearly right yet. What we need is reasonable discussion about the ins and outs of it so we can, as a society, decide what compromises make sense. Until we can talk calmly about it we can't reach any conclusions.

We all agree, I think, that piracy is wrong. Let's talk about that in an intelligent and unemotional way.

And I didn't mention abortion or gun control to stir feelings. This isn't a discussion of those topics and I avoided giving any opinion on either. I mentioned them because they're such obvious examples of issues we can't seem to deal with.

If you'd like me to shut up on this issue I will. Simply call piracy theft again in a post following this one and I'll give up.

Barry

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes, print books can be resold . . . .

Why concede that, Hitch?

If there's a pile of twelve books of the same title at a bookstore, and you take one (I hope by paying, but maybe not), that's likely to mean one less book pulped.

I need to make one qualification. Right now, because of a temporary paper book shortage, this may not be true. But, normally, the last book in the pile is liable to be pulped.

Stealing a physical book often helps the commercial book industry, taken as a whole, by saving it the cost of pulping. Plus, I'm sure that some people shoplift paper books, and subsequently give them five star Amazon reviews that help sales. I'm not saying this to justify shoplifting, but to point out that the same kind of excuses you sometimes hear for piracy also apply to stealing physical books.

I don't want people to go to jail, or face a life-altering fine, for the first offense, or probably even the second offense, of appropriating a book without paying. But I fail to see why there's some moral difference between shoplifting and piracy.

[Thasaidon]

Hitch

I was making a slightly different point. This was that the shopkeeper concerned thought the competition was "stealing" his customers and trade". He considered the locals and their purchasing power his property hence his trying to demonise the opposition.

Such attitudes and such name calling and mislabelling are far from uncommon.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

But I fail to see why there's some moral difference between shoplifting and piracy.

I agree that they're morally equivalent. They're just not the same thing. Just like fraud isn't the same thing as shoplifting but they're equally immoral.

Barry

[darryl]

Originally Posted by barryem

I agree that they're morally equivalent. They're just not the same thing. Just like fraud isn't the same thing as shoplifting but they're equally immoral.

Barry

True to the extent that they are not the same thing. But a blanket statement of moral equivalence is going way too far. Sometimes copyright infringement is ethically far worse. Some cases are arguably morally equivalent. And sometimes ....

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Why concede that, Hitch?

You are indeed correct, Steve--I was simply conceding that there is "value" to (most) print copies that is in addition to the value of the license (for reading the book) that constitutes the "ownership" of the eBook. I was not really making a distinction between shoplifting and piracy; in fact, I was trying to make the point that all in, they are not so different by trying to be accurate, and yet, address the damages done to the publishers in the case of the latter. That's all.

<snippage>
Stealing a physical book often helps the commercial book industry, taken as a whole, by saving it the cost of pulping. Plus, I'm sure that some people shoplift paper books, and subsequently give them five star Amazon reviews that help sales. I'm not saying this to justify shoplifting, but to point out that the same kind of excuses you sometimes hear for piracy also apply to stealing physical books.

I don't want people to go to jail, or face a life-altering fine, for the first offense, or probably even the second offense, of appropriating a book without paying. But I fail to see why there's some moral difference between shoplifting and piracy.

I don't really think that there is, but...I don't think my take on these things is a secret. :-)


Hitch

[hildea]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

All wealthy people are wealthy by choice, not by how much income they have availlable. Same with poor people, most poor people are poor by choice. The only difference between a poor and a wealthy person is the ability of the wealthy to stay within their means when it comes to spending money.

I strongly disagree with this, but it's off topic for this thread. Would you care to discuss it in the Politics and religion subforum? (Info about how to join it here.)

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by hildea

I strongly disagree with this, but it's off topic for this thread. Would you care to discuss it in the Politics and religion subforum? (Info about how to join it here.)

Sure go ahead, reply to it by starting a new thread. And post the link here (or send me a PM).

[hildea]

Done: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=3791659

[Greg Anos]

I have to ask - who is "stealing" from who?

Now note, this is a US centric issue, but also affects some other countries to a lesser extent.

Copyright is not property. Never has been. It is a limited monopoly for a set term.

And therein lies the rub. Copyright is a contract, between the creator and society (as represented by their government).

Can you unilaterally change the terms of a contract to favor you over the other party? Would you be happy if, say, a mortgage company decided they like the profits from your mortgage, and extended the payments for another 100 years, before clearing the mortgage?

Because, in the US, that is what has been happening.

From 1909 until 1976 (1978, if you prefer) the maximum term for a copyright was 56 years - maximum.

Everybody knew the term, and knew that their copyright would go away after 56 years. The object would go into public domain, free for anybody to use and/or copy. Nobody held a gun to their heads saying "create on these terms or die". Strictly voluntary.

So any extension of copyright beyond the terms in force at the time of creation, is every bit as much "theft" from the public as "pirating" a item under copyright is, every bit as much as if a bank unilaterally extended you mortgage to get more money from you.

So in the US, every copyrighted item created in the US should have been made PD from (currently) 1961, soon to be 1962, on back. And every dollar acquired from items that otherwise would have been in PD is literal theft of the public's money.

The same for extending Berne lengths from Life +50 to Life + 70. Those 20 years are theft from the public.

So remember, in copyright morality, the "theft" goes both ways.. .

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

So remember, in copyright morality, the "theft" goes both ways.. .

Goodness me. We agree again. It must be Christmas.