Torrents and torrents..

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by tompe

Also if it is trivial and no work involved to give ftp access to all the books for example if somebody asks for it then not doing it seems to me to be a restriction in other ethical systems also.

The amount of work is irrelevant: It is up to the person who uploads the book to decide how they are going to provide it. The only ethical issue I see here is the question of who controls the uploaders' actions. I don't see the equivalence between not making something easier for someone else and forcing one's will on another.

MobileRead is not restricting what downloaders do, merely limiting how they do it. That's very different ethically than forcing MobileRead to provide bulk downloads.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The amount of work is irrelevant: It is up to the person who uploads the book to decide how they are going to provide it. The only ethical issue I see here is the question of who controls the uploaders' actions. I don't see the equivalence between not making something easier for someone else and forcing one's will on another.

MobileRead is not restricting what downloaders do, merely limiting how they do it. That's very different ethically than forcing MobileRead to provide bulk downloads.

Those two phrases basically mean the same thing.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Don't annoy the artists you'd like to go on producing works for you.

I'd be perfectly happy if all uploaders who have delusions of ownership over public domain works never prepared and made available a single eBook again.

It's better to have genuinely public domain works, whose re-users are not under threat from some lawsuit-happy uploader.

- Ahi

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

For starters, not all books on MobileRead are PD in all countries: some are PD in Canada, but not the US, and vice versa.

Great, and the default UI shows this how?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Great, and the default UI shows this how?

Thus:

This work is in the Canadian public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. It may still be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

ie, it's the user's responsibility to check.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by ahi

Those two phrases basically mean the same thing.

- Ahi

Not in this case:

If you want to download all the books available on MobileRead you can. No one is preventing any user from downloading every book on the site. There is no restriction on how many or which books one can download. (Monitoring whether a given book is in the public domain in one's own country is the responsibility of the user.)

All that the current system is doing is saying that if someone wants to download every book they have to do it individually. This is completely within the rights of the people who upload the books.

Being in the public domain does not mean that someone else has to do what you want with a title: it means no one can stop you from doing what you want with it once you've got it.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thus:

ie, it's the user's responsibility to check.

Quite. I don't feel that it's safely (in a legal sense) useable for me, quite apart from the UI issues. Finding out copyright dates, especially for American-published books with no UK release, is a nightmare.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Getting back to the topic...
Baen CD torrents.
Gutenberg torrents.

Both of these are 100% legal to seed (I am doing so right now for the all Baen CD's). You may not charge for the Baen CD in any way, per the publisher.
Torrents are a great way to distribute so that no one needs a Fat Internet Pipe to serve. Each seeder provides a Trickle that amounts to a Torrent of data at the down load site. Many well seeded Torrents will saturate my download capacity
My personal rule is to seed 150% or more.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Not in this case:

If you want to download all the books available on MobileRead you can. No one is preventing any user from downloading every book on the site. There is no restriction on how many or which books one can download. (Monitoring whether a given book is in the public domain in one's own country is the responsibility of the user.)

All that the current system is doing is saying that if someone wants to download every book they have to do it individually. This is completely within the rights of the people who upload the books.

Being in the public domain does not mean that someone else has to do what you want with a title: it means no one can stop you from doing what you want with it once you've got it.

You can download all the books by use of the rather poor eBook search system sported by the forum. (A system acknowledged as subpar by Mobileread staff themselves.)

But you cannot download all of them at once via a convenient protocol meant for sharing/distributing large number of files.

Your decision to consider the first a "what" and the second a "how" is nothing if not utterly and completely arbitrary.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

All that the current system is doing is saying that if someone wants to download every book they have to do it individually. This is completely within the rights of the people who upload the books.

Being in the public domain does not mean that someone else has to do what you want with a title: it means no one can stop you from doing what you want with it once you've got it.

And this still has nothing to do with anything. Nobody is talking about forcing anyone to do anything.

The point was that torrents would be a convenient way to download books from Mobileread and providing them would be an added courtesy toward mobileread members and eBook readers at large.

Not providing it is neither a crime nor a sin... but it certainly also isn't a virtue.

- Ahi

[fugazied]

You could preface a torrent with similar warnings, for example PD only in the US could be added to a text file inside the zip and to the description page at piratebay/mininova wherever you add the tracker.

Bittorrent gets a bad rap because it is often used to obtain illegal material, but the technology is great for distributing large files like linux ISOs and even used for downloading patches in games like World of Warcraft. The power of bittorrent comes in when there isn't a third party willing to host material, for example what happens if project gutenberg goes broke or gets hacked. Multiple torrents of PD material shared over the internet makes it practically impossible to 'lose' material as long as people seed it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I am very grateful to the Uploaders here, whether I read what they have contributed or not.

As, I am sure, is most everyone else. The point of this thread has nothing to do with whether or not anyone is grateful. That was just a red herring thrown out there by some.

[stustaff]

I just read this whole thing in one go! phew

So im going to add my thoughts as a Downloader of probably 20 books from MR.

Firstly Must 'Bulk' mean all?

I downloaded all of the western books by Max Brand and Zane West on a recomendation and really enjoyed it and am grateful for both the uploader and MR for making them available.

Am I allowed to give feedback on how that worked for me?

Well I hope so and I amgoing to.. I hope its taken in the manner its meant which is that of helpful suggestions to make the site even better.

Downloading 15 or so books by using the current system was to be frank a nightmare compared to how much easier it could be.

for each book I had to -
Click on the books title in the initially filtered list
scroll down to teh file
click on the file
click on 'save file'
click ok to confirm location
press back(to get to title list)

Repeat x 15

If a Western Epub torrent File existed the process would have been
Search for western EPUB torrent
click download
click on 'open with'(selected torrent software)
press 'ok'
Drag Folders of Brand and Grey to sony reader

Repeat x 0

So its pretty much impossible to argue that a torrent DL ability wouldnt make downloading better for the end user.

It would also reduce the bandwith costs for MR, I have still visited the site so the 'advertising' still works for MR.

The current situation means that the hard work of uploaders will be unseen by me because Downloading from here is harder than getting a (no doubt poorer quality) torrent file elsewhere.

I can only see negatives in this for MR and no positives of the current situation set up.


Please dont take this as an attack or being Negative I love MR the help in the forums and the books I have read.

But at the moment its like someone telling me they have made a really good film that I can waych for free however its not on in my town(even though it would be free for them to show it in my town) so Id have to go twice as far to see it... You know what Im staying hoime and watching a steven segal movie. sorry

[ahi]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I just read this whole thing in one go! phew

So im going to add my thoughts as a Downloader of probably 20 books from MR.

Firstly Must 'Bulk' mean all?

I downloaded all of the western books by Max Brand and Zane West on a recomendation and really enjoyed it and am grateful for both the uploader and MR for making them available.

Am I allowed to give feedback on how that worked for me?

Well I hope so and I amgoing to.. I hope its taken in the manner its meant which is that of helpful suggestions to make the site even better.

Downloading 15 or so books by using the current system was to be frank a nightmare compared to how much easier it could be.

for each book I had to -
Click on the books title in the initially filtered list
scroll down to teh file
click on the file
click on 'save file'
click ok to confirm location
press back(to get to title list)

Repeat x 15

If a Western Epub torrent File existed the process would have been
Search for western EPUB torrent
click download
click on 'open with'(selected torrent software)
press 'ok'
Drag Folders of Brand and Grey to sony reader

Repeat x 0

So its pretty much impossible to argue that a torrent DL ability wouldnt make downloading better for the end user.

It would also reduce the bandwith costs for MR, I have still visited the site so the 'advertising' still works for MR.

The current situation means that the hard work of uploaders will be unseen by me because Downloading from here is harder than getting a (no doubt poorer quality) torrent file elsewhere.

I can only see negatives in this for MR and no positives of the current situation set up.


Please dont take this as an attack or being Negative I love MR the help in the forums and the books I have read.

But at the moment its like someone telling me they have made a really good film that I can waych for free however its not on in my town(even though it would be free for them to show it in my town) so Id have to go twice as far to see it... You know what Im staying hoime and watching a steven segal movie. sorry

Your sort of frank and sensible talk has no place in a thread like this.

Of course what you are describing would make perfect sense--and, as MR staff already stated, they will in no way facilitate it happening.

One of us, however, is theoretically free to do so. Albeit I'd be careful because I'm all but certain there are at least a few uploaders who mistakenly assume that they have some sort of monopoly right on determining what happens with the public domain eBooks they prepared.

- Ahi

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by stustaff

Well I hope so and I amgoing to.. I hope its taken in the manner its meant which is that of helpful suggestions to make the site even better.

I'm fairly sure that's the manner that all of these suggestions have been given in.