Sherman Alexie still hates ebooks

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

I don't need to prove anything to you...

Thought so.

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

you following me around in threads and baiting me is tiring.

Geez lady, calm down. There's only one other thread where our paths have crossed, to the best of my knowledge. And in this one it is you who first answered my post, not the other way around - so who's following whom? Just ignore my posts and I'll ignore yours, how's that for a deal? I'm sure I'll get by somehow, without the sparkling wit and razor-sharp logic of your conversation.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Yeah yeah........I know what affirmative action is trying to correct. I was there for the beginning. Such pretty words.

Trouble is, in real life it doesn't work that way. The wrong people get hired many times because employers know if they don't hire them.......the dreaded "discrimination" card will be played.

I've never understood how people can't understand that you can't build a truly great society without going after the best and brightest......regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation or gender....and thats the truth!

So why wasn't that made law instead?

Affirmative action law/policies doesn't apply to private business, and it only applies to a decreasing number of government entities. It's been illegal in California state government and education for over a decade.

And the "discrimination card" can be "played" whether affirmative action is in use or not.

Originally Posted by delphidb96

"White"? That's cancelled out by the 'gimme-a-job-or-access-to-higher-education-because-I'm-not-white' programs.

See above re affirmative action in private employment. And if you really believe a mere preference in education (that's going away rapidly, see, e.g., California) is enough to even the playing field for someone who's survived an inner-city public school district, you're seriously kidding yourself.

"Male"? Oh right. You mean the 'privilege' of being told you're not hireable because the company can't get the tax breaks they can by hiring a *female*, *lesbian*, *Wiccan*.

Tax breaks for hiring a woman? Of a minority religion? Who's gay? I don't know how anyone who told you that managed to keep a straight face, but it's pure fantasy. There are no such "tax breaks."

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Tax breaks for hiring a woman? Of a minority religion? Who's gay? I don't know how anyone who told you that managed to keep a straight face, but it's pure fantasy. There are no such "tax breaks."

actually there are tax breaks for ensuring that minorities are on certain jobs, especially government contracts.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

actually there are tax breaks for ensuring that minorities are on certain jobs, especially government contracts.

Those are a tiny percentage of the jobs available in the US, and such breaks certainly don't apply to women, lesbians, or wiccans, for heaven's sake.

[kindlekitten]

they do to women in certain jobs

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

if your are truly interested, ask for the best title for me to refer you to. for me to expound a litany of the grievances on the various reservations is not in the best interest of the this particular thread

I'd be interested in a couple of good titles. (Um, do they exist as DRM-free ebooks?)

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

And here is where the reality of computing defies the very possibility of adhering to such writing of these laws. It's impossible to even read an eBook without making at least one copy. That's one copy beyond the one you paid for. The fact that the data in that eBook is copied over the internet hundreds of times–literally–before it reaches your device or computer. The fact that simply writing data that comes through your network adapter (of every variety) to the hard drive or other storage devices involves making 3 copies or more, potentially many more depending on how poorly the software involved was written.

I am replying to this because I simply do not like my words being twisted to mean something they don't. Once again, I have highlighted a key point. And this response seems to be deliberately ignoring it. Just as it is deliberately ignoring the gist of what I was saying.

My reply is simply... Sheesh.

For example, the reading of the device bus that is mapped to memory and writing to real memory to process and buffer before then reading from the buffer to copy to the bus for the drive which will then instruct the drive to read from that bus buffer and write into the drive's own internal queue before eventually reading and writing to the real disk is only a minimum of actions for getting a file.

By the time you've received an eBook it's been "copied" hundreds of times.

Then you have to do a lot of all of that again to read that copy. Copy copy copy. That is what you do when you access data in a computer. You copy it over and over until eventually it's interpreted and somehow displayed. In the oldy days of simple terminals, even displaying the simplest possible text involved copying that text from system memory to the video bios, which likely had custom BUS interfaces between it too.

So to sit and vaguely refer to copyright law as written in a digital context is to be as ignorant of the technology and its realities as those who originally wrote the law. Except they didn't use this technology then, even though it largely existed when most modern copyright law was penned, and so they had a realistic excuse to make these mistakes.

Today, these mistakes are being invoked at convenience for rights-holders to take MORE rights than they were ever meant to be granted under the spirit of the original laws. To blindly obey law by the letter is to fail your civic duty of disobedience in the face of irrational and unreasonable law.

I think I'd be failing in my civic duty by not pointing out the unreasonableness of this argument. Packets, blocks, inodes all count as copies. Therefore copyright law is unjust! Seriously!

Sheesh. (I know, I already said that!)

I appreciate the protection copyright levies me as a rights holder. I am protected in a variety of ways. And when pointing to the injustices of Copyright, don't forget to recognize the justices. Ever wonder why there's no Forrest Gump 2? Because the author held the rights to the character, and when the large evil corporation tried to rip him off, he withheld permission for a second film. Not possible without the copyright law.

I've already said I am not for the RIAA suing people. And earlier in this thread, I said of Alexie himself that he should not throw out the technology (eReaders) because of the problems it raises. So, too, I will say the same about the copyright law. It may not be perfect, but it is not something we should do away with entirely because it has failings. Address those failings, sure. But to throw the whole law out would be foolish... a massive failure of us doing our civic duty.

-Pie

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I appreciate the protection copyright levies me as a rights holder. I am protected in a variety of ways. And when pointing to the injustices of Copyright, don't forget to recognize the justices. Ever wonder why there's no Forrest Gump 2? Because the author held the rights to the character, and when the large evil corporation tried to rip him off, he withheld permission for a second film. Not possible without the copyright law.

-Pie

That you listing as a benefit? Why just because you named corporation large and evil?
This is exactly the biggest evil of copyright, you cannot share culture. I am not talking about sharing books, I am talking about sharing ideas. Right or wrong you think it is. Do you think the collective we are better or worse without Forest Gump 2?
Of course it could've been like Speed 2 and then we are better off

So author got paid for the book he wrote (Gump 1) plus some hefty sum for movie, now you think it is awesome that he tried to hold movie company over the barrel over the book he never wrote i.e. no work that he performed. And you name the company big and evil?

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

No, it's not a loss of a sale. Period.

Sorry, I should have said loss of income for the author rather than a lost sale of a new book even if the two things are effectively the same thing, apparently I was unclear.

[ggareau]

@EatingPie (I'm not going to quote because this is just meant in general)

Copyright is not useless. It gives the creator legal control over someone else making money off of their work. Copyright infringement for the purpose of resale or commercial gain is obviously theft and I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

However, piracy is a different issue altogether (I'm referring to "downloading stuff off of the internet here, not bootlegging). There is no commercial gain. Trying to make the two issues the same (or even similar) by runaway analogies makes no sense. There is no "civic duty" involved. There is no clear-cut meaning of what "copying" really means in digital terms. There is no proof of harm, though there is some evidence of help.

The reason people are ignoring the gist of your statements regarding theft is that a) it's a runaway analogy, turning rhetoric into melodrama, and b) there are no clear-cut definitions regarding these things as you seem to think there are. You're making a moral statement about a legal article which does not apply to the issue at hand.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by dmikov

That you listing as a benefit? Why just because you named corporation large and evil?
This is exactly the biggest evil of copyright, you cannot share culture. I am not talking about sharing books, I am talking about sharing ideas. Right or wrong you think it is. Do you think the collective we are better or worse without Forest Gump 2?
Of course it could've been like Speed 2 and then we are better off

So author got paid for the book he wrote (Gump 1) plus some hefty sum for movie, now you think it is awesome that he tried to hold movie company over the barrel over the book he never wrote i.e. no work that he performed. And you name the company big and evil?

Once again, not at all understanding what I'm saying, and changing my meaning.

The point was that the author was not payed fairly for the film -- the company tried to pay him nothing at all. So he withheld rights for the second film.

This is not just about cultural gain, it is also about fair compensation for authors. Copyright law protects authors so they can be fairly compensated.

-Pie

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by ggareau

@EatingPie (I'm not going to quote because this is just meant in general)

Copyright is not useless. It gives the creator legal control over someone else making money off of their work. Copyright infringement for the purpose of resale or commercial gain is obviously theft and I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

I certainly agree that it's theft.

But as you can see from the above posts, at least one person thinks that theft of intellectual property for their own gain is okay.

However, piracy is a different issue altogether (I'm referring to "downloading stuff off of the internet here, not bootlegging). There is no commercial gain. Trying to make the two issues the same (or even similar) by runaway analogies makes no sense. There is no "civic duty" involved. There is no clear-cut meaning of what "copying" really means in digital terms. There is no proof of harm, though there is some evidence of help.

Just to be clear, I did not bring this "civic duty" nonsense into the discussion. Nor am I making "runaway analogies." I have made direct analogies and cited the law in place.

Your distinction between piracy and bootlegging in terms of what makes one right and the other wrong is artificial. You claim that only difference is that one makes money off someone else's work. However, in both cases, the author lost money. Just a question of how much money.

I disagree that there is no clearcut definition of copying. A full, complete, usable copy. That is what has always been discussed. And it's something which a router, packet, or inode does not provide you with. As if we didn't understand the term in the first place. Sheesh.

The reason people are ignoring the gist of your statements regarding theft is that a) it's a runaway analogy, turning rhetoric into melodrama, and b) there are no clear-cut definitions regarding these things as you seem to think there are. You're making a moral statement about a legal article which does not apply to the issue at hand.

Show me exactly how and why my statements are "runaway analogy." Comparing theft to theft, crime to crime certainly are proper analogies, and nothing "runaway" about them at all, your qualifier is just rhetorical nonsense.

Show me, similarly, how a "copy" is not clearly defined, or understood in the context of my first post on the matter. Claiming a packet is a copy is just a smoke screen, a way to misdirect the discussion. (Ironic that I am accused of "runaway analogies" and "melodrama" by the person who wanted to argue that packets are actual copies!) It was completely clear what I meant.

And exactly how does the copyright law not apply to the issue at hand?

Sheesh. Seriously. Sheesh.

-Pie

[ggareau]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I certainly agree that it's theft.

But as you can see from the above posts, at least one person thinks that theft of intellectual property for their own gain is okay.

For someone who's claiming to be misunderstood, I think it's you who misunderstands - there is no guarantee of theft going on. If I read a book from a library and remember all of its ideas an intricacies (or god forbid I have a photographic memory and can recite long passages from memory) am I stealing IP? If you cannot show harm, you cannot posit theft. If you read a book at the library (or better yet, let's say you read a book at the bookstore without paying for it) are you gaining something? Sure. Are you stealing? No.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

Just to be clear, I did not bring this "civic duty" nonsense into the discussion. Nor am I making "runaway analogies." I have made direct analogies and cited the law in place.

Your distinction between piracy and bootlegging in terms of what makes one right and the other wrong is artificial. You claim that only difference is that one makes money off someone else's work. However, in both cases, the author lost money. Just a question of how much money.

I disagree that there is no clearcut definition of copying. A full, complete, usable copy. That is what has always been discussed. And it's something which a router, packet, or inode does not provide you with. As if we didn't understand the term in the first place. Sheesh.

Show me exactly how and why my statements are "runaway analogy." Comparing theft to theft, crime to crime certainly are proper analogies, and nothing "runaway" about them at all, your qualifier is just rhetorical nonsense.

Show me, similarly, how a "copy" is not clearly defined, or understood in the context of my first post on the matter. Claiming a packet is a copy is just a smoke screen, a way to misdirect the discussion. (Ironic that I am accused of "runaway analogies" and "melodrama" by the person who wanted to argue that packets are actual copies!) It was completely clear what I meant.

And exactly how does the copyright law not apply to the issue at hand?

Sheesh. Seriously. Sheesh.

-Pie

It's a runaway analogy because you're comparing something that you cannot prove harm or gain to someone being murdered. I think that's a pretty big difference. The author hasn't lost money. Nobody has taken money out of the author's pocket. The author may have lost a sale, but you cannot guarantee that people who will download a book for their own use would have purchased the book otherwise. In fact, you cannot prove that any sales are lost at all.

And I'm not making declarations of right and wrong - I'm saying that you cannot compare the two.

Regarding copies, by the definition you've just stated I never have a copy of any file on my computer because I cannot have a "full, complete, usable copy" without also having the software that knows what that is, and OS to back it, and the hardware to back that. If you're talking about the data itself, well, if I copy the book from my computer to my ebook reader I'm actually creating 2 copies - one in RAM, and one on the reader. Then, when I read the book on my reader, I'm creating yet another copy. Face it. you're not talking about illegal copying - you're talking about limiting or eliminating distribution - which is not the same thing.

You're not comparing theft to theft because you cannot guarantee that theft is taking place. You're not comparing crime to crime because you cannot guarantee crime is taking place. You can, however, guarantee that where bootlegging is concerned, and that's why nobody will argue that bootlegging isn't theft.

Also, where did I say anything about packets? Irony? Not so much.

My point is that while everything is copyrighted the same way, an ebook and a paper book have drastically different allowances on what is ok. It is impossible to sell an ebook without allowing infinite copies (if you want to take the data vs your self-contained thing which isn't possible itself). That's why your argument is a moral one. You're not even arguing against copying (though you insist that you are), you're arguing against distribution. Distributing a copy which you made is illegal. Sure. However, downloading a copy that someone else has made without redistributing it is not (quite explicitly so in Canada, actually). The reason for that is that you are not decreasing supply, you are not costing the artist/producer/etc extra money, you are not harming anyone, though you can, obviously, help by buying a real copy of the book (or that author's other works).

Copyright does not apply here. Not outside of the US at the very least (and even then, I'm fairly certain that the DMCA doesn't so much forbid this as forbids circumventing DRM. If you download something off of the internet that has already had the DRM stripped, you're not actually breaking any copyright laws as far as I can tell).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ggareau

For someone who's claiming to be misunderstood, I think it's you who misunderstands - there is no guarantee of theft going on. If I read a book from a library and remember all of its ideas an intricacies (or god forbid I have a photographic memory and can recite long passages from memory) am I stealing IP? If you cannot show harm, you cannot posit theft. If you read a book at the library (or better yet, let's say you read a book at the bookstore without paying for it) are you gaining something? Sure. Are you stealing? No.


....

If it it for your own personal use then there is no issue. If you make a copy for yourself from and unauthorized source or without permission then yes you are a thief. We've been through this thoroughly over in another copyright thread so I'm not going to get into it here which was/is not the focus of this thread but my stand is that:

If you take something of mine without my permission, you are a thief.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'd be interested in a couple of good titles. (Um, do they exist as DRM-free ebooks?)

Silko, Ceremonies

not an ebook, sorry

harjo, reinventing the enemys language a wonderful anthology, also not an ebook

the man made of words, by momaday

http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Who-Watc...ef=pd_sim_b_93 woman who watches over the world

these are a starting point. there are many tribes with issues unique to the tribe in addition to the shared problems