Open Source culture to blame for e-book piracy!

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by cian

Well yes, but so what? I don't see how that argument applies to the point being made by the person you were responding to [tortured sentence, I know], which is why I interpreted it the way I did. Once the work is released to the public, it exists independently of the author. Readers may read something completely different to what was intended to the author. It may be parodied in ways incredibly distasteful to the author, and indeed counter to the reasons he wrote it.

The author (or his heirs) are paid because of the ways the copyright laws are written. If written differently he might not be compensated, or compensated as well, or compensated differently.

I have no problems with authors being compensated for their work, but there's no natural right to this. Its an artificial legal right which was created (at least in the US) because it was felt this would encourage the production of more creative works. An "evil" (monopoly/restriction) would be compensated for by a good (more IP). It was seen as a tradeoff.

Or am I still missing some aspect of your argument?

Yes you are.

My point was not about what happens after the work is created. My point was about why a work may be created in the first place.

Just because an author may seek to profit from his/her creation does not in any way imply the only reason for the creation of the work in the first place was for financial gain. Further, even if that is the sole reason for creating the work in the first place, that is entirely the prerogative of the author and does not give any legal right to the consumer to obtain copyright infringing copies of the work.

To suggest such is wrong. To use such a suggestion as an argument for why file sharing is the same as borrowing from a library is, in my opinion, completely invalid.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

any book published in Australia must be made available to libraries for lending.

Are you sure you're not confusing it with legal deposit, which I mentioned (and of which Australia has a scheme)? They have to provide a certain number of books (for free) to certain libraries in the UK, but they're archives rather than lending libraries.

Also at least here the criteria for legal deposit and the PLR overlap... (ISBN's)

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by cian

But those rules and regulations (at least in the UK and US) came after the existence of libraries was an established fact.

Yet those rules and regulations are in place now. If you do not wish to abide by them then work to change them or invent a time machine and go back in time to when the rules and regulations were not in place.

Again, arguing that file-sharing is the same as borrowing from the library because way back in the day there were no rules or regulations governing libraries doesn't make a lot of sense when taken in light of the fact that today there are rules and regulations in place.

Originally Posted by cian

And in a sense, you're only really arguing that the problem with filesharing on the internet is that its not regulated/legal.

Please provide link or quote to where I said that.

Originally Posted by cian

Well one solution would be simply to make filesharing legal, which would deal with the substance of your objection.

See above regarding whether or not I ever made the objection you claim I am making.

Originally Posted by cian

I'm guessing you wouldn't see that as acceptable, but you haven't really made a case for why you think that.

What you are guessing matters very little to me.

If file-sharing of copyrighted works is deemed to be legal in the future I have no problem with that at all.

In future, if you are going to address me in discussion, respond to my actual points rather than your assumptions and guesses about what you think I may mean by what I have never actually said. Your entire discourse with me in this thread has been based on your misinterpretations, assumptions and guesses about issues I have not even discussed.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Are you sure you're not confusing it with legal deposit, which I mentioned (and of which Australia has a scheme)? They have to provide a certain number of books (for free) to certain libraries in the UK, but they're archives rather than lending libraries.

Also at least here the criteria for legal deposit and the PLR overlap... (ISBN's)

Here in Australia, as far as I'm aware, all books must be available for lending in libraries. That does not mean the author/publisher must provide those books to the library free of charge. It means that they can not legally stop the library from acquirinig the book and lending it to whomever is a member of the library.

As for archival libraries, I believe it is the same as in the UK and USA in that the publisher must provide a certain number of copies to the library for free.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[random50]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No not a solution. The point of copyright and other intellectual property laws is to allow the creator to profit from their work while improving society by making it available.

If you destroy the incentive to create new works there will be none.

That will never, ever happen. There will always be people who create for creation's sake.

The likely consequence is a significant decline in quantity and (probably) quality.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Ok, so the PLR is essentially the right to get recompensed. Though, as I said in my original post........"regardless of compensation"..........

Now, you say there is no actual law relating to libraries ability to buy books. It is my understanding that here in Australia at any rate(and I thought it to be the case in the USA and UK) that any book published in Australia must be made available to libraries for lending.

My understanding is that the PLR was introduced when the right for publishers to deny their books to libraries (other than copyright libraries, of course) was removed. ie, it's compensation for the fact that people are borrowing books from libraries "for free".

[cian]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No not a solution. The point of copyright and other intellectual property laws is to allow the creator to profit from their work while improving society by making it available.

If you destroy the incentive to create new works there will be none.

The argument was that the difference between filesharing sites and libraries is that the latter are regulated/legal. Well if that's the only problem with filesharing sites, then a very simple solution presents itself. If the problem is that filesharing destroys the incentive to create, then that problem applies equally to libraries. Creators could not survive on what they get from libraries.

[cian]

Originally Posted by kennyc

If you destroy the incentive to create new works there will be none.

Oh, and this is an exaggeration. There might be less works, and certain types of work would probably disappear (commercial fiction, airport thrillers, detective fiction). I doubt it would affect the production of poetry much, and given that most literary authors survive on grants, teaching, journalism, etc - it might affect them less than you'd think. A lot of non-fiction would also survive, as the authors largely gain from increased exposure, rather than direct sales. And you'll probably find a surprising number of people writing for the fun of it. Look at the astonishing rise of blogging, for example. This is a golden age of popular science writing, which is free. There is very good travel writing out there - again, totally free.

I'm not necessarily arguing in favor of the destruction of copyright, or total piracy. I just think many of the arguments in favor of the (rapidly disappearing) status quo are much weaker than their proponents think. I also think Cory Doctorow is out of his mind, even though I agree with many of his arguments. At the end of the day I think he's right about one thing. Unless we move to some form of totalitarian state, information wise (and this is actually what the UK and French governments are proposing), amateur piracy is here to stay. So either creators come up with a way to co-opt it and profit from it, or they're doomed. I think moralistic arguments about "entitlement culture" (and incidentally, I buy books) will not be terribly successful, even if they make authors feel better.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cian

Creators could not survive on what they get from libraries.

Book sales to libraries are an extremely important source of income for many authors. There are approximately 3000 public libraries in the UK - if each one buys a nice expensive hardback "library edition" of a book, that's a not insignificant number of sales.

[cian]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Yes you are.

My point was not about what happens after the work is created. My point was about why a work may be created in the first place.

Just because an author may seek to profit from his/her creation does not in any way imply the only reason for the creation of the work in the first place was for financial gain. Further, even if that is the sole reason for creating the work in the first place, that is entirely the prerogative of the author and does not give any legal right to the consumer to obtain copyright infringing copies of the work.

To suggest such is wrong. To use such a suggestion as an argument for why file sharing is the same as borrowing from a library is, in my opinion, completely invalid.

Cheers,
PKFFW

But we don't respect the moral rights of an author. Nobody pays attention to them. We respect the legal rights. I don't think Thomas Merton wrote his books for financial gain, but so long as he didn't give up any of his legal copyrights (such as some people do through copyleft) then you still have to compensate his heirs. His intention is legally irrelevant. To reverse this, Cory Doctorow allows people to copy his work, but I'm fairly sure he seeks to profit from his creations. One could choose to honor that wish, but there's no legal requirement there.

Capitalist societies are indifferent to intent and morality (maybe they should care, but that's a separate argument). All they care about are contractually enforcable rights. So for example, I might improve a piece of common land hoping to profit from it, but I have no way of enforcing that intent. If the law changed so that copyright only lasted for ten years, would the morality change?

What you're talking about is a legal right.

[cian]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

If file-sharing of copyrighted works is deemed to be legal in the future I have no problem with that at all.

So you don't have a moral object to file-sharing, you have a legal objection. Which was the only point I was making. Logically it follows from this that if the law on libraries was changed s.t. they were no longer legal, you'd object to them also. Right?

[cian]

Originally Posted by random50

That will never, ever happen. There will always be people who create for creation's sake.

The likely consequence is a significant decline in quantity and (probably) quality.

I'm not sure that necessarily follows. The quality of the best science blogs is very high indeed, as is the quality of the best financial/economic blogs. And in terms of quantity...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cian

But we don't respect the moral rights of an author. Nobody pays attention to them. We respect the legal rights.

Do you not think that laws (many laws, any way) are simply a legal codification of moral principles? Most people obey the law because they believe it's "right" to do so, I suspect, not because they fear the punishment if they are caught breaking it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you not think that laws (many laws, any way) are simply a legal codification of moral principles? Most people obey the law because they believe it's "right" to do so, I suspect, not because they fear the punishment if they are caught breaking it.

[cian]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Book sales to libraries are an extremely important source of income for many authors. There are approximately 3000 public libraries in the UK - if each one buys a nice expensive hardback "library edition" of a book, that's a not insignificant number of sales.

The kinds of figures I've heard quoted directly by authors (including sales) are pretty small. Not even minimum wage stuff. Its different I guess for best selling authors (be that Amis, or Dan Brown), but then those sales are still going to be insignificant compared to bookshop sales, and they're of course cannibalizing retail sales.