Confessions of a Book Pirate

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well then that's not it either, cause the owner of the copyright is definitely harmed when his property is taken without permission.

How? And no, you can't count ghost sales, or might-have-bought, or maybe-would-have-bought or any of those other nonsensical arguments.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

How? And no, you can't count ghost sales, or might-have-bought, or maybe-would-have-bought or any of those other nonsensical arguments.

Mental anguish.

Rights have been abused.

Quite simple if you think about it.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Mental anguish.

Rights have been abused.

Quite simple if you think about it.

Again, I ask 'how?' How can the author possibly know, or track what is shared, or even begin to know what happens after his work is out there in the domain of ideas? An author can't do that with physical books that are passed along through book-sharing clubs or from friend to family to friend. A great swathe of the books I had on my shelves were never paid for, or were bought second hand, the author saw nothing from those sales or the books I was given, and would never have been aware of the fact I wasn't paying him.

EDIT: and in any case, all my arguments for freedom and independence for authors and treating an audience as an equal, and adult partner in the creative relationship will probably die tomorrow with Apple's announcement. Those who wanted the book world controlled, and every file being a purchase and all that rot to protect 'the author' will, in all likelihood, have their way come tomorrow.

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well then that's not it either, cause the owner of the copyright is definitely harmed when his property is taken without permission.

Well, once again we would have to define what the "harm" could be in this regard (copy of ebook). If we assume that the "thief" - without the possibility to commit the theft - would buy the content in question for sure, then there would be some kind of harm possible: at least a lost sale for the property owner. Without this assumption, there is no harm measurable imho. I guess that this discussion could end up in a mix of legal and moral facts and assumptions, though the question remains: Given that we can't measure or prove that a harm occured, how could that be parasitism?

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

A great swathe of the books I had on my shelves were never paid for, or were bought second hand, the author saw nothing from those sales or the books I was given, and would never have been aware of the fact I wasn't paying him.

See the Great Author's Guild Second-Hand Sales Hissyfit for a nice example of mental anguish brought on by awareness of used book sales, at least in the aggregate (presumably authors aren't stalking individuals who come out of used bookstores holding packages. At least one hopes not.)

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Randolphlalonde

Here are the facts:

The law as it has been interpreted for laymen by legal professionals simply states: Copyright the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of the author or creator and for a period of 50 years after his or her death.

That means what I've copyrighted is mine. By law that body of work has been made into an object, otherwise termed as "intellectual property". There are no legal differences stipulated for digital content where eBooks are concerned. This is the law in the US, Canada, the UK and elsewhere. There is no disputing this outside of a court of law.

I have the right to decide how and where my work is distributed until I assign rights to another party (publisher, distributor, etc...).

Anyone who infringes upon that law is subject to punishment by the legal system of their country and in other countries with consideration to international treaties. Individuals who break copyrights may be imprisoned, fined by the state and individuals who file claims in pursuit of compensation.

---

The more personal side:

My eBooks pay the rent. If people didn't pay a fair price for them, then I would have to seek other employment and I wouldn't have time to write 3-5 books a year. I _may_ be able to get 1 out in 12 months because I'd be working for someone else.

In my case, the illegal distribution of eBooks wouldn't help one bit. People don't buy my books in print, they're not in stores, they buy eBooks. I don't charge much for my eBooks, certainly not unfair prices (everything is under $10.00 and the non-DRM versions on Smashwords are all $4.99 or less, I even have two free books there). Buying those books keeps me in spam and cheesy macaroni so I can write more books, benefiting my readers. They know that, and they don't mind paying the cover. In a few hundred emails I've never had anyone complain about price.

So, there are the legal and personal facts that I believe in. Don't bother arguing on the legal points with me, I've already done my homework on this, consulted a lawyer and could write a book on the topic. I don't, because it would be really, REALLY boring and I don't want to become known as "That Copyright Guy". I'd rather be known as "That EBook Writer" for entertaining people who prefer to read books on a screen, instead of a dead tree.

If you're really looking for something free, you can grab one of the free titles I've posted on Smashwords. You can even pretend you're stealing it.

somehow I don't think you are one of the targets of people doing pirating. the typical targets (I think) would be authors that are fairly well known that for one reason or another are either not encouraging the epublication of their work, or their epubs are being delayed

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

somehow I don't think you are one of the targets of people doing pirating. the typical targets (I think) would be authors that are fairly well known that for one reason or another are either not encouraging the epublication of their work, or their epubs are being delayed

There's paradoxical relationship between what is pirated and its popularity. It goes something like this:

If you're popular enough to be pirated then piracy doesn't affect you.

[DaleDe]

I noticed one question that was not asked. He said if the price was cheap enough he would buy the eBook but he would still, I bet, "loan" it to as many of his friends he thought might want one. That was the reason he said he made eBooks from scans in the first place and I saw no notion that the behavior would change. Thus he thinks $10 is a fair price, loaned to 10 friends and the author gets a piece of $1.

I was at CES and was talking to one of the workers who liked to read. He thought paperbacks were too high at $7.95 so he just stole them because he couldn't afford to feed his reading habit. This is the way of the world these days.

Moral stealing doesn't even mean anything when you have no morals in the first place. The worker did mention he didn't steal on the job because he needs his job. Too much risk. No risk, no problem.

Dale

[Randolphlalonde]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

somehow I don't think you are one of the targets of people doing pirating. the typical targets (I think) would be authors that are fairly well known that for one reason or another are either not encouraging the epublication of their work, or their epubs are being delayed

Actually, my books have been posted on scribd without my permission. On a separate occasion they were also posted on a site dedicated to the piracy of eBooks. In both cases they were taken down, but not before they were downloaded many times.

They were taken down because they were breaking the law by hosting them. It's that simple. They were liable for the units downloaded and knew they were in the wrong, which can get expensive, fast, as it should.

[LDBoblo]

I liked the article. Makes me want to become a book pirate too...if for no other reason than the people most irritated by the interviewee are exactly the kind of people I like to see irritated.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by netseeker

Well, once again we would have to define what the "harm" could be in this regard (copy of ebook). If we assume that the "thief" - without the possibility to commit the theft - would buy the content in question for sure, then there would be some kind of harm possible: at least a lost sale for the property owner. Without this assumption, there is no harm measurable imho. I guess that this discussion could end up in a mix of legal and moral facts and assumptions, though the question remains: Given that we can't measure or prove that a harm occurred, how could that be parasitism?

Taking without permission is taking without permission regardless of the harm. if someone steals from you its theft even if its that ugly sweater you were never going to wear that you got in the white elephant exchange with your co-workers.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Taking without permission is taking without permission regardless of the harm. if someone steals from you its theft even if its that ugly sweater you were never going to wear that you got in the white elephant exchange with your co-workers.

No, it is nowhere near the same. The only way it would be the same is if the horrible sweater remained when I 'took' it. You can't take something away from someone and have the exact original still remain. That's atom-based logic, and does not work with digital, no matter how forced the metaphor or analogy becomes.

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Taking without permission is taking without permission regardless of the harm. if someone steals from you its theft even if its that ugly sweater you were never going to wear that you got in the white elephant exchange with your co-workers.

But then the theft has the ugly sweater and you not. It's a physical object, the copy of an ebook is not. Yes, i agree, it's wrong based on your and my morality, though it's neither parasitism according to it's definition nor a theft in the proper meaning of the word. It's taking something without permission but it's not taking something away from it's owner.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Parasitism involves one organism causing active harm to another. What you are describing is commensalism, where one organism derives a benefit and the other is nether helped or harmed.

You're assuming that the person doing the unauthorized uploading/downloading has no economic impact on the author, publisher, editor, etc. While it may be true that most downloaders would never have purchased the ebook in the first place, it does not mean that widespread uploading won't diminish the potential market of paying customers.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

That's atom-based logic, and does not work with digital, no matter how forced the metaphor or analogy becomes.

Originally Posted by netseeker

But then the theft has the ugly sweater and you not. It's a physical object, the copy of an ebook is not.

no this is where you are marking a difference that doesn't exist. it doesn't matter that its a digital file versus a printed form, you don't have permission to take it and you don't have permission to give it away to the multitudes because it's not yours.

Would it be right if you stole the book from a store, made a thousand paper copies, returned the book and then distributed the copies on the street corner?

no of course not and that is what is being done when pirating digital copies.