My journey into the darknet

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Wouldn't it be funny if cabbages were a woman?

Why? I don't understand why this would be funny at all. Unless you are beneath contempt, but perhaps I have misunderstood.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Why? I don't understand why this would be funny at all. Unless you are beneath contempt, but perhaps I have misunderstood.

I thought that a pretty odd comment as well.

[Logseman]

Depends on the cabbage. On its QUALITY.



Yes, that is supposed to be a cabbage. Do not dare to ask the animators...

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Logseman

Yes, that is supposed to be a cabbage. Do not dare to ask the animators...

Whatever you liked to??? ... it's not there.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Those who download from the darknet, or acquire ebooks from a library, friend, or offshore realize that they are doing something morally wrong, but have figured out some way of rationalizing the behavior.

If they believe that the ex post facto law is wrong, then they may not agree that they are doing something "morally wrong," even if they know some people might think they are doing something illegal. (Only some. Legality of downloading a single copy, without redistribution, is fuzzy legally. In the US. In some countries, it's entirely legal.)

The rules of the game change, the user gets very upset, and retaliates by posting the books on the darknet. Chalk this up as another form of rationalization.

Why is it a "rationalization" to say, "I am using this book under the laws relating to its use that were in effect it was first published, not laws that were enacted later?" It may be a *legal* dodge, but is not necessarily a moral one. A person can believe that it is entirely moral to freely copy any book published in the US before 1954, as all those would be in the public domain now if they hadn't been stolen from us.

Let's skip the process of coming up with more reasons for going down the slippery slope of darknet. The real reason people commit a crime is that the probability of prosecution or punishment is extremely low.

Ah, now we're back to the fuzzy language, and the conflation of legal issues with moral ones.
1) Not all copyright infringement is "crime."
2) Not all unauthorized copying is copyright infringement.
3) Not all the darknet, torrents & upload sites are full of unauthorized copies.

And the reason people commit a crime is nothing so simple as "because they can get away with it." I could get away with slashing someone's tires in a parking lot once a week, if I cared to, but I don't. Not even the tires of obviously rich bastards who are flaunting their wealth in the poor side of Oakland. (The reason people copy ebooks is not "because those rich publishers deserve to lose money.")

People break laws for several reasons.
1) Crimes of passion--momentary impulse overrides sense, and they later realize they should not have done it. This doesn't much apply to copyright infringement.

2) Don't know or understand the law. This applies more than a lot of anti-copyists want to believe; the whole "copies are THEFT!!!" argument falls apart on careful consideration, and the people who yell such things the loudest tend to drown out the ones trying to explain the real legalities.

3) Think the law is unfair or otherwise shouldn't apply to them. This is the most common reason for filesharing; most people believe that the laws about copying are contradictory, stupid, and arranged to serve corporations rather than all of society, and because of that, feel free to ignore the laws when they can.

4) Think "I want it, and I'm not likely to get caught." This is the reason people speed ("my driving's good enough and the road's clear enough--the speed limit is for *safety*, not for some moral imperative that people shouldn't drive faster than 55mph; since I'm driving *safely* it's okay to ignore the speed limit."), but usually *not* the reason people download. While some think "it's wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway," most who say this about ebooks don't actually think it's wrong in any essential way--they think it's illegal, which is different (see cat. 3).

Ripping and rent n' rip surely costs the movie industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Got any statistics to back that up?

Because while there may be unauthorized copies that, if they had been purchased full-price retail on disc, total hundreds of millions of dollars, that's not the same as *costing* the movie industry those dollars. The movie industry is only out those dollars if people would have paid that price for them if they couldn't get free copies.

Some people probably would. Others saw the movie for free, liked the lead actor, and paid to see his next movie full-price in the theatre & then bought the DVD. Some of those movies aren't available as "legit" purchases--they're out of print, and not costing the movie industry anything in having them shared around.

First the publishers need to not only takedown the cabbages fellow, but prosecute him. Wouldn't it be funny if cabbages were a woman? LOL.

First, they have to *find* him. (Or her.) Perhaps s/he lives outside of the US, in which case, the DMCA doesn't apply to his/her actions.

Second, Amazon, B&N and Sony can modify their readers to look for copyrighted material with missing DRM.

What kind of copyrighted material w/o DRM? I've got several million words of copyrighted fanfiction on my Sony PRS-505.

How are they going to tell the difference between "copyrighted material with permission or fair use," and "unauthorized copyrighted material?" How can they tell the difference between an ebook from the darknet & one I scanned & converted myself?

The reader can then send back this information either through the 3G network or through the PC/Mac interface.

1) I don't use the Sony Library software at all. I don't, at the moment, have any software installed that will read DRM'd ebooks. They'd have no way of tracking my ebook habits without a total invasion of my computer. (On dialup. That means I *notice* when something's gathering data about my online activities; it eats bandwidth.)

2) Why should bookstores do the jobs of copyright owners? They're not the ones whose legal rights are being violated. If publishers want to look for unauthorized copies of their ebooks, let them get subpoenas and do the legwork themselves.

Third, the companies can brick the readers, as Microsoft has done with the Xbox 360 game console. Imagine sending back your reader, having the FBI unlock it, and then being charged with copyright violation- prima facie evidence, if ever there was such a thing. So beware, Darknet followers. Big brother is watching you. Read the Amazon terms and conditions. The path is there for the government to compel them to spy on you.

This is *delightfully* ludicrous.
Bricking the XBox was effective because customers wanted to play XBox games on it. "Bricking" my reader, if it were possible (I don't know how, since I load books onto it with Windows Explorer rather than an interface program), would get me to pop out my SD card where most of my ebooks are and reinstall firmware.

Oh, and if that didn't work? Get a Pocket Pro next time. No corporate overlords trying to decide what & how I should read.

[Fat Abe]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Why? I don't understand why this would be funny at all. Unless you are beneath contempt, but perhaps I have misunderstood.

The Feds (DOJ) are looking for a man. Why else could it be taking so long to find the person? Because, she is a woman (who, naturally, is a lot smarter than most men). Doesn't anyone read between the lines?

Someone in government knows who cabbages is. But, I digress. The digital crack facilitates the darknet. It makes possible widespread copyright infringement without scanning/OCR/layout/proofreading.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

The Feds (DOJ) are looking for a man. Why else could it be taking so long to find the person? Because, she is a woman (who, naturally, is a lot smarter than most men). Doesn't anyone read between the lines?

Someone in government knows who cabbages is. But, I digress. The digital crack facilitates the darknet. It makes possible widespread copyright infringement without scanning/OCR/layout/proofreading.

Do you have an facts/evidence/proof to back this up?

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

The Feds (DOJ) are looking for a man. Why else could it be taking so long to find the person? Because, she is a woman (who, naturally, is a lot smarter than most men). Doesn't anyone read between the lines?

Someone in government knows who cabbages is. But, I digress. The digital crack facilitates the darknet. It makes possible widespread copyright infringement without scanning/OCR/layout/proofreading.

I suspect... a conspiracy!!

[pendragginp]

think that one of the things that many folks forget when comparing ebooks to paper books is that when you buy a paper book you buy one copy.

If you resell or give away a paper book you are only doing so with a single copy.

True, but if you give it to a library, for instance, you are giving away unlimited opportunities for 'free' reading, with no payment for all those further readings.

Ebooks, by their very nature, can easily be perfectly copied and so it is possible to not only give away or resell multiple perfect copies of a book, but also to keep a copy for yourself.

When you buy a paper book if you make good quality copies of that paper book and resell those copies it is illegal.

Just a thought; this really is how books got started, as we know. Painstaking copying of existing material, through the ages down to the monks making illuminated manuscripts. And then the printing press came into being, and the whole wonderful explosion of information became gigantic. But even then there was no copyright; if you saw a pamplet or a broadside you liked or agreed with you passed it along to other people, and those people passed it along....

Not that I don't agree with copyright. I do. But I think this subject has a lot of gray areas.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

The Feds (DOJ) are looking for a man. Why else could it be taking so long to find the person? Because, she is a woman (who, naturally, is a lot smarter than most men). Doesn't anyone read between the lines?

Someone in government knows who cabbages is. But, I digress. The digital crack facilitates the darknet. It makes possible widespread copyright infringement without scanning/OCR/layout/proofreading.

Nonsense. It's on blogspot, not in some obscure secret location. The feds couldn't give a tinker's cuss about cabbages. Which is, of course only one source among a number of sources for that information.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ea

I suspect... a conspiracy!!

Ha! Love that Avatar EA!

[Ea]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Ha! Love that Avatar EA!

Well, mine went on vacation with Tom of the Beach... so had to call in a replacement Cute, eh?

[Fat Abe]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

BTW, you are completely clueless as to how and when DVDs became decryptable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

Yes, thank you for pointing this out. Not clueless, but forgetful. I have seen the original algorithm and source code, probably as early as you. DISCLAIMER: Said code is not in my possession.

Once the genie was out of the bottle, the battle was lost. Those interested should follow this link, provided in the Wikipedia article:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Historically, the two anonymous developers should one day get credit. This should be an interesting read, maybe as fascinating as the story of Alan Turing. Huh?

[scveteran]

Originally Posted by Logseman

I find it tasteless to eat while leaning the elbows on a table. I find it tasteless (and that's the most pleasant word I can find for it) to smoke. I find it tasteless to attribute something to your own which is not your own. But the fact that I find it tasteless doesn't mean that I'm going to sue someone for leaning the elbows in a table while eating, even if I can actually measure my distaste for it. Nor even for smoking, as much as I hate it. I hope my point is clear.

You don't have to sue everyone who angers you. I never implied that you would sue someone for that. It is unlikely that you would sue when you really get nothing out of it. In the case that we talked about in this part, you were referring to only the benefit of your name on works that very few people would read and likely know you created anyway. No reason for you to sue on that.

Originally Posted by Logseman

About the "copyright", I did not point that I had "copyright" or that I intended to milk off my works to make money: if they make money it's good, and if it's me who makes it with them it's better, but I'm not going out of my way for that. I pointed that if such a plagiarism comes, I had proof that I wrote it first. If I exercised "copyright", I'd be asking for compensation. On the contrary, I have said I'd not be asking for compensation, but just show proof that the plagiarist has used me as a ghost writer, and thus is a... well, plagiarist. It would shame the writer's reputation in the exact same manner, if you think about it.

Sorry, but I don't believe you on this point. You may have even convinced yourself, but you would not have brought up the money issue unless you would take advantage of it.

Let me be clear, I don't have anything against you enforcing your copyright if your work did make money. I would be glad that you were successful and got paid for it.

Originally Posted by Logseman

I have no moral obligations save to enjoy my life while harming noone's property (bodies, material possesions, etc). As I said before, thwarting someone's prospects of income is not harming their actual property, thus I wouldn't say it's "stealing".

Taking something that doesn't belong to you is the accepted definition of stealing. It is not just thrwarting someone's prospects of income, it is stealing. In every modern culture around the world, stealing is considered moraly wrong.

I know you are an anarchist and believe that the state and corporations either should not exist or have almost no power. Fortunately, very few people agree with your ideas. Otherwise we would all be back in the stone age very quickly.

Originally Posted by Logseman

And about my duties, it is me and the ones around me who sets them, not the State. I won't obey any law which goes against my personal beliefs if I can get away with it. And I work so more and more people can get away with it, for it is noone's duty to obey a State, but to pursue happiness.

You seem to forget, you and the ones around you are the state. The people are the ones that have agreed with and formed the laws.

I am not trying to be offensive here, but the attitude that no one should obey any laws if they can get away with it is primarly the attitude that a psychopath has. Again, I am not trying to be offensive, but there has to be rules in any society and you need to follow them or be prepared to pay the consequences.

Originally Posted by Logseman

I remind you, when an official, State-approved market is dysfunctional, or when it simply is banned, a black market appears. The black market actually improves the outcomes in welfare for the people who take part in it. I would consider this the very same idea: if the State-approved, official marketplaces are rigged in favor of special interests, it's only logical that people find ingenious ways to circumvent the limits of those markets. Curiously, even if they go against their "duty" of obeying the law, and even if they hold the utmost respect of the rest of said law.

This part made very little sense. The market is not banned in any way. Nor is this a black market any sense of the word. This is pure theft, not a resale of the items.

You are also completely wrong that the black market actually improves the welfare of the people. Usually the black market causes great harm to the people.

Originally Posted by Logseman

Which brings me a last question: which law should I obey? The Spanish law, which allows paid-for works to be distributed as long as the distributer doesn't win money with them? The German law, which doesn't? The US Law, which will allow eternal copyright with time? The Vanuatuan law?

You should obey the most strict law that affects the material and yourself. For instance if the material comes from the US, you should obey that law even if you live in Spain. Or if you live in Germany and the material comes from Spain, you follow the German law.

[scveteran]

Originally Posted by Logseman

Nothing further from my intention to wish ill to anybody. I've never complained about the price tags that Apple, Amazon and the like put to their books. They should be free for charging whatever they please for them.

When you steal from them you are doing far more than just wishing them ill.

Originally Posted by Logseman

I've just pointed out that, facing the decision of downloading for 12-15 dollars and downloading for free, I feel it is my moral responsibility as a consumer to download for free as long and as much as I can, for we ought to enjoy as much of life as possible at the minimum cost. I find it no more than a dialectical process. Maybe with ebooks at 2 dollars, with the author making 90% of the money and in well-edited books, I'd feel inclined to buy. And not necessarily. The sacred power of consumers is choice, and I want to have the widest array possible.

About the last sentence: right now I'm reading Plato not Prozac, by Lou Marinoff, downloaded from the internet in a quite crappy edition. It's a book that can hardly be considered a latest blockbuster (of which I never download anything since I don't care about them), but I'd like to inquire when it will come to public domain. I give you a clue: its copyright has a good chance of outliving me.

You may feel that it is ok to download as much as you can for free. That doesn't it make it moral in the opinion of society at large.

You also have a misunderstanding about what the power of consumer's choice means. It doesn't mean that if I feel like it, I steal it.