Massive wave of ebook piracy?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Well, "might makes right" principle surely still sticks around. I just meant that I determine what is right for me, as Galileo did when he muttered 'and yet it moves'. What public face I keep to appease other primate animals is another matter.

Back to the subject, I don't want to write a 3-page post again, so I'll just summarize my viewpoint in short: ideas and knowledge can't be property, anything you can share and multiply as easily as Jesus shared fish and bread is a common property of intelligent beings (currently mankind), we add to it, each building on what ancestors built, modifying it, expanding. Every writer writes books with words invented by other people, ideas polished and spread through the ages, and very rarely his craft of putting those bits and pieces together produces something comparable in value to the value of bits themselves. For those rare gems I have appreciation, and I donate, and buy hardcovers. For those other thousands of books written every year, well, I'm quite satisfied with public domain instead. In both cases I don't consider book a property, and copyright anything sensible, and I believe copyright should be abandoned (or at least shortened to a few years, kept purely for utilitarian reason). I'm also fine with people who don't want to create without monetary compensation to do something else. I'm sure civilization won't die.

I wonder if you'll believe me that despite having no qualms about reading pirated books I haven't done so for years now, all my reading time consumed by public domain mysteries from XIX century from here and Munseys...

[ManosHandsOfFate]

Originally Posted by kennyc

This is a very slippery slope. I suggest we get back to the original topic before we are sucked into the black hole.

Thanks for bearing with me. I'm always curious about where people are coming from, particularly those who use moral language like "right" and "wrong".

I believe in objective morality. Rape is always wrong. Slavery is always wrong. Human sacrifice is always wrong. It doesn't matter what morality a particular society has created for themselves.

I'm just not convinced (yet?) that copyright infringement is always wrong.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by ManosHandsOfFate

Thanks for bearing with me. I'm always curious about where people are coming from, particularly those who use moral language like "right" and "wrong".

I believe in objective morality. Rape is always wrong. Slavery is always wrong. Human sacrifice is always wrong. It doesn't matter what morality a particular society has created for themselves.

I'm just not convinced (yet?) that copyright infringement is always wrong.

Actually, I do agree with most of what you just said.

However, oft times, it's not a matter of whether something is right or wrong as it is whether it is legal or not. I personally feel the copyright laws have been corrupted so much they would be unrecognizable from the original intent. Still they are the law. There are ways to acceptably challenge laws. Merely ignoring them leads to anarchy and the decline of society.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

That was just totally lame and doesn't even deserve the little laughing guy. First, I do NOT feel silly obeying the law so that blows that argument out of the water..[/I]

Well, you have succeeded in you rationalisation then. Congratulations!

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Except for Hawking Radiation....

Or not...maybe...

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, you have succeeded in you rationalisation then. Congratulations!

[Sil_liS]

I don't really have a problem with pirating. I know it's illegal, I just don't care. If the country where I live doesn't do something to punish me for downloading something, I'll probably never change my mind.
But I can say a few things that I noticed from downloading movies.
1. I still go to the cinema, and I still watch TV.
2. I download movies that I consider so bad that I wouldn't pay to see.
3. I get the opportunity to see older films.
4. After the initial reaction (years ago) of "this is great, I can see the new movie while idiots pay to see it at the cinema" followed closely by "webcams give horrible picture and sound, I'll wait for the dvdrip" everybody waits for the better quality.
5. I ended up downloading mostly old TV shows that were on TV and I enjoyed.

And I know that there are ebooks that I could easily download without paying, but so far I still buy pbooks. As I'm waiting for my first eink ereader (which might get me hooked on ebooks) I'm mostly thinking about all the nice classical books that I can legally get for free.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I don't really have a problem with pirating. I know it's illegal, I just don't care. If the country where I live doesn't do something to punish me for downloading something, I'll probably never change my mind.
But I can say a few things that I noticed from downloading movies.
1. I still go to the cinema, and I still watch TV.
2. I download movies that I consider so bad that I wouldn't pay to see.
3. I get the opportunity to see older films.
4. After the initial reaction (years ago) of "this is great, I can see the new movie while idiots pay to see it at the cinema" followed closely by "webcams give horrible picture and sound, I'll wait for the dvdrip" everybody waits for the better quality.
5. I ended up downloading mostly old TV shows that were on TV and I enjoyed.

And I know that there are ebooks that I could easily download without paying, but so far I still buy pbooks. As I'm waiting for my first eink ereader (which might get me hooked on ebooks) I'm mostly thinking about all the nice classical books that I can legally get for free.

While I do not have a very good opinion of you for approving of piracy, I do admire that you have the backbone to admit it instead of coming up with ridiculous, convoluted rationalizations to justify your actions.

[Jadon]

Originally Posted by AndroidGold

at the end of the day, writers are not going to get book deals from publishers if publishers can't make money off the books they sell.

Ignoring the idea that much of what publishers do is of limited utility and the rest can be replaced, I've always wondered why I should care about these suddenly impoverished writers any more than I should care about steel workers or accountants or anyone else out of work? It's not like I would greatly suffer if every writer alive stopped producing. There's enough stuff already existing that I could read a dozen works a day for the next century and not run out of material, even restricting myself to genres I like. (I am mostly talking fiction writers here, I confess. If scientific papers and news reports vanished, I could see problems even in my selfishness.) Yes, there are some series I follow that I would see more entries in, but that happens anyway, when a writer dies or a series is simply dropped from lack of interest. So even if I bought the notion that copyright infringement could bring the whole publishing world to its knees, and every fiction writer alive stopped creating news works (and by extension, that no new system could arise, and no new writers start producing), I still can't see a real reason to care.

[Jadon]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I usually use between 120-140 GB per month. I'm thinking about ditching my cable, so those figures will go even higher if I do.

My numbers are about the same, and I've considered the same. I'm not someone who has TV on most of the time as background noise, and I don't watch sports. I watch around 15 hours of TV a week, specific shows, and pretty much all of them could be gotten via Hulu or other manner. For someone with broadband, who's not a major viewer, it's now possible to cut the cord without major suffering.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Jadon

My numbers are about the same, and I've considered the same. I'm not someone who has TV on most of the time as background noise, and I don't watch sports. I watch around 15 hours of TV a week, specific shows, and pretty much all of them could be gotten via Hulu or other manner. For someone with broadband, who's not a major viewer, it's now possible to cut the cord without major suffering.

I know what you mean. There are times when I go 4 or 5 days without turning on the TV. There's more than enough free stuff out there to keep me going.

I've considered Netflix, but their streaming content sucks. Everything I'm interested in is DVD only. And Hulu Plus is a joke. They have better stuff on the free version.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

While I do not have a very good opinion of you for approving of piracy, I do admire that you have the backbone to admit it instead of coming up with ridiculous, convoluted rationalizations to justify your actions.

Thank you, but it is strange to receive a compliment for saying that I have low moral standards.
To me the situation looks like an apple tree on the edge of a garden, were some branches are growing over the fence. On internet there would be a map pointing to the tree and saying "free apples". I would take one if was there and nobody was looking.

[MrPLD]

Strictly speaking, I think it's very simple.

1. The author/publisher has decided on what terms their work can be obtained.
2. You have no legal or moral right to that media outside of what the creators have offered.
3. If you don't like it, tough.

In short, you have no implied rights to anything anyone created outside of their stipulated terms. It's their work, their choice.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by MrPLD

Strictly speaking, I think it's very simple.

1. The author/publisher has decided on what terms their work can be obtained.
2. You have no legal or moral right to that media outside of what the creators have offered.
3. If you don't like it, tough.

In short, you have no implied rights to anything anyone created outside of their stipulated terms. It's their work, their choice.

That may be so, but as the entertainment and music industry have discovered, people will simply acquire that product elsewhere if they are denied the choice of purchasing it.

If the publishing industry actually took time to really make fundamental changes to modernise their outdated mid 20th century distribution system and as part of that remove geo restrictions, DRM and bring ebooks to a equitable pricing level then the turned away customers would return, ready to buy.

Sales would certainly be better.

[MrPLD]

Sabredog,

Oh, for sure - in the reality of life that is what happens. Rather though I was making a point against people trying to imply that they have some sort of right to the media which condones their methods of obtaining it outside of the provided system.

Yes it's annoying when you cannot get what you want... but it doesn't magically make it right to acquire it illegally. Yes, people do it all the time, just don't pretend that it's something that it's not.

Reminds me of a show I saw once where they were asking kids who were stealing things why they did it or how they viewed things... most were of the mindset "Well, I wanted it and I didn't have the money, so it was only fair that I took it" or "Mr. Jones has it, so I should be able to have it too!".

Despite all my above - I still promote non-DRM and Open-Source even.

Paul.