What are your views on illegal copying?

[Sweetpea]

I don't feel any guilt when I download a book that is not in the public domain in my country but is in another. Stupid to have several public domain laws in this one connected world.

I don't feel any guilt when I download a book from a dead author. I find that life + 70 the most stupid rule ever. I mean, I (or rather, my descendants) don't get paid when I'm dead. No matter what I've made in my life.

I feel only a slight pinch on my conscience when I download a book I already own in paper. But I'm too lazy to scan the book in myself and let others do it for me. If the book isn't available in electronic form at all, I don't feel any guilt.

I also feel only a slight pinch on my conscience when I download a book that isn't available in electronic form at all. I'd have loved to buy it, but if they don't want my business, well, that's their mistake.

Will I redistribute those books I've downloaded (no matter from where)? No. They'll only get read by me or my husband.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Hmm...so now the test is 'consent of the owner of the book'? Poor authors, kicked to the curb again.

If ownership is the standard, then if I indicate my consent to allow anyone who wishes to to read the book I just bought by uploading it to a dozen torrent sites, that's fine, since anybody reading it has the consent of the owner of that book.

You added "owner of the book". I meant owner of the copyright and I believe you knew that. Once again, manipulating the wording to make a point is unproductive to the discussion. To continue to do so, makes any intellectual debate difficult to say the least.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I don't feel any guilt when I download a book that is not in the public domain in my country but is in another. Stupid to have several public domain laws in this one connected world.

I don't feel any guilt when I download a book from a dead author. I find that life + 70 the most stupid rule ever. I mean, I (or rather, my descendants) don't get paid when I'm dead. No matter what I've made in my life.
I feel only a slight pinch on my conscience when I download a book I already own in paper. But I'm too lazy to scan the book in myself and let others do it for me. If the book isn't available in electronic form at all, I don't feel any guilt.

I also feel only a slight pinch on my conscience when I download a book that isn't available in electronic form at all. I'd have loved to buy it, but if they don't want my business, well, that's their mistake.

Will I redistribute those books I've downloaded (no matter from where)? No. They'll only get read by me or my husband.

Although I would probably feel guilty were I to do them, I quite agree with your first two points and would go even further with the first to include Geographic Restrictions.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by kazbates

Although I would probably feel guilty were I to do them, I quite agree with your first two points and would go even further with the first to include Geographic Restrictions.

Geographic Restrictions don't exist... At least, not in my lexicon
In those cases, I pay for the book and the author gets his or her share (or so I can only hope). That the publishers don't agree with that, that's their problem, not the author's...

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I don't feel any guilt when I download a book from a dead author.

My "guilt index" is largely the same as yours, but the poll results imply something different, which is interesting. According to the poll, more people would endorse copying a book which has not been made available locally than would endorse copying a book by a dead author. It's as if the majority is more bothered about following rules than reimbursing the (living!) author.

This concern for the income of the dead seems cryptic to me. Coughin' up in this case seems beyond the spirit of the law. They don't have a ghost of a chance of using the money, so why shouldn't they be passed over?

I'll get my coat.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by kazbates

You added "owner of the book". I meant owner of the copyright and I believe you knew that.

Your belief is incorrect, as it certainly read to me like you meant the owner of the book, given the context - the law is pretty clear that acquiring something for your own use without the consent of the copyright holder is perfectly legal after the point of first sale, after all. Regardless, my apologies for misreading your intent.

If we're going to owner of the copyright, authors get kicked to the curb again, as the owner of the copyright would be me. And you, and everybody else (except possibly Kenny), since the whole legal basis of copyright is that the owner (that would be us, society as a whole as represented by our agent the state) grants an individual (the author) a license to exploit something that belongs to us (the written work) for a limited time.

Sorry if this seems nitpicky, but a big part of the problem with copyright discussions is that a lot of terms have been pretty thoroughly Humptied (deliberately, in my opinion, in a cynical - and successful - attempt to muddy the waters).

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

According to the poll, more people would endorse copying a book which has not been made available locally than would endorse copying a book by a dead author.

Can't speak for anybody else who voted that way, but for me I don't have any particular problem paying the estate of a dead author. Moral questions of monetary compensation don't really apply (other forms of 'compensation' for the dead are between you and your religious beliefs) but self-interest comes into play: if I buy the book, the estate is more likely to release the rest of the author's backlist, therefore I buy the book, all other things being equal.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Can't speak for anybody else who voted that way, but for me I don't have any particular problem paying the estate of a dead author. Moral questions of monetary compensation don't really apply (other forms of 'compensation' for the dead are between you and your religious beliefs) but self-interest comes into play: if I buy the book, the estate is more likely to release the rest of the author's backlist, therefore I buy the book, all other things being equal.

But if the copyright rules would be Death of the Author + 0, there wouldn't be an estate and the books would be in public domain. So, the backlist would be freely available.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But if the copyright rules would be Death of the Author + 0, there wouldn't be an estate and the books would be in public domain. So, the backlist would be freely available.

Oh, absolutely, and if it were still publication+14 years there would be even more backlist available in the public domain. "How long should copyright last" is a different question than "Why didn't some people vote 'copying is okay if the author is dead' in the poll?"

I was just giving my reasons why "This author is only standing because his feet are nailed to the perch" doesn't impact my decision to buy one way or another under the current regime, since Ben Thornton wondered aloud up-thread why people had voted that way.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Oh, absolutely, and if it were still publication+14 years there would be even more backlist available in the public domain. "How long should copyright last" is a different question than "Why didn't some people vote 'copying is okay if the author is dead' in the poll?"

I was just giving my reasons why "This author is only standing because his feet are nailed to the perch" doesn't impact my decision to buy one way or another under the current regime, since Ben Thornton wondered aloud up-thread why people had voted that way.

Just to be a pedant, what I actually asked in this poll was about the moral question - not what was legal or what people actually do - so I was surprised that people didn't think it OK, in a moral sense, to make a copy when the author was dead.

It's an interesting reason to pay for such content to encourage the current copyright holders to publish more of their back catalogue. I'm a bit skeptical about the extent to which that works, but if it did work, it strikes me as a good reason.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I don't feel any guilt when I download a book from a dead author. I find that life + 70 the most stupid rule ever. I mean, I (or rather, my descendants) don't get paid when I'm dead. No matter what I've made in my life.

But you get paid for the value of your work at once. An author (or other creative professionals) doesn't get paid for his/her work when it's done, but the payment is somewhat deferred and dependent on its quality (or success). If the author gets some some advance, then the problem is transferred to the publisher...

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Jellby

But you get paid for the value of your work at once. An author (or other creative professionals) doesn't get paid for his/her work when it's done, but the payment is somewhat deferred and dependent on its quality (or success). If the author gets some some advance, then the problem is transferred to the publisher...

For most published work nearly all income is in the first years.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Jellby

But you get paid for the value of your work at once. An author (or other creative professionals) doesn't get paid for his/her work when it's done, but the payment is somewhat deferred and dependent on its quality (or success). If the author gets some some advance, then the problem is transferred to the publisher...

I agree that an author gets paid for his work during his lifetime. And I don't mind that. Even if it's a one-in-a-lifetime book (he only wrote one book and it sold well), I don't mind having to pay for that book even though it might have been written 80 years ago (he was 20 and he now turned 100). But I do mind having to pay his children and children's children and maybe even his children's children's children for something they didn't even do.

I don't propose a copyright for so many years after the book has been first published, I think it should still be at least the author's life-time (or maybe nominal life-time, as anything might happen, to cut the life short), but adding 70! years is a bit over the top...

About the publisher, if you loan people money, there's always the chance you don't get it back. The book might be a huge let-down, for example. That's a chance you must take as a publishers.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Just to be a pedant, what I actually asked in this poll was about the moral question - not what was legal or what people actually do - so I was surprised that people didn't think it OK, in a moral sense, to make a copy when the author was dead.

Fair enough, and I'm hardly one to point the finger at others' pedantry

I find it less surprising than you do that people don't find it okay in a moral sense. My gut feeling is that most people approach this as a binary issue - either copying is morally okay, or it's not - and whether or not the author is differently-alive doesn't factor into it any more than the author's perceived wealth does. If copying is stealing, it's still stealing if the person being stolen from is rich as Croesus (unless you have a Robin Hood complex) or dead (unless they've been dead long enough for stealing from them to be archeology or in the US public domain, which is starting to look fairly similar in terms of elapsed time).

It's an interesting reason to pay for such content to encourage the current copyright holders to publish more of their back catalogue. I'm a bit skeptical about the extent to which that works, but if it did work, it strikes me as a good reason.

Well, I reckon it can't possibly hurt, and may help, right? And my preference has always been to buy new if possible, whether paper or electronic.

Going to the darknet is a lot like going to one of Those used bookstores - the ones that smell like mould and cat pee, and have teetering piles of rotting cardboard boxes full of books stacked to the ceiling - there's no particular guarantee you'll be able to find what you're looking for, and even if you can it's liable to be in pretty terrible shape, but if the book's out of print or otherwise unavailable for sale, it's the only game in town.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Jellby

But you get paid for the value of your work at once. An author (or other creative professionals) doesn't get paid for his/her work when it's done, but the payment is somewhat deferred and dependent on its quality (or success). If the author gets some some advance, then the problem is transferred to the publisher...

Eric Flint has some interesting stuff to say on the question of copyright duration:

"Perhaps the best way to make this clear, is to put it in the bluntest, harshest way I can. Why in the hell do some authors think they are entitled to an elite privilege that no one else in society gets?

Let's take a waitress, who works her whole life as one. She is entitled to her pay, and her tips. And, when she dies, she can leave to her children whatever—usually little—there is in the way of material possessions that her life's trade enabled her to accumulate.

What she can't do, however, is demand that even after she retires, she is entitled to a percentage of the tips from "her" table. Even though the income from those "tip royalties" would undoubtedly be more substantial to her—a lot more substantial—than whatever money a writer who produced a handful of stories would ever get for a story being reissued more than fourteen years after it was written. (Much less twenty-eight years, if they renewed it.)"

Not sure I completely agree with his argument, but it's definitely an interesting take on the subject.