Is Rapidshare a promoter of e-book piracy?

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Thanks, I didn't notice (as I am always logged in there). Updated the first post accordingly.

I run into this maybe once a year, so I've never felt the need to register It sorta irks me a bit to have register to read...

[Phogg]

Where do buyers commonly get their stolen Jewelry, guns and electronics from from? Any reasercher who ever looks into this askes themself the question and so they check with the police or FBI to do a search on where stolen goods end up. Answer: PAWNSHOPS LISTED IN THE YELLOW PAGES!

In case you don't know, the yellowpages is a hugly popular listing of businesses run usually by the evil irresponsible theft loving phone company.

The (Insert competing interest here) agrees with the findings that the yellow pages is the big daddy for fencing stolen goods.



And the Yellow Pages' response? A spokeswoman said that her company wasn't responsible for goods sold by its listees, and that it's the police's' responsibility to identify illegal operations, ("it's left to the law enforcement to find all instances of fencing stolen items by Yellow Pages advertisers").

The phone company''s advice to the the public? Use security systems to protect your valuables and mark everything.



Thanks to Tim for the hint!



Just as valid, and just as much not worthy of being called news.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Just as valid, and just as much not worthy of being called news.

With one small difference: Yellow pages only index stores; basically, they act like a search engine. Rapidshare, on the other hand, hosts the files that are being shared.

[rhadin]

All the piracy talk ignores some fundamentals that are really important for the book publishing industry.

1. No one has any idea of how many books are really being downloaded and read.

2. No one has any idea of how many of the downloaders are downloading the book simply because it is downloadable.

3. No one knows what percentage of the downloads are truly lost sales.

4. Everyone mistakenly compares book piracy with music piracy but they aren't even apples being compared to oranges -- they are more dissimilar than that. Downloading music essentially translates into instant gratification (the ability to listen to the music in its entiretly immediately) both individually and in a group. Downloading and listening require virtually no work. In contrast, downloading a book is more work intensive and doesn't provide instant work-free gratification. A book only can provide gratification after it has been read (or perhaps while it is being read), which isn't a 5-minute venture.

I suspect -- but clearly do not know -- that most book piracy is simply a way of thumbing one's nose at "the authorities". I suspect that for every 1,000 downloads of a particular book, only 1 is read and that 1 is unlikely to be a lost sale. Music downloads are different in almost every way.

5. None of the major publishers and most authors are receptive to experimenting with the Baen model, largely because it is easier to assume that everyone interested in a particular book would steal that book given the opportunity.

Unfortunately, as long as there is piracy publishers and authors will demand DRM, and as long as there are high prices, delayed ebook availability, and DRM there will be piracy. The circle will remain unbroken until some major publisher finally decides to try some other tactic.

[anurag]

For most NY Times articles, searching for them on Google returns a link that does not need registration:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/bu...digi.html?_r=2

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Ea

I run into this maybe once a year, so I've never felt the need to register It sorta irks me a bit to have register to read...

Bugmenot has logins for free register-to-read sites. There's also a Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

With one small difference: Yellow pages only index stores; basically, they act like a search engine. Rapidshare, on the other hand, hosts the files that are being shared.

Thank you for proving my point, which was this article's unscrupulous attemt to enviegle the public into believing that an unsavory behavior should not only be made legal, is should be considered laudable.

There is not one whit of difference.

That was EXACTLY my point. Hosting, should not include rifling through the customers content one whit more than listing a business in the yellow pages should include going through a listed businesses inventory as if one had a search warrant. The Yellow Pages cant do that even if the phone company is also the land lord, nor should they be able to.

I expect the same in the online arena.

Where does this ridiculousness Idea that hosting sites, have some resource that can check all the content hosted come from, or that they should be legally required to do so come from?

That won't get to be presented as just a given.

[Elfwreck]

From the article:

Everybody in the industry considers piracy a significant issue, but it’s been difficult to quantify the magnitude of the problem.

No, they don't. Baen hasn't said they consider piracy a significant issue. And many authors don't consider piracy to be a big problem for their works.

[nekokami]

I think it would be more interesting to research where the original source files came from. If they are cracked DRM versions, which stores are people shopping at, or which formats are they buying in, and then uploading? If they are scanned versions, things get even more interesting.

I suspect if there were a way to track sources, most of the pirated copies of this (or any other) DRM'd book would be found to trace back to a very small number of initial uploads. There's no "street cred" to be gained in the darknet gift economy by uploading what's already available. That's why the release of the last Harry Potter book was such a pirate's dream. Everyone knew that it wouldn't be released as an ebook, and the paper versions were (supposedly) tightly controlled. The release was also highly publicized, guaranteeing fame (or notoriety) to anyone who managed to "beat the system." So the race was on to provide a digital copy as early as possible-- in this case before the actual paper release date. Further updates were clean-ups and enhancements, such that now, if an authorized ebook were to be released, I doubt anyone would DRM-crack it and upload it, as there would be no point. The free pirate versions are probably better than the official DRM version would be in terms of proofreading, formatting, etc.

I'm also quite skeptical of the rapidshare claim-- what's easy to find on Google isn't necessarily where the action is happening.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

A German judge would disagree with you. See this article: Court Orders Rapidshare To Proactively Filter Content.

They've had to load the files into their hash filter, from what I can tell. It's trivial to defeat hash filters. It's both ineffective and annoying to legitimate users (hash filters are /slow/, when you start getting millions of entries - it'll delay legitimate uploads as well).

And you realise that the argument about hosting...well... torrent sites don't host the files either? But without the tracker, you're sol on finding the files. It's allways seemed sophistry to me to see sites like the Piratebay claim they're only linking. (Mininova, who do actively work with rights holders, have a better claim to legitimacy...)

[ThomasMc]

And what about the libraries?
Just think of all the lost sales because of libraries.
Clearly, this country needs a law outlawing libraries.
For the good of the people, you understand.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by rhadin

All the piracy talk ignores some fundamentals that are really important for the book publishing industry.

1. No one has any idea of how many books are really being downloaded and read.

2. No one has any idea of how many of the downloaders are downloading the book simply because it is downloadable.

3. No one knows what percentage of the downloads are truly lost sales.

These problems aren't unique to electronic versions of books. Let's rephrase these points.

1.) Nobody knows how many books are being checked out of the library, or bought used, or are given to someone, and read

2.) Nobody knows how many of those books are taken only because they are free, or very cheap

3.) Nobody knows if that person would have paid full retail for a new copy if they didn't get the free or cheap copy.

I (almost) never buy deadtree books new-- I always wait until the book has been out for a while and look for good deals on a used hardback copy through http://www.fetchbook.info/ (and usually end up buying it from a used book seller on Amazon or Ebay.) Almost all the deadtree books I buy are science non-fiction, and more often than not get the book for $1.00 or less plus shipping, while a new copy (if they are still available) costs tens of dollars.

That's a null for book publishers-- they don't track every sale of a used book, so they don't know of that copy sold once went to me instead of me buying a new copy. And they don't know of anyone else I later lend the book to. And they don't know if I, or the person I lendeded it to, would have bought a full-price copy if a cheap or borrowed copy wasn't available (for me, almost always NO.)

The electronic book market is like the deadtree book market in that there will always be people willing to pay top dollar for a new copy when it first comes out (willing to pay for the download) and there will be people wiling to wait for the cheap used copy (willing to wait for, and search down the pirated copy.) And there likely isn't much overlap in the groups from either medium.

[CTH]

Rapidshare could very well be the largest site for pirated books, it is pretty large for movies and other stuff but it limited by that you have a maximum size per file and if you want to dll alot you need to have pay-account. With books that is not a problem, a book i just a few mb.
A big diffirence between rapidshare and other sites that has copy-righted material is that you cant go to rapidshare and just search for the files, someone has to provide you with a link. The effort to fight piracy is aimed at sites that provide those links not against rapidshare, that in fact is helping the anti-piracy organizations by removing material.

Years ago, when cassette tape piracy threatened to destroy the music industry in India, an enterprising company decided to take the battle to the pirates. Made tapes so affordable that it didn't make any sense to buy bootleg (i.e. reduced the price by 65-70%), turning it into a volumes game. Now, this is should be easily possible with digital media, so what's preventing these 'moguls'? I mean, if a new book were to cost $2.99 or $3.99 rather than $9.99 - $12.99, who'd risk downloading pirated versions?

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by ThomasMc

And what about the libraries?
Just think of all the lost sales because of libraries.
Clearly, this country needs a law outlawing libraries.
For the good of the people, you understand.

Or what about family members? I probably have three books in my apartment right now which belong to my mother, and she has twice as many that I have loaned to her. Surely I am not buying the books if I can go to my mother and read them for free. So, mothers should be outlawed, right? No more mothers! For anyone! Too many lost sales!