Misleading Metaphors That Drive The War On Online Sharing

[MikeB1972]

As I see it we have a valid word and all the laws in place already

counterfeiting

Seems to check all the boxes

Edited to say
Well, dammit Steve posted at the same time

How about forgery then

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

As I see it we have a valid word and all the laws in place already

counterfeiting

Seems to check all the boxes

Edited to say
Well, dammit Steve posted at the same time

How about forgery then

That has possibilities: It rarely implies a physical product; it is known as something done to obtain something illegally; it's a "passive" form of law-breaking.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Of those, counterfeit comes closest... though, since there is at heart no difference between a legal and illegally-copied ebook file, and counterfeit usually denotes an inferior or good-but-worthless copy, that might be a stretch.

Better to call them "wrongly-copied" or "wrongly-distributed" ebooks than counterfeit.

Actually counterfeit ebooks is probably the best suggestion so far. Or maybe bootleg ebooks to make it more generally understandable. But it's definitely a hard concept to sell for something that basically has no intrinsic value.

A counterfeit handbag would be understood to be a bad thing, but not a counterfeit computer file that is exactly the same as the real one. I don't think many people care whether the handbag manufacturer gets paid or not, they just want a good handbag.

Something that appeals to people's natural greed and selfishness would work better. A bit like your Bob Cratchet, but instead of having him stuff his face with food at the readers' expense you could have him be able to afford to write another book instead. Then the readers know there is something in it for them if they give him some money instead of reading it for free.

Get something like that boiled down to a couple of paragraphs and maybe we could all start putting it at the beginning of our books?

[MrsJoseph]

I like Steve's idea of the PRC for authors - but publishers are almost always the fly in the ointment.

I also like the idea of "bootleg" or "counterfeit." It does explain what happened. In thinking back - I was in school at the beginning of the Napster generation. I have never been much of an audiophile - my major love has always been books - but I can remember everyone being excited that you could get access to all those songs at anytime you wanted.

But do you know who was never excited about Napster in college? Any audiophile I met. They were more concerned about sound quality and the rest of those important music items. They would always laugh at people listening to bootleg music.

In thinking about it, I wouldn't want to go through the trouble of locating and downloading a bootleg CD. Sound quality can be iffy, there's the possibility of d/l a virus, and I'd rather get my items from a legitimate place.

I'm also not much into purses but I don't know a fashionista that would be caught dead with a bootleg handbag.

Which makes me think that people need to assign some type of (status maybe?) showing that a legitimate ebook from a legitimate seller is a better quality item. Of course, this is impossible at this time because publishers currently do NOT supply a better quality of work.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

A counterfeit handbag would be understood to be a bad thing, but not a counterfeit computer file that is exactly the same as the real one. I don't think many people care whether the handbag manufacturer gets paid or not, they just want a good handbag.

Actually I know far too many people who are perfectly happy with counterfeit handbags (I got it cheap, and it fools other people). Just as I know people who think nothing of doing illegal downloads.

Appealing to people's greed doesn't work. Pirate sites appeal to people's greed now; they just don't bother to think about the likelihood that an artist will quit writing (plenty of other writers out there, what's one less?). Better off appealing to their sympathy; Show Bob Cratchit's family meal to be meager, but the family is satisfied, and a happy Cratchit will live to write again.

Or show Bob's writer friend Ed, who didn't get paid, and now works in the poorhouse with no time to write, and other people asking about him: "Whatever happened to Ed Patchet?" "His books were all ripped off. He had to give it up. He's shoveling coal at McGreedy's now..."

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

showing that a legitimate ebook from a legitimate seller is a better quality item. Of course, this is impossible at this time because publishers currently do NOT supply a better quality of work.

Item Nr. 1 this ^
Item Nr. 2 what you get from the non-legit source is the ebook - what you get from the "legitimate seller" is in most cases, an Adobe leasing ticket

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Actually I know far too many people who are perfectly happy with counterfeit handbags (I got it cheap, and it fools other people). Just as I know people who think nothing of doing illegal downloads.

Appealing to people's greed doesn't work. Pirate sites appeal to people's greed now; they just don't bother to think about the likelihood that an artist will quit writing (plenty of other writers out there, what's one less?). Better off appealing to their sympathy; Show Bob Cratchit's family meal to be meager, but the family is satisfied, and a happy Cratchit will live to write again.

Or show Bob's writer friend Ed, who didn't get paid, and now works in the poorhouse with no time to write, and other people asking about him: "Whatever happened to Ed Patchet?" "His books were all ripped off. He had to give it up. He's shoveling coal at McGreedy's now..."

There are those who have no problem with counterfeit items - but there is no way to make a system that everyone will buy into.

I would not think appealing to someone's greed would work.

Appealing to someone's desire for status...that's a different story. If publishers could be arsed to put out a good product with no typos, working TOC and *gasp* fixed the SFF maps - they could then compete. If I had the option of going to any legit seller and buy a quality item with no concerns or wasted time - that's what I'm going to do. I can't imagine digging through tons of files to find the correct virus free version I'm looking for.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

There are those who have no problem with counterfeit items - but there is no way to make a system that everyone will buy into.

I would not think appealing to someone's greed would work.

Appealing to someone's desire for status...that's a different story. If publishers could be arsed to put out a good product with no typos, working TOC and *gasp* fixed the SFF maps - they could then compete. If I had the option of going to any legit seller and buy a quality item with no concerns or wasted time - that's what I'm going to do. I can't imagine digging through tons of files to find the correct virus free version I'm looking for.

Well, a lot of the fan-produced ebooks from the 90s are better designed than the official versions that eventually replaced them 10 years later, and the more popular ones have been crowd-proofed too. As were a lot of the fan-made CDs from a vinyl source. But these days people tend to just pirate the official version, and unless someone proofs it then what you would get would be the same thing.

[Bertolt]

Perhaps if people were allowed to buy the ebooks, they wouldn't want to download them illegally. Amazon, for example is perfectly happy to send a hard copy of a book from any country in the world to any other - post-free in some cases. But people in all countries are often prohibited from downloading those very same books legally. There is a limit to the number of hard copies of books that most people would want or be able to accommodate in their homes. Postal services are very unreliable and expensive in some countries. And when we are being encouraged to recycle all paper, does it really make sense to be shipping hard copies of books all round the world?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

There are those who have no problem with counterfeit items - but there is no way to make a system that everyone will buy into.

They don't have to "buy into" the system if they don't want to. They just have to be prevented from taking actions that corrupt that system.

We come back to the cable metaphor: Don't like your cable company? Don't buy cable, no one's got a gun to your head. Of course, in that case, there are legal alternatives to cable (satellite, airwaves, DVDs, theaters, etc) as well as not watching TV. Perhaps ebooks need an alternative delivery medium that can be more easily controlled, such as embedding them on hard storage medium as movies are embedded on DVDs. Not ideal for such a wonderfully digital medium, but perhaps in the name of practical legality, it might be desirable for many.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Perhaps ebooks need an alternative delivery medium that can be more easily controlled, such as embedding them on hard storage medium as movies are embedded on DVDs. Not ideal for such a wonderfully digital medium, but perhaps in the name of practical legality, it might be desirable for many.

Because it has been so successful in preventing DVD piracy? Um...

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

They don't have to "buy into" the system if they don't want to. They just have to be prevented from taking actions that corrupt that system.

If it was possible to remove all the unauthorised downloads from the internet someone would have done it over 10 years ago.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Perhaps ebooks need an alternative delivery medium that can be more easily controlled, such as embedding them on hard storage medium as movies are embedded on DVDs.

Then people would be able to sell them second hand on Ebay, etc. The publishers would lose a lot more money through that than they will ever lose through piracy.

[Freeshadow]

but you could buy ebooks w/o the georestriction trouble like you do with paper books

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

If it was possible to remove all the unauthorised downloads from the internet someone would have done it over 10 years ago.

It's possible. Resistance from those who embrace unaccountability and anonymity are what's preventing it.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Then people would be able to sell them second hand on Ebay, etc. The publishers would lose a lot more money through that than they will ever lose through piracy.

When the sale is one-on-one instead of X downloads from one file... not even close.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

It's possible. Resistance from those who embrace unaccountability and anonymity are what's preventing it.

So it is possible, apart from human nature.

When the sale is one-on-one instead of X downloads from one file... not even close.

The potential market for illegal downloads is much smaller than the market for legal sharing and lending.
There are many, many people who for legal, moral or technical reasons have no interest in illegal downloads, but would love to be able to lend their ebooks to a friend in the same way they can lend their real books. If the ebook was linked to a physical storage device, and had no other locking, they could do that.