Do some publishers have any idea?

[darryl]

@Hitch. Could it be that Goodism is good only for freeloaders?

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You remember incorrectly. Apple had to give in and add DRM to music before the labels would agree to let Apple sell it.

It was only when the labels got worried by the dominance of Apple in the electronic retail music market that Amazon managed to persuade the labels to allow Amazon to sell DRM-free music in competition with Apple. After which, Apple got to sell DRM-free music as well.

Ah-hah, thanks for clarifying.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by darryl

@Hitch. Could it be that Goodism is good only for freeloaders?

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OMG, how much K can I give this one????



Hitch

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It matters because if the impact is insignificant, then it wouldn't really matter much, except from a rhetorical arguing point.

I would guess that outside the west, most of those indies are unknown. Heck, I would guess outside the ebook community, most of those indies are unknown. The flip side is that authors like JK Rowling, Stephen King and Tom Clancy are known world wide.

Of course, we probably should define terms. When I hear piracy I think people illegally selling things, not simply posting them on some dark web to be downloaded for free. If we are talking the latter, then heck all it takes is one fan to post it. I haven't check in a long while, but at one time, you could find a really odd mix of very famous and very obscure books on the usenet groups.

Oh yes. Define terms. With digital goods the only way to pirate is without paying money. Otherwise you might as well buy the real deal. If you get charged for it, you didn't look deep enough into the black web (dark net or however you want to call it). You make it sound as if free illegal sharing is okayish, and only paid for illegal sharing is a problem.

Outside of western countries, I suspect the free aspect is even more emphasized.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Hitch

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OMG, how much K can I give this one????



Hitch

Approximately half a percent of your total current Karma once.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Oh yes. Define terms. With digital goods the only way to pirate is without paying money. Otherwise you might as well buy the real deal. If you get charged for it, you didn't look deep enough into the black web (dark net or however you want to call it). You make it sound as if free illegal sharing is okayish, and only paid for illegal sharing is a problem.

Outside of western countries, I suspect the free aspect is even more emphasized.

No, that's simply how you project on to what I'm saying. That's why I say we need to define terms. If you say that grand thief auto and shoplifting are different, does that imply that shoplifting is ok? Not for most people.

There are actual pirate sites where you pay to download ebooks. Illegally sharing ebooks is a copyright violation, which is a different offense.

How I feel about illegal sharing depends on the situation and how illegal sharing is defined. For example, I don't consider buying ebooks for my mother, who isn't in my household, on a kindle that I bought for her and is tied to my account is illegal sharing. Apparently Harry does.

Someone who buys an ebook, removes the DRM, then loads it on the dark web is at best a cad. I'm a lot more conflicted about someone who takes an orphaned work, scans it in, edits it and loads it on the dark web. It's technically illegal sharing, but who is harmed by it? Especially if we are talking about a book by someone who died 20 years ago, has no apparent heirs and the book is not available as an ebook.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

How I feel about illegal sharing depends on the situation and how illegal sharing is defined. For example, I don't consider buying ebooks for my mother, who isn't in my household, on a kindle that I bought for her and is tied to my account is illegal sharing. Apparently Harry does.

No, Harry doesn't, because you could quite legitimately do that via Amazon's "Family Sharing" system. It's when you get well beyond the bounds of what "Family Sharing" allows that Harry starts having qualms about it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

There are actual pirate sites where you pay to download ebooks. Illegally sharing ebooks is a copyright violation, which is a different offense.

Not really. Both the uploading and downloading of ebooks with no distribution contract with rights-holder in place to do so is copyright violation. And whether money changes hands or not, the ebooks in question have been pirated. Many uploaders make money from their efforts whether it be through direct payment or ad revenue. Neither scenario is more, or less, piracy.

You want to argue that a friend passing another friend a copy of an ebook (outside of any official "sharing feature") isn't piracy? I'll entertain that notion (but I won't definitively agree with it, either). But online file-sharing sites? That's piracy whether money is directly changing hands or not. Uploading or downloading copyrighted ebooks you've no right to upload or download is both copyright violation and piracy.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not really. Both the uploading and downloading of ebooks with no distribution contract with rights-holder in place to do so is copyright violation. And whether money changes hands or not, the ebooks in question have been pirated. Many uploaders make money from their efforts whether it be through direct payment or ad revenue. Neither scenario is more, or less, piracy.

You want to argue that a friend passing another friend a copy of an ebook (outside of any official "sharing feature") isn't piracy? I'll entertain that notion (but I won't definitively agree with it, either). But online file-sharing sites? That's piracy whether money is directly changing hands or not. Uploading or downloading copyrighted ebooks you've no right to upload or download is both copyright violation and piracy.

Agreed.

It's all well and good if Amazon "is okay with it," but again, Amazon's policies are not the arbiter of law; they're the arbiter of Amazon's desire to be profitable and to please their customers. (Also, probably a very clear-eyed assessment of the realistic chances of them successfully telling Dick that he can't share his book wth his wife, Jane, whilst they abide together; Amazon is nothing if not pragmatic, so why NOT behave as though it's a benefit, a plus? It's lemonades from lemons...)

Piracy is piracy, whether the eventual pirated reading customer is paying for it or not. I mean, I suppose we could come up with different terms, to distinguish one from the other, but under law, they are the same thing. It doesn't matter if you take a book, de-DRM it and park it on Kim Dotcomm's latest mega site for freebs, or if you take it, put it into Sigil, change some names and a few locations, give it a new title and a new cover, and upload it for sale on Amazon--they're both "simply" copyright violation.

The damages, in a court case, would be assessed differently, as one party received payments, as opposed to the other--but they are the same crime. Arguably, one might rise to felony copyright infringement, if it's performed on a large enough scale, but still--it's infringement, not some "other" statute under which it's enforced. There's no distinction between one and the other, statutorily. There might be relevant case law that makes some fine distinctions, but again, the terminology and interpretation under law is the same.

Hitch

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by Hitch

or if you take it, put it into Sigil, change some names and a few locations, give it a new title and a new cover, and upload it for sale on Amazon--they're both "simply" copyright violation.

The copyright laws, or whatever laws they are, can sometimes be surprising. Another example from the early mp3 days was an article I heard on the radio. From what I understood them saying, you can't buy a CD, for example, and play it in your restaurant as background music for the customers. Unless you arrange to pay royalties to the people who manage them (BMI, RIAA, I think). So every time the radio plays a song, they're paying royalties; it might only be a penny per play, but they're paying it. In these cases there is money being made by the party playing the music, which is part of the reason they're playing the music. Another example they mentioned was a summer camp that bought some sheet music and they were using it for the kids to sing the songs around a camp fire. According to what I heard they were liable for the royalties since the camp wasn't free/nonprofit.

Royalties are related to copyright but the point is that it's about the artist being compensated for their work. But what we see is the "greedy" business that's collecting the money, and they typically take a huge percentage in comparison to what the artist ends up getting.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

The copyright laws, or whatever laws they are, can sometimes be surprising. Another example from the early mp3 days was an article I heard on the radio. From what I understood them saying, you can't buy a CD, for example, and play it in your restaurant as background music for the customers. Unless you arrange to pay royalties to the people who manage them (BMI, RIAA, I think).

It's certainly true in Britain that you have to buy a licence if you operate a commercial business which plays copyrighted music - eg as background music. The money from the licence is distributed to record companies and artists. See:

https://pplprs.co.uk/themusiclicence/

[barryem]

We're all overthinking this stuff. Loaning our friends and families books we've paid for is a good thing. It may or may not be illegal. It may or may not be a contract violation. It may or may not be a sin. It's certainly the decent thing to do. Not doing it is selfish and immoral.

It occurs to me that if digital media forces us to become selfish and immoral and mean spirited than maybe we should do away with it. Or maybe we should find ways not to let it make us small and mean.

Barry

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by barryem

We're all overthinking this stuff. Loaning our friends and families books we've paid for is a good thing. It may or may not be illegal. It may or may not be a contract violation. It may or may not be a sin. It's certainly the decent thing to do. Not doing it is selfish and immoral.

That may be your opinion. Not everybody shares it.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Agreed.

It's all well and good if Amazon "is okay with it," but again, Amazon's policies are not the arbiter of law; they're the arbiter of Amazon's desire to be profitable and to please their customers. (Also, probably a very clear-eyed assessment of the realistic chances of them successfully telling Dick that he can't share his book wth his wife, Jane, whilst they abide together; Amazon is nothing if not pragmatic, so why NOT behave as though it's a benefit, a plus? It's lemonades from lemons...)

Piracy is piracy, whether the eventual pirated reading customer is paying for it or not. I mean, I suppose we could come up with different terms, to distinguish one from the other, but under law, they are the same thing. It doesn't matter if you take a book, de-DRM it and park it on Kim Dotcomm's latest mega site for freebs, or if you take it, put it into Sigil, change some names and a few locations, give it a new title and a new cover, and upload it for sale on Amazon--they're both "simply" copyright violation.

The damages, in a court case, would be assessed differently, as one party received payments, as opposed to the other--but they are the same crime. Arguably, one might rise to felony copyright infringement, if it's performed on a large enough scale, but still--it's infringement, not some "other" statute under which it's enforced. There's no distinction between one and the other, statutorily. There might be relevant case law that makes some fine distinctions, but again, the terminology and interpretation under law is the same.

Hitch

Ah...but if the publisher agrees to allow the sharing, as is the case with Amazon ebooks, then it's not any kind of copyright violation.

Shari

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Royalties are related to copyright but the point is that it's about the artist being compensated for their work.

I think this is an important point to reiterate. The merchants (e.g., Amazon) and the publishers are the middle men. With all this discussion about DRM is anyone thinking about the authors?