Do some publishers have any idea?

[Apache]

I to stopped loaning books out and getting them back in less than the pristine condition I lent them. I had to loan the first 14 books in the Sharpe series because my wife offered them to a friend. I only got half of them back and the ones I did get back looked like they had been thrown in a pile of garbage first.
Apache

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You have a different definition of piracy that I do. The term piracy was hijacked by the music and movie industry since it has a much more negative connotation than copyright violation. People redefine words a lot for rhetorical purposes, that doesn't mean that I have to accept their redefinition.

Publishing books without considering another publishers claims to copyright was called piracy back before the copyright had anything to do with author's rights at a time when recorded audiovisual material didn't exist. The book Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates goes into detail on the past history of what was then as now called piracy (at least by book publishers who felt ill done by).

[Caveat: when I bought the ebook in 2015 the OCR was poorly proofread, a brief check today shows that footnotes are still not hyperlinked and the style does not make for a easy read]

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ekbell

Publishing books without considering another publishers claims to copyright was called piracy back before the copyright had anything to do with author's rights at a time when recorded audiovisual material didn't exist.

Yes, as in the usage I quoted from 1603.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is not so. The word "piracy" has been used to refer to the unauthorised reproduction of copyrighted books for at least 400 years. Eg. Thomas Dekker laments the actions of "word-pirates" in the introduction to his book, "The Wonderfulle Yeare", published in 1603. It predates by centuries any such usage in the film and music industries.

Gosh, what was going on in 1603? Oh yea, that was the hey day of the real pirates. The point still stands, the term was high jacked to make copyright violation sound bad to the general public. Just because something was used a long time ago doesn't imply that it was used as such by the general public. It's a bit like calling someone a Nazi now.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Gosh, what was going on in 1603? Oh yea, that was the hey day of the real pirates. The point still stands, the term was high jacked to make copyright violation sound bad to the general public. Just because something was used a long time ago doesn't imply that it was used as such by the general public. It's a bit like calling someone a Nazi now.

It wasn’t “high jacked”; the term was deliberately chosen by a man who knew precisely what piracy actually was, to refer to the illegal reproduction of his intellectual property, which serves to illustrate that such acts were considered by those involved to be on a par with seizure of physical property even then.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The point still stands, the term was high jacked to make copyright violation sound bad to the general public.

No. The point actually fell quite flat on its face. There was no conspiracy to make copyright violation "sound bad" by hijacking the term piracy. That sort of idea is only entertained by those who wish to believe that the term "copyright violation" somehow sounds less bad than it actually is.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No. The point actually fell quite flat on its face. There was no conspiracy to make copyright violation "sound bad" by hijacking the term piracy. That sort of idea is only entertained by those who wish to believe that the term "copyright violation" somehow sounds less bad than it actually is.

Exactly. The people who first used the term considered that it was a form of piracy, and they were well aware of what piracy actually was.

[John F]

Just read this in the novel I'm currently reading:

...Matthew’s hair was shorter, and he had a beard that made him look even more dangerous, like a pirate. She gasped.

Made me think of this thread.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Exactly. The people who first used the term considered that it was a form of piracy, and they were well aware of what piracy actually was.

I'm sure they did know exactly what piracy was. I'm sure that people know exactly what Nazi's are as well, but that doesn't mean when someone calls someone else a Nazi on the internet they really think those people are followers of Hitler. It's simply a rhetorical device designed to make the reader think the other person is a bad person.

Appropriating the term pirate achieved exactly the same purpose. In 1601, the complaint was that other publishers were not honoring the monopoly granted to printers. Since most people who were not printers at the time failed to see how terrible such practices were, the printers appropriated the term pirate to equate the two acts. It was purely a rhetorical device.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I'm sure they did know exactly what piracy was. I'm sure that people know exactly what Nazi's are as well, but that doesn't mean when someone calls someone else a Nazi on the internet they really think those people are followers of Hitler. It's simply a rhetorical device designed to make the reader think the other person is a bad person.

Appropriating the term pirate achieved exactly the same purpose. In 1601, the complaint was that other publishers were not honoring the monopoly granted to printers. Since most people who were not printers at the time failed to see how terrible such practices were, the printers appropriated the term pirate to equate the two acts. It was purely a rhetorical device.

You're arguing that people who use the term "Nazi," pejoratively (she wondered, is there another way to use it?), to describe "bad people" somehow is correlative to saying that the 1601 use of the term "pirate" to describe that a publisher was not honoring the monopoly granted to printers, is worse than using it to describe someone who steals or infringes someone else's book, not honoring the copyright monopoly granted to the writer--even though the net result is exactly the same?

How is it, exactly, that you see copyright infringement, today, as different than a publisher not honoring the printer's monopoly, in 1601?

• When publishers didn't honor the printer's monopoly, the printer/publisher of the book that held the license, didn't get paid his rightful royalties/fees;
• when someone today infringes Jane Doe's copyright, on her book, she doesn't earn the sales royalty that she would, either as a self publisher or a trade-published author.
• When the "word pirate" of 1601 illegally distributed a book, he kept the resulting payments;
• when a "pirate" takes a book and republishes it to a pirate site where the publisher is paid for the copies he sells, the original author and copyright owner doesn't receive those fees, most certainly. The thief/infringer does. Not the copyright owner.
• Sure, there are pirates who put a book up for free, on Dark Web and piracy sites, allowing any Tom Dick or Harry to download it.
• Are you trying to make some distinction, that this is somehow "less bad" than those who steal a book and sell it themselves? And if not, how are you saying that this correlates to people using "Nazi" to mean a bad person?

That the pirates who infringe, to put the book up for free on pirate sites...nope, I don't see it. How is using the term, piracy--coined for exactly this activity, in 1601, somehow being used histrionically, to discuss infringement?

Hitch

[darryl]

Whatever the history, the term now has a clear meaning. If hijacked, that hijacking was successful and is now a fait accompli.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by darryl

Whatever the history, the term now has a clear meaning. If hijacked, that hijacking was successful and is now a fait accompli.

Hijacked since 1601? That's some mighty successful hijacking, brother. That's definitely fait accompli, now, some 418 years later. :-) I agree with you absolutely, Darryl.

Hitch

[barryem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That may be your opinion. Not everybody shares it.

Of course it's my opinion. I make no pretense that I speak for everybody.

Barry

[barryem]

>> Originally Posted by barryem View Post
>> 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.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Now THAT'S some hardcore hogwash, right there.

Exactly as I intended it to be.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Really? That is awfully absolute. I'm under no moral compulsion to loan anything I've purchased, to a friend or family member. If the discussion was about a bike, or lawn mower, or car, would you feel the same way?

I rode 10 speeds all over texas during the '60s to the '90s and I often loaned my bike to friends. I've loaned my car to both friends and family. I only owned a lawnmower for about 8 years, about 15 years ago, and I don't recall being asked to loan that, although I'd have felt free to do so if a friend asked me.

It would have to be someone I trusted but I have no family members I can't trust and I don't make friends with people that I don't trust.

I only lost once when I had open heart surgery. I loaned my car to my niece while I was recovering and she parked on a street on campus and some drunk kid plowed into it. Someone got his license number and his parents paid for the repairs but it took a long time for them to do that so I was without a car for a while. It wasn't my niece's fault at all. If I still had a car I'd feel comfortable lending it to her if she needed it.

Lending a Kindle is no small thing either. Not like lending a car but these things aren't cheap. My oldest Kindle is a 3rd gen Paperwhite.

Barry