"Most e-books in The Netherlands are not paid for."

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

You forgot that in the third paragraph it explains that downloading is not illegal in the Netherlands.

I didn't forget anything, it may be true that downloading is legal, but that's not relevant. Let's go back to the text:

Most e-books that reside on Dutch e-readers are not paid for. This is shown through statistics provided by market research company GfK. On average, a bit below 10 percent of e-books is actually paid for; all the rest is acquired by illegal means.

On average, a Dutch e-reader contains 117 e-books, 11 of which are paid for, says Algemeen Dagblad, based on the numbers provided by GfK. The rest is either free, or acquired through illegal means such as Torrent-sites or Usenet (newsgroups). The exact percentage of books acquired through illegal means is not known.

The first paragraph completely discounts public domain books and books offered for free. In the second paragraph, they admit they don't actually know what percentage is acquired by illegal means, while the first paragraph makes an explicit - and probably false - claim that over 90% of the books on Dutch e-readers are pirated. Certainly some percentage of those books are legal free books.

Simply dividing the number of downloads by the number of e-readers can lead to skewed data. A few people my be downloading thousands of books, which can skew the numbers.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Since it is legal to download the people doing it is honest.

No, it's merely legal, which is not the same thing at all. Honesty is an ethical standard, not a legal one.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it's merely legal, which is not the same thing at all. Honesty is an ethical standard, not a legal one.

Correct.
"Legality" is the lowest standard of personal behavior, the one that invokes the state's monopoly on punitive force.

[sirmaru]

Software piracy rates by nation can be seen here:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...re-piracy-rate

There is a HUGE difference with the US only having 20% pirated compared to Armenia with 93%.

It appears likely that eBooks have approximately the same divergence of piracy by nation. Songs and movies probably also have the same divergence. The Netherlands shows 28%. Russia shows 73%, Germany shows 27%, UK shows 26% and Japan 23%.

Every culture has different norms. We should not criticize citizens of the Netherlands for their own cultural norms on eBooks. We are all different.

I have a hunch that even inside the US there are wide variations of norms for paying or pirating eBooks. For some it is a challenge to use Calibre and Alf to pirate eBooks and then redistribute them via torrent or other sites or between large groups of friends and families. Those folks try to accumulate huge libraries and then pick a book to actually read. Others like me do NOT accumulate large libraries and only buy a book to read directly from Amazon. We rely on Amazon holding the large library for us.

For some paying $ 10 for an eBook is just an irrelevant fee. For others it is a devastating expense.

Breaking DRM does force down prices over the long term. It used to cost $ 30 to buy a CD with 20 songs just to listen to ONE song. Now Amazon sells the individual songs for just $ 1.00 without any DRM at all.

The consequence is that rights holders see their revenue plunge. Some authors now are even bypassing publishers altogether and just selling direct through Amazon.

[Waylander]

Not everyone who uses Calibre is a pirate, and your allusion is insulting to those who use it for perfectly legal means, i.e. storing their library of ebooks.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Waylander

Not everyone who uses Calibre is a pirate, and your allusion is insulting to those who use it for perfectly legal means, i.e. storing their library of ebooks.

... which an awful lot of people here do!

[Waylander]

Please, Please Sirmaru, think before you start typing because you end up alienating a lot of people with your poorly chosen words and wild generalisations.

[sirmaru]

Of course, only using Calibre does NOT strip DRM. The phrase I used was "Calibre AND Alf." Alf has only one purpose: DRM STRIPPING. There are LOTS of folks in this Forum who use Alf.

In my jurisdiction DRM stripping is ILLEGAL no matter what its purposes. In some jurisdictions DRM stripping is a CRIME. In others it is just a civil violation. In other jurisdictions there are no penalties. Here in the US we have FIFTY jurisdictions each with their own laws on the subject. The EU as well has many jurisdictions all with different laws on eBook DRM.

I did NOT criticize anyone for using Alf. I just noted the differences.

If you live in Armenia, I'm sure "freeing" up eBooks, songs and movies is just fine and dandy. I would not criticize anyone living there for it at all.

Frankly, I don't use Calibre or Alf because I do not want to WASTE my time doing so. If I was a hobbyist with love of doing that, I would do it.

I noted in an earlier post in this thread that the European Court of Justice is considering pirating eBook issues. Maybe someone else will post their ruling if any.

In the Netherlands downloading eBooks from pirate sites is completely LEGAL. Thus, they have every right to do so unless a higher court rules otherwise. Folks in that nation are perfectly HONEST in doing so. They are following their own laws and culture.

[Yapyap]

Whether DRM removal is illegal or not in a given jurisdiction, it has very little to do with pirating.

Some people may choose to strip DRM and then share, yes, but it's perfectly possible to strip DRM from one's own legally bought ebooks and not share, ever, with anyone, and not ever engage in anything that is remotely like pirating. Just like it's possible to pirate books (and share, and upload for others to download) without that having anything to do with DRM or the removal of DRM.

And I have no idea what living in Armenia has to do with freeing people's own legally bought books for backup purposes or for reading on another brand of e-reader.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

Whether DRM removal is illegal or not in a given jurisdiction, it has very little to do with pirating.

Some people may choose to strip DRM and then share, yes, but it's perfectly possible to strip DRM from one's own legally bought ebooks and not share, ever, with anyone, and not ever engage in anything that is remotely like pirating. Just like it's possible to pirate books (and share, and upload for others to download) without that having anything to do with DRM or the removal of DRM.

And I have no idea what living in Armenia has to do with freeing people's own legally bought books for backup purposes or for reading on another brand of e-reader.

It is true that DRM stripping and piracy are totally different and have different laws in every jurisdiction. In my jurisdiction just DRM stripping is a crime. In others just piracy is a crime. There are HUNDREDS of jurisdictions on our planet - all have different laws on both issues.

Some jurisdictions only punish use of pirate sites. Others only punish DRM stripping.

Those laws apply to software, eBooks, music, games and movies. I cited the software uses by nations above. That points to the wide variety of practices we have on the planet AND on this Forum.

I play a lot of computer games and the issue is big there as well. Copy protection schemes sometimes ruined entire PC's. One of mine was ruined by that. Now they generally do not use protection other than requiring one to only buy them from particular game distributors and play the games in connection to those servers such as Steam.

The music protection schemes exploded about 12 years ago when downloaders from music pirate sites were targeted by computer generated lawsuits. Apple iTunes used to have very protective DRM on every song. Eventually, that evolved to the present where songs purchased from Amazon have no DRM protection at all but do have 9 digit license numbers installed in the metadata. Maybe eBooks will end up that way as well ending the DRM problems and questions.

So far as I see it, DRM protection of eBooks is useless. Those, who want to strip it, can easily do it with the Alf plugin for Calibre. Thus, why even place DRM protection on eBooks at all? Purchasers of eBooks should be given a standard whereby they could read those eBooks on any reader just as the unprotected MP3 standard enables music lovers to play those songs on any device.

Of course pirate sites could not operate at all if DRM could not be removed. Also, what happens to the rights of authors and / or publishers? Maybe the Steam solution for games is the answer: no DRM at all in the games but those games cannot operate without access to the Steam servers to receive linking enabler files at least once after installation. Is that viable for eBooks?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I didn't forget anything, it may be true that downloading is legal, but that's not relevant.

There is no "may be" about it. It is true.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Let's go back to the text:

The first paragraph completely discounts public domain books and books offered for free. In the second paragraph, they admit they don't actually know what percentage is acquired by illegal means, while the first paragraph makes an explicit - and probably false - claim that over 90% of the books on Dutch e-readers are pirated. Certainly some percentage of those books are legal free books.

Simply dividing the number of downloads by the number of e-readers can lead to skewed data. A few people my be downloading thousands of books, which can skew the numbers.

Language is important. The books that you buy from retailers are downloaded as well.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Language is important. The books that you buy from retailers are downloaded as well.

That is very true. Almost all of what some may call "pirate" sites actually operate in countries where they are PERFECTLY LEGAL and are called in those countries FILE SHARING sites.

There are many sites which allow uploads of large files for storage and then allow others to download them. They claim no knowledge of what their users are doing. However, a few of those operators have been prosecuted outside the nations from which they operate because some of their customers have uploaded DRM free software, songs, eBooks, games, etc. Then other customers have downloaded them.

Its probably easier to prosecute the site operators than the millions of file sharers even though it may be totally UNJUSTIFIED.

Language is different all over the planet as well. What may be perfectly legal in China may be completely illegal in the USA. As we have seen in this thread the Netherlands has passed their own laws exempting all eBook file downloaders from any restrictions whether those files are DRM protected or DRM stripped or being given away free with author / publisher permission or being given away without that permission.

The publishing industry has a big problem here. So far good solutions appear to be far in the future. One consequence of this problem is the shut down of Sony eBooks in the USA as I just read in another thread on this Forum. DRM failure leads to plunging earnings of retailers, publishers and authors.

Here is the headline from the link in that other thread:

"Sony to close Reader store and move users to Kobo's e-book platform in 'late March'"

We have come a long way from the time when a monk took 6 months to copy a Bible to where we can now make 100,000 copies of an eBible in less than 6 seconds and send them all over the planet in less than 60 seconds.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Of course pirate sites could not operate at all if DRM could not be removed.

Of course they could. It's true that stripping DRM off a legally bought ebook gives pirates an easy way to upload and share books, but there are many, many pirated books around that don't even exist as official ebooks and never have.

The Harry Potter books were around as very good "unofficial" e-copies (PDF and other formats) years before official ebooks were made. Same goes for many other books.

If a book exists and can be viewed/read, it can also be pirated, as long as someone wants to do it and has a scanner or a camera. DRM is not an obstacle to pirates or pirate sites; DRM is only something that inconveniences people who buy their books honestly and want to keep personal backups, transfer their legally bought book to a different brand of reader and maybe - maybe - share a copy with a good friend or sibling, much like they did in the days of paper books, not upload and "share" with the entire world.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

Of course they could. It's true that stripping DRM off a legally bought ebook gives pirates an easy way to upload and share books, but there are many, many pirated books around that don't even exist as official ebooks and never have.

The Harry Potter books were around as very good "unofficial" e-copies (PDF and other formats) years before official ebooks were made. Same goes for many other books.

If a book exists and can be viewed/read, it can also be pirated, as long as someone wants to do it and has a scanner or a camera. DRM is not an obstacle to pirates or pirate sites; DRM is only something that inconveniences people who buy their books honestly and want to keep personal backups, transfer their legally bought book to a different brand of reader and maybe - maybe - share a copy with a good friend or sibling, much like they did in the days of paper books, not upload and "share" with the entire world.

In fact, didn't pirates actually invent the concept of the ebook?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it's merely legal, which is not the same thing at all. Honesty is an ethical standard, not a legal one.

Since you seem to think everything that is illegal is not ethical to do I just wanted to point this out. But I realise now that just because you think everything illegal is immoral does not mean that think everything legal is moral. But I think that is a bit strange.