Piracy Experiment

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by Catlady

So ... motive determines morality?

Motive is almost always a factor in morality. Stabbing someone with a knife because they won't give you their lunch money is generally considered not moral. Stabbing someone with a knife because they are trying to kill you is generally considered ok.

Suppose the motive for sharing files is to allow people who otherwise don't have access (lack of funds, geographical restrictions, etc.) to certain books to read those books? Suppose the motive for downloading files is to sample certain authors whose books I might buy in the future? Suppose the book in question is out of print?

Then, one moral action could be to buy paperback books for those poor people. Or to look at the used book catalogs of Amazon resellers. Having what you want in an ebook format isn't a constitutionally protected right in any country that I am aware of.

These "motives" make me think of the movie theater analogy. If I don't have spare money to see a movie in the theater (and with 5 kids, I often don't), then I don't go, because I need/choose to spend my money in other ways. What I don't do, is say since I won't pay for a ticket, then I might as well sneak in and sit in an empty seat for free.

You think it's legal and moral to photocopy a page out of a book to replace said page in the book one owns.

It is legal because it falls under the fair-use exemption of copyright law.
It is moral (to me) for much the same reasons that the fair-use exemption makes it legal. Certainly

Well, I have paperbacks I duly paid for that have pages falling out and cracked bindings and torn and missing pages. Shouldn't it be moral for me to get a digital replacement?

It's not legal, as the infringement would not be exempted by fair-use.

You asked for an example of when quantity changed something from being legal to illegal. I gave it. Whether you or I feel that this different situation is moral or not is an entirely different discussion. And since different people have different views on what is moral, that's mostly a pointless discussion.

[HamsterRage]

This is total after the fact, rationalizing BS, but I'm choosing to view myself as an agent of change. The publishing industry is completely wrong about how they're approaching electronic publishing, and they're on the fast track to extinction. I think we should all help them to get there by withdrawing our cash from industry and download from the darknet like there's no tomorrow.

As long as they charge close to the same price for an ebook as they do for paper (and I don't buy for a second the claims that the printing/distribution/warehousing costs associated with a physical product are a negligible portion of the costs of publishing), and as long as they wrap their product in DRM, then go get the content for free.

Eventually, they'll go under or change their business model. Authors will discover that the print publishers bring very little value to the table and they'll cut them out of the loop and the world will be a better place.

(BTW, I'm only partially joking)

[guyanonymous]

I posted this in its own thread...but it seems that it applies here quite nicely... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

As long as they charge close to the same price for an ebook as they do for paper (and I don't buy for a second the claims that the printing/distribution/warehousing costs associated with a physical product are a negligible portion of the costs of publishing), and as long as they wrap their product in DRM, then go get the content for free.

Publishers seem to have all sorts of crazy ideas.

In the print book domain, one thing that has cost many (hundreds) of potential sales with me has been the trend of switching from the mass-market paperback format to the larger trade paperback. I like acid free paper as much as anyone else, but if the book isn't a hardback, I'm happier to pay $7.99 rather than $14 - $16.

No matter what others may think about how morally bankrupt downloading ebooks is, I still think it's funny that due to publishing schemes, people are investing small amounts in tech that practically pays for itself.

[Anke Wehner]

*heh* A couple of years ago, I would have quite happily paid hardcover prices for certain paperbacks, if they'd been availabe as early as the hardcover books.
I'd bought one book by one of my favourite authors in hardcover, and was really miffed when I found that the size had changed from the several-years-older hardcover I had from the same series - the stupid thing didn't fit my bookcase! I could have adjusted the bookcase, but that would have dominoed to having only three boards instead of four, which would have sucked, since that meant losing space for ~50 paperbacks...

So, yeah, publishers are losing hardcover sales from me because the hardcovers are too unweildy. And aren't those somehow important for bestseller lists?

[John F]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

About fifteen years ago when I worked for Blockbuster each copy cost the store (if I remember correctly) around $130.

Do you live in the US? Are you talking about VHS? 15 years ago would be 1996, and according to Wiki, DVD wasn't introduced in the US until 1997.

I'm talking about the U.S and DVD and Blu Ray. Wasn't there just a big news item about Redbox paying "full retail" for DVDs so that they could bypass the 30 day rental delay.

I remember our local Mom & Pop DVD rental store used to buy their DVDs from Best Buy.

[dmspen]

Here's an excerpt from an ebook i found floating around digital innerspace:

(will it get us back to tne sun anci the stars again? Try me.) ^'ta

In my reader, every other letter is superscripted. It's almost challenging to figure out what was written in the first place!

[RolandD]

Originally Posted by dmspen

Here's an excerpt from an ebook i found floating around digital innerspace:

(will it get us back to tne sun anci the stars again? Try me.) ^'ta

In my reader, every other letter is superscripted. It's almost challenging to figure out what was written in the first place!

Those are OCR errors

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by dmspen

Here's an excerpt from an ebook i found floating around digital innerspace:

(will it get us back to tne sun anci the stars again? Try me.) ^'ta

In my reader, every other letter is superscripted. It's almost challenging to figure out what was written in the first place!

Who needs those Brain Training programs when you've got ebooks like those to figure out, right?

Takes the place of the daily crossword - lol.

[vulcan_girl]

Originally Posted by John F

Do you live in the US? Are you talking about VHS? 15 years ago would be 1996, and according to Wiki, DVD wasn't introduced in the US until 1997.

I'm talking about the U.S and DVD and Blu Ray. Wasn't there just a big news item about Redbox paying "full retail" for DVDs so that they could bypass the 30 day rental delay.

I remember our local Mom & Pop DVD rental store used to buy their DVDs from Best Buy.

This article says that Redbox and Netflix agreed to delay being able to offer some new releases in order to get cheaper DVDs.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by dmspen

Here's an excerpt from an ebook i found floating around digital innerspace:

(will it get us back to tne sun anci the stars again? Try me.) ^'ta

In my reader, every other letter is superscripted. It's almost challenging to figure out what was written in the first place!

Delete it and look for the updated version.

[jhempel24]

Originally Posted by vulcan_girl

This article says that Redbox and Netflix agreed to delay being able to offer some new releases in order to get cheaper DVDs.

Those two distributors yes, but a brick and mortar retail outlet like Blockbuster pays more money per copy than buying them off the shelf, and then get their money back back renting over and over.

It's why 15 years ago (at the old age of 17) when I smashed a movie in a car door on accident the store said we owed them $140, which is what they paid for it. Rather than paying that, my dad bought the title at the store for $15 bucks opened it up and gave it to them.....they didn't accept it....then he said fine we'll see you in court, and they said...just forget about it, and didn't even take the tape LOL.

[John F]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Those two distributors yes, but a brick and mortar retail outlet like Blockbuster pays more money per copy than buying them off the shelf, and then get their money back back renting over and over.

....

I think you're talking about the VHS rental model. Things changed with DVD:

http://askville.amazon.com/Blockbust...questId=784305

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It is interesting to go back to books we liked when we were younger and see what we think. I've done that and some are still good and others not so good. The first Star Trek novel I've ever read turned out to be not so good. It was Spock Must Die by James Blish.

Absolutely my worst experience in that vein was Sword of Shannara, which I first read (and loved) as a teenager shortly after discovering Tolkien. Picked it up again a few years ago and couldn't endure past the first chapter. I feel like I'm being unfair to Terry Brooks - I understand he wrote it as a teenager, and I'm assured by friends he's become a pretty decent writer -- but I just can't bring myself to read anything by Brooks as a result.

Now, Spock Must Die! -- read that one, too, a century or so ago. Can't remember much about it, though. To me, Blish is still the guy who did the Star Trek novels, though I'm sure he'd rather be remembered for Cities in Flight.

--Nathanael

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Actually those are more useful than spaces in ebooks because you don't know where the end of the page will be. And in epub, some readers will just strip out any extra space anyway.

I don't mind space or * * * for section breaks. But, I want it constant. I don't want spaces and then the occasional * * *. That shows the publisher has staff that doesn't know what an eBook is making eBooks.

Which readers strip out any extra space? I've not seen ADE do it.