Do you pirate books and why?

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm surprised to see the "No" vote so high. (Just over 48% as I write this.)

Really? Never? Not even for books you love (& own in paper) that aren't yet available in ebook formats?

I have a scanner for that, so if it's worth rereading and I can't buy the ebook, I'm going to create my own. From what I saw of the pirated ebooks on Usenet from a few years ago, the pirate ebook versions of books without an official ebook edition were terrible, filled with OCR errors, formatting errors, missing author emphasis (italics, bold, font changes, etc.), and not worth reading or collecting. I suppose that might have changed for ebooks with official ebook editions since it's so easy to strip DRM, but it's too much bother for me to find out whether it's "good" or not.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Catlady

But you simply can't equate the theft of a physical object with the copying of a file.

Sure I can

Thinking about it, there are two reasons why book shoplifting might be worse than piracy:

1. The physicality thing. And this I deny. Because printing a book is so cheap, publishers tend to print too many. The last one standing, if not shoplifted, has a good chance of being remaindered and then pulped. So from a physical standpoint, the shoplift, as likely as not, helped the book industry. One less return!

2. The harming the shopkeeper thing. This does make shoplifting worse. But, as a thought experiment, does anyone remember when Doubleday was a major publisher with a large chain of Doubleday bookstores? Suppose that you shoplifted a Doubleday book from a Doubleday bookstore. This seems to me just like book piracy. And most of us will sense that shoplifting a Doubleday book from a Doubleday bookstore isn't really much better than shoplifting a Random House book from Barnes and Noble.

I should emphasize that neither piracy nor shoplifting are major offenses. Almost everyone has done worse. So this is not about one person being better than another, although it is about one deed being better than another.

[MikeOxlittle]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

A big problem with your hypothetical is that the piracy comes before the reading and the posting. What happens when you read the pirated book and find it to be a fine work from a purely literary standpoint, but hate the author's perspective on life?

As people who pirate books are already heathens with no morals, lying about a bad book being good shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Sure I can

Openly admitting to making false arguments doesn't help your case

[plib]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

As people who pirate books are already heathens with no morals, lying about a bad book being good shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Actually, based on the latest carefully researched data out of Hollywood, it has been shown that a majority are Devil worshipers.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Let's change your little story except that you didn't pirate the book -- you shoplifted it.

It you really give all the free publicity suggested, your shoplifting probably did benefit the creators of the book. So what? To me, it is still wrong.

The implication of your post is that morality is solely a matter of whether anyone is harmed. If that's what you think, sure, piracy can be seen as a good thing.

A big problem with your hypothetical is that the piracy comes before the reading and the posting. What happens when you read the pirated book and find it to be a fine work from a purely literary standpoint, but hate the author's perspective on life?

But shop lifting and allowing it has other disadvantages that probably make the utility equation end up on the oher side. And the implication of the post was explicity not that everythin is alllowed that do not harm anyone. The opinion was that we look at the total increase or decrease in utility and decide according to that.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

As people who pirate books are already heathens with no morals, lying about a bad book being good shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Why do you insult heathens saying the have no moral?

Empirical studies have actually shown that people belonging to big religions are more likely to behave imorally.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

These days, some of the pirating is done because of the price. $14.99 for an eBook is a lot of money. These are people who don't buy hardcover and try to find books at the lowest cost possible. Not everyone can afford $14.99 for an eBook. Even $12.99 is a lot. So what we have is the publishers pricing eBooks out of some people's ability to pay for them. So rather then pay what they cannot afford, they try to get it for free.

Some people pirate in order to try out an author given the high prices. If an eBook interests someone yet the price is $14.99 or $12.99 and the author is unknown (not read), then it may be pirated to check out if the author is liked.

Remember the original Napster caused sales of CDs to go up because people needed source to share and they found songs online they liked and wanted the full CD. Plus, back then, a lot of rips were not all that good. Napster caused CD sales to rise and the RIAA decided to shut it down.

What I do sometimes is split the cost of an eBook.

Some of the pirates are fans of authors and or books that are not available as ebooks. These tend to be better formatted and have less mistakes.
Apache

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

As people who pirate books are already heathens with no morals, lying about a bad book being good shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

As some of the people who never pirate are serial killers, and lots of them beat their children, your sarcasm is irrelevant.

My biggest objection to threads like this (a mild one since I participate anyway) is the individual defensiveness. I did not vote because I post under my own name, my risk tolerance is low, and if I did violate an unenforced law which might start being enforced, I wouldn't admit it. Everyone lies. So no assumption should be made as to whether I think I am better or worse than anyone else. I'm just playing around with ideas.

[MikeOxlittle]

Originally Posted by plib

Actually, based on the latest carefully researched data out of Hollywood, it has been shown that a majority are Devil worshipers.

They are also responsible for the creation and distribution of ' bath salts '.

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

As some of the people who never pirate are serial killers, and lots of them beat their children, your sarcasm is irrelevant.

My biggest objection to threads like this (a mild one since I participate anyway) is the individual defensiveness. I did not vote because I post under my own name, my risk tolerance is low, and if I did violate an unenforced law which might start being enforced, I wouldn't admit it. Everyone lies. So no assumption should be made as to whether I think I am better or worse than anyone else. I'm just playing around with ideas.

Which is why I wonder if the poll was initially private instead of public would the percentages still be near the same or completely different?

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

You pirate a book that is sold for $10. You read the book and enjoy it and then go onto the internet and proclaim what a great book it is (forum posts, review sites, blogs, social media sites, etc.).

10 random people, who before, had no idea the book existed, see your comments and become interested in your enthusiasm for it and go pay the $10 price.

The proper way to do that: ask the author for a review copy. If they say yes, then everything is okay. If they say no, then they feel that they do not need outside promotional skills.

Besides, what you propose is just trying to justify illegal actions. Even if 10 random people picked it up because of the review, it is just as possible that they would pirate the book. It is also just as possible that those 10 random people don't exist.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I should emphasize that neither piracy nor shoplifting are major offenses.

Not according to the law. Shoplifting is petty theft, with a penalty of up to a few hundred dollars, depending on jurisdiction. Piracy is either copyright infringement or DMCA violation (same illegality; different category of penalties) with a penalty of up to $500,000 and 5 years in prison per willful breach of law.

If it's not a "major offense," why is the penalty higher than that for Grand Theft Auto? Higher than the penalties for assault and battery? Barely shorter than the maximum prison time for rape--and with a much larger fine than is allowed for rapes?

This is one of the reasons people don't take the law seriously. When you use a shotgun to go after mosquitoes, people wind up rooting for the mosquitoes. "Copyright law reform" needs to start with adjusting the penalties to fit the severity of the offenses.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

"Copyright law reform" needs to start with adjusting the penalties to fit the severity of the offenses.

And adjusting the length of copyright to a term that is relevant to readers rather than archaeologists.

[Josieb1]

When hubby and I first got our Kindles we spent a small fortune replacing paper books with ebooks, this was for our convienience. Luckily this was before agency pricing, whilst we didn't pirate books I can understand why people do as the prices, even then, for back list books were far more expensive than a paper book. Now my reading tastes have changed and I tend to read Indie ebooks, if we buy mainstream ebooks its only because they are on offer, the standard ebook prices are just far too expensive, and we never go near new releases any more.

Most of my ebooks come from non mainstream publishers and those are DRM free, that indicates a trust by those publishers that the readers will not pirate the books, the prices are reasonable as well. If you take away the need to pirate then most people wouldn't bother.

[BillSmithBooks]

I have no reason to pirate. There are already lots of great books available at terms I find acceptable and I am willing to support them with my money.

I support ebook authors who sell their books DRM-free and at a reasonable price.

If a book is priced too high (IMO) or DRM-crippled, I simply do not buy it. There are also plenty of alternative means of acquiring great books at a reasonable cost, including used book sales.

I think stealing -- which is what I consider "piracy" -- is simply lazy and abhorrent.