Do you pirate books and why?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Harper Kingsley

....
But growing up, I realized that just because I'm poor doesn't give me the right to take things without permission.

....

To be poor is not enough, of course. You also need to have bigger guns.

You live in nation which was taken away by "poor colonists" without the permission of the King, who was the legitimate owner of the land.
But they took it mostly because they were better fighters than the King's soldiers, not just because they were poorer...

Piracy is wrong as long as the anti-pirates are better armed. Whenever it goes the other way around, pirates are heroes and they get a monument in Trafalgar Square.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Format C:

To be poor is not enough, of course. You also need to have bigger guns.

You live in nation which was taken away by "poor colonists" without the permission of the King, who was the legitimate owner of the land.
But they took it mostly because they were better fighters than the King's soldiers, not just because they were poorer...

Piracy is wrong as long as the anti-pirates are better armed. Whenever it goes the other way around, pirates are heroes and they get a monument in Trafalgar Square.

No, it wasn't that they were better soldiers, it was that the French helped them. Without French assistance Americans would be driving on the proper side of the road and speaking English correctly.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Format C:

To be poor is not enough, of course. You also need to have bigger guns.

You live in nation which was taken away by "poor colonists" without the permission of the King, who was the legitimate owner of the land.
But they took it mostly because they were better fighters than the King's soldiers, not just because they were poorer...

Piracy is wrong as long as the anti-pirates are better armed. Whenever it goes the other way around, pirates are heroes and they get a monument in Trafalgar Square.

Yes, and then the golden age of "nobody is publishing decent books anymore" will have arrived, because it is not worth the trouble. How wonderful, what do we need authors for? Perhaps Google will come out with an automatic text producing software.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The reason for buying the paper copy is not because you need it, but because you're stealing from the author if you don't buy it. Chuck it in the dustbin after you're bought it if you wish, but buy it.

I've read a few people say that they pirated a book, then bought the paper copy "to make up for it." But then when they pay for the printed copy, they also receive that printed copy. They've paid for the lack of "stealing" the printed copy.

If the big issue is "as long as the author gets their money", then it shouldn't be a stretch that it be perfectly ok to go and download a copy of every book they happen to have sitting on their shelf. Because even with used books, someone has already given the author their money, even if it wasn't technically the current owner of the used book.

(Disclaimer above, I am not trying to encourage people to go and illegally download a bunch of books, I am just pondering why some people might think piracy makes sense as that is the topic of this thread)

[plib]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

No, it wasn't that they were better soldiers, it was that the French helped them. Without French assistance Americans would be driving on the proper side of the road and speaking English correctly.

Historically correct, but it all goes in cycles. Without American assistance the Brits and French could be driving on the wrong side of the road and speaking German correctly while Aussies would be fluent in Japanese.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by plib

Historically correct, but it all goes in cycles. Without American assistance the Brits and French could be driving on the wrong side of the road and speaking German correctly while Aussies would be fluent in Japanese.

And in time to come a great number of countries may have Chinese or Hindi as their first language .....

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The reason for buying the paper copy is not because you need it, but because you're stealing from the author if you don't buy it. Chuck it in the dustbin after you're bought it if you wish, but buy it.

Of course you are not stealing.

And if you throw it away you contribute to we running out of material. Which is not good either.

[JohnGalt]

Originally Posted by BenBanned

More ethics and less monetary, I refuse to pay for something I can't physicaly hold. Why would I pay the same price for something that has almost no value?
To me a book is worth money because it is on paper. My shelves hold books that mean something to me, I glance at the spines and am flooded with memories, many will be passed on to my children. When I finish reading an ebook it simply no longer exists to me.
Can I not look at art without purchasing it?

You're seriously arguing that this is an "ethical" stance you're taking? The complete disregard for intellectual property? What difference does the matter make? The matter is secondary. If you think it is morally wrong to steal fruit, but not an artistic rendering of a fruit in a digital file, your reasoning is totally backward. Farmers do not create dirt, they do not creat seeds, they do not create fruit, etc. They work the material. It is the sweat of their brow that makes that material "theirs" to sell to you. This is the very basis of property rights. Locke argued that you and the material become inextricably intertwined with your working of it. The material is God's, or at least communal. It is the imposition of the worker onto the material that gives it value. Therefore there is NO material difference in value between the worth of a work in one medium or another per se.

[JohnGalt]

A group of parasitic busibodies in Washington doing the dirty work of crony-capitalist publishing houses to squeeze the American people for every last cent for works they didn't even create has little to do with real morality. So forgetting these paid-for laws, let's consider justice alone. For me to have committed a transgression, there is neccessarily a transgressed against (injured) party. In your scenario there is no financial damage to anyone by your actions. It is a pretty twisted world we live in where I would be held criminal for an act of convenience to myself which in no way affected any other party.

Originally Posted by HarryT

There would be only one set of circumstances in which I'd consider it ethically justifiable to pirate a book:

1. If no commercial eBook was available.

and:

2. I'd bought the paper book.

In those circumstances, I'd have no qualms about downloading a pirated eBook. However, if a commercial eBook did then become commercially available, I'd buy it.

So I'd have to answer "on occasions". Very rare occasions.

[tdmsu]

I have purchased the ebook version of books I enjoyed in paper form on purpose, just to support the author or at least to let the companies know another person likes this kind of book. I have no problem paying twice for a book I really enjoy. Having said that, my preference for any new books is to just get the ebook version when it becomes available, and often I'll wait until the price comes down.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

It is the sweat of their brow that makes that material "theirs" to sell to you. This is the very basis of property rights. Locke argued that you and the material become inextricably intertwined with your working of it. The material is God's, or at least communal. It is the imposition of the worker onto the material that gives it value. Therefore there is NO material difference in value between the worth of a work in one medium or another per se.

So If I take a printed book and by the sweat of my brow convert it into a well formatted epub, is the book now mine to sell?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

A group of parasitic busibodies in Washington doing the dirty work of crony-capitalist publishing houses to squeeze the American people for every last cent for works they didn't even create has little to do with real morality.

This is an international board. Since the US does little in the way of stopping piracy, you should not have singled out my country for abuse. Compared to France, with its enforced HADOPI law, or the European countries that forbid retail price competition, someone with a screen name like yours should be ecstatic over the US situation.

But since you have brought up the US -- the amount of protection against pirates that US publishers get in return for paying corporate income tax is virtually zero. When it comes to copyright enforcement, books (as opposed to music, software, and movies) are less than an afterthought.

The only significant crony capitalist aspect of US book publishing is with their primary and secondary school textbook divisions. And those are precisely the books which the publishers themselves do mostly create, with the authors listed on the cover sometimes having little to do with the finished product. And the government-publisher cronyism involves the Texas Board of Education more than anyone in Washington.

As for some of your other points, if someone illicitly appropriates my stuff, my injury should not be compounded by a need to prove harm. But if injury is the criteria, shoplifting from chain bookstores should also be defended, since publishers routinely print way more copies than they can sell.

Perhaps you are a pirate, or wish to defend people you care about who pirate. No one is perfect, including me. But please stop this victim-blaming.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

This is an international board. Since the US does little in the way of stopping piracy, you should not have singled out my country for abuse. Compared to France, with its enforced HADOPI law, or the European countries that forbid retail price competition, someone with a screen name like yours should be ecstatic over the US situation.

What was talked about here was the extension of copyright time and of course that is US that pushes that. And what have the fact that this is an international board with things to to other than we non US people are not blind to how bad US behave in certain circumstances and deserve to be singled out.

[JohnGalt]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

So If I take a printed book and by the sweat of my brow convert it into a well formatted epub, is the book now mine to sell?

I understand what your getting at, but no. There were at one point resources with no owner - nature in its pristine state. Man working these resources imparted his own nature into the resulting worked resource, and therefore could claim ownership of it. If another person stole my property and continued to work it, then my work and his work are in fact now a part of that property. However, it never ceased to be mine. In fact, I am now entitled to seek restitution from the stealing party because he altered my property. Stolen property doesn't become the stealer's property no matter what they do to it.

Take a song for example, as this is a common scenario. If I play Led Zeppelin songs in a concert without their permission, I have violated their rights to their work. However, take a track like "G-L-O-R-I-A" for example. Van Morrison has the rights to the original song. If I recorded it without his permission, and sold it for a profit, he would be justified in coming after me for damages for not licensing his work - it doesn't become mine by whatever of myself is imparted into the recording because it is still Van Morrison's property I am imparting myself upon. However, in the cases that he did license the use of his song - there are probably 25 different recordings out there by major artists on major labels - because these artists worked and added something of themselves to his song in their recordings, Van Morrison can't just bootleg a Shadows of Night recording of G-L-O-R-I-A and start selling it as if it his now his sole property.

[JohnGalt]

I'm not going to get into a side political rant here as the topic was piracy, but I will simply clarify my statements, and you may argree or not. Civil courts exist for injured parties to seek relief from agressing parties. Companies that are wronged ought to seek relief in civil courts. What I mean by Crony Capitalists is businesses that rely on the force of governmental action to conduct their business (the banking industry's dependence upon the federal reserve, the airline industry dependence upon the FAA, water gas and power companies dependence upon state-enforced monopolies, etc.) In the case of publishers and recording industries, instead of developing a simple contractual agreement with their customers that they can seek relief with in a civil court, they band together as an industry (monopoly) and throw their money around at lobbyists who manage to buy whatever laws they think they need to support their business model. (CISPA, PIPA, etc. being the latest incarnations.)

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

This is an international board. Since the US does little in the way of stopping piracy, you should not have singled out my country for abuse. Compared to France, with its enforced HADOPI law, or the European countries that forbid retail price competition, someone with a screen name like yours should be ecstatic over the US situation.

But since you have brought up the US -- the amount of protection against pirates that US publishers get in return for paying corporate income tax is virtually zero. When it comes to copyright enforcement, books (as opposed to music, software, and movies) are less than an afterthought.

The only significant crony capitalist aspect of US book publishing is with their primary and secondary school textbook divisions. And those are precisely the books which the publishers themselves do mostly create, with the authors listed on the cover sometimes having little to do with the finished product. And the government-publisher cronyism involves the Texas Board of Education more than anyone in Washington.

As for some of your other points, if someone illicitly appropriates my stuff, my injury should not be compounded by a need to prove harm. But if injury is the criteria, shoplifting from chain bookstores should also be defended, since publishers routinely print way more copies than they can sell.

Perhaps you are a pirate, or wish to defend people you care about who pirate. No one is perfect, including me. But please stop this victim-blaming.