E-reads and Curtis Agency Declare War on Piracy

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

You didn't complain about the pirates, particularly, until I asked you what you thought? I wonder where I got the idea that you were talking about the people and not the sites (in bold):
First post:


Your second post:


Your fourth post:


Your fifth post:


Communication would be easier if you wouldn't refer to the torrent sites as pirates, people and individuals.

You're reading a lot into my posts that I didn't put there. I reported how the E-reads founder felt about pirates. I reported what I thought was the ethical status of taking other people's copyrighted work and putting it up for the world. I also noted that I don't worry all that much about it. It is true that I was careless about distinguishing between the people who operate pirate sites (Pirate Bay, anyone?) and those who upload books to them. So let me clarify that the people I have expressed negative opinions about are primarily those who operate sites promoting this activity, and I suspect in many cases making a nice profit from it.

Also, I didn't ask your opinion on pirates, but your moral view on the fact that you used somebody's work to make a profit.

Let's be clear, shall we? Their "work" was an illegal appropriation of my copyrighted novel. I have no moral objection to using their digitization. Do you? As I noted earlier, I gave a nod of thanks to the unknown persons, because they took care to do a good job, even as they were appropriating my work. Nevertheless, they scanned and uploaded my creative work without permission. What do you think I owe them?

[Barty]

It's generally a bad idea to declare war on improper nouns. War on drugs, war on poverty, war on terrorism, war on obesity (how's that working out for you?). So I don't have high hopes for war on piracy.

This is where the evil genius of Steve Jobs comes in. iPod, iPad, iPhone. They're trademarked names, so they're surely proper nouns, but they start with a lower case letter, so maybe not? The gods are confused, Apple reigns on.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by molman

@xg4bx: I think your post echoes many peoples odd logic around this topic (which I personally find to be a false logic). My contention comes down to this. You don't have to consume said book/song/tv show etc. It is in many ways a luxury item. If you can't afford that $100 novella don't read it. If you breach someone’s copyright (I really don't like the word pirate, it is so loaded now), then just accept that you are breaking the law in most countries and depriving the people who hold the legal rights due compensation... anything beyond that is just the stories people tell themselves. Btw. Not judging you, just saying that people seem to have overly complex narratives around this topic.

One reason I don't agree with that position is that it assumes that the content creators are holding up their part of the deal. They aren't.

Broadly speaking, the deal is that the creators have a limited period of time in which to profit from their creation, after which it enters the public domain.

Obviously, there's a spectrum along which the proper point of "limited period" might occur, but basically, in the United States, we have reached the point that for practical purposes, nothing enters the public domain during the lifetime of any adult alive at the time it is created.

When you add to that an attempt by the creator to extract a disproportionate price for the content, leveraging off of the extended time frame of copyright, I think it's fair to say that the deal is off.

That's not a legal argument, so YMMV.

But there's another point that is a legal one. You are assuming that it is unquestionable that downloading files from pirate sites is illegal. People tend to confuse the clear illegality involved in the unauthorized distributing of copyrighted material, with the downloading of that material for personal use. While the matter is not indisputable, I think that there is a very strong case - stronger than the contra - for the proposition that, legally speaking, merely downloading a file from a pirate site for personal use is not a copyright violation.

You do have to be careful, though, that you are not downloading in a PTP situation, because (as I understand the way the technology works) that involves you with distributing at the same time you are downloading.

I personally think copyright law is where the real issue lays, and that the abstracts of the physical world don't translate well to the digital where everything is infinitely copy-able...... but then I'm leading us down a rat hole so I'll stop.

Well, without going down the rathole, I would observe that maybe the problem is with the physical abstracts in the first place, not with the translation. I think that the concept of intellectual property is incoherent, but it works well enough to be useful in the physical world. I think that the digital world exposes that incoherence.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by starrigger

You're reading a lot into my posts that I didn't put there.

You said you didn't talk about the pirates in particular but you actually started the thread talking about pirates in particular. If you were talking about the sites, or about the people that are running the sites, you should have been more clear about it, especially since you consider yourself a writer.

Originally Posted by starrigger

Let's be clear, shall we? Their "work" was an illegal appropriation of my copyrighted novel. I have no moral objection to using their digitization. Do you? As I noted earlier, I gave a nod of thanks to the unknown persons, because they took care to do a good job, even as they were appropriating my work. Nevertheless, they scanned and uploaded my creative work without permission. What do you think I owe them?

ap·pro·pri·a·tion

noun /əˌprōprēˈāSHən/ 
appropriations, plural

1. The action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission

2. The artistic practice or technique of reworking images from well-known paintings, photographs, etc., in one's own work

3. A sum of money or total of assets devoted to a special purpose

None of the definitions match the case. The person who digitized your novel actually bought the book from you, and didn't say that the novel was their work.

And the reason why I asked about it was this: you kept talking about how bad pirates are for distributing work that isn't theirs, but at least they aren't making a profit off it, the way you are.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There's a lot of people who sell downloaded ebooks on Ebay, as well as lots of other types of downloaded content. Those are the sort of people that these war on piracy types should go after.

The funny thing is, even most pirates hate those people, and they get very little focus. I used to spend time with a group of people, and we would hit up ebay and a few other sites, reporting people selling pirated things. Most of the time the reports were ignored, and others the particular item was removed but nothing else done to the person so you'd see the same person using the same account selling the same thing illegally in the next few days. Reports that we had, was some of the commercial bootleggers we were going after were making thousands of dollars doing this, duping people who didn't know any better.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

You said you didn't talk about the pirates in particular but you actually started the thread talking about pirates in particular.

I said I didn't complain about them, which is rather different. (That was your word, if you recall.)

ap·pro·pri·a·tion

noun /əˌprōprēˈāSHən/ 
appropriations, plural

1. The action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission

Yes, that pretty well covers it.

You know what--continue this conversation with the others, if they'll put up with it. This is my stop coming up.

See you later, guys.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by molman

- The breach of copyright (copying an artefact you don't have the license or rights to) is illegal in many countries.
- Economic impact isn't truly known. It probably lies somewhere in the middle... and more importantly the distribution is unlikely to be even.
- Moralisation of such-and-such being evil or so-in-so being good as a means for justification of actions is often childish in construct and rather baseless more oft than not.

One of the main issues is this developed sense of entitlement - if economics mean xg4bx can't read said book who are they (the others) to stop him. Just be honest that you want what you want but you're too cheap to pay what the market demands so you have decided to break the law as likely laid down in the country you live in. All the rest is just fairy tales.

In the US, "copying an artifact you don't have the license or rights to" is necessary, but not sufficient for violating copyright.

Further, copyright law is an attempt to arbitrate the economic situation. It is supposed to represent a balancing of the creator's economic rights with the general right of the public to knowledge.

In other words, we are not dealing here with the free market, and a pure economic analysis is not appropriate. We are dealing with a contractual arrangement reflected in the law. Many of us believe that the creator side is overreaching. The extreme case is Disney.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by molman

I think you might want to reinvestigate your assumptions that IP laws don't apply to artefacts just because they are made by oneself or not offered for sale. I think you will find that your proposition is in fact mythical in most countries (including the one you likely reside in).

Well, I don't know patent law, but I do know something about copyright law, and if the same concepts apply, then in the US I would expect to find that you can make your own Phantom without a problem, so long as you don't sell it.

Suppose you have (notice I didn't say "own") a print copy of a Harry Potter book. You sit down & type it, word for word, into a file on your computer, convert it to mobi, and read it on your Kindle. No violation of copyright has occurred.

(However, you might now be the author of the book, per Borges.) (That's a joke, for anyone who hasn't read Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote)

[tompe]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Well the scanner doesn't have copyright over it, and if anyone does, it would be the original author, who is the one who used it.

Well, suppose 10 hours were spent proof reading and fixing errors. Suppose the people doing that did not want the result of their work to be sold. If we not look at this legally why is this dis-respect for peoples wishes more acceptable than the original dis-respect when distributing the proofed work?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I said I didn't complain about them, which is rather different. (That was your word, if you recall.)

Yes, it was my word, because it sounded like you were complaining. Also, when you said this:

Originally Posted by starrigger

You think the pirate sites don't profit? Hoo, boy...

In any case, I didn't complain about the pirates, particularly, until you asked me what I thought. I said they were stealing, which I believe is true. It is also true that I don't think about them very much, and worry about them less.

I considered that the word particularly was used in connection to pirates, taking the meaning that you weren't talking particularly about the pirates, but pirates and/or pirate sites, otherwise the question "You think the pirate sites don't profit" would have come out of nowhere in the context of the discussion.

If you meant that you didn't particularly complain, then all I can say is that you seemed to be complaining.

Originally Posted by starrigger

Yes, that pretty well covers it.

No, it doesn't. You sold a book to someone who digitized and distributed your novel. Since it started with a sale, you can't use the word appropriation to describe it. Also, since appropriation (if used correctly) is illegal, saying illegal appropriation is redundant.

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=starrigger;1730064]
As a practical matter, I choose not to play "Whack-a-mole," though I don't mind E-reads doing it on my behalf. But I do contest, as an ethical matter, the sense of entitlement I sometimes witness that says, "I have a right to any ebook I want, whether it's been authorized by the author or not." Because no, you don't.*
[QUOTE]

There's a tension here between the creator's right to authorize the sale of his books and the general public's right to have the book. Neither right is absolute.

I think that as long as your right to control your book is protected by law, a reader has the right to expect you to (1) make the book available for sale at (2) a reasonable price, (3) in formats that are accessible to the general public.

I think that a large part of what is going on here is that we are going through a transition period in which a number of books, for reasons not always under the creator's control, are not available in ebook format to people who would willingly pay for them.

But any author who disregards the ebook demand side of the equation does so at his peril.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by starrigger

You think the pirate sites don't profit? Hoo, boy...

In any case, I didn't complain about the pirates, particularly, until you asked me what I thought. I said they were stealing, which I believe is true. It is also true that I don't think about them very much, and worry about them less.

Under copyright law in the US, the copyright holder has the sole right to profit from the creation. The pirates don't.

What the pirates are doing is volunteered work, and they have no claim for compensation for volunteered work. (There is a concept called quantum meruit under the law which does permit compensation for volunteered work, but it has a foundation in equity, which will not apply where you pirate the work in the first place.

Further, to the extent that there are any profits from the "improved" pirate version, the profits belong to the creator.

And in fact, possession of the improved pirated work is likely to be awarded to the creator if the matter were to go to court.

Bottom line - there is NO problem whatsoever in the author taking the pirated work and using it any way he wants. The pirates have no claim at all for doing something the author didn't give them permission to do.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Bottom line - there is NO problem whatsoever in the author taking the pirated work and using it any way he wants. The pirates have no claim at all for doing something the author didn't give them permission to do.

It's also likely under U.S copyright law that nothing in the Scan/OCR/Proof steps would have sufficient creativity to generate a copyright.

Greg Weeks

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Many of us believe that the creator side is overreaching. The extreme case is Disney.

Look for attempts to have copyright extended to virtual eternity in the near future in the USA thanks to that whole "Citizens United" deal about corporations being considered persons under the 1st Amendment (and, likely, the entire US Bill of Rights), declaring that any copyrights owned by the corporation lasts for 75 years after the death of that corporate person (ie, until 75 years after that corporation disolves, which is rather a rare thing since most of the time they just get absorbed into another corporation...).

[molman]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

An analogy's relevance is usually inversely proportional to its length/complexity. And they're only ever 100% apropos to their authors.

I try to stay away from them myself.

You crack me up DiapDealer, and very poignant indeed.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The pirate has no protection for their work, as they had no right to produce it.

True. Only the original is protected. I'm not sure how things would work for the article that infinges copyright. In the physical world I don't believe the copyright owner would be granted access to the article but rather that it would be destroyed. Digital makes things different.

Originally Posted by starrigger

I have no moral objection to using their digitization. Do you?

I do, but that's me nor do I judge your choice to. What I'm actually more curious about is why you would need to when you have access to the original work (surely already as a digital text file)?