Archive.org

[murg]

HarryT, what should we do in the matter of Google Books?

As has been laid out here and in The Digital Reader, many books for sale Google Books are pirated. Do we have to do extensive research into the listing to determine if the book is legitimate or pirated? How can you tell? After all, it's for sale on a legitimate site.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murg

It's your own damn fault that people are stealing your software, HarryT.

Yes, blaming the victim for the crime is of course always a popular ploy.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by murg

HarryT, what should we do in the matter of Google Books?

As has been laid out here and in The Digital Reader, many books for sale Google Books are pirated. Do we have to do extensive research into the listing to determine if the book is legitimate or pirated? How can you tell? After all, it's for sale on a legitimate site.

Has Google Books reopened their submissions? I know a couple of months ago, they were trying to weed out the pirated material.

[mitrodhar]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Has Google Books reopened their submissions? I know a couple of months ago, they were trying to weed out the pirated material.

I am also interested in the answer (btw, how to send a PM?)

[mitrodhar]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, blaming the victim for the crime is of course always a popular ploy.

Well it gets old pretty quick nonetheless

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't give a damn what your opinion of it is, Schwartz.

Since you seem to care greatly about what people in general think, and since I am by no means the only person who has suggested they find your opinion unduly restrictive of peoples' right to read the Public Domain, I would've hoped you would at least try to explain why I am wrong, rather than resorting to cursing as a form of debate.


(EDIT: Deleted second half. Very well then, I shan't belabor the point in-thread. I tried to be subtle (-ish?) once, and it ended up getting more public than I like.)

[HarryT]

You know the rules, Schwartz. If you think that a post violates them, click the "Report Post" button and report it as a violation.

And, with that, it really is time for bed.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by mitrodhar

I am also interested in the answer (btw, how to send a PM?)

I think you click on the person's name then click on send private message.

I am rather new here myself.

[eschwartz]

That is certainly the easiest way.
There is also a button on any member's profile page, to Send Message.
Or on your User Control Panel, you can "Send New Message" and write the name of the recipient(s).

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

The main Archive's collections include public collections, to which anyone can contribute. These are the collections which are troublesome in terms of potential copyright violations.

Problematic items do sometimes end up in the tightly curated collections, but that is generally the result of incomplete records and limited access to original source material.

Thinking about Harry's use of the word legitimate:

I think that archive.org as a whole is not legitimate, assuming I properly understand the "anyone can contribute" concept you describe. And that's different from what I wrote before.

But openlibrary.org, by itself, is, at least in the United States, legitimate, because it is both curated and endorsed by large numbers of American governmental units.

There are gradations of legitimacy. If the Library of Congress endorsed openlibrary.org, which is does not, it would be more legitimate. But if your state library endorses it, as does mine, that seems to me a pretty darn strong mark of legitimacy. I'm not saying that the states of the US are ideal governmental units, but they are non-terrible enough to have reasonable power to confer legitimacy.

In theory, US public libraries certainly could abuse their legitimacy. But as I've posted before, what openlibrary.org does is arguably consistent with the expansive US fair use doctrine. If they really were abusive, I think the big publishers, or Overdrive, or Amazon would have sued them before now. After all, unlike illegitimate web sites, openlibrary.org has a firm address at which they will easily accept legal service.

Originally Posted by murg

Civil Disobedience, by its very definition, is the breaking of law.

What makes it civil disobedience is a moral judgement about the legality.

Suppose someone in Russia illegally downloads the full text of one of the books mentioned here as being bowdlerized, due to censorship, in the editions sold there:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/wo...sent.html?_r=0

I'd call that download civil disobedience, even if the downloader didn't pay. This is especially true because the downloader couldn't pay, at least not without risk of a knock on the door.

Now, if an American, in the US, downloaded the same book, without paying, and not from a legitimized library, I'd call it stealing.

What about downloading, from openlibrary.org, a low-quality misscanned EPUB of Goldfinger by Ian Fleming (1908 - 1964), a book which is public domain in China, Japan, and Canada, but not in the US? I don't see it as rising, or declining, to the moral level of stealing from the rights holder (Amazon) if I did it. But it's not a morally superior act for Americans to do it, and thus couldn't be, to me, civil disobedience.

P.S. Apologies for the many double-negatives in this post!

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

What makes it civil disobedience is a moral judgement about the legality.

Suppose someone in Russia illegally downloads the full text of one of the books mentioned here as being bowdlerized, due to censorship, in the editions sold there:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/wo...sent.html?_r=0

I'd call that download civil disobedience, even if the downloader didn't pay. This is especially true because the downloader couldn't pay, at least not without risk of a knock on the door.

Now, if an American, in the US, downloaded the same book, without paying, and not from a legitimized library, I'd call it stealing.

What about downloading, from openlibrary.org, a low-quality misscanned EPUB of Goldfinger by Ian Fleming (1908 - 1964), a book which is public domain in China, Japan, and Canada, but not in the US? I don't see it as rising, or declining, to the moral level of stealing from the rights holder (Amazon) if I did it. But it's not a morally superior act for Americans to do it, and thus couldn't be, to me, civil disobedience.

But that is the whole point of civil disobedience. It is a moral judgment. Morality is subjective.

For one thing, clearly the lawmakers disagreed about the morality.


So... who are you to question someone else's moral judgment?

Civil disobedience is the kind of thing where one breaks the law, in order to raise public awareness of your (and usually numerous others') belief that the law is wrong.
If someone engages in civil disobedience in the ebook world, in order to, for example, protest against the state of current copyright laws, are you going to deny them the right to even qualify as a form of civil disobedience, just because you don't agree?



Now I grant you that civil disobedience is not a magic get-out-of-jail-free card for excusing anything anyone wants to do.
That is why, very often, people suffer for the sake of civil disobedience. Depending on the situation, they may face legal prosecution, or be hunted by death squads.
Civil disobedience is something that is measured by the other person's conviction, not yours, as well as by said other person's willingness to put their neck on the line for their beliefs.

[AnotherCat]

I am glad that my 87 years old mother, who uses a PC but has no real idea of the internet or copyright on digital media, lives in a society where she will not be regarded as a thief or as being civilly disobedient should she download an eBook she innocently finds as "being free" on some website.

That the moral judgements of some here regarding the actions of others, with no allowance apparent for the others being innocent third parties, is to me morally disturbing.

Fortunately she is not into astronomy so unlikely to download Harry's software, else she would surely be in trouble - Err, that's wrong, Harry wouldn't know as it appears he expects everyone else to be accountable for policing rights rather than the rights owners doing so themselves .

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I am glad that my 87 years old mother, who uses a PC but has no real idea of the internet or copyright on digital media, lives in a society where she will not be regarded as a thief or as being civilly disobedient should she download an eBook she innocently finds as "being free" on some website.

That the moral judgements of some here regarding the actions of others, with no allowance apparent for the others being innocent third parties, is to me morally disturbing.

To be fair, I don't believe HarryT would call your mother a thief until/unless she reads this thread (or one like it).
At which point she would be responsible for giving all those books a thorough background check.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

So... who are you to question someone else's moral judgment?

I think the answer is clear. Steve Eisenberg.

Who are you to question my moral judgments? I think we both agree on this. E. Schwartz!

Obviously I missed the point.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Civil disobedience is the kind of thing where one breaks the law, in order to raise public awareness of your (and usually numerous others') belief that the law is wrong.

That's one kind of civil disobedience. I'd say that people in northeastern China who selflessly harbor those fleeing North Korea, in silent defiance of police searches, are engaging in civil disobedience despite zero attempt to raise public awareness.

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I am glad that my 87 years old mother, who uses a PC but has no real idea of the internet or copyright on digital media, lives in a society where she will not be regarded as a thief or as being civilly disobedient should she download an eBook she innocently finds as "being free" on some website.

I have experience with this. People of similar age, who download having "no real idea of the internet," quickly have a PC virtually unusable due to adware and worse. (I'm sure it's also true of younger people -- I'm just relating personal experience.)

By the way, being regarded as civilly disobedient is a good thing!

In the real world, most people have stolen things. I didn't mean to imply that stealing a limited number of times makes your identity that of a thief. And, as I hope I explained two paragraphs up, you can't inadvertently steal on the internet many times without being penalized by the cost of a PC

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

...I have experience with this. People of similar age, who download having "no real idea of the internet," quickly have a PC virtually unusable due to adware and worse. (I'm sure it's also true of younger people -- I'm just relating personal experience.)...

Not in this case, my son who is a systems engineer manages her PC (online as they are both in different countries) and I am unaware of any problems. However, despite popular received knowledge, it is very, very hard to get infected by downloading a pdf or epub though.

My son and I have the same name and we do have to forward her mail between us as she gets mixed up as to who is who as she has the same display name in her email client for each of us .