Piracy Experiment

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

"Lammer."

Actually, even though there ARE google hits, that is a misspelling. This is the correct one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamer

Ironicly, the term is much more fitting for those who don't understand the "darknet culture" than those who do.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Ironicly, the term is much more fitting for those who don't understand the "darknet culture" than those who do.

Thanks ardeegee! As Bob Newhart used to say, "Same to you, fella!"

(PS - For some reason I can't get the smiley to work!)

[Belle2Be]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Actually, even though there ARE google hits, that is a misspelling. This is the correct one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamer

Ironicly, the term is much more fitting for those who don't understand the "darknet culture" than those who do.

Thanks!!
I was pretty sure they spelled that wrong, unless they were trying to refer to one being on the lam and therefore a "lammer".

[ruel]

A quick search lead me to one file that contained about 4000 ebooks with about half of them at retail quality or indistinguishable from retail.

[Freeshadow]

I avoid this hoarder-collections like the pest - since I'don't have the 4k original books and I'd have to load the whole to pick out what I posess.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astra

I have been doing the same until kindlekitten pointed out to JSWolf that we have got the multiquote feature.

But it's not always useful if what's going to be multiquoted is not all the same enough.

[JSWolf]

Sometimes you can actually find copies of commercial eBooks that are better then the bought copies as errors have been fixed. You can also find copies of LoTR that are better then the original commercial release. So what's out there varies in quality and that includes publisher editions too.

[Xanthe]

Just wandering through this thread and am wondering how many of you who are railing against the Dark Net and lamenting the fact that writers and publishers are not being paid for the ebook, have ever bought a used book or taken a book out from a library?

In the first instance, you're getting the value of the author's work without paying him/her anything - in fact, you're making a third party richer on their back (you cannot assume that the person selling the used book bought it at full price themselves) - and in the second instance you have not paid anything for the book and hundreds or more people are reading the same book for the price of one book, probably similar to the number of people who actually read whatever book they've downloaded on the Dark Net. So unless you've never done either of those things, I don't see your moral high ground being any higher than those who have done so. And those who have done so are the same type of people who access the Dark Net. Especially since many view the ebook Dark Net as one huge lending library by readers for readers.

As has been pointed out, the prime lure of the Dark Net, IMO, is convenience. You can find all the books in a series, for instance, even those that are out-of-print. You feel like reading (or re-reading more likely) so-and-so's series? Just find it and download it. As for the people who put up the books? Sure there's some who do it to be first, but there are a lot more people who put up the books of the authors they love because they want to make them better known, or to share a gem that they've found, or to put up a series that only been available in their country. Rare is the person who is chuckling evilly and deliberately putting up a book by an author for the sole purpose of decreasing his/her monetary sales. In fact, there is only one author that I know of for whom that happened (and no, I didn't put any of his/her books up on the Dark Net ). I have to say I chuckled when I saw it, but then the joke was on me because I started to see the "I never heard about that author before - I really liked that book" remarks and I knew that new fans had been created.

And none of them are making any money off those ebooks, unlike used book sellers or the people who sell out-of-print paperbacks/hardcovers for outrageous amounts (having bought them in the past I know just how outrageous they can be); none of that money is going back to the author. I've seen a lot of now-dead authors who I used to read while I was in high school, and who weren't available in print (or maybe only a book or two was) for decades showing up on the Dark Net, and checking Amazon recently, lo and behold, I find that there are reissues now available. Demand was created.

Many ebooks on the Dark Net do have formatting quirks and annoyances, from being converted from one into many formats. But that sort of goes with the territory of a free book. You get free p-books from other places and sometimes the pages are torn or dog-eared, the dust jacket is torn or missing, the pages are coffee-stained or worse, the book is mildewed or crumbly, etc. - and you accept that that comes with the territory of free p-books. I've seen Dark Net ebooks that were brilliantly converted, and I've bought ebooks from major booksellers that they should have been ashamed to sell. I don't think that you can, taking in all the circumstances, make the case - unless you're a perfectionist - that Dark Net books aren't worth the time and effort to get - especially if it's the only available source for a book that's out-of-print and available second-hand only. Just as we tend to disregard the black flash on our e-ink readers, you tend to just page through the one-line or blank pages or the announcements telling you that ABC Amber Lit was used to convert the book - lol.

All thanks to the OP for starting this thread, but if you couldn't find the books you wanted, then you weren't on the top sites. Most of them aren't open registration and you have to be invited to join them.

[cromag]

Just to bring up an issue that I haven't seen here (hope I haven't missed it), but if you are going to play around with the "darknet" and especially if you're running any variety of Windows, make sure your security software is top notch and fully updated.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by cromag

Just to bring up an issue that I haven't seen here (hope I haven't missed it), but if you are going to play around with the "darknet" and especially if you're running any variety of Windows, make sure your security software is top notch and fully updated.

Windows does fine with an up to date copy of Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free. Just avoid the shadier looking sites and don't run anything with an .exe extension (if you don't have your computer set up to display extensions by default, you deserve whatever you get).

[Xanthe]

And don't touch the Dark Net if you don't know what you are doing, especially since a lot of the public sites that carry ebooks also carry other type of files/programs that you might be tempted to try - not to mention that some of the sites themselves are causes of infection. Research the site you intend to download from, research what could happen if your computer security isn't up to date, and always be aware that you don't know who you are downloading from and/or where that file orginated. And if anything odd starts happening with your computer after you've opened a file from a potentially dodgey source, disconnect from the internet and start running the security scans (which is also why you need to have up-to-date security hardware on your computer).

Knowing what you are doing doesn't guarantee protection, either; it just may reduce the odds.

~slight digression~

If you are running Windows, you should have an antivirus and a firewall program running. You should also have some sort of anti-spyware/anti-trojan program running. For a good unbiased and reputable recommendation of various security programs check out these polls results:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r238...nti-Virus-Poll
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r240...wall-Poll-2010
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r24260668-AS-Poll-2010

Personally-speaking, on my computer I'm currently running real-time:
Norton Internet Security
SuperAntiSpyware Pro
Mamutu
Zemana AntiLogger
Ad Muncher
Spyware Blaster
WinPatrol Pro

with Spybot Search & Destroy and Malwarebyte's AntiMalware as on-demand scanner. I've hardened my browsers as much as is reasonable and still allow usable functioning of them. I do this not because I go on the Dark Net, but just for my everyday protection. And most important of all, I pay attention to what I am doing and where I am going on the Net.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

... have ever bought a used book or taken a book out from a library?
... and in the second instance you have not paid anything for the book and hundreds or more people are reading the same book for the price of one book, probably similar to the number of people who actually read whatever book they've downloaded on the Dark Net.

I would like to say that I did pay for that library book through my property taxes. And not just the hardcover edition. I also paid for its audio book, ebook, and possibly large-print edition and paperback. And for the popular titles- multiple copies.

In addition I paid for titles I would never or few others would read.

So I do think the authors and publishers are getting a fair deal.

Also, do we know of an author who doesn't want his book available at public libraries?

[Anke Wehner]

In a discussion on book piracy on Jim C. Hines blog he pointed out some things about library loans, including that libraries are a huge market for hardbacks, and they keep track of what's popular, so if an author's books are checked out often from libraries, that'll sell more of their next book, because libraries will pick it up.

Another thing is that in many countries (not the US, though), there are mechanisms that do pay authors for library loans, after a fashion. (In Germany per loan 3-4 cents are paid to an organisation which also gets fees for e.g. each scanner or photocopier sold. They pay their own overhead, and pay out the rest of the money to authors registered with them.)

Honestly, before that explanation, I saw no ethical difference between borrowing from the library and downloading a book to read it once (assuming that if you liked it enough to want to RE-read it, you'd buy a legit copy), but those arguments do make sense to me (what with actually having a library in my reach, even if their selection of English boks isn't anything to write home about).

There's also the thing that a pirated digital copy "dilutes" to way more reads book sold. Say, one book urchased by a library is read by 500 people (or does it fall apart earlier?), while a file created from one sale being able to be read by far more people.

And the problem that the digital copy stays in the possession of the person who downloaded it. If the situation is "paper books are more pleasant to read, but I'll read pirated ebooks on my computer for plus-size samples", there is additional motivation to get a legit copy in addition to "it's the decent thing to do/I really owe the author money because I enjoyed their work".
"I got an improved version of the retail ebook on my Kindle/Sony/whatever" leaves "only" the moral/ethical motivation, which is enough for some people, but not for some others.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Actually, even though there ARE google hits, that is a misspelling. This is the correct one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamer

Ironicly, the term is much more fitting for those who don't understand the "darknet culture" than those who do.

Both spellings are correct, a lammer (also sometimes called a lammo) is one step below a lamer.

I is down with the kids, innit?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Rare is the person who is chuckling evilly and deliberately putting up a book by an author for the sole purpose of decreasing his/her monetary sales. In fact, there is only one author that I know of for whom that happened

Harlan Ellison?