EU Piracy Report

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It has nothing to do with publishers, but everything to do with piracy which is the title of the thread.

The "ever extending" copyright term? Y'know...I truly believe that that's just more justification and rationalization. Every argument I see about piracy always leads with the ubiquitous "but what about OOP books that I'm dying to read!," and goes on from there, usually devolving into the "well, the authors/publishers are greedy, because they don't NEED copyright protections for X years" argument. The latter, of course, is just someone who feels perfectly justified in disposing of someone else's property, or deciding what's "right" about how long that person is entitled to their own, created property.

I don't think that term of copyright has Sweet FA to do with piracy. It's just a convenient bit of prestidigitation.

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Apache

You have to make a profit to survive as a small business. Most people do not realize the bills that a company has to pay. Payroll, Payroll taxes (Match Social Security and Medicare that is deducted from employees paycheck, 100% of Federal Unemployment and State Unemployment) Sales Tax, Mortgage or rent on places of business, Utilities, Corporate Taxes, County Property Taxes, Business License, cost of merchandise, Repairs to buildings and equipment, Equipment, Operating Supplies, Insurance and any Business Loans. If at the end of the year you make a profit you get to pocket some of it. Although you need to leave some for expansion, emergencies or the need to replace expensive operating equipment.
Apache

AMEN, brother. That's right--the average person has zero idea.

Originally Posted by Apache

I own a small jewelry store. When I am sizing a ruing or repairing a piece of jewelry you are not just paying for the gold used. You are paying for labor and the 40 years of experience that allows me to restore your jewelry to new condition.

And as you no doubt know, our time, as experts, is apparently worth nothing.

Do not get many stated on how many bench jewelers are working on jewelry that should seek another line of employment since they obviously do not care if the repair is done correctly or not. I am lazy. I only want to do the job one time. So I make sure it is right the first time.
Apache

I hear ya.


Hitch

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

When I had my ring sized up to save some money I waited till the price of gold dropped and had stayed down for a bit. I went from a 5 to a 6.5.

That is a way to save some money as gold can fluctuate and prices are partially based on the price of gold. Most of the price to size a ring is labor though. Some jewelers use the gold they cut out of rings being down sized to size other rings up. In some cases this can be fine. in others it can lead to problems. The piece could have come from a ring that has been previously sized. Other problems could be porosity problems, poor castings or even lower karat gold. I prefer to use new stock for ring sizing and rebuilds. Legitimate jewelers factor the gold scrap into the price of sizing rings down. Every few years I send the scraps and filings to a refiner and purchase new stock.
Apache

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Hitch

AMEN, brother. That's right--the average person has zero idea.



And as you no doubt know, our time, as experts, is apparently worth nothing.



I hear ya.


Hitch

I love hearing people who are receiving unemployment checks, brag about taking work that pays them under the table, while not out looking for a new job until the checks run out. They always justify this as it's their money, that it was taken from their paycheck. Show me on the check where the employee has Federal and State Unemployment Taxes taken from their checks. This tax is paid 100% by the employer. And anytime someone makes a claim on your unemployment account the state raises your taxes until the employer has paid back the amount used.
I do not resent employees collecting the tax. I resent the ones who think they deserve it because they paid for it and refuse to look for another job.
Apache

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Hitch

The "ever extending" copyright term? Y'know...I truly believe that that's just more justification and rationalization. Every argument I see about piracy always leads with the ubiquitous "but what about OOP books that I'm dying to read!," and goes on from there, usually devolving into the "well, the authors/publishers are greedy, because they don't NEED copyright protections for X years" argument. The latter, of course, is just someone who feels perfectly justified in disposing of someone else's property, or deciding what's "right" about how long that person is entitled to their own, created property.

I don't think that term of copyright has Sweet FA to do with piracy. It's just a convenient bit of prestidigitation.

Hitch

Sorry Hitch, I totally disagree. Copyright is not property, no matter how much people call it Intellectual Property. It is a time-limited monopoly.

(For my organized view - see my monograph here on Mobileread, from 2009 - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=38392 )

If you had a mortgage on your house for 30 years, and at year 25 the mortgage company decided unilaterally to extend it for another 30 years, because they likes the extra money, would you consider that fair and reasonable? It's the same with extending copyright.

Are you aware that everything created in the US before 1960 (except music performance) should have reverted to the public domain, if it were not for copyright extensions?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Is it the books are not readable or is they are not up to your standards?
I think since 2011, I have only found 1 BPH that I could not read. That was due to you couldn't change the font.

Now is it the publishers are greedy or are they just giving the majority what they want?

In some cases, not readable. They use different font sizes and sometimes when they make sizes smaller, they make them too small so when you are set for the size that's most of the book, there are some parts that are too small. Also, in some cases, they use a graphic image instead of a table or proper embedded fonts with that font. So the text in the graphics is too small and not readable.

If pBooks were made with same shoddy formatting, lots of people would not be happy. Would you like pBooks with fonts that are too light and thus hard to see? Left/right margins that are huge? Large paragraph spaces? Left justified? different fonts sizes were some are too small? a table or a different font as graphics that are too small to read? No indents and large paragraph spaces? Indents of 5% of the page? These sorts of things are actually more common than you think with eBooks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, Wolfie, as you know, I would certainly agree with you on that front. I do believe, in my heart of hearts, that most BPHs didn't understand what would happen when they shipped thousands of DT backlist books to India for scanning and production. NOW, that doesn't excuse their wilful blindness to the subsequent eBooks--that's simply wrong. Maybe their attitude is wait and see? If enough people complain and/or buy it, they'll have it done properly? (yeah, right....)

The thing is, I could fix most of these poorly formatted eBooks easily. So why not hire someone who knows what he/she is doing instead of using some stupid house CSS that's crap?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The thing is, I could fix most of these poorly formatted eBooks easily. So why not hire someone who knows what he/she is doing instead of using some stupid house CSS that's crap?

Because those of us who know what we're doing charge too much? For their budgets, I mean? Hard to bring yourself to pay a firm like mine, if you're used to Indian rates.

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Sorry Hitch, I totally disagree. Copyright is not property, no matter how much people call it Intellectual Property. It is a time-limited monopoly.

(For my organized view - see my monograph here on Mobileread, from 2009 - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=38392 )

If you had a mortgage on your house for 30 years, and at year 25 the mortgage company decided unilaterally to extend it for another 30 years, because they likes the extra money, would you consider that fair and reasonable? It's the same with extending copyright.

Are you aware that everything created in the US before 1960 (except music performance) should have reverted to the public domain, if it were not for copyright extensions?

Ralph:

That example is simply not analogous. You know I have mad respect for you, Ralph, but...no.

A mortgage is an instrument into which we enter, in which we owe the mortgage holder repayment for an amount of money we've borrowed. They can't simply--and wouldn't, of course--extend the mortgage for X years, "just because they like the extra money." We have a term and condition of repayment, and we repay it. In that scenario, we have BORROWED money from party X. Party X is legally entitled to repayment. That's a contract, under US Contract Law.

A copyright is a property, whether you like it or not. It's not, under law, a "time-limited monopoly," or whatever those of you opposed to the dura of copyright want to call it. Under the same US law, it IS a type of property. That property belongs to the person who created it. Period. If s/he wishes to publish it, great. We get to use that property, through purchase or borrowing, etc. If we buy a printed version--we have access to the material for the life of the book. If we buy a license, as we all know, that can be less in duration for a variety of reasons--mostly having to do with the vagaries around eBook licensing, our tech having outgrown our laws, in some cases.

The fact that YOU don't like how long the CREATOR is entitled to hold HIS OWN PROPERTY is, well...tough. I like how all of you anti-copyright-term folks are so cavalier about other people's property. Really, Ralph, I'm shocked that you are in this camp. Sorry, but sort of using your example, if I buy a house, and I die, do you think you're entitled to that, too? No? What if I design and build my own house? That's the result of my own creative endeavors, too. Are you entitled to that, when I die?

No? Then why the hell do you think you should be entitled to a creative work? What, the fact that in scenario 2, I actually hammered something with my hands is massively different than if I typed it? Man, that's pretty bloody specious logic.

And, yes, I know, you or the others will come back and go on and on about how the Congress said that it's for the benefit of the public good. Fine. So what? There are a lot of things for the public good that don't result in your ownership of them.

No matter how many times I read positions about how copyright duration is bad, evil, etc., it pretty much always boils down to "It should be invalid because I WANT IT."

Sorry. To me, like ANY business, like ANY earnings, what a person does and earns in his or her lifetime should be able to be passed onto his or her heirs, period. Saying that those who labor in creative fields have some LESSER rights, than those who do other types of work seems, to me, to create an artist's ghetto. An actor can appear in movies from now until hell freezes over, take his wages, and do whatever he wants to with them, upon his demise. Moreover, his kids are ALSO entitled to the rights and royalties from his work, ad infinitum, unless and until such movie stops playing or IT runs out of copyright.

But a writer? Or the screenwriter for that same movie? They should be screwed? They're entitled to something lesser?

Why? Why is the screenwriter for that same movie entitled to less compensation, for fewer years, than a talking head that appears IN it? I fail, utterly, to see the logic. Or that the set-builder for the movie, who can leave his earnings to his kids, etc., etc., etc.

You're basically taking the position, Ralph, that the alleged "good" of the whole is more important than the rights of the individual. Is that the position you really mean to stake out?

What good are you defending? The rights of the individual who wants it, to have the book at no cost? There are public libraries, Ralph, which means that pretty much, ANYONE can avail themselves of the book at no cost. If the discussion is going to now turn to OOP books...well, tough. Sorry, but the heirs of Author X are NOT obliged to make a book available, just because someone wants it. It's now THEIR property.

Lastly, as far as the "everything should have reverted..." argument, my response is simple: laws change. At one point in time, I couldn't vote in this country. Now I can. Slaves were legal; now they are not. Surely, you don't mean to say that original laws are all perfect? We all know that that's obviously not true--and the greatly increased lifespan of humans should be reflected in the law regarding copyrights. Unless, of course, NOW you're going to argue that some author should not be entitled to the rewards of his work in his lifetime?

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Apache

That is a way to save some money as gold can fluctuate and prices are partially based on the price of gold. Most of the price to size a ring is labor though. Some jewelers use the gold they cut out of rings being down sized to size other rings up. In some cases this can be fine. in others it can lead to problems. The piece could have come from a ring that has been previously sized. Other problems could be porosity problems, poor castings or even lower karat gold. I prefer to use new stock for ring sizing and rebuilds. Legitimate jewelers factor the gold scrap into the price of sizing rings down. Every few years I send the scraps and filings to a refiner and purchase new stock.
Apache

I made sure to use a good jeweler. It wasn't a mall jewelry store. I didn't mind paying the labor. I know that is fine work. Fine as in detailed.
There is one independent in the next town over that has super high prices on everything. 99% of the jewelry is low quality. Cheap settings and unknown diamonds. We have been there once. The guy was rather uppity when hubby pulled out his 60x loupe. Tried to hand him a 10x. Not to mention their radio commercials are annoying.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

In some cases, not readable. They use different font sizes and sometimes when they make sizes smaller, they make them too small so when you are set for the size that's most of the book, there are some parts that are too small. Also, in some cases, they use a graphic image instead of a table or proper embedded fonts with that font. So the text in the graphics is too small and not readable.

If pBooks were made with same shoddy formatting, lots of people would not be happy. Would you like pBooks with fonts that are too light and thus hard to see? Left/right margins that are huge? Large paragraph spaces? Left justified? different fonts sizes were some are too small? a table or a different font as graphics that are too small to read? No indents and large paragraph spaces? Indents of 5% of the page? These sorts of things are actually more common than you think with eBooks.

Now you have me curious, what type of books do you read?
As per too small a font in pbooks, I have found plenty of those. I read left justified. Most pbooks are left justified. They sure aren't right or centered.
100 characters per line. 5 space indent. Sounds about right on pbooks. As to the graphics, seen impossible graphics in pbooks too. Fonts too small, yes my classic paperbacks that were put out in 1967.

Now as to strange books, I read one (BPH) that had larger print. Each chapter was less than 2 pages. Then there was a photograph on the next page, then a blank page.

2 cookbooks I own are about an inch thick and have 20 pages. They are printed on cardboard.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Now you have me curious, what type of books do you read?
As per too small a font in pbooks, I have found plenty of those. I read left justified. Most pbooks are left justified. They sure aren't right or centered.
100 characters per line. 5 space indent. Sounds about right on pbooks. As to the graphics, seen impossible graphics in pbooks too. Fonts too small, yes my classic paperbacks that were put out in 1967.

Now as to strange books, I read one (BPH) that had larger print. Each chapter was less than 2 pages. Then there was a photograph on the next page, then a blank page.

2 cookbooks I own are about an inch thick and have 20 pages. They are printed on cardboard.

What?

WHAT print books are you reading that are left-aligned? Cookbooks, perhaps, because justification can be utterly unneeded, in that environment, but certainly, not in fiction, which is pretty much ALWAYS justified. (FWIW: There is only justified. Despite the abuse of the term, by MS and other word-processing systems, there is no such thing as "left justified" or "right justified." Those are left-aligned, or ragged-right; or right-aligned. They are NOT justified. Nor is there such a thing as "center justification," by sheer definition.)

I have something like, I dunno, 4K print books, and honestly....it might take me HOURS to find one that isn't justified. Where on earth are you finding books that aren't?

@Wolfie: in many instances, there is NO viable alternative but to make a table as an image. For one thing, table formatting is still "iffy" on the older devices; for another, even on the newer, any table larger than 10+ rows or 3-4 columns can have issues. Lastly, "ET" (Enhanced Typesetting) will crash and burn on larger tables, so...there are MANY, many good reasons for bookmakers NOT to use HTML tables...even though most of us would prefer to do so.

Hitch

[Greg Anos]

Hitch, here is what the US Constitution, the basis for all US law says:

Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

Note limited times. Note exclusive right i.e. a monopoly.

This is for both patent and copyright (and also trademark, but that is a really different kettle of fish).

There is no property. There is a legal monopoly over the copyright. Now, for the duration of the copyright, it <looks> like property, but it is not, no more so that an option to buy a piece of property with an expiration date, is a title to the underlying property. (You can't unilaterally keep extending the option expiration date to please your own interests.)

Yet that is what has been happening to copyright. At the time of creation of a copyrighted item, the public (through its representative, the US government), granted a copyright with a defined expiration date. Both parties were happy with the term, else the creator would not have created the copyrighted material. (From 1909 to 1976, this term was 28 years, plus another 28 years, if extension was applied for.)

I have no problem with the terms being changed, but I have <great> problems with it being applied retroactively. I have the same problem with changing the terms of <any> contract, unilaterally and retroactively. To do so, is to cheat the public out of residual value (if any) that the copyright holder agreed to give up, at expiration, for the exclusive legal control (and the monopoly profits) the copyright (monopoly) granted.

RSE

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Ralph:

That example is simply not analogous. You know I have mad respect for you, Ralph, but...no.

A mortgage is an instrument into which we enter, in which we owe the mortgage holder repayment for an amount of money we've borrowed. They can't simply--and wouldn't, of course--extend the mortgage for X years, "just because they like the extra money." We have a term and condition of repayment, and we repay it. In that scenario, we have BORROWED money from party X. Party X is legally entitled to repayment. That's a contract, under US Contract Law.

A copyright is a property, whether you like it or not. It's not, under law, a "time-limited monopoly," or whatever those of you opposed to the dura of copyright want to call it. Under the same US law, it IS a type of property. That property belongs to the person who created it. Period. If s/he wishes to publish it, great. We get to use that property, through purchase or borrowing, etc. If we buy a printed version--we have access to the material for the life of the book. If we buy a license, as we all know, that can be less in duration for a variety of reasons--mostly having to do with the vagaries around eBook licensing, our tech having outgrown our laws, in some cases.

The fact that YOU don't like how long the CREATOR is entitled to hold HIS OWN PROPERTY is, well...tough. I like how all of you anti-copyright-term folks are so cavalier about other people's property. Really, Ralph, I'm shocked that you are in this camp. Sorry, but sort of using your example, if I buy a house, and I die, do you think you're entitled to that, too? No? What if I design and build my own house? That's the result of my own creative endeavors, too. Are you entitled to that, when I die?

No? Then why the hell do you think you should be entitled to a creative work? What, the fact that in scenario 2, I actually hammered something with my hands is massively different than if I typed it? Man, that's pretty bloody specious logic.

And, yes, I know, you or the others will come back and go on and on about how the Congress said that it's for the benefit of the public good. Fine. So what? There are a lot of things for the public good that don't result in your ownership of them.

No matter how many times I read positions about how copyright duration is bad, evil, etc., it pretty much always boils down to "It should be invalid because I WANT IT."

Sorry. To me, like ANY business, like ANY earnings, what a person does and earns in his or her lifetime should be able to be passed onto his or her heirs, period. Saying that those who labor in creative fields have some LESSER rights, than those who do other types of work seems, to me, to create an artist's ghetto. An actor can appear in movies from now until hell freezes over, take his wages, and do whatever he wants to with them, upon his demise. Moreover, his kids are ALSO entitled to the rights and royalties from his work, ad infinitum, unless and until such movie stops playing or IT runs out of copyright.

But a writer? Or the screenwriter for that same movie? They should be screwed? They're entitled to something lesser?

Why? Why is the screenwriter for that same movie entitled to less compensation, for fewer years, than a talking head that appears IN it? I fail, utterly, to see the logic. Or that the set-builder for the movie, who can leave his earnings to his kids, etc., etc., etc.

You're basically taking the position, Ralph, that the alleged "good" of the whole is more important than the rights of the individual. Is that the position you really mean to stake out?

What good are you defending? The rights of the individual who wants it, to have the book at no cost? There are public libraries, Ralph, which means that pretty much, ANYONE can avail themselves of the book at no cost. If the discussion is going to now turn to OOP books...well, tough. Sorry, but the heirs of Author X are NOT obliged to make a book available, just because someone wants it. It's now THEIR property.

Lastly, as far as the "everything should have reverted..." argument, my response is simple: laws change. At one point in time, I couldn't vote in this country. Now I can. Slaves were legal; now they are not. Surely, you don't mean to say that original laws are all perfect? We all know that that's obviously not true--and the greatly increased lifespan of humans should be reflected in the law regarding copyrights. Unless, of course, NOW you're going to argue that some author should not be entitled to the rewards of his work in his lifetime?

Hitch

Your owning a house doesn't apply either, whether you built it or someone else did. Homeowners have to pay property tax. They don't pay this tax because they're making money on the property--if they were doing that, they would *also* have to pay income tax on that income. They have to pay taxes on that property every year, whether they're using it or not. As long as they own it, they have to pay those taxes, or the government gets to take it back. Why don't we apply the same rules to copyright? If we did, it would solve the orphan works problem immediately. (I know you think that everyone looking for copyright reform is looking for free stuff, but that's absolutely NOT true. I would absolutely pay for copies of some books that aren't available in digital form, if anyone were to make them available.)

Shari

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Hitch, here is what the US Constitution, the basis for all US law says:

Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

Note limited times. Note exclusive right i.e. a monopoly.

This is for both patent and copyright (and also trademark, but that is a really different kettle of fish).

There is no property. There is a legal monopoly over the copyright. Now, for the duration of the copyright, it <looks> like property, but it is not, no more so that an option to buy a piece of property with an expiration date, is a title to the underlying property. (You can't unilaterally keep extending the option expiration date to please your own interests.)

Yet that is what has been happening to copyright. At the time of creation of a copyrighted item, the public (through its representative, the US government), granted a copyright with a defined expiration date. Both parties were happy with the term, else the creator would not have created the copyrighted material. (From 1909 to 1976, this term was 28 years, plus another 28 years, if extension was applied for.)

I have no problem with the terms being changed, but I have <great> problems with it being applied retroactively. I have the same problem with changing the terms of <any> contract, unilaterally and retroactively. To do so, is to cheat the public out of residual value (if any) that the copyright holder agreed to give up, at expiration, for the exclusive legal control (and the monopoly profits) the copyright (monopoly) granted.

RSE

How does fiction fit into progress of science and useful arts?
You also see copyright infringement in the jewelry business. I have had customers come in take a picture of a copyrighted piece of jewelry and have another jeweler make a copy. Then bring it in to my store and tell me how much money they saved.
Apache