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08-27-2013, 06:10 AM | #1 | |
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E-book customer sharing with anti-piracy group BREIN faces political backlash
Remember the news that a number of Dutch-speaking e-book vendors had agreed to share information of customers, ehm, suspected pirates, with the anti-piracy watchdog BREIN? Well, it caused quite the backlash. The Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice is now faced with a handful of unpleasant questions regarding the legality of this agreement. As MobileReader Katsunami reports, one of the questions is (translated):
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[image: Ruben Holthuijsen /Flickr] Last edited by Alexander Turcic; 08-27-2013 at 06:48 AM. |
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08-27-2013, 06:19 AM | #2 |
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Absolutely not! This is a matter for the justice system.
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08-27-2013, 06:21 AM | #3 |
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08-27-2013, 06:38 AM | #4 |
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The problem with the current system is that copyright infringement is, in most cases, a civil, rather than a criminal, offence, and that means that "justice" is outside the reach of everyone except the largest of companies. If I find that someone has uploaded a pirated copy of my software to a web site, then even if I know the username of the uploader on the site, there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it. I can't afford the legal costs to go to court to get a court order to force the site to reveal the identity of the uploader, or the cost of a private prosecution to do something about it even if I did know their identity.
I don't know what the answer is, or whether this BREIN group has any good ideas to solve the problem, but from the viewpoint of the content creator (and don't make the mistake of thinking that all content creators are large companies - they certainly aren't) there is a very real problem with the current judicial system. |
08-27-2013, 07:13 AM | #5 | |
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I don't deny it is trivially easy. (And, of course, in certain countries "piracy" is part of the mainstream culture.) But, is *ebook* "piracy" really that prevalent in the countries mounting these internal dragnets? Just asking, you know. Some actual proof, instead of vague assertions from self-interested parties (on both ends) would be nice. |
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08-27-2013, 07:33 AM | #6 |
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Not sure about the statistics in Western cultures; it's why I referred to the Internet rather than to specific countries. On the Internet, it's relatively easy to see how "free" e-books have gained popularity... whether you look at torrents, newsgroups, or IRC - the volume of available e-books of all kinds has increased substantially over the past few years.
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08-27-2013, 07:54 AM | #7 | |
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In software, Microsoft and the other big companies focus the bulk of their efforts where the "pirates" operate, and especialy where the *commercial* "pirates" operate. They throw out DRM measures to discourage casual piracy but DRM is not a foil for the commercial operators. Those they go after with private investigators, sting operations, police actions, lawsuits... But publishing, instead of going after the sites profiting from "piracy", go after their own customers (one or twice removed). And all without showing much evidence tying those buyers to the activities elsewhere. Which may not even be impacting *their* product. The backlash should be more than political. (The biggest targets of video piracy are HBO and Showtime, for example, yet it is the studios/networks with the crappy unpopular shows that whine the most about piracy. Makes you wonder if it's not all just a smokescreen to hide their own lack of performance, no?) Last edited by fjtorres; 08-27-2013 at 08:00 AM. |
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08-27-2013, 07:57 AM | #8 |
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08-27-2013, 08:16 AM | #9 | |
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Quote:
http://torrentfreak.com/major-book-p...oaders-130612/ http://www.contrapositivediary.com/?p=2925 |
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08-27-2013, 09:48 AM | #10 | ||||||
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The translated question in the opening post was question 2. I'll translate the other ones below.
1. Quote:
2. (for completeness) Quote:
3. Quote:
4. Quote:
5. Quote:
6. Quote:
Last edited by Katsunami; 08-27-2013 at 10:00 AM. |
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08-27-2013, 10:19 AM | #11 | |
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Also it sometimes seems publishers are trying to take more and more rights from the readers. When I buy a paper book I don't have the right to make and distribute additional copies to others but I do have the right to keep the copy that I have paid for. Now here comes ebooks and it seems publishers have the idea that even if you have paid for your books they have the right to take your copy away from you if you don't do exactly what they say. Even if they drop support for your type of reader and your books then become unreadable they don't seem to feel any responsibility to the customer. Mobipocket is a good example of that. They stopped supporting the ebookman so new books (that weren't free) wouldn't be readable on the device. But they are owned by Amazon so everything is ok and you can read them on the Kindle right? Wrong. Short of stripping the DRM from the file they are not readable on the Kindle. |
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08-27-2013, 10:24 AM | #12 | |
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08-27-2013, 10:30 AM | #13 | |
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The issue is not the scale of punishments for copyright infringement, but the fact that the entire legal process is beyond the reach of all but the largest companies, and so unwieldy that it's effectively unenforcible. I don't know the details of what this BREIN group is proposing, but something really does need to be done to allow small content producers to take advantage of the protection that the law claims to offer them, but in reality doesn't. |
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08-27-2013, 10:32 AM | #14 | |
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Chrich70: There is one thing you are forgetting:
The epic lameness of some people. I've seen people build a desktop computer costing €2000, and then running a cracked version of Windows 7 on it (€89 for a Home Premium OEM), having to re-install / re-crack each time the OS is updated. Couldn't they have built a computer costing €1911, and then buy Windows along with it? Even worse. People buying a €1500 notebook, running Windows 8, and then using a cracked version of Stardock Start8 (€5), even though there are similar free alternatives such as classic shell. Think you've hit rock bottom? Think again. I know some people who go to great lenghts, such as searching for 4 hours, to find a full version of an Android application they want, on the internet. The app costs like €1. Those people are "working" HOURS, to save €1. Epic lameness trumps all. There are quite a lot of people who are of the opinion that if it is digital, it can be pirated and therefore SHOULD be pirated to save money, whatever the cost. Saving €1, or even €5 or €10 if it takes me a day to do it, then that's a very bad deal, except if you have both no money whatsoever (and no income) and unlimited time. Quote:
At this point they aren't, so this contract should be shot. The problem is, as I've said: as soon as one writer or publisher is willing to say: "You may enforce my copyrights", then I can create my own BREIN. And, if BREIN can get customer data at their whim with such a contract, I can too. Of course I'd be to small to force vendors into a contract, like eBoekhuis can, offering just books of one writer or one publisher, but I'm talking purely theorethical here. BREIN is a private organization (a Foundation), and anything they can get away with, *I*, or you or anyone could get away with. This would the door for everybody to just go and put stuff like that into their contracts and start collecting data whenever they see fit. Last edited by Katsunami; 08-27-2013 at 02:35 PM. |
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08-27-2013, 10:49 AM | #15 | |
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"Be careful of what you wish for, you might get it." |
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