Piracy Experiment

[rhari79]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

nope, not anymore: it's a culture in itself, regardless of money. People prefer to simply find a free download than to pay 99 cents for some digital content. That's why content producers should make deals with data flow providers such as telephone companies and ISPs... if you can't control theft, just tax for road usage...

I see my coworkers renting DVDs and ripping them. What for? Do these people even enjoy watching them the first time around to warrant a second peek among their thousand of other rips? It's something like consumption greed, you just have to have it. I see it as a symptom...

I am not all that sure that Video renting is fully legal, at least as per my understanding of the arcane copyrights written on the cover of the DVD.
I do remember reading in many film DVDs that rental is not allowed.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Then here is a point where we disagree and can agree about what we disagree about

I think it's a perfect analogy. There is certainly a point at which eating becomes gluttony.

But tell me, is it eating four chocolates a day or five? Ten or eleven? Twenty or twenty-one?

If you say it's eating 500 a day, does that mean eating 499 isn't gluttony? How about 498?

I said already that I don't go by raw numbers for the chocolate. My criterion was effect on the eater's health. That's why eating/gluttony fails as a analogy.

Back to ebooks:

I say that sharing a library of 10,000 commercial in-copyright ebooks against the copyright holders wishes with 10,000,000 people isn't merely illegal, it's also immoral.

I say that sharing 1 ebook with 1 friend is illegal, but isn't immoral.

Since you're arguing that quantity doesn't matter in cases of morality, which which of these two assertions do you disagree?

I am not necessarily arguing that quantity doesn't matter, I'm playing devil's advocate. But why should quantity matter in terms of morality?

[vulcan_girl]

Originally Posted by rhari79

I am not all that sure that Video renting is fully legal, at least as per my understanding of the arcane copyrights written on the cover of the DVD.
I do remember reading in many film DVDs that rental is not allowed.

Videos that stores rent out are leased or sold to the rental places at at higher dollar amount to account for this. Libraries/schools that purchase videos pay a license fee for some of those in order to be able to have them available to large audiences.

[Xanthe]

Why are "moral" and "immoral" even being used as terms in this discussion? Whose definition of those terms are we using? Yours, mine, his, or hers? What makes one more definitive than another?

In this matter - the uploading and downloading of ebooks - the terms are totally arbitrary and subjective. There are so many gray areas in this discussion, the legality of which has never been tested in court. Ebooks are a totally different creature from print books. Books in and of themselves are totally different creatures from music and films, even if you only consider the culture of sharing books created by the library system and the used book market.

Then there is the whole matter of ownership - do I (just speaking in the abstract here) actually own what I buy or don't I? Do I recognize as legitimate any attempt to limit that ownership? If I don't, does that make me "immoral" - by who's definition and why should I allow them to define me that way? If I see my actions as "sharing", without advantage or recompense to myself, aren't I just doing what I've been taught to do since childhood? If I see my actions as a protest against a perceived higher-priced/lower-quality product, why should I be deemed immoral just because those gouging me want me to be seen that way? If I see myself as providing a service to an under-served area (orphan books, OOP series, dead favorite authors, unknown gems) does the potential good that results from that (higher author visibility, creation of new audiences, requests to publishers for reprints) make me immoral? If I am downloading just to hoard, and I never would have bought the books to begin with, am I actually taking sales away from anyone and if I'm not, am I immoral?

Are the author's or publisher's rights more important than the reader's? That's what some seem to be implying. Why is that? Why does the issue have to be weighted to one side or the other? The relationship between the three is symbiotic - none can exist without the other. Are the existing copyright laws realistic in this day and age, or should the whole law be revised? If one disagrees with the existing law, does that make one immoral? If a publisher refuses to reissue OOP books, does that make them immoral? If an author deliberately refuses to allow their works to appear in a new technological format, does that make them immoral? Or if an author/publisher reissues an old book under an new title and doesn't mention that it was previously issued, is that immoral?

One of the main problems I see with discussions about this topic is that some immediately start drawing correlations to actions in other areas of life - thus we start getting the examples of walking into someone's house and robbing them, stealing cars, etc., and words like "moral" and "immoral" start getting bandied about. It may make some feel good about themselves, thinking that they are on the "moral" side, but I don't think the issue is as cut-and-dried as that, and putting it in those terms over-simplifies it to the point of ridiculousness. Life is not black-or-white, and neither is this issue.

[wvcherrybomb]

Wait...so, if I have 42,000 grains of sand in one pocket and eat 8 pieces of chocolate while watching a rented movie I borrowed from my neighbor's ex son-in-law's friend and read an ebook on on my son's friend's mother's best friend's ereader that she bought from Amazon but stripped the DRM from is that illegal?

[jhempel24]

So if an eBook is traveling in a Nook at 30MPH down I75, and another one on a Kindle is Going north on I75 at 50MPH, at what point to the meet and become a Nindle? And is this moral?

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I claim that sharing one ebook with 100,000 other people is likely to adversely affect sales of that ebook, and thus adversely affect the publisher of that ebook.

It has occurred to me that I have no idea how many downloads of a pirate copy are typical.

I have said elsewhere that I have written to the publishers to encourage them to publish eBooks of old Mr. & Mrs. North and Mike Shayne stories. I wonder if anyone in the world besides me wants to read them!

James Patterson, 100,000? Sure. Mr. & Mrs. North? Not so much.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I say that sharing a library of 10,000 commercial in-copyright ebooks against the copyright holders wishes with 10,000,000 people isn't merely illegal, it's also immoral.

I say that sharing 1 ebook with 1 friend is illegal, but isn't immoral.

Since you're arguing that quantity doesn't matter in cases of morality, which which of these two assertions do you disagree?

Interesting point. But this only works if the world would have been black and white. Yet, there are all these shades of gray as well.

What if that book that is still in-copyright, isn't available in print anymore? And also not available in electronic print (except, naturally, that scanned copy)?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I said already that I don't go by raw numbers for the chocolate. My criterion was effect on the eater's health. That's why eating/gluttony fails as a analogy.

Hmm.. OK, so someone's eating affects their health such that on average they will live one hour less than another person who eats more healthily. Is that gluttony?

How about if the difference in life expectancy a day? A month? A year? five years? Thirty Years?

There is a continuum here too.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I am not necessarily arguing that quantity doesn't matter, I'm playing devil's advocate. But why should quantity matter in terms of morality?

Quantity doesn't matter for some acts. Murder is wrong whether you do it just once or hundreds of times.

Other acts are moral or immoral depending on permission. Having sex isn't immoral, unless it's without permission.

And for some acts, quantity plays a role in morality, and sometimes even in legality.

And I'm done.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Interesting point. But this only works if the world would have been black and white. Yet, there are all these shades of gray as well.

What if that book that is still in-copyright, isn't available in print anymore? And also not available in electronic print (except, naturally, that scanned copy)?

That's up to you. Morality is relative. For some things, nearly everyone can agree on what's moral and what's not. It's in the grey areas that there can be disagreements.

Legality is usually simpler to determine, but sometimes has yet to be decided.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

That's up to you. Morality is relative. For some things, nearly everyone can agree on what's moral and what's not. It's in the grey areas that there can be disagreements.

Legality is usually simpler to determine, but sometimes has yet to be decided.

That's why I think you cannot say anything is morally wrong. Not in a general way. What you think is morally wrong doesn't have to be morally wrong for another person.

I downloaded a book last night I've been searching for for some time. Did I do something morally wrong? I don't think so. That book isn't for sale anymore. Except maybe second hand (though, not in the second hand bookshop in my town). Would I have bought it had the publisher published it in ebook format: must certainly, yes. Did I do something illegal by my country's laws? No. Did I do something morally wrong? Why can decide that but me?

[bucsie]

I accidentally stumbled on a writer's blog yesterday. She was talking about piracy and how it is such a bad, bad thing and that because she just made $180 or so the previous month (implying that pirates are to blame) she will probably have to retire from being a writer.

What writers don't seem to understand is that piracy is a phenomenon that applies to ALL writers (or singers or movie-creating-people). If a writer is not successful it's not because of piracy, but because s/he is just not that good a writer. I am sorry nobody wants to hurt their feelings, but that's just what the truth is. James Patterson is 100(0) times more pirated than other less popular writers and he does not go hungry.

If anyone should complain it's famous writers because they are the one that suffer more, but they already make millions...

I think it's a lot like movies. I have not heard of an individual movie that failed because it was pirated too much. Even if a movie with a low IMDB score has 100,000 downloads it doesn't mean 100,000 people would have bought the ticket to see it or the DVD. It just means they might watch it on an incredibly boring day. If it's that bad, they won't even watch it till the end. If they like it, they might go on IMDB and post their better rating - which, in the end, benefits the movie.

So don't tell me you (this is a generic "you", I am not addressing anyone in particular) failed at being a successful writer because of piracy. You're just not that good, or not that lucky to have been discovered. If anything, having bored people read your stuff for free is good for you because otherwise they wouldn't even pick up your book in a store.


On a related note, someone argued in that blog's comments what other posters here said - some would read the pirated ebook and if they like it, they'll go and buy the book, but they won't pay if they don't like it (and probably never finish reading it anyway). And to that, the proposed solution was to read the first chapter and the blurbs, or ask the author himself.
When was there ever a negative blurb? When would an author say "I write 'he said', 'she said' after every dialogue line, it might annoy you" ?
I no longer trust other people's tastes. I recently read "and falling, fly" which was supposed to be in top 10 2010 and I disliked it profoundly. But the first chapter was good. If I had browsed it in a store, I would have read a couple of pages in the middle and wouldn't have bought it.

[John F]

Sorry to sidetrack but...

Originally Posted by vulcan_girl

Videos that stores rent out are leased or sold to the rental places at at higher dollar amount to account for this. ...

This doesn't sound right to me? I thought that video stores may get discount pricing if they agree to certain conditions (like waiting to rent 30 days after the DVD release), or they can pay whatever normal consumers pay.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

Wait...so, if I have 42,000 grains of sand in one pocket and eat 8 pieces of chocolate while watching a rented movie I borrowed from my neighbor's ex son-in-law's friend and read an ebook on on my son's friend's mother's best friend's ereader that she bought from Amazon but stripped the DRM from is that illegal?

Yes it is. So stop it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

So if an eBook is traveling in a Nook at 30MPH down I75, and another one on a Kindle is Going north on I75 at 50MPH, at what point to the meet and become a Nindle? And is this moral?

it's got nothing to do with being moral. It's got to do with when do they collide and smash the screens thus becoming not a Nindle, but a pile of junk.