The Sword and Laser discussion
'Pirating' Books
I'd recommend seeing if you can check out the eBook from your local library. Failing that, just deal with the hardcopy for now & get the eBook to start with for #5.
Hmmm, it's a tricky one. Morally, any form of piracy is wrong. However, being a fan of anime often not legally available in my country, it's an issue for which I've had to bend my morals a little. Generally, I think that so long as you make a good effort to give the people responsible the money they deserve, it is acceptable.If you already own a solid book, buying an additional ebook is costly, and so it would certainly be justifiable to download an illegal copy, since there isn't much work involved in putting a book into ebook format. However, I would do so with caution, since doing it too much could result in publishers not bothering to make their book's available in ebook form at all, and that would be a real shame. I've bought a few books I already own physically a second time as ebooks, though only when they are sold cheaply. So far, I haven't pirated any.
With regard to audio books, I think it is more clearly wrong, since I assume some of the money from audio book purchases goes to those narrating the book, and so to support those people, you really ought to purchase that again.
I think that the fact that you are asking the question shows that it is questionably morally for you and so you should not."Morally, any form of piracy is wrong."
I'm sure many will disagree with me but I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Before the printing press it was common practice to copy books without any form of compensation to the original author or publisher. Copyright grew out of the States effort to censure and control printed works (the Licensing Act) not out of an effort to protect them or the authors. It is still about control by those in authority (the media industries controlling of profit rather than adapting into a service industry). Calling it piracy is just buying into the propaganda of those who are trying to change and control the social norm. There was nothing questionable about the copying of written works morally for well over two-millennium - how has it suddenly become equated to robbery? - M.
I believe this question could become moot (not completely) in the near future when the change way that books are sold by retailers. The new rules would allow retailers to give you the ebook copy with the purchase of a physical book. I sincerely hope they do this because I run into this dilemma far too often.
It is simply a change of format. In a better world, we would buy the rights to the content and be able to access it any way we want. My wife is a librarian, and has hundreds of reasons why I am wrong, but if I find a book in a bay of questionable links, I am merely borrowing it from the original owner. I delete the book when I finish it, and how is that any different to my soul than going to a library or their website, logging in, borrowing the book and then giving it back. (I blindly ignore the real ways it is different, as I don't care about paperwork. Somebody bought the book, either for the library or for themselves. I'm just borrowing it)I used to do a panel about Time Shifting Doctor Who at Chicago Tardis. Eventually it was a broken record. There is only a moral problem if you buy from pirates, anything else is borrowing and it's the legacy of all human interaction to retell a story, sing a song you heard to someone else, or keep circulating the tapes as one cult tv show wrote in the credits every week. I do it digitally, and I sleep happy knowing that I am amplifying the signal of awesome things. Just as I would if I were using Inter-library loan to find it. It just is faster.
I lived a similar drama. I thought about taking a pirate copy of a book after buying - cause i'm from a far far away land where books like Leviathan's Wake take ages to be lauched, and the Kindle Edition wasn't available for my country (but the paperback version was). The point is that i wanted to read the book with the group, but it would take mouths to arrive (no, really, last amazon request took almost three mouths, at the very least). It would be justified piracy? i mean, i would bought the book! it was just a timing thing.Luckly, i solved this without deciding if i would do it or not. A U.S. friend give me the Kindle Edition as gift. But fundamentally, I do not think the practice should be promoted even further in the literary market. But then again, when I was in need I thought about it, so i'm not sure what to think anymore.
I thought this was going to be a topic on books about pirates, what a letdown.
Egotista wrote: "I lived a similar drama. I thought about taking a pirate copy of a book after buying - cause i'm from a far far away land where books like Leviathan's Wake take ages to be lauched, and the Kindle E..."I bought a Kindle for this reason - I ordered Hyperion when it was the S&L book for the month, and it STILL HASN'T ARRIVED. So I decided if I ever want to read the book in time that I'd better get an ebook reader. Very disappointed to discover that some books are still not available in Australia, or are way more expensive than the US version. I know I should have looked into it more before I bought one, but I'm still pretty annoyed. I haven't resorted to piracy as yet but I wouldn't rule it out.
I don't really understand why I can order a real book online and have it shipped here (even if it takes forever), but some ebooks are 'unavailable' for my country? It's just weird.
Kirsten wrote: "Egotista wrote: "I lived a similar drama. I thought about taking a pirate copy of a book after buying - cause i'm from a far far away land where books like Leviathan's Wake take ages to be lauched,..."The weird part is that Cabalan's War is available in Kindle edition for me. But not Leviantan's...
It's like a cruel saw game! Like if they want to tempt us to see if we go pirate or something. Do my ipad is recording me or something? Should i be worried? Amazon is like CIA from books now?
In my opinion DRM is immoral. Well certainly it's a hassle and I don't have any mobile devices that can read DRM books.@Kirsten: ^^ so that's the problem you have. Once the publishers figure out that chaining people to Amazon via DRM is a bad move for them and start selling DRM-free books (like Tor SciFi/Tor Fantasy has already promised) hopefully all these geo-locking shenanigans go away as well.
the end result is I get the paper stuff in the mail. amazon.de often sends stuff the same day that you order it and DHL drops it off the next morning. I'm going to miss that if I move back to the States. :)
Egotista wrote: "Kirsten wrote: Very disappointed to discover that some books are still not available in Australia, or are way more expensive than the US version."I've switched the address on my kindle to Britain a couple times to buy books that weren't available in the US. They don't seem to verify it exists beyond the postal code. I'm sure doing something similar would probably work for you.
Kirsten wrote: "Very disappointed to discover that some books are still not available in Australia, or are way more expensive than the US version."I have had the same problem. There is a work-around on Amazon: set your Kindle location to somewhere in the US then buy the book. All your books will be available, whatever you have your current location set to.
Personally, I have no moral (or technical) problem doing this, and I much prefer it to piracy.
That said, if the ebook cost more than the paperback, I'm not going to buy either of them. I have enough books on my 'to read' list, I'm happy to wait for sensible prices.
When I bought my kindle I had a similar dilemma, was it "pirating" if I downloaded part of my library in the kindle? I already paid for the books (content), is like when I reap a CD or DVD... In the end I did it with Tolkiem, but some times I would like to have some other ones there for reference. In my opinion if you paid for the content, you aren't doing something wrong if you download/reap it. And there is a limit in the time and effort you can invert to pay something. I haven't had any mayor problem with books (yet), but I had with TV series and music.
Anthony, I have my kindle, and amazon account set in USA (in a friend's house), and now and then amazon blocks me from downloading books that I paid, or won't even let me see the prices.
Kyle wrote: "I believe this question could become moot (not completely) in the near future when the change way that books are sold by retailers. The new rules would allow retailers to give you the ebook copy w..."I don't understand why they don't do this already. When you buy a DVD/Blu-ray now there is generally a "free download" copy with the physical dvd. It only makes sense to do that for books/ebooks as well and it would make more people purchase books (I think).
Napoez3 wrote: "Anthony, I have my kindle, and amazon account set in USA (in a friend's house), and now and then amazon blocks me from downloading books that I paid, or won't even let me see the prices."I think that they only let you download stuff bought in your currently active region, but once it's on the kindle it will stay there.
meagh wrote: ""Morally, any form of piracy is wrong."I'm sure many will disagree with me but I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Before the printing press it was common practice to copy books without any form of compensation to the original author or publisher. Copyright grew out of the States effort to censure and control printed works (the Licensing Act) not out of an effort to protect them or the authors."
If you disagree with the word 'wrong', surely you must agree that it is, at least, a moral grey area? I object when people call media piracy theft, because it isn't, but if you pay for things, you are making a contribution to those responsible, and if you don't, you are not, and that, at least, makes it questionable in my mind. It doesn't really matter how copyright came to be.
The situation mentioned is different because you have already contributed, but, as said, it may make companies less likely to produce legal electronic copies, so I would be a little weary of this.
Egotista wrote: "I thought about taking a pirate copy of a book after buying - cause i'm from a far far away land where books like Leviathan's Wake take ages to be lauched, and the Kindle Edition wasn't available for my country (but the paperback version was). The point is that i wanted to read the book with the group, but it would take mouths to arrive (no, really, last amazon request took almost three mouths, at the very least). It would be justified piracy? i mean, i would bought the book! it was just a timing thing."
This is certainly a good example of when piracy is acceptable. I still think it is questionable to do so, but I know I would in your situation, and really, you are not doing much harm if you can't get it any other way.
I think a lot of the trouble with piracy stems from companies still getting used to the digital format of media. Hopefully, in a few years, most ebooks will be available all over the world and reasonably priced, with, at the very least, a heavy discount for those buying the physical copy.
I think that moral question is summed up this way:A creator has created a product and done so at some personal cost in time, energy, and possibly financial (for example rent on an office, daycare for kids so he can focus on his work, promotional materials, etc). When you consume that product (watch the movie, read the book, etc) then you have some moral obligation to provide payment, same as you would pay someone to clean your house, cut your lawn, file your taxes, watch your kids. I will confess that the time it takes to convert formats is pretty negligble (I can take a Doc file of a book and make it Kindle ready in a couple of hours, max). So if you own the dead tree edition, then you, more or less, have compensated the producers of the work (less the small cost of edition conversion).
Personally, I think that any piracy of books is poor form. While it can suck to have to wait, or pay a few extra dollars for something, it is taking in the product the way that it's made available. If you don't like the method of delivery you are absolutely free to not participate in the transaction. Technically no one owes anyone anything. But it is also poor form for a content provider ~not~ to do everything they can to support the propagation of their work, such as finding ways to make it available on all devices, at all times, and at fair prices.
Sadly there's no current working system that hits on the two big issues: Ease of consumption for the purchaser and guaranteed compensation for the producer.
I object when people call media piracy theft, because it isn'tIn the words of Willow Rosenberg, "That's not stealing, it's just taking stuff without paying for it!"
I can see the argument (when you pirate digital media, the original owner is not deprived of the actual product), but I think it's a distinction without a difference. You were supposed to pay for it, and you didn't. That's stealing.
Alterjess wrote: ""I object when people call media piracy theft, because it isn't"In the words of Willow Rosenberg, "That's not stealing, it's just taking stuff without paying for it!""
Haha, nice use of that quote, and you make a good point. I still think the distinction is valid, but I guess it largely depends on the situation as to how I would view it.
@Alterjess that's just begging the question, the issue is whether or not you are supposed to pay. So according to you the reason it's stealing is because you are not legally allowed to. And it is okay to copy public domain works because you aren't supposed to pay. So it's a good thing that the laws are the way they are because if they were any different from the way they currently are they wouldn't match what you are supposed to do, since what you are supposed to do is defined in the current legal framework. :DI do think steal is just a wrong word, because copying bits doesn't deprive anyone of anything. It can be a violation of the monopoly granted by the government for copyrighted works. I think the mouthful of 'copyright violation' is worth the accuracy. Once you start using the property metaphor then you stop thinking in terms of "whats the best way for the government to encourage creativity by granting monolopies?" and it instead turns the whole discussion into one of 'natural' rights. When you think in terms of the latter you shortcircuit the discussion and discount any problems century long copyright terms have.
Ian wrote: "I do think steal is just a wrong word, because copying bits doesn't deprive anyone of anything."It deprives the copyright holder of the income they are due in exchange for you having use of that content.
Honestly, I should probably back out of this conversation because my job is in commercial footage licensing, and my official, professional position on copyright violation is frequently at odds with my personal philosophical views on fair use. I don't want to accidentally say anything that could get me fired... :)
(Also, this is primarily a discussion about personal use, which is a whole separate thing from commercial licensing.)
It deprives the copyright holder of the income they are due in exchange for you having use of that content. Yes, which makes it a copyright violation. It violates the monopoly granted to them. But it doesn't deprive them of any property.
Fair use is a good counter-example of the property metaphor for copyrighted materials - there's no such thing as fair use of someone else's car!
Yes, which makes it a copyright violation. It violates the monopoly granted to them. But it doesn't deprive them of any property.Uh...
I'm not sure if you're just splitting hairs here or not but....
I write a book. I make it available for sale. I sell it for $3. You download a copy rather than buying one from me. How is that ~not~ depriving me of property, specifically $3? If you bought it, I would have the money, since you didn't, I don't. And either way, you have a copy of my writing, that I labored to produce.
I mean, I'm okay with saying I don't deserve the money because I can make it on other sales, or that the products are over priced and writers don't get that much of the money or you already own it on other formats (ie I got paid), but it just seems odd to suggest that an artist isn't be deprived of anything when his or her work is distributed for free by people who are not part of the production/ marketing.
While I understand the moral and legal issues, I think there are cases when piracy or whatever we want to call it is not as objectionable.The example given - "I already own the book as a hardcover/paperback, but I also want to own it as an e-book" - is one of these grey areas and where I personally think that one shouldn't judge to harshly.
Is it still legally wrong? I guess so. Can you have moral qualms? Probably.
I wouldn't have a problem with it. Just downloading without paying for any version of the book is another issue because I do think that authors should get compensated for the hard work they put into their books.
And yes, I have downloaded a book which I already owned because I wanted to read it again and was basically too lazy to look for it in one of the fifty boxes with books we still have in storage after our move.
I do understand that these reasons are debatable and that there will always be difference in terms of whether something is legally or morally or ethically wrong. For me there are lots of grey areas and it depends on the actual situation and circumstances to say whether I personally would object to priating a book or not.
@Rob: I don't think it's hair splitting, it's a really important point. If someone takes my code without proper license or copies your book without your authorization we aren't deprived of property. We are deprived of what we are legally entitled to - that's the similarity between copyright violation and thievery. But that's where the similarity ends. If I steal your car, you don't have a car. If I copy your book, you still have your book.
Is quoting your book similar to taking your car's radio? No not at all.
Copyrights all have a time limit. Would you call works going into the public domain a form of nationalization and government appropriation? Well some would probably, but I disagree.
Copyright shouldn't be viewed as a right to private property, but simply as the method we've come up with to encourage creative enterprise. Copyright law should be written with that goal in mind.
I'm more for the 'as long as you aren't making money off of it' argument.Like was mentioned before, should storytellers repeating a short story they read at a campfire have to pay a royalty fee to do so? There are copyright fans that would say yes.
I say if you can afford it, donate to the cause if you want, or better yet, contribute by writing yourself! Perhaps in the future ebooks may have a 'did you like this book? Contribute to the author's fund', kind of a link/thing where you can donate what you can afford or what you think the value of what you just read is worth.
I for one would never reprimand a kid for 'stealing a book'. It's better than them out stealing cars! As a matter of fact I'd encourage it. I'm just happy to see kids take interest in reading! And if kids/people can't afford it, should it be held back from them ever experiencing reading?
Then again, I am not really a fan myself of U.S. intellectual property laws, so my point of view may be extreme. People have said previously that payment encourages people to write/create. I don't think so. People will write/create whether they get paid or not (how much were any of you paid to post a message on this board?) Intellectual property stagnates creativity. Imagine if Disney didn't hold all their characters in a vicegrip, all the amazing children's authors that could write a neat story about a mouse named 'Mickey'? Instead, you have to be careful not to even name any kind of mouse 'Ricky, Mickey, or even Scheckey' for fear of IP litigation. Allowing collaboration sure hasn't hurt Lovecraft, et al with their characters, and scenarios! Then again... I'd be terrified to see the final tally of Star Trek novels that would have come out :).
People will write/create whether they get paid or not (how much were any of you paid to post a message on this board?)But will talented people create the same amount/ quality of work for free?
It would be great if people were all noble and honest and paid writers a living wage (and then some) after sampling their work for free. Maybe someday the professional writers will spear head that and you can get any King, Patterson or Roberts book to put on your shelf without paying a penny for them unless you want to.
But writing is like any other business. Quality writing takes time, it takes work, it costs money (writers tend to make horrible editors, and they're not cover artists, usually) and it takes talent. Some have all of those freely available, some have to pay for it.
I agree that socioeconomic status should not be a gateway to literature. Fortunately there are public libraries and other resources available for all.
Now semi related I do agree with your rant on the the vice grip that some have on their IP's to the point where it becomes problematic for people to create works that ~might~ be similar. But on the other hand, things like "Fan Fic" still benefit from the work of others.
The idea of "intellectual property" is a tricky one. It's more complicated then simple things like "can I steal someone's car". But I have issues with people waving a hand at taking other people's work and ideas, and using them to their own ends.
Sadly... I don't have a single answer to how to make it all work for everyone...
Agreed. I remember Stephen King tried the 'pay what you think my story deserves' thing with his story 'Riding the Bullet'. I think he was ahead of his time. No, most people won't pay, but now with the rise of things like 'Kickstarter', etc. it may be getting closer.
As for the quality of writers if it were free.... well there's a lot of junk out there that I've accidentally paid for as well. What do you think if there was the final book in a George RR Martin series that people would like written and a Kickstarter project was started up to see if the author would make it happen? It think that model would be cool!
But yes, there's got to be many different options as there isn't one single answer to this problem.
"It deprives the copyright holder of the income they are due in exchange for you having use of that content."...
"But will talented people create the same amount/ quality of work for free?"
Concerning these two lines of thought, copyright has been allowed to corrupt what the artist and his method of work actually is. It is not a content-creation/manufacturing industry; it is really a service industry. Writers used to get paid to write rather than for what they had written, musicians and actors were paid to perform and not for what they performed, artists were paid to produce art and not for the art they produced, this was often done by the state or community by commissioning the work.
It is only in very recent times that we've tried to move it from a service industry into a manufacturing industry and this was not to assist the artist or writer but to control them and currently to allow third parties to profit. This is why it is important imho to remember where copyright came from because it helps show it for what it is. By it's nature art is not a manufacturing industry. It is a service performed to the community that makes us all richer. When it is treated as a service industry, just as it has through most of history, the artist/writer/musician will be fine - just as they have been through most of history.
@Sean, i think you're spot on about kickstarter. I think that it is going to go very far in changing the industry. - M.
I want to believe you're right but we can't get people to pay for things that are tangible, like roads, or things that are "kind of tangible" like education. We're going to have the public pay for something truly ~in~tangible such as writing and poetry? I disagree that there isn't value in seeing art as a product, mostly because it holds the artist accountable for doing something with the time/ money.
It might be interesting to transition to a model where we just paid into a pool to have people create, but unless it were, indeed, government funded, I still see similar problems. My community hires a playwright to make neat plays, and then we find out the next community over has snuck a copy of our scripts and is enjoying them. Should we be offended? After all, it was our taxes that funded the creation of the plays. What did they provide towards it?
Is it that the pay-for-product model corrupted artists, or did it protect them?
Why would you be offended? Your community would have hired the playwright to write a play. He did that, you paid for it and you received it. His service, the actual writing was paid for and performed. If your community theater wanted to make money on it, then they'd perform it and pay the actors for performing it. Certainly most people would choose to see a play directed or sanctioned by the original playwright rather than one performed by another company and would likely choose that performance over the different one in the next town, so any offense is imho an artificial by-product of the mindset that art is a product to be owned.You don't need to have art as a product to keep the artist accountable. Just as in any service industry (except possibly air-lines), if they provide a poor service then no one will hire them to perform the service. - M.
No. There is legal and historical precedent for sharing. A fair point and one I'll concede happily. Lending libraries to, indeed, lend out single copies of books rather than making people all buy their own copy.
But where the analogy does break down is that there is still a limit on how many books can be lent out as the library has to keep them in stock. If 100 of you want to read my book and there's only 2 copies then 98 percent of you have to make a choice: Buy it and read it now, or wait.
By simply posting that electronic book to a website for download, then everyone can read it all at once and there is no choice, nor is there an incentive, if the book is really good, so good you just can't wait, to compensate the writer monetarily. Unless you can convince the library to buy 100 copies of the book.
Honestly, and personally, I don't have a big problem with people lending copies of paper backs to each other. My wife's part of a website where they literally swap books around in a kind of match making service. "I wanna read this book. Who has it to give to me?"
It's not that I would expect every potential reader to pony up cash to my pocket. That's not reasonable, it's not tenable, and it's not practical.
However, if we go to the other extreme, and make every book available, for free, online and then trust people to pay for them as "they see fit", or ask writers to wait until a kickstarter page generates enough revenue to get it going, I'm not sure many writers could make a living as a writer outside of "the big names".
I feel a little demoralized in these conversations because it seems to be a lot of hate at DRM, and a lot of anger at people who try to defend their right to be paid for work. Maybe it's the lack of subtext on the internet that makes it harder. I can't tell who's just making points and keeping conversation going, and who really has a strong personal dislike for authors, publishers and agents. I'm just a guy who's hoping to make enough as a writer to justify taking summers to write.
:DWanna Beta read my Age of Sail inspired Space epic? It's got pirates in chapter 1. :) Of course, owing to working on short stories all the book has is Chapter 1.....
Darren wrote: "The Pirates movies were sort of a big deal, and yet there has been barely a splash in the literature about pirates. Crichton put out Pirate Latitudes posthumously, but tbh I put that book down. I thought it was clear that he wasn't done with it. The Temeraire books are recent, and they are certainly set in the Age of Sail. I'm a fan. They're much more Horatio Hornblower/ Aubrey-Maturin than Captain Blood, though. "Have you read On Stranger Tides? It is apparently the basis for Pirates of the Carribean 4.
On DRM vs piracy...personally, and I suspect it's true of many, I would much rather give an author (or TV production company) money than take the work for nothing. I know enough writers and have seen the examples of people like Wil Wheaton who've tried the whole tip jar "pay me what you think it's worth" thing (and I have a ton of respect for people willing to try new things like that!). But if you're not going to make it available in my region, or for my device, at a price I can afford - how can I give you money? It just doesn't make sense.
You know... I wonder if we can get meta a second here and think about how to rate attitudes regarding DRM and piracy to better organize and summarize these discussions. I mean, really most of us come in pretty codified in our views, with our own backgrounds and reasons for thinking like we do. I'm a content producer so I'm going to have a different take on the issue than someone who is primarily a consumer. I'm not saying that either view is "Right" or "Wrong" but that they're likely to be different.I don't think it's nessecarily a linear scale "Pro DRM/ Anti DRM" Maybe one with two axis? I dunno.. I'm just spinning here trying to avoid real writing...
It deprives the copyright holder of the income they are due in exchange for you having use of that content. I don't want to give money to the copyright holder, I want to give it to the people that actually helped in the work: the editor, the cover artist, the AUTHOR. There are hundred of videogames, songs, books, and movies that the real author(s) doesn't get a dime when you buy the content. Some "associated producer" gets most of the money from sales, and the real artists are the last ones in the big chain of money flow.
The thing is... there are many people who pirate books/movies/etc and then end up buying the actual hard copy. There are people out there who want both an electric copy and a hard copy. Take a look at Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker. Warbreaker was released as a FREE ebook on Brandon's website. It was also released in hardcover format shortly after. Many of his fans downloaded the free ebook legally from his website and THEN went out and bought the hard copy. I know I did. His sales didn't seem to suffer from giving away a free ebook. His hardcover printing of the book comes in at #23,527 in book sales at amazon.com http://www.brandonsanderson.com/porta... (And that's not including ebooks sold, in the kindle store it's #5,433).
There's a perfect example of an ebook people got for FREE and then went out and bought a hard copy of anyway!
The publishing industry needs to get with the times and start offering a free download with purchase of a hardcover/softcover book. Even if they just offered it for hardcover I'm sure many avid book readers would be interested.
"The thing is... there are many people who pirate books/movies/etc and then end up buying the actual hard copy. "And many don't. For example, I've never bought any of the Cory Doctorow books I got for free. HOWEVER... because I could try some out, I become more aware of Cory and did buy other books of his s downloading them.
I don't think, btw, that publishers should include an ebook for free with the hardcover. Why not? Because it sends the message that the ebook is worth nothing - you used to get the hardcover, now for the same price you get the hardcover and the ebook version!!
To me, this is a simple matter of paying for value received. When I buy a book, I get some hours of entertainment. Why shouldn't I compensate the people who created the book for that? And really, when we're talking about whether the book should be the same price as the mass marked PB or 20% cheaper, aren't we kind of being cheap? 20% off the $7.99 MMPB is... $6.49. I'm sorry, but if one is material to you, the other probably is also.
Here's the thing... there's no really convincing ethical argument in favor of piracy. There are cases where it's understandable to some degree - you've bought a hardcopy but it's at home, in the basement packed away. Ideally, you'd be able to check a copy out from the library, but... eh. But the other reasons? The "it's not in my market, it's not cheap enough in my market, it's not cheap enough" reasons? Nuh uh.
I think "it's not available in my market" is an excellent argument in favor of piracy - again, my experience is in commercial licensing, but one of the factors judges look for in fair use cases is whether or not there was a good faith effort to license the material legally before fair-use-ing it. If you make a good faith effort to legally purchase a book, but nobody is willing to sell it to you, no revenue is lost when you pirate it, and I struggle to see what harm is done.
(On that same note, "it's too expensive" is also a valid legal argument in fair-use cases - if the licensing agent has priced a piece of content so high that it is essentially taken out of the marketplace, judges will consider that an argument in favor of fair use. But these kinds of cases tend to involve six-figure licensing fees or higher. In the case of piracy for personal use, I think you would be very hard-pressed to find a judge who would agree that $15 is an unfair market price for a book.)
"I think "it's not available in my market" is an excellent argument in favor of piracy -"No it's not. None of us have the right to possess something simply because we want to. If the creator chooses not to sell in your market that's their choice. Is harm done? LIkely not. But you've confused what you want with what's ethically OK. I might want to drive a Ferrari for a day but that doesn't justify my taking one and joyriding even if I return it in perfect condition.
Rick wrote: ""I think "it's not available in my market" is an excellent argument in favor of piracy -"No it's not. None of us have the right to possess something simply because we want to. If the creator choo..."
What? You aren't making any sense.
Pirating a car would be making your own car using the blueprints from a existing model. Not stealing it from some one, that's theft.
If the author doesn't want to sell his/her book in my country, he isn't losing any money if I pirate it. He might get mad because I shouldn't be reading it, but he hasn't any right to complain about losing money with me pirating his/her book.
Sigh. I love personal attacks... they're so on point. Oh wait, no they're not. One warning - if you want to discuss this, address the point, don't snark at me. Speaking of the point...You DO NOT HAVE THE ETHICAL RIGHT TO TAKE THINGS THAT AREN'T YOURS.
Sorry for the all caps, but I'm more than a bit tired of the entitled, "I want it therefore I can take it" attitude. Right next to that is the whiny "I don't want to pay $X for it, so I'll just take it" argument. Neither makes ethical sense and no amount of justification changes that.
If you pirate something now and then they publish the book later in your market will you REALLY buy it? I doubt it. Some of you might, but most of you won't.
As I noted above, there are grey areas where it's ethically wrong but in terms of real harm it's significantly more debatable - when you own a physical copy, when you DO intend to buy it as soon as it's in your market but would like it now, etc. Are you over a line in those cases? Technically yes, but you're compensating the creator at some point so it's a minor thing.
This is such an interesting discussion to follow. I am kind of curious about the legal side of it. Could someone explain to me in short what the definition of piracy is in American law?
Over here, according to current laws, I have the right to download. Doesn't matter if it's copyrighted content or not, downloading is perfectly legal. Uploading/sharing of copyrighted content is not. So if I decide to download a pirated copy of a book the law says I have the right to do so, as long as I don't make it available to others.
That brings up a whole new debate of law vs morals/ethics.
Rick wrote: "Sigh. I love personal attacks... they're so on point. Oh wait, no they're not. One warning - if you want to discuss this, address the point, don't snark at me. Speaking of the point...You DO NOT..."
Sorry, I didn't mean to "attack" you... and it doesn't look like you are open to having a discussion of this.
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Patricia, where do you live?
As a general rule the law is not, in the US at least, such that it's illegal to own a non licensed copy of a creative work.The law is against ~distributing~ the non licensed copy.
So yes here too it's totally legal for you to download that book as a DRM free eBook and read it. Where you are, unless I'm mistaken, breaking the law yourself is when you then email that eBook to a friend to read.
Somewhere between the middle ages and today, we shifted form patronage to product. If I want to get paid as a writer, I need to sell copies. I may get an advance against projected sales, but at the end of it, my income is based on what people pay for.
There are free models. Scott Kurtz famously gave away his comic to any and all. And then charged people to buy print copies in book form. He does okay with this model. However, he also does sell his work. The comic is a gateway to create a community where people turn around and support him with purchases.
The laws we have are meant to protect producers and distributers to be sure that when effort goes into the making of a work, there's an incentive to purchase it. DRM is a tool that is supposed to control the number of free copies floating around. Will there be people who get around it? Of course. Same as people used to photocopy the key pages out of DnD manuals rather than buy three copies to have at the same table.
We can talk about "it's not hurting anyone" but I think there's a deeper debate. It's true, if someone can't legally get a copy of a work in their region, then it's not taking money out of anyone's pocket to find a free copy. But what does it say about how we value that work when we do that?
And to some, books, movies, "Intellectual Property" are just things you consume when it's convenient and not worth much. Heck, with so many self styled independent authors churning out books, how can it have much value? There's a deluge out there.
But DRM/ Piracy is becoming very much like many other political debates where neither side is arguing about the same thing. Pro Pirate arguments are about access to information already paid for, or the punitive pricing models. Anti Pirate arguments are about compensation for producers. Both sides can claim a moral highground quite easily and miss that they're not looking down at anyone form there. They're looking straight across.
Patricia, Legal or not, do you feel it's *ethical* to take something that you apparently value without compensating the creator for that work?
Napoez - I'm fine with discussing the issue. If I post something confusing, fine, tell me what's not clear... but "You're not making sense" is, in fact, personal. As to the analogy, I would have thought it was clear - If I take a Ferrari for a joy ride but leave it in perfect condition right back in the same place it was to start, you can argue the owner's suffered no harm. Ethical? Most of us would say no... but is there really much of a difference?
Rick wrote: "If you pirate something now and then they publish the book later in your market will you REALLY buy it? I doubt it. Some of you might, but most of you won't. "The thing I pirate mostly is anime. There is so much anime I love that never makes it to England, and so much anime I adore that I would never have known about otherwise. My acts of piracy have frequently led directly to legal purchases. I don't know an anime fan who doesn't collect official products when possible. Often we're just waiting for the chance to. As I've said before, I think that pirating is always morally questionable, but in cases where a product is not available, it can actually create a market for things that would otherwise have struggled to find buyers. It seems to me to be one of the more justifiable reasons to get stuff the illegal way, though I agree that acting as though you are entitled can be rather grating.
Piracy has a lot of grey area. I would assume the actual definition would be obtaining copyrighted materials without purchasing or obtaining permission from the copyright holder.
Say for example my friend downloads a book likes it and I go to their place and download it from them. Is that any different from loaning a book?
You can justify file-sharing the same way only on a much larger scale if you want to be really technical about it.
My biggest thing is if your going to take the time to pirate something you likely wouldn't buy it to begin with. So the already small margin of loss the authors suffer after the publishers take there cut is again cut by the amount of people who wouldn't bother reading them if they couldn't get their books free.
I can justify it as I am reading and enjoying their work and will recommend it to others if its good. So they may yet make a profit even off of the pirates.
Napoez3 wrote: "Patricia, where do you live? "I live in the Netherlands.
Rick, I don't feel it's ethical to take something without compensating the creator. What I should probably explain is that there is a system in place that charges us, the general public, an extra fee when we buy a media-carrier. That money collected from that fee is used to compensate creators of content.
Looking at it objectively you have to wonder if the current legal situation isn't in part responsible for the attitude 'we' have towards downloading. We are taught from a young age that the law is the set of rules we have to abide by. It's easy to ignore the ethical side of the question when the law justifies our behavior.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Warbreaker (other topics)On Stranger Tides (other topics)
I am currently reading the fourth book in the song of ice and fire series - a storm of swords: blood and gold. I try and bring it around everywhere I go, but it is much more convenient to just whip out my iPod touch and read the book there.
My question is this; what are you people's views on pirating a book you already own? I would have never bought the book a second time on iBooks and it does not cost them anything for me to download their book, as I am not using any of their server bandwidth. Does this extend to the pirating of audiobooks, as this requires more of a commitment and price to reproduce (hiring of voice actors and so forth)? What about newly published books offering a free download of that book with the real book's purchase?