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Digital Shoplifting From Bookstores?
ipandithurts writes "According to a report from Tokyo via IOL, Japanese publishers have launched a campaign to stop 'digital shoplifters.' These 'digital shoplifters' are using cellphones to photograph magazine pages in bookstores, rather than buying them. 'Digital shoplifting is becoming a big problem as camera-equipped mobile handsets are spreading fast and their quality is improving greatly,' said Kenji Takahashi, an official at the Japan Magazine Publishers Association. Will entry into a bookstore soon include a 'cell-phone patdown?'"
If you're going to stand in a bookstore, taking 500 pictures of the latest fav-novel of your choice, and *not* get caught, then you probably deserve to get away with the pictures.
On the other hand, if someone didn't spend so much money on the cell phone to take 600 pictures of a book, they probably could.. well.. buy the book.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Yes they do. But more than that it is very customary for Japanese to browse magazines instead of purchasing them. My girlfriend often went to the bookstore to just look at magazines without purchasing, all part of the sport-window-shopping common there. You can often see 2 or 3 couples at a time standing together and just reading magazines in convenience stores, even late at night while they wait for rooms to open up in the love hotel nearby. This is probably part of the problem. They have been largely accustomed to enjoying magazines for free. Howeve I don't see the problem. If the magazine only has a few interesting pictures it it, it probably wasn't worth purchasing to the customer anyway. If the customer's are sending more photos through there phone, this generates more telecom revenue, and ultimately doesn't hurt the economy.
[news for me, stuff that doesn't matter]
People won't pay for what they don't value, and ultamatly, as technology progresses and if control of that technology stays in the hands of people, we'll begin to see new kinds of media such as people throwing up e-newspapers and instead of asking for payment, ask for donations.
The store owners are simply angry becuase an old system they've been using for years is finally beginning to fade away into obsolecence. What people are doing isn't even a crime; as far as the law is conserned you can take all the pictures you want in public in america you want. If you go into a store, it's considered rude to try to make a copy of something that way like it's rude to stand there and read the magazine in the store without buying it.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I live in Japan. I can't imagine that this makes any significant difference in peoples buying habits. People already spend lots of time reading magazines in 7-11 and Lawsons and similar convenience stores, with no intention of buying in the first place. I'm sure this is a natural extension of that habit. I doubt if its ever to actually steal or retain the original information. Its probably more like jotting down a note. Also, people spend lots of time holding their open phones facing outwards sending email! So, I would think its difficult to distinguish when someone's taking a picture, and when someone's just emailing their friend. Finally, I think in Japan the notion of intellectual property and the illegality of it is not as severe as it is in the states. Its more a social issue, and I can't imagine any laws developing from this, or similar IP issues.
You are not actually stealing something unless you are depriving someone else of an object. Money only counts if you take the money directly; depriving someone of a sale is not theft. HOWEVER, interfering with someone doing legal business is illegal, and so is violation of copyright.
So you're a little bit right, in that it is illegal, it should be illegal, and it is arguably immoral. But your flaming of the comment you flamed is goofy, because the poor guy doesn't actually appear to disagree with you. You were out of place.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Most magazines actually do have subscriptions - take a look at some of the computer magazines, for example Software Design. It's not very much cheaper (usually only the cost of consumption tax, if that).
The reason for that is the way book distribution works in Japan. The publisher sends the book data to the printer, where it's printed; it's then shipped to the toritsugi company, which is basically a distributor. From there, it's sent to however many bookstores the publisher has paid for it to be sent to. Quite often, if the bookstore doesn't want the books it has been sent, they just leave them in the box and send them right back (at no cost to the bookstore).
The problem is that publishers have no (easy) way of getting their books out to bookstores other than through the toritsugi, with which they have a rather uneasy relationship. If the publisher starts selling magazines directly to consumers by subscription at a discount, the toritsugi will start getting annoyed with them and may increase the cost for the publisher to distribute their other products. Thus, the publisher is blocked from offering cheaper subscriptions.