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Book 'Em, Dano
theodp writes "An Oregon library worker was arrested after selling at least $10,000 worth of stolen library books, CDs and videotapes online in the past six months. The thief, who scanned the Net to find items in demand and went to the library to check them out, was busted after an alert college president noticed his copy of the recently-published I am Charlotte Simmons, purchased on Amazon.com, sported a library receipt with a due date of Dec. 26. Earlier this month, it was reported that a VT man was arrested for stealing hundreds of books from college libraries and bookstores and selling them on Amazon, realizing more than $4,000. The library thefts are somewhat ironic, since Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the NY Times seemed to suggest there might be fewer books in libraries if the Authors Guild, who opposed Amazon's used book sales practices, had their way. Bezos also once told angry booksellers there's no reason why Amazon should have to collect sales taxes, arguing that Amazon gets no police services from other states."
Damn, this guy's a smart one... genious.
To be honest, this sort of thing really grips my shit. Ebay is full of people doing this sort of thing - not what people might think of as 'stolen goods' but things they've borrowed from work or been issued and then flog on ebay.
I'm in the military and every now and again do a search for Military kit, ebay is crawling with brand new stuff that could only have come from stores, so basicly someone is getting it issued, or taking a few bits home and then flogging them straight onto eBay to make a few extra dollars - it still amounts to the same thing.
As a part time resident of VT the past 5 years (the majority of the fall/winter), I can't say this surprises me. Norwich is about 10 miles away and is a military oriented university. I wonder what titles he was pulling out? Anyways, this is just another creative theft of product/services. Contrary to many popular beliefs, Vermont is not the idllyic paradise many would have you believe. High welfare rates, little job growth, few police and much unreported crime. I'll give that this guy was more creative than most, but he is still the typical dirtbag.
Great, so we get to pay taxes on online orders because some asshole stole some library books? Instead of paying the taxes, why not just shoot the jerk. Then nobody else will try it. I buy a lot of books online and they are expensive enough as it is.
Someone you trust is one of us.
on the run for the library policemen...
MP3 Search Engine
probably with the Spelling Police...
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
They are. No sales of stolen property are ever valid. A clueless person who buys stolen property at a thief's yard sale not knowing the seller stole it still is in possession of stolen property. That item can be taken from the unwitting buyer by the police and returned to the rightful owner, the person it was stolen from. If the buyer wants their money back, they have to sue the thief, which is usually a fruitless effort. So, eBay's role is that whenever they realize that property's stolen, they've gotta kill the auction in order to maintain buyer confidence in their marketplace. They don't want transactions that aren't going to work happening over their system, simply because that'd undermine the trust people have in their system.
Just shows how dumb and lazy most criminals are. I sold books on Amazon until 2 years ago, and I was able to get great stuff for virtually nothing jusst be forging ties at the library and getting their discards - plus buying cheaply from other sources. I never paid more than about ten cents per book. Is saving a dime worth going to jail for? (not to mention the moral compromise involved in stealing.)
This space available.
> Because you are not paying the library money in exchange for
> a book. You are paying a fee for not having returning the
> book. It's what you agree to when you sign up.
OK I have on my bookcase two books that I failed to return to a library many years ago. I have alreaddy paid the late fines and "fail to return" fines on them and all is closed between me and the library
Are you saying I do not own these books? will I be arrested for trying to sell them on to someone else? Will I get the library police coming after me if I try to sell them? I don't think so.
That's not what happened in this case though.
Here, he made use of his employee access to the library computer system to say that the book had been returned, when it had not been.
Secondly, I don't think he sold them on Amazon for more than the list price. These are current, in print books that you can get from a bookstore anywhere, including Amazon's new books section.
I would say this is a clear cut case of theft.
For the less age-challenged, the Dano (sic) reference is to Hawaii Five oh. I almost wrote "Mannix", such are the problems of being over the hill. I.E., over 40.
These fines are not there for you to deliberate hold back a book. You should return them. It's a fine, not a price tag, you did't buy them.
I almost fell of my chair laughing as my wife brought me a coffee, Thank god I wasn't drinking it at the time, because my monitor would be a mess right now.
I bet that the possibility of writing really shitty reviews about really shitty books like that only come once in a very great while.
The beauty of self publishing authors is that, once in a very great while someone dissapoints this reader by being as charming and erudite as their subject is pithy, most of the time I am reminded that the value of editors come as much from what they don't publish, and there for spare us from, as how well they do publish what they.
To quote Dorothy Parker: "That's not writing, that's typing."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
does the theft of books from libraries have to do with:
a> Amazon's selling of used books depriving the author's of collecting revenue.
b> Amazon saying that it shouldn't collect state taxes because it gets no police services.
Other than that we want to make an ad-hominem attack on Amazon and Bezos?
Would it change what the thief did if the books showed up on EBay?
I know why Amazon does not want to pay sales tax and its not just the small price difference of the tax or the administrative headaches. The fact is that people really really hate paying taxes to the point of irrationality. I saw the results from an e-commerce study done by MIT on people's on-line spending habits. It showed that a person would rather go with a more expensive online store in order to avoid paying sales tax. In fact, the data suggested that people would pay $5 more for the product to avoid $1 of sales tax.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm sure that Amazon knows that being tax-free means more than it seems when it comes to consumer behavior.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
You didn't purchase the books. I'm honestly not sure if it's considered theft. But there are certainly laws that refer to legitimately required copies of materials (some parts of copyright law), and I don't think that this would fit the bill (certainly not if this was done intentionally, and I'm not sure about accidentally). Some of it depends on how your library policy reads- do they drop the situation entirely once the fine is paid?
The library police won't be coming after you because both libraries and the police have better things to do with their time (unless this becomes a regular occurence because people think that paying the fine means they bought the book). Libraries have scarce enough resources as it is.
People not returning books sucks for libraries. The reason fines are so high often isn't because they want the fine to act as a detriment- it's to make sure that they can get as close a replacement as possible to the missing item (which is often impossible in out of print books) and to pay for the cost of processing the book. Processing the book is not as easy as slapping on a tag and making the item available for checkout again. There's cataloging and recataloging involved.
At any rate, libraries are a public service. Taking advantage of their services in the way the article describes, whether or not the person falsely checks in the book, is unethical if nothing else.
But where do the grammar nazis fit in?
"According to Jim Strovink, a sheriff's office spokesman, Gray would check out books, then tap into the library computer system and record them as returned."
IANAL, but that sure sounds like stealing to me.
The answers to your questiones are easily found by clicking the link to the Page that has much of the information on it.
This is nothing like the RIAA. This is a man stealing books and selling them.
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
That poor library, they'll be doing a complete reinventory.
Probably lost some of their best works.
That is only true in good faith cases. Lost book etc etc. If you take it with the *intent* to never bring it back that is theft.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Look on the bright side, it's nice to see that people are reading!
Maybe it'd be legal to do this with Blockbuster DVDs. After all, there aren't any late fees with Blockbuster.
It doesn't surprise me at all. I buy from Amazon.com resellers commonly, and everything usually works out fine. However, on a couple of occasions, I have recieved cheap imported pirated DVDs. Complaining on /. is more useful than contacting Amazon.com :-)
Even if you explain, in-detail, what evidence you have that a product is illegal, the only response you'll ever get is an apology that you didn't recieve what you wanted (!!!) and an offer to refund your money if you return the item.
They don't want to know anything about illegal activity on their site. They'd rather refund you money so you'll be quiet, and they can ignore it.
Amazon isn't nearly as bad as eBay when it comes to illegal activities (in my experience) but it's certainly not good, and how they (don't) deal with it is the real problem.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Although Bezos claimed that the AG "is the same organization that from time to time has advocated charging public libraries royalties on books they loan out," (from news.com.com)
the A.G. website has a slightly different story. Apparently the A.G. did investigate government-sponsored royalties, but funding issues and higher-priority concerns for the A.G. have halted their efforts.
I find it interesting that the A.G. promotes such a system, described as "...a small government-funded royalty paid to authors of books borrowed from libraries." I mean, how could you determine who gets royalties without keeping track of how many times each item gets checked out? Wouldn't that raise serious privacy concerns, not to mention issues of fraud and checkout-padding for certain books?
And then who gets to put media in the library? I mean I could put together some pamphlets about linux or FOSS, and then give them to my local library to put on the shelf. If my friends and I check them out (for free) every few days, we can get money back, right?
What would we do with websites? People coming into the library are increasingly doing so to access the Internet (especially in lower-income areas where most people do not have access at home). If someone does research online and finds good information on Wikipedia.org, shouldn't Wikipedia get some money for that? Who is to say that Britannica deserves royalties for its 3year-old Encyclopedia but Wikipedia doesn't deserve them for its own upkeep of hardware and bandwidth?
If this happens I can see people forming new "free libraries" -- not free for borrowing, but free from any monitoring or recording of who checked out what, when. I thought up a couple of neat ways to do this a while back as a way to 'get around' terms in the PATRIOT Act -- generally including public/private keypairs and money held in escrow (in the event that the materials were not returned). It would be a shame if people felt forced to go out and implement something like this.
coding is life
well, some of the customers ARE just plain stupid.
Agreed! And a smart business gives its customers what they want, even if that is stupid.
and so bezos can pull their legs, it's not amazons police service that's supposed to be paid with the sales taxes. It's the customers police protection that the cash is going to.
You don't think local retailer get any benefit from police protection? I would imagine that crime against tax-paying retailers is a big deal, too. Armed robbery, shoplifting, embezzlement aren't crimes against customers. Amazon gets no benefit from police protection against crimes against retailers. In fact, it would be in Amazon's interests if local retailers become more frequent targets of crime as that would drive more customers to Amazon.
Sales tax pays for other services that a local retailer benefits from such as tourism promotion, local festivals, parking (if not metered), and downtown rejuvenation projects. One can even argue that sales taxes for stadiums are, at least a partially, for the benefit of local businesses that get a boost from tourism. If local governments stopped maintaining the infrastructure of the downtown and shopping areas, that would hurt local retailers and help Amazon.
You are right that sales tax does pay for services that go to the customer, but its not 100%. Some fraction of the sales tax subsidizes local retailers abilities to do business and attract customers. I can see why Amazon would not want to fund the competition, especially as Amazon (and its employees) have no vote in local elections.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
That's not what I said, I clearly said deliberate. It's like stealing a car and putting some equalivant amount of cash in the owner's mailbox.
There was something similiar which happened at
Microsoft a few months back.
I appreicate libraries and don't condone the theft of their resources but... Libraries don't always think through their fines and charges. (or for that matter most rental businesses)
I put it to an elderly University librarian that a $100AU maximum on late fees was stupid when the charge for a lost book was also $100AU. I asked her why she would expect anyone to return a book that hit the maximum fine. Even before the maximum, people might just decide to lump the extra cost and keep the book if the difference between the fine and the replacement charge equals the retail cost.
I pointed out that higher level texts often retailed in the campus bookshop for over $100AU, so the replacement charge seemed even more short sighted. Why didn't their system pull up the real cost of each book to determine it and cap late fees at half the cost individually?
She looked at me like I was evil incarnate.
"People not returning books sucks for libraries. The reason fines are so high often isn't because they want the fine to act as a detriment- it's to make sure that they can get as close a replacement as possible to the missing item (which is often impossible in out of print books) and to pay for the cost of processing the book. Processing the book is not as easy as slapping on a tag and making the item available for checkout again. There's cataloging and recataloging involved."
Interesting, so do we need a POD compulsary license for libraries which have non-replaceable books that are not returned?
That may help alleviate the problem. In fact, would a POD compulsary license be a good thing for out of print books in general?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
or do the police serve subpoenas?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
My dad was a paratrooper in Alaska about 25 years ago, and says this kind of thing happened all the time -- a couple of supply sergeants stole literally half the stores, transferring stuff between them to make accounts add up any time there was an inspection. Another time, my dad borrowed a lock from another guy for his locker, and the guy opened it up and took all his stuff (it's possible he was a bit naive back then, huh?).
Anyway, the way I read this, it's probably the military that's rampant with thieves -- not too surprising for the world's largest and best funded bureaucracy. It's possible that eBay aided the process, but I bet it simply put all the thieves into a searchable database and made the problem a little more visible.
Not that I know shit about shit, as my dad would say. What do you think?
As an author, I am tempted to concur with the Author's Guild re: used book sales.
As a voracious reader, I very much like buying used books at reduced cost. (I also buy many for reference when doing research for my own writing.)
My libertarian leanings also give me pause at the notion of restricting free enterprise and doing what one wishes with one's own property (selling used books).
My capitalist leanings (okay, greed, profiteering, whatever) give me pause because, after all, I write for fun AND profit.
Any other authors here with an opinion?
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Of course, Oregon does not have a sales tax. (We're weird that way.)
The DMCA--for corporations, the best copyright law money can buy.
When you order off of Amazon, do you have to pay Washington sales tax? (I don't think so, but I honestly don't know for sure, since I've never actually bought anything from there.) If not, then it is only fair that Amazon purchases be taxed by the buyer's jurisdiction.
As a side note, some stores in Washington will cover the sales tax of their Oregonian customers, if we show identification, since Oregon does not have a sales tax.
The DMCA--for corporations, the best copyright law money can buy.
Not to mention, sales tax also goes to fund the educational systems which teach many people how to read. (There wouldn't be much a market for books without widespread literacy.)
The DMCA--for corporations, the best copyright law money can buy.
Why is a college president reading I Am Charlotte Simmons, a book about the sex life of a college co-ed? I think the perv-o-meter just hit eleven.
Actually, he was stating he didn't get police services in North Carolina, so why should he do the work of collecting North Carolina's taxes for them. Jeff and Amazon are in Washington and they collect WA state sales tax from all WA residents. They get police and fire services, their employees use public transit, the school system, etc. They collect sales taxes for WA and pay business taxes to WA.
OTOH, it's often cheaper for WA residents to shop at other e-tailers with locations outside the state, or go to a local "bricks and mortar" retailer who may have a similar price, as they'll pay sales tax anyway and they get instant gratification with no shipping costs or shipping wait.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Bezos also once told angry booksellers there's no reason why Amazon should have to collect sales taxes, arguing that Amazon gets no police services from other states."
Yeah right. I guess I shouldn't pay taxes because I don't have any kids in school, I'm healthy, I walk to work. My apartment isn't on fire. What an ass. Heeeyy...wait a minute! Maybe I shouldn't pay any taxes! Sorry guys, If you want to operate here and benefit from our people, these are the rules. Just like building codes and health codes. If you don't like it, just close up shop. Someone else will pop up. Quit being such a crybaby, and simply udjust your prices accordingly. Let the voters deicde how much tax you(we) pay. That's the way it's supposed to be!
thankyouverymuch
What?
I've only paid shipping (unless I've gotten free shipping) and no sales taxes.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I have the world's darkest sense of humor, so "tasteless" is a thing I don't care about. Being a vast misanthrope doesn't help matters. Tasteless is a word, in my not so humble opinion, used by wweak people.
And, actually, I DID make jokes on 9/11 and after the tsunami.
I guess they can just look-up his borrowing history, and see which books are really there, and which aren't. But then some libraries don't want to play Big Brother or that the real Big Brother get their records, so they might not have the history stored anywhere.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
No. The voting system is rigged at the psychological level.
When people are a bunch of mind-controlled brain slugs, then it is very easy to make them 'choose' that which is not good for them. Controlling populations through a host of on-going and very effective techniques, from drugs and television and religion, to the very manner in which society itself has been built, establishes the illusion of a democratic system when really nothing could be further from the truth. --And when mind-control is not enough, then there are always ways of ensuring that the systems give up the desired results. The last U.S. election offered prime example of some of these methods. (Unless one is of of the camp that no mis-doings were in evidence.)
Democracy is an illusion. People are cattle. Yes, it's true that on a deep level, this is as they choose to be, but it doesn't make me content to play along just because my soul-sleeping neighbors are willing to be slaughtered.
I'll keep yelling about this, but I'll be abandoning ship when the critical time comes, and everybody left aboard can drown as they will.
Christ was quoted as saying once, "Wide is the road that leads to destruction, and thousands walk it every day. Narrow is the path that leads to Life, and few follow it." (Or words to that effect.)
-FL
Don't forget Krychek, from The X Files. He was rogue FBI, so I guess that counts as a cop show.
I hate sales tax and I like living here where there isn't any. You buy something for $99.95; give the clerk a hundred dollar bill; and get back a nickle and a 'thank you'.
To me sales taxes will always be associated with the unlamented sleazy California politician Willie Brown. In 1992, California's government ran out of money and had to resort to issueing 'registered warrants' instead of paychecks to government workers. Willie Brown, then the Speaker of the CA Legislature, 'proposed' raising the sales tax from 4.5% to 6%, (which was a nearly 35% arbitrary increase) and it was instantly approved. Then this weird schmuck Willie Brown gets on television and says, "What kind of person don't wanna pay two pennie to help the poor?"
Since California was in one of its periodic slumps and there was no growth in the economy that year, all the revenue that got transferred to the new sales tax came from depressed retail sales. Six months later, I read a interview with the California state economist where he noted that "a 1.5% rise in the sales tax resulted in a 17% decrease in sales tax revenue".
I nearly fell out of my chair. Was this guy so dumb that he thought that raising the tax rate from 4.5 to 6 was only a 1.5% increase? And since there was no growth in the economy and a sales tax increase, how could there not be a decrease in general sales when the price of everything went up to pay for the tax increase?
Anyway, I just glad to leave California. If your not a millionaire and in love, the place just sucks.
Getting down with Willie Brown! Willie Brown got a closet full of $1000 suits that's bigger than your $1000 a month studio apartment. Between Willie Brown and Jerry Brown, it's no wonder that the people of Oakland need so much crack to escape the reality of their pathetic government.
God, I am so happy to not live in California.
wow, AU$100 replacement fee for a book? That's pretty crazy, but then again it's a uni library, they're notorious for high fees.
Many unis withhold your academic results if you have outstanding late fees/books though, so that might be a powerful motivator to pay the fines.
BTW, complaining to the librarians is not the efficient way to go about it. They often don't actually set the policies, and sometimes don't get a say at all when the policies are drawn up.
As always, when you make a complaint, you should go straight to the top. Higher even than the library manager, because the library manager always reports to someone higher up. Be polite and put it in writing, and request a formal response.
The suits will not always take your views into account, but this way at least they know that there are dissenting views out there.
FWIW, I work in a library.
As a rule on such jobs I always required a staff member with me at all times and required that my bags (computer, scanner, etc) be inspected at the entrance and the exit. True CYA. The first day I went to inspect the collection it was clear it had been "groomed". Telltall dust lines in drawers that should not have had been openned in years lead to the possiblity many books were missing. I quickly told them I had no interest in stepping into their mess and advised them to call the Boston PD right way.
My guess was someone was grabbing what look valuable and didn't know how to cover their tracks. It was also likely that person was still there.
The sad thing was there were a number of books I would've looked to have copies of, but it never happened.
Atleast some places, like the BLP, has very good security of the rare books. Once you get known as a researcher their they were pretty cool. Still strick, but still cool. Of course this was before the BPL was gutted. I fear in ten years it will a Starbuck's and Border's.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
At least in the end she got what she wanted. 20 years worth of liquid subsistence.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I was in a similar situation at my university when I lost a $35 book, and they wanted me to pay $100 for it. Instead I was able to purchase a brand new hard copy edition of the book, and give them that. I can't remember if I had to pay a restocking type fee so that they could affix their bar code, etc.
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.