Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
That's the British spelling, moran!
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
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.
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.
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.