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An Ethical Question Regarding Ebooks
tytso writes "Suppose there is a book that you want to read on your ebook reader, but it is out of print (so even if you purchase the dead-tree version of the book used, the author won't receive any royalties) and the publisher has refused to make it available as an ebook. You can buy it from Amazon as a used book, but that isn't your preferred medium. It is available on the internet as a pirated etext, however. This blog post outlines a few possibilities, and then asks, 'What is the right thing to do? And why?' I'm also curious if the answers change depending on whether you are a Baby Boomer, or a Gen X, Gen Y, etc. — I've noticed that attitudes around copyright seem to change depending on whether someone is a college student or a recent college graduate, versus someone who can remember a time when the Internet did not exist."
The most obviously moral/practical solution in my opinion would be to order the text used from Amazon and then read the pirated electronic version.
And if your conscious really bothers, send the author's estate a few bucks anonymously.
Fix the stupid laws that make this kind of thing ever come up. But this is rather impractical and takes forever, so in the meantime just do whatever.
...sharing is good.
Gen Y here, I think if you can't buy it new at all, then there is no reason not to read a "questionable" e-version. If you can buy it, even if you can't buy an e-version, then I say you should pay for a legit copy, but then you can read the e-version.
I don't understand here.
You're questioning the morality over paying Amazon to deliver an out of print book in paper form versus paying nothing for the same book in ebook format?
You do realize in both ways, the creator gets nothing. So where exactly is the problem?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
What I do is after I buy a book, I use a little script I wrote to print it up and then I read the printed copy. Then I have a backup, and I can read it in the preferred medium. Ethical problem solved!!
Given the life length of copyright in the US (thanks, Mickey Mouse!), the kind of book you describe is likely to be found at the Project Gutenberg archives.
To do list for Windows
Well, it would be pointless to buy it if author doesn't get revenue.
So just download it from the internet, that would be fair.
Then share it on the internet with others, so that other people can enjoy it too.
GenX : read the pirated version and say 'fuck you' to the copyright police.
Not an interesring question here because both answers are right in a way, and here we all favour one of them. This is a question that would be more interesting in a survey, to see how different ages/professions/genders/etc correlate with the idea of copyright, or even the meaning of "the law" vs "the sensible thing to do". It'd be interesting to see such a survey...
Yours is a loaded question. I may be do the same thing as you, but not for the same reasons. If I want to sample an ebook, or just use it for reference, I'll download it for sure (I'll either pay for it, or barring that option I'll find it some place else). On the other hand, if I want to read a book in its entirety, I'll get a dead-tree version (new, used, or from the library, it doesn't really matter, I don't want to read a book in its entirety from a screen). I'm 33 years old, if that makes any difference.
of course, to go with the wishes of the copyright owner, that is, buy the work and use it the way they have published it. whether this is wise, smart, useful or economically efficient has no bearing on the logic of the law, which is that copyright holder has a monopoly on copying until the copyright expires.
the right question is not so much "is downloading an illegal copy of a book i purchased unethical", but "is the law that determines copy rights ethical", i.e. does the law deliver on its promise -- to increase creativity, and whether extending the laws in the same direction is really smart.
you are pointing out an obvious failure of the law -- given monopoly profits, the copyright holder may find little incentive to offer works in novel formats that would benefit the society.
so, maybe the law is the problem.
You bought the book. You have done the legal, and ethical thing. Would using the free e-book version be any different than having a volunteer read the book that you've already bought and type it into your computer for you and your e-book to read? No.
The IP gets paid for once, not every time you read the book.
(Age: Mid 50's.)
The used market affects the market for in-print books. If there is enough demand for the book, the used price will rise. If it rises enough, there will likely be another printing of the book, and the author will benefit.
Personally, I don't think that the copyright term should be longer than twenty years, so if the work is older than that, I see no ethical problem with obtaining a copy by any otherwise legal method (so bit torrent is fine, but stealing a library copy isn't).
If the price for a used copy is exceedingly high, and there aren't plans for a new print run, then in my view, freedom of information triumphs, and it is again ethical to obtain your copy via bit torrent. So if the used copies are being sold for $100 each, and the originals were sold for $25, then I again have no ethical problem with using bit torrent.
Of course, legal and ethical are two entirely different things.
i think that all forms of the art's should be free to all so i would have no problem at all just getting the e-book
As a terminally broke college student, I don't see a serious ethical difference between "taking it out of the library, scanning a copy for personal use, and deleting it when I have to return the book, repeat every time I want to read the book" and "pirating it"... except that of course the first is far more work. Except that if nobody is selling the ebook legally, then I can't be said to be "stealing" that work *from* anyone.
I mean, you can make a pretty good argument that the work involved in making a digital readable copy of the book with nice type-setting and such means you're stealing an ebook even if you could get the book from the library (obviously it's worth *something* to you or you'd just go to the library). But when you're reading an OCR'd book full of misspelled or incorrect words with erratic formatting who's scanning someone knowingly donated to the public, and there's no "legal" version available you just can't really make that case. Especially since the book is out of print and most publishers probably consider re-selling books just as unethical as pirating an ebook.
So yea, I'd pirate it. This is assuming I had an ebook reader, I could never make it all the way through a book on my laptop. As things stands I'd just go to the library.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
I'm late Baby boomer, university grad. Authors don't make a huge amount from book sales. Publishers do. And publisher's costs are primarily on the physical logistics -- paper, printing, packaging, distribution and marketing. These don't apply in this case. They are not out of pocket. A print run is really expensive, so it's not worth their while if they won't sell 1,000s of copies. Nor do authors, nor publishers, make any money from secondhand sales anyway.
If you were to buy a book secondhand and scan it into an ebook by yourself -- something you are perfectly entitled to do for your own use -- neither the publisher, nor the author would gain. In this case, the original uploader, who presumably took the time to scan it, is the one who has incurred any costs.
I fail to understand why the author or the publisher doesn't have electronic copies available to download, even if from their own website. They are obviously missing an opportunity.
By encouraging the pirated ebook, you are only helping them. It will generate more interest in the author and their other work, and perhaps eventually encourage the publisher to reprint the book, or otherwise make it available in some format.
I'm 50, so that makes me a punk rock era boomer. I say: if the book is out of print, and it's not available as an ebook, and you find it on line as text, go for it.
Feelin' guilty? Fuck da police. Let 'em "come and gitcha".
RS
Isn't it about time we stopped equating legality with morality? One need only look to corporate law to see that one's a slippery slope.
Also, can we get it through our collective skulls that piracy DOES NOT EQUAL theft? Piracy deprives no one physically or monetarily, though I agree it might be argued that it deprives them of the chance for a sale to whoever pirated the product. Nonetheless, the possibility of a sale does not equal a sale.
There is nothing more pleasurable than searching for old books in a second hand book store. Go and buy the printed version somewhere. Its environmentally friendly recycling of old books, and you can pass it on to someone afterwards, or back to the second hand book store. Printed books are a beautiful thing, and it makes me happy to think how many people have got pleasure from a single copy of a book. eBook readers are ugly things and use up heaps of resources - electronics, manufacture, batteries etc. Tradition is cool.
If a book is out of print and the publisher isn't going to ever publish it my feeling is that it is perfectly ethical to use the pirated eText that is found on the Internet. Legal? More than likely it is not. Is that right? More than likely it is not. You would think that in copyright law that if a publisher chooses to no longer publish a book than shouldn't that book fall into the Public Domain, assuming of course that the original author is dead, or has given up their copyright or copylefted it. I'm a 40 year old GenXer - who is currently a college student.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
is what I used to do when I was a student and had limited finances.
I wouldn't download a pirated e-book - I hate the format to begin with, and despite the fact the used book sale doesn't make it back to the original author directly demand for used copies is used by publishers to determine when to reprint a book.
Ethically, I see no problem with copying it in whatever form you like if it's out of print or if it's older than 10-15 years. I consider copyrights lasting longer than 15 years and copyrights on out-of-print books to be unethical, but that's just me.
Legally, you are certainly completely in the clear if you buy a used copy and read it in paper form. You're probably in the clear if you scan the used copy yourself.
It's not clear what happens if you download a copy. The legality of that may depend more of who you copy from and where you live than whether you own a copy. Another possibility is that you borrow a copy and scan it yourself, or that you buy a copy, scan it, and then sell it again. I don't think any of those have been tested in court, and the legal situation may not agree with intuition.
My book is currently in print and available in both electronic and dead-tree versions, so this doesn't apply to me directly, but if it goes out of print I would have no problems putting the PDF version online. Quite a few authors have done the same thing - put the PDF copy online when the publisher has decided to stop distributing. Typically, all rights revert to the author at this point, so they can do whatever they want with it. If they think there's still a market for it, they can keep trying to sell it, or just put it online for anyone to read if that's too much effort for the return.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
buy the book and download the ebook version. I don't do this because of some moral / ethical reason. I do it because I like the book on my shelf, but prefer to read it digitally.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
In cases like this, the correct thing to do would have the book in question fall immediately into the Public Domain.
That is, if we had IP laws that were set up to promote the progress of the useful arts as opposed to being set up in a way so as to make a few wealthy companies even wealthier.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
pirate the book. The author is not losing any profit since there is no paid version available. The author can't sue because in order to do that they would have to prove that you are taking money away from them...but you wouldn't be buying it at all otherwise so there is no loss
In the late 90s, people began seriously digitizing old jazz and other music from ancient 33s and 78s and other discs. The facts are that even if the copyright holders could be tracked down, no music corporation would do anything but lose money making CDs.
The music would otherwise languish in catalogue cut out limbo.
Now, of course, that we have iTunes and other stores the problem is less acute but there's literally a mountain of lossless jazz recordings that was digitized by enthusiasts and it's out there.
The "copyright police" are irrelevant to the question. The question is, "What's the right thing to do?" For an out-of-print book, it seems like the right thing to do is buy it wherever possible, and make your own e-book as backup. If you can't buy it, there is no ethical problem with acquiring the book in what ever form you can find it. There is, however, an ethical question about whether you should enable the persons who created a "pirated" e-book to enjoy financial or psychological rewards for their un-ethical behavior. How about contacting the copyright holder and getting permission to create/publish the e-book ethically?
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
The right thing to do is to buy it in whatever medium is available, or don't use it at all. Whether the author is going to recieve royalties is irrelevant.
If all they offer the Model-T is in black, then you get to liking black or you do without. You don't steal one because it's not your "preferred method".
Actually, you would buy the Model-T, drive to the original designer, complain loudly that Ford can't design a spitoon let alone a car, take a dump in a box, wrap the box in a gift-wrap bow, write a nasty letter about not offering other colors besides black, and send it off to Ford. Then take the Model-T and paint it any goddamn color you like.
Your corporate facism is not appreciated. I really don't get a rat's ass what color it is, either you supply me with the product I want, or I will go to a competitor. If there is no competitor, then there is something terribly wrong isn't there?
So, if the author receives non-reimbursable advance royalties and does not expect to reach that level of sales, any sale will not bring additional money to the author.
Should we then just buy one copy and pirate from there? What about the work of the publisher (proof-reading, editing, promoting), does it deserve any payments?
BTW, I don't remember any contracts stating that the author receives no royalties after the book is out of print, and more prints are made.
the MPAA and RIAA and the other likes always complain about losing money to piracy. But, is this the right wording or is this a play on words?
For example. I download an album, which I would never consider buying. They claim they lost money. But, it's not like they had my 15$ and I took it back. How can you "lose" what you don't have?
And, how much did they really think? I mean, look at the recent case with the RIAA where the lady was ordered to pay ~220,000$ for downloading 24 songs?
Two albums = ~30$. I'm confused about the whole thing. But it really just seems of misusing words to get people on their side.
Buy the dead tree version, so you own a copy.
Then pirate the not-officially-existing-"e" version, so you can read it the way you want.
Not paying money for something just because the original creator is dead is a crap argument. There were other people involved, including the publisher who took the risk to pay for printing their work.
You don't steal one because it's not your "preferred method".
But do you build your own, using the original as a template?
Last post!
If all they offer the Model-T is in black, then you get to liking black or you do without. You don't steal one because it's not your "preferred method".
But once you have bought a black model T, you are free to paint the thing any bloody colour you like. And then re-sell it too.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Would you buy ivory from an antique market, or fur from a second hand shop? If you buy cannabis to smoke in the privacy of your own home, that may not be unethical, but if you don't live in the Netherlands then you probably bought it from people who ultimately are connected (at some point in the chain) to organised crime and human trafficking and that certainly is unethical.
Don't support unethical practices, even if they are "after the event."
On topic: if you need to read something that is out of print, go to a copyright library (many universities have one for example) and make a copy for personal use.
That's because younger generations believe in the free exchange of information.
'Impossible' is a word that humans use far too often. -- Seven of Nine
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
IANAL, but it seems to me that the key condition here is: 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts'. Once the copyright or patent holder ceases publishing, licensing, or producing the work or invention, progress has ceased. And so should the term of this right.
Have gnu, will travel.
The ethical thing is to buy it in dead-tree form, which is how books SHOULD be read. College student here, saying: fuck ebooks, and fuck you.
If all they offer the Model-T is in black, then you get to liking black or you do without. You don't steal one because it's not your "preferred method".
That is one of the worst analogies even my /. standards. A more logical one would be, you want a model T in blue and there is an infinite stock of blue model Ts that never run out, however Ford doesn't get any revenue from these blue model Ts and you want to support Ford. However, Ford is bankrupt and the only way you can get the original model T is through third party sellers that you don't really want to support because you want a blue one.
There are two reasons stealing is wrong, A) someone doesn't get revenue from it and B) that person loses something. Pirating in this case doesn't affect A) because the original author doesn't get revenue from it either way, and B) there is an infinite supply of e-books that can never run out even if you download 435435436564575494390543905843905840 copies of it.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The answer to ethical questions is "What would be the result if everyone did this?"
In this case if everyone did this there are two obvious problems:
- There rarely be a second printings of a book. This deprives authors of (much needed and already rare) revenue.
- There would be no purpose to used book stores, putting them out of business and depriving their customers the ability to buy affordable books.
And probably a few more.
The "My preferred format" crap is just that. To use the oft abused car metaphor: If someone doesn't make a car I want in the color I want, I'm not allowed to steal it just so I can paint it the color I want.
What is this obsession with calling P2P "stealing"? Not every act of downloading files is stealing. Not a lawyer here, but surely stealing implies denying someone something, like an item or a sale. If no one is putting something on sale, then downloading shouldn't be stealing. Copyright infringement perhaps. Maybe ask the author for permission. Who knows, he might send you the text.
The Model T analogy is flawed on multiple levels. The question is more whether or not it's ok build one yourself using someone else's as a model, given they're no longer in production. (or if you have to resort to buying a used one... or if you have to buy a used one before you can build a copy yourself)
Oh and they were available in several colors from the beginning, so the whole "any color so long as it is black" line is a bit of a myth.
Out of print does not mean the copyright has expired. Selling a used book is of course permitted under the First-sale Doctrine exemption recognized by SCOTUS in 1908 and codified in the Copyright Act of 1975. If publisher's would digitize their complete copyright inventory this problem could be quickly rendered mute once that is done and an accounting system for it established. The more recent works are probably stored in digital format already.
Amazon could promote potential reprints by reporting used book sales figures by title to the publishers. Search requests for ebooks by title that don't have an existing ebook could have a similar effect. Where Amazon maintains such databases and queries them resulting in information they think would improve their sales they should make the appropriate requests to the publisher which would mean guaranteed sales of the requested numbers and thus have a greater chance of getting the publishers to react. If this information results in new reprint and ebook sales then the creators should gain royalties.
I've asked this same question myself about SNES Roms. For instance, I loved Final Fantasy 6 for the SNES (Released as FF3 in the USA), but there isn't a good place to buy it any more. I used this to justify playing the ROM. And then you have some roms like the sequel to Secret of Mana that was NEVER released in the USA, but some guys translated it and released the ROM. How can I feel guilty if Squaresoft wont release the game in the USA? The trick to these types of justifications is that if you do justify your actions based on these pretenses, you will have to make sure to pay attention to the situation to see if those pretenses change. For instance, if Square releases FF6 on Nintendo DS, I'll feel inclined to purchase a DS and FF6. In your example, if the publisher ever releases an eText version, you'll need to actually purchase it.
Of course, if it's available as an e-book then it was likely marketed that way initially (lot of effort to convert print to e-book just to give it away afterwards) so do e-books actually go out of print?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is one of those cases you might just contact the author and ask.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Simple answer, pirate it. Posting as anon for obvious reasons... Steal everything if you can. I create IP for a living, my Dad creates IP for a living, and I know many others. If you don't get paid for it the first time (i.e. on commission), don't expect any money later. It's only yours until someone else sees it, after that, fair game. Don't even worry about the original author getting payment for it in the first place - that's his responsibility. Cry about it if you like, but this it the Real World. Take anything that isn't nailed down, and lock your own shit up tight.
- Coward
Actually, I withdraw the "so long as it is black" line... it would appear that they were initially available in different colors, until the assembly line forced them to stick with one. Nevertheless, from that I guess there were Model-Ts in other colors around.
Seriously. Do both. Buy the used book thereby doing your little part to take it out of circulation and show increased demand for it so it might get reprinted. Then read the pirate version. As you already have a copy you've got a reasonable legal defense of format shifting, not that anyone is likely to go after you, traditional publishers aren't insane like the MAFIAA. If you really feel an extra ethical need send a few bucks to the author. While you're at it urge him to see if he contracted for etext rights with his original publisher and if not recommend your own preferred electronic publisher.
The mere fact that you as a consumer have a strong desire to obtain something does not impose an obligation on another to make the thing you desire available to you. Unless licensed (and that is likely the case because if a license existed you would be able to get the work electronically), whomever created the electronic version created an unauthorized derivative work under the copyright laws and is an infringer.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Some countries don't enforce copyrights especially when it profits them to ignore them. What nation is the Internet again?
God spoke to me.
If you expect to get any useful information from /., you're sorely mistaken.
That said, I'm a Gen Yer and would be reasonably willing to download, but I'd be more willing to find a different book. If I knew of a particular out-of-print book that I wanted... I certainly wouldn't buy used books online. I'd prefer a reasonable quality used book to an ebook, but I'd not hesitate to download if the physical copy was not readily available.
A few years ago I was faced with a similar dilemma: a book on computer game creation, one which I wished for my students to read, was regrettably out of print.
I found a PDF of it online, being used at another university. I contacted the professor and asked how she had come by it; she gave me the author's email address.
I contacted the author, explained what I wanted to do, and he gave me authorization to freely use the PDF.
Disclaimer: I do not work for PayPal or eBay.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How about contacting the copyright holder and getting permission to create/publish the e-book ethically?
Copyright is an entirely unnatural "right" to restrict others' freedom. I say it has no basis in rationality (it could have, except that it doesn't seem to have actually helped to promote any sort of useful progress), so the only link from copyright to ethics is the rather tenuous link between legality and ethics.
same thing with any other media. these guys can keep their content availiable 24/7/365/endless for the cost of two sales a month. if they don't want to, then AFAIAC they have abandoned the work, do what you want.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Books are information and as such all information should be free, good or bad. The ethics shouldn't be if a book should be free or not, but is a book being wrote for money or for the merits of information. The concepts of wrote speech was in itself not for the financial reward but for the content in the first place. Making mass productions and other visual aspects for the book including art, etc and the marketing behind it is the drive for the book.
I agree with ya' completely - and I've done that very thing once already. I've also done that once with a book that was new, but there was no ebook version of it. I feel bit silly about buying a used copy and pirating an ebook - the only reason for doing it was the "tagable" copy on my shelf. The new one I bought, though, was to help support the author and the company that published the book.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
There are other benefits to the author for having a dead-tree book purchased, even when out-of-print.
That sale helps improve the overall rating for the book, and all other books the author has written. So, your purchase may actually trigger the purchase of other sales from the same author. This works electronically on sites like Amazon, and in the real world when statistics are tabulated in all sorts of ways.
An out-of-print book might also be sold directly by the author or publisher, or just some guy who doesn't want the book any more. Either way that purchase is helping other people, even if it helps Jeff Bezos's gigantic empire and the thousands of people who work for him.
I think the ethical thing to do is purchase the dead-tree book and then download the ilegal version so that you can enjoy it in the medium you intended. This might not be legal, but it's ethical in my eyes so long as you don't pass it on. If you later sold the dead-tree book, you could then delete the electronic version.
-David
The author may be in negotiations to offer the novel's rights to another publisher. Many ask that it be out of print for at least five years before considering purchasing reprint rights. So, though it may be out of print now, it may not be in the near future.
See if the author has a personal website. Many have easy ways to contact the author directly. Ask politely if the author has any copies of the book to sell directly. This way you can also get it autographed and personalized.
Sometimes the author will have ebook versions available through other sites, such as Fictionwise. If the author has no ebooks available, suggest looking into offering electronic rights to such sights.
Sometimes the author's still a nice person. Ask if there is a way to get an ebook version directly from the author.
And if the author has a PayPal or other micropayment account, send a gift equal to the approximate value of the royalty the author would have received for the pirated work.
Most all authors do not earn enough to live off their writing. Every little bit hurts. But most all realize that the fans help them sell future books through word of mouth and keeping them happy. Show some love back to that author.
I agree. Strictly speaking I think copyright is a good idea. It gives the creator (directly or by proxy) an incentive to create by allowing them to treat their creations as if they're physical property. Part of this power should allow them to control how many copies of their creative work are available during the time that they hold their monopoly. It could be that it's more valuable to them if they restrict the available copies, such as by declaring that only 2000 will ever be made available, and selling them at a high price. By deciding to infringe the copyright and make additional copies illegally before the copyright term has expired, it diminishes the ability of the author to use copyright law to its full potential.
The problem here, though, is that copyright is supposed to expire so that everyone finally gets the benefit of newly created works, yet it effectively never does! "Temporary" monopolistic rights to information should not be something that grandchildren or great grandchildren get to inherit.
If copyright terms were pulled back to something sane, such as 10 or 15 years, and required the author to demonstrate an active interest in maintaining the copyright (rather than anonymously disappearing and being unable to be tracked down), there would be far less incentive to make illegal copies because everyone would know they could simply wait. Members of society who saw the work being created and who supported the law that provided the incentive for it to be created would actually stand a chance of being around to fully benefit from it when it finally entered the public domain. Obviously it would reduce the ability for a creator (or content owner) to make extra money, but at least the whole thing would be above board and clear from the start. I'm sure that pulling back copyright terms in this day and age would spark complaints from some creators and it might even cause a few publishers to go out of business, but we'd actually have an opportunity to see if less content was actually being created, and I don't personally think there would be much change. As with everything else, the industry would adapt to the new conditions, and people would still figure out ways to keep making money. Even works that are well out of copyright still make money for publishing companies today.
As copyright terms are stupidly long today and showing no signs of being prevented from being extended further, I don't personally have an ethical problem with infringing copyright on certain works. This is especially the case if the works are no longer in print, and have been out of print for a reasonable length of time (at least several years), and which the creator or owner is unavailable for giving or denying permission to make more. (In cases where publishers own rights to massive amounts of IP, I also don't have much respect for standard template "no you can't because we can't be bothered with the admin" answers, either.
I am perhaps among the few who think that illegal does not necessarily equal immoral [actually, here on Slashdot, that does not apply as much]. Think back to the 50’s: What Rosa Parks did was illegal. No questions about it. Was it wrong? Few people now would be willing to argue that it was wrong to not give up her seat to a white person, however no one would deny that it was indeed illegal at the time. Similarly, I strongly believe it is not wrong to âoepirateâ information just because it is prohibited by our pathetically archaic copyright law.
If you bought the book used, who would get the money? Not the author. Not the publisher. The individual selling the book would be the only one who would benefit from you buying a used copy. The author would receive no compensation, therefore the argument of Russel Davis that you mentioned does not apply. By his reasoning, buying a used copy would be just as much âoetheftâ as downloading the book off the internet. Think about that one for a moment. Granted, if you had downloaded the book instead of buying it from the author or the publisher, that might be a different story, as you are not actively supporting the author so they can produce more works. However, in this instance, you have actively searched for the book in a form that you can use, and have been turned down by the publisher. They have no intention of making any more profit from the book and have abandoned all claims of interest in the matter.
Information wants to be unlimited and free. It is stubborn, neolithic individuals like the publisher you mentioned above that are impeding the spread of universal knowledge, knowledge that would often possibly result in the general betterment of mankind. Download the copy of the book, and then perhaps send a few dollars to the author along with a note explaining what you did and why. Be sure to thank her for writing such a great book, and encourage more to write more like it. There’s nothing more you can do.
There were a combination of reasons that the set rules of the past worked in the past, and a different combination of reasons will make some different set rules make sense in the future. But from here, reasons are all in flux. No set of rules could ever match this changing landscape. For the time being, we are bound to live amidst a fair amount of chaos.
What generation am I supposed to be in again?
There is, however, an ethical question about whether you should enable the persons who created a "pirated" e-book to enjoy financial or psychological rewards for their un-ethical behavior.
Oh yes, because having them lose bandwidth is going to be financial and psychological rewards for it! I mean, the average /.er isn't going to click on ads and most have some sort of ad-blocking enabled and it isn't like I pay TPB $.99 for every song and e-book I pirate. So I don't see how that is a benefit to the pirates.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Early boomer here. You mean one of these big publishers who deliberately destroy perfectly good copies of books if they don't sell within x-period of time? Those guys? Running the old artificial scarcity consumer ripoff model? If it is one of those places, you can guess my reaction to the ethics of downloading a copy. Ask anyone who has worked in a bookstore about the sheer waste involved with selling books and why prices are high. And you have to remember, the industry as a whole fought tooth and nail to make lending libraries more or less illegal. They are spit swappers with the MAFIAA in their business tactics and alleged "ethics". And they don't discriminate, look at school textbooks for another example of their greed.
Why not find somebody who has the book (this Interweb thing may help), ask them to lend it to you and read the salient bits (or maybe get them to read it to you if they're hot - there's nothing nicer then an attractive person reading a book to you while you relax with your head on their lap!)
Then remember it.
Nobody ever got sued for recollecting, as far as I know.
During WWII, most of the best physics and math books around were written in Germany. Obviously, rather than stepping down and using "perceived" second rate books written in by Allied authors or worse, paying royalties to a government with which you are at war, the Allies decided to reprint German books in the Allied countries without paying royalties. If you look on the inside copyright notice, it is stated that the books were reprinted under the "War Time Publications Act" which made this perfectly legal and was encouraged. Even after the war, you can see vast collections of these books still held by libraries. After WWII, some countries, like France rewrote the subject matter authored under the collective pseudonym Bourbaki. When people in government offices give it the seal of approval, it is legal. If some poor peon does the same thing, it is illegal. Likewise, there are lots of herbal supplements whose medicinal value, the FDA is calling into question. Yet, pharmaceuticals are isolating and artificially manufacturing the same chemical ingredients and targeting them towards curing various aliments, supported with tax payer dollars. -We have the best form of government MONEY can BUY!
Buy the used book if it's cheap, and donate it to someone else that's needs it.
Then just go and get the pirated version.
Good karma from donation balanced bad karma from pirating :)
The saddest thing about big media is how they lock up our culture and refuse to let us have it, even when we are willing to pay them for it. Having said that, taking something which you have not paid for or earned, and which was not given to you, is still unethical. Write the publisher, asking them to issue the book electronically or release the work from copyright. Write your Congressmen and explain how the unreasonably long-term copyrights are keeping Americans from their culture, and ask them to lower the copyright duration and/or add a clause for abandoned works which are no longer being published.
I think this sort of thing has been called an orphaned work in some circles. I think copyright law needs to be fixed because it is badly broken. One aspect that needs fixing is this: If a work of any type (book, song, movie, photograph, etc.) is no longer available for purchase through legitimate channels, then the copyright protection offered to its author automatically ceases. In other words, you create something. You sell it. Then one day, you decide that it's too much of a pain in the ass to sell it and you no longer do so. Or you get hit by a bus. Or whatever other reason. Then you lose copyright protection and it goes into the public domain. This is because copyright law exists in order to help the entire population by giving people temporary incentive to create things for said population. Therefore, when it occurs that someone would benefit through the use of something that exists, but it is no longer sold by the copyright holder and is impossible to obtain, then there is no reason for the copyright to remain in effect. The copyright holder does NOT benefit from the work. It only makes sense for things to be this way. I would go further to say that the term of copyright should be reduced to its original length, but that's a subject for another debate.
Look, he clearly won't buy the book and is just looking for groupthink on Slashdot to justify not paying. Given that it's a favorite scenario of piracy advocates, it's a slam dunk that Slashdot will say "do it, laws suck".
But buddy asked a question about ethics, and the answer is no, it's not ethical to use a pirated copy of something you don't have access to. It's clear cut: YOU DON'T HAVE RIGHTS TO IT. In the marginal (unlikely) case, it could be that your demand for the book along with others would be enough to encourage a reprint. Maybe the author has a few copies on hand personally.
"I want something, I can get it in a way convenient to me or potentially go without it after spending time doing inconvenient things." It's your life, is your convenience worth more than doing things 'the right way'? You already know the answer, we don't.
The book is out of print, so obviously the publisher has no interest in commercial exploitation of the work. Why should a third party profit? In fact, if you were to buy a book on the used market just to satisfy your morals and pirate the ebook for practical reasons, the merchant is exploiting your needs without providing any value/service whatsoever.
If you feel like it, you can send a donation to the author/publisher.
Copyright was meant as an incentive for the creator of a work not to protect an arbitrary business model that has sprung up around those works.
Oh yeah, the disclosure part: Born in the early 80s and a hobbyist photographer with the goal to make that my primary business.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
guess you must be Gene XY.
Buy the print book, convert to ebook yourself (but don't read it), send the eBook to the publisher along with $25, and ask them if it's OK to read it now.
And thanks Mr. Bono! Karma got him just a little too late.
I buy a lot of books. New, used, pdf, you name it. I can easily spend $600 per year just on computer books (and if it is a physical book I almost always (85%) buy it from Borders when they send out a 25-30% off coupon). Plus there's the rpg books I buy (it drives my wife nuts sometimes.) I personally would not have a problem downloading an ebook if I couldn't find a used copy at a bookstore (and I live near a large used bookstore so I usually can). I can see the value of the used book market (I don't really like ebooks all that much, but will buy them over a RL copy if the price is right), but I wouldn't deprive myself if I can't find such a copy. Life is too short to do such a thing. I would try to buy a copy, as one way or another that does help to promote the progress of the Arts (the whole point of copyright originally), but the actual progress of the arts is more important than the promotion of the progress, so since copyright has deviated from it's original purpose anytime I can personally promote it, I do. Sometimes that is paying for something, and sometimes that is gaining and sharing knowledge directly without anyone profiting monetarily.
it was a nice idea when it was limited and a gentleman's agreement amongst a handful of publishers
however, with every teenager with a cable modem having more reach than time warner in 1988, intellectual property is unenforceable and, more importantly, perverted to serve publishers, rather than content creators
as such, it is antiquated nonsense that must be ignored
for content creators, the internet is an adevertising outlet in which to distrubte their works. cash flow is from ancillary business. and distributors are defunct, along with the legal framework that propped them up before the internet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Either download the BitTorrent version and claim "fair use" clause as a defense, optionally writing a check to the PO box of the publishing company for the retail price of the book to cover any legal problems (well I paid you $X and you cashed the check, so basically I bought the book, but in eBook format.) or another thing to do is check out rare book stores, usually book stores that deal in rare copies of the book.
But it can backfire. The Amiga Guru book was written in German and then English and someone scanned the book and made it an eBook on BitTorrent and made the author mad because it was a self-published book. So the original Amiga Guru book covered the AmigaOS 2.1 version and the new version would cover 3.1 and 4.0, but he got so mad he didn't publish the new book because of the piracy of the old book.
A pity because the Amiga Guru Book really helped developers by documenting the Amiga GUI and coding standards to follow to write commercial quality programs for the Amiga. It is a book that Amiga, Inc should have published themselves, hint hint to Amiga,Inc. publish a book like that to help promote the new Amiga systems and AmigaOS.
Now the Amiga Guru Book author claims he will only give a copy of the new Guru book to people who send him a copy of a rare Commodore 64 ROM Kernel book in German. Quid pro quo, help him find copies of another rare book and he will gladly give you a copy of his rare book.
By the way I'm looking for "101 BASIC Computer Games" and the sequel "More 101 BASIC Computer Games" but every place I check is sold out and it is out of print. In the early 1980's and late 1970's it wrote BASIC programs in the old version of BASIC that every 8 bit computer shared and had the source code to Eliza and Hunt the Wumps and some Zork clone written in BASIC called The Adventure or something. It isn't even in eBook format, a pity, as we lost an important piece of computer history. It even had typos and grammar and spelling errors in it when it was published. I think they typed up the whole thing on a typewriter or an early Word processor that lacked even spell check.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
"If there is no God, then all is permitted." - Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov.
So what's your take on God's existence?
Copyright is codified as a law. From the moment something is codified as a law, it really does not matter whether it is ethical or not. The only thing that matters is whether you wish to remain legal or not, and before taking the stupid decision to not follow the law you must consider your power in relation with your government. They have an army and a police force to enforce their laws. If you are their citizen, then chances are that you could be liquidated quickly in case they get angry with you.
Copyright sets a way to copy legally. You just have to ask permission from the copyright holder. So, in theory everything is easy, you just email the copyright holder and depending on the anwer you know what you can do. But in practice it's extremely hard, because a copyrighted work may be orphaned or its copyright holder may be too stubbornly risk-averse to allow distribution even though such distribution would not damage their income.
Therefore, the copyright law seems to create some practical difficulties in using orphaned works or in getting permission from irrational copyright holders. This means that the law should be fixed.
In democratic societies your government is elected by you, so you have an easy way to change the law. Just find a politician that agrees to change the laws according to your liking and vote for them. If there is no such politician, just set up yourself as an independent candidate or start your own political party.
Of course, doing all that may not sound easy, but who told you that life is easy?
But just because changing the law is hard does not mean that you should not follow it, because such an action would mean that you would be considered a criminal by the legal system. So, it really is much better to fight this through politics and elections rather than through a cat-and-mouse game that could cost you your life or your freedom. Even if you consider the law unethical, you must still follow it because you are a citizen and bound by the laws of your jurisdiction.
I have a friend who always tries to do the right thing and it drives everybody ape-shit crazy because he stresses over right and wrong so much that he can't function in life and doesn't do anything. At 36 he can't move out from his parent's home, change jobs, etc. etc. All he can do is turn everything into an ethical and moral problem because that's where's he's happiest.... now about that eBook thing ... just read the damn thing however you want and choose a method that lets you do it.
That said, one line in the original post struck me. "You can buy it from Amazon as a used book, but that isn't your preferred medium." What if a book you wanted or needed were only available as a hard copy, and is currently produced? For the sake of argument, let's say it's brand new, hot off the press--only Stallman might argue that the author doesn't have a right to a copyright. It's not your preferred medium, but it is legitimately available. There is a pirated copy available. Would you take the pirated copy? Would you argue that, since they aren't making it in your preferred format, it's fair game?
Take it to the next level: say, a year or two from now, your book is released--brand new printing. Perhaps even expanded! Alas, no etext. Would you buy a copy, just to bring you back to good standing, or would you rationalize it by saying there is no etext (your preferred medium, after all)?
(I'll grant this: in any scenario, while perhaps not legally correct, I would see no ethical problem obtaining a legitimate copy of the book, and grabbing the etext. My comments are more around just going out and grabbing the etext.
The problem with the moral high ground is that so few people actually stand on it. For all you in the "download it and send the author a check" crowd, let me ask you a question: How many pieces of Shareware lay unpaid on your computer right now? Not Crippleware. Not Nagware. True download and use it Shareware. I remember reading a blog by a shareware author (I wish I could remember what the software was). He did an experiment. He released some versions of his very popular software as true Shareware, some versions with a nag screen and some versions with features disabled until a user paid. The results were, of course, predictable. Not exactly what the ./ crowd wants to hear but one side does not have the monopoly on dishonorable behaviour.
If the book is out of print it means the author/publisher isn't willing to sell it, they are through with it.
I.E. They would anticipate such a small profit from continued sales that they are no longer willing to undergo the expense of printing the book.
Obtaining a copy of the book from third-party publisher-unauthorized sources does no harm in that case, as (a) the author/publisher loses no revenue, since they aren't making units, they have no sales or revenue, in any case,
ALSO, (b) There is no additional cost to the author/publisher of you obtaining that copy.
And (c) By obtaining a copy, you are actually preserving information for the good of humanity.
I.E. When a book goes out of print, the number of copies eventually diminishes as people throw out old books, or the remaining copies are lost.
In this case, piracy may actually help keep the work existing.
It does the public a service in that it keeps copies of works around, so that when the copyright eventually expires, it will be available to everyone, rather than lost to time.
It also keeps the information in the public.
Although the piracy may actually be illegal; in this peculiar case, it may in fact be that the more legal thing to do is not more ethical.
I would say that if you would normally pay for then do so otherwise don't. If you really want to ease your moral conscious you could buy the dead-tree version and pirate the etext.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
How about contacting the copyright holder and getting permission to create/publish the e-book ethically?
The more rational thing would be for the copyright owner to have to explain why they weren't printing the book and still wished to exercise their copyright.
Upon a proper challenge, the copyright should expire after a few years if they are failing to actually print or offer the copyrighted material for sale.
The laws don't define ethics, and they are irrational,they provide undue favor to authors, and undue discrimination against the consumers.
versus someone who can remember a time when the Internet did not exist."
Dude, most people have only been using the Internet a mere 15 years or less so the majority of people remember a time before the Internet. Don't make it sound like we were born during the Great Depression.
There is such a thing as an involuntary trust. If you leave money in a bank too long without contacting them they give the funds to the state, but you always have the right to make a claim for the funds from the state later. A similar thing could be done for dead books. Once the funds become substantial enough the author or their rightful heirs will properly apply for it.
There is precedent such as CCC for "standard rates for copying" which could be referred to books based on current net author rates.
Just Jerry
Least moral option is buying the print version for the simple reason that it's a waste of earth's resources: Lots of the cost of the print version is about aspects of the book you don't actually need or want -- its paper, its actual printing, its distribution and packaging. Wasteful.
The ideal moral solution is if the company allowed you to buy an e-text version of the book for a reduced price (a price that excluded all the aspects you don't need or want)
Next in line is if you download the pirated version for free. That has the advantage of benefitting you AND not rewarding the evil company who's trying to cheat you of your money. Unfortunately it doesn't reward the original authors.
Least moral solution is if you encourage all the waste in resources and wealth by giving money for a wasteful print version that doesn't actually satisfy you. Bad for you, bad for the planet. Save your labor-earned money for something you actually want to have, not something that they're guilting you into having but you don't really want.
Gen-Y - What if you went to the library and borrowed the book, and then downloaded the e-version. Once you finish reading the book delete the e-book and return the library book?
I don't see an ethical problem here, not sure about the legal ramifications. Knowing copyright holders it's probably completely illegal.
Why? A book that's out of print is only available on the secondary market (unless it just went out of print yesterday or something); the author gets nothing when I buy a used copy. The author gets infinitely more out of the deal if I copy the e-book and send him or her a crisp one dollar bill in the mail, than if I spend five dollars on a used copy of the dead trees version.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"electronic infringement is theft". From a legal perspective, I suppose that is true.
WTF?
And given that as an Open Source programmer, I depend on Copyright Law to assure that my wishes as an author are upheld, it would be hypocritical for me assume that I should be able to ignore Copyright Law just because it is inconvenient.
And given that I'm a farmer who depends on firearms to keep my chickens free of wolves, it would be hypocritical for me to assume that I should not lie down for an invading army.
Copyright Law is a power.. people need to use it ethically. Persecuting people for using their own common sense as to when it is in their interest to honour copyright is not ethical.
Grow a spine and do what serves you best and leave the author to deal with their own interests, preferably without using force.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Boomer: For an out of print book, publisher's will give permission to make a copy for a small charge. An out of print textbook cost me about $10.
Let's see, there are terrorists killing people in hotels in Bombay, actual Pirates stealing actual Ships on the high seas, American and NATO soldiers and NGO workers and civilians getting killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, homeless hungry people in your own cities, murders, robberies and rapes down the street from where you live and you guys are the Monks in the Middle Ages arguing about how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin rather than worrying or thinking or talking or doing anything about real problems, instead you play the game of how many copyright infringements are 'ethical' enough for you to deal with. Is it ethical to pick up and read a discarded newspaper? How many pages of a book can I read in the Barnes and Noble before I'm ethically required to purchase the book/mag? We really are trying to head back to the Middle Ages where information was locked down to the privileged few and you Dingleberries are leading the way or like sheep to slaughter - being led there. Jeez.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
You have a physical library that contains 5 books. You allow people to view online versions up to 5 viewers at a time. Why would this be illegal?
God spoke to me.
unless you think so. I would have no problem downloading the book, so I would, & I know it would be the right thing to do. If you think it is wrong, then don't do it. I would giggle at your action but respect your choice. If you came after me for downloading, then I would say you have crossed the line. I don't agree with your moral views so don't dump them on me. Or else you are introducing a new moral topic. ..and your wrong on that one too. ;)
Okay, I'm 48. I invariably find most of the Slashdot crowds arguments regarding copyright and piracy forced at best, and generally specious and self-serving. No surprises there - I just figured I had karma to burn.
If the book is available in any form, regardless of whether it's available in your "preferred" format - I think you should purchase it if you intend to read it. Having said that, I wouldn't lose any sleep if you then immediately donated the print book to a library and chose to "pirate" the electronic version (yes, I agree piracy is a silly word in this context, but we all understand what we're talking about). It'd be hard to get too worked up about that from a moral perspective.
#DeleteChrome
If you buy a used out-of-print book, the author and publisher don't receive any money. What's the difference if you download an e-text of an out-of-print book? None that I can think of. As long as you are distributing it for profit, they shouldn't have a grip.
Born in the late 70s.
I don't believe in IP. I pirate books, movies and video games.
The US law on this basically states that you can format-shift because of fair use. Thus, the safest legal way to handle this is to buy it used somewhere, and then get it in your preferred format, such as the e-copy. Fair use, it bears noting, is actually an affirmative defense rather than a right, so it's fuzzier than people think. However there's a fair amount of case law behind format shifting, and it's reasonably safe legal ground.
That said, there's little chance that a content owner will try to sue you for downloading a work, because of the format-shifting concept. (There's no way that they can know if the person downloading it owns it, and thus is legally downloading it in a new format, or doesn't) And, in fact, even the RIAA only begin a lawsuit by claiming that the defendant is uploading works to others, not that they are downloading.
The one most at risk here is anyone hosting content for others to download.
In a court of law, reading the pirated version may be interpreted as a violation of copyright. Your defense attorney would have to discuss intent, and the degree of your "good faith effort".
Why are ebooks so much better than paper books? Did you look around for the paper book new, did you look for it locally used, did you only look at Amazon, did you write to the author, etc. This can easily become a very gray area, although my understanding of "fair use" interpretations of copyright would suggest that if you bought the dead tree version, scanned it, then read the scan, that would be fine. I personally don't believe substituting someone else's scan (or transcribing) would materially affect the ethical question.
Of course, in my opinion, discussing morality and legality are two different questions, but they must both be asked at the same time often. For example, what if you bought it from a local seller, scanned it, then resold it in the same condition? The book's value does not change, you don't net any positive or negative money, so why bother buying and selling the book anyway?
Are you stealing if you make a sandwich during commercials for your favorite TV show? If you read a paper someone left behind at the coffee shop?
Your comment reminded me of a lecture by Stallman on the history of copyright. He favors a much shorter copyright period, initally suggesting 10 years. Stallman related participating in a panel discussion with several authors. Expecting to get hammered by the authors, Stallman was surprised that many favored even shorter copyright periods. Turns out their publishers own the rights, sit on them when out of prints and it limits the ability to adapt for derivative works. I favor shorter, non-renewable copyright periods and a "use it or lose it" approach. If a book is out of print, copying should be fair game. I think all scientific journals should revert to the public domain after five years. Sadly, this will never happens beacuse the big publishing houses have highly paid lobbyists, and subsidize all the campaigns. Special interests trump the public interest every time...
I'm an early Gen-Xer. I've been around computers and the internet for many years.
My first source for material, answers, research, and entertainment is the internet. If an original copy is available online I'll buy it. If it's not available online I'll download it. I generally pass on 'used' anything. I absolutely hate having to actually 'go to the store'.
I don't think that the music, movie, newsprint, magazine, and publishing industries are quite ready for the Internet to be the first place people like me go. We don't see their billboards, we don't get drawn in by the shiny displays, we buzz past their commercials on our DVR's. We learn online, and we know how to research. Marketing is wasted on us.
Because of people like me, the 2ndary businesses like used bookstores, music stores, video stores are dead/dying. I won't be sad to see them go.
When in doubt, compensate someone. That should be the catch-word of today's society.
Everyone deserves proper compensation.
If it's not available in your preferred format, petition the author/publisher to convert it. Compensation of offers of compensation often help.
You pay your ISP, binaries provider, and Seagate, right? Then Right-click save-link-as.
Getting something for free like that.
That's the whole point I think. With the internet and the whole electronic age we are looking at new mediums and saying wow, if I have one copy of something, I can have a million - like ripples in a wave.
The copyright was supposed to protect the author, not the publisher.
This essentially is not about the rights of the author - it's about the right to copy something that the publisher doesn't want you to copy AND so the author doesn't republish.
It's about money.
Royalties only go so far and when they're done those works should be put into the public domain.
---
WIAA is looking for you.
It is an outrage that either music or the printed word be held back from any person for any reason. I am not only referring to books and recordings but to sheet music as well.
What i want to see is something a lot more complete than the Library of Congress, also including music, that is electronically wide open to the world without fees.
If a person need ask why just try to get your paws on the poetry of Richard Savage and you will quickly find out just how difficult it is to locate and purchase this major poet. And in regard to music it gets even worse. Most music is forever lost to us.
The yardstick involves getting the most good to the most people over vast periods of time. The ability of a few to earn a living is dwarfed by the cultural imperative of keeping words and music alive. The rights of the monkeys in the middle who make a living off of authors and artists is of no concern to me at all.
Piracy would have to be an unethical practice to begin with.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
If you didn't pirate it, would you buy it?
If you answered no, it's all right to pirate it.
If you can't buy it even if you wanted to, that's the same thing.
No harm, no foul.
Please explain how sharing knowledge could be un-ethical. Piracy is the RIGHT thing to do, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I find it amazing that society does not have a problem going to a public library and checking out a book, reading it, and then perhaps thousands of other people read the book, but it is somehow wrong to download the book from the internet and read it. how about loaning a book to a friend? Or a book exchange with someone you do not know?
Living in Chile
I know this is Slashdot, but stop being such a GEEK. This entire thread and all its deep philosophical and legal debate is just so you can justify using that overpriced TOY to read a BOOK. There are plenty of ebooks out there for you to show off your Kindle legally, and you can easily just buy and read a legal copy of this book, but NO, tech-boy mustn't be forced to read a clumsy old book like billions before him.
I don't really like the idea of E-books to start with -- and by the way I resent you calling them "dead tree versions". Buy the paper copy, even if it's used. Download the pirated electronic version if you must.
...
No, you can't always get what you want.
But if you try some time,
you just might find
you get what you need...
Suck it up and either pay for the treeware book or don't read it. If you have to buy it used, that's a message to the publisher that they should consider a reprint or an electronic edition (yes, publishers watch the used book market for out of print books to determine if it's economically viable to do a new printing). If you have to pay more for an unused copy, that's because (as your question implies you also feel) people prefer new over used. You're paying extra for a copy that no one else has written in, torn, etc.
If that isn't good enough, do without. Just because you want it doesn't mean *anyone* is under any obligation to make it available to you. It isn't ethics; it's the free market, stupid. There are lots of books from those in current publication to those written by authors long dead that aren't available as an eBook. Just because you want one of those in an eBook format doesn't somehow justify pirating a copy; nor does it justify pirating the book in question.
Grow up and quit whining that the world doesn't give you everything you want.
Cheers,
Dave
BTW, the above lyrics sample is from memory which should be a hint as to which generation I fall into.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I was with you until you implied that stealing was 'wrong' without defining what 'wrong' means.
I suspect if one downloads an ebook, s/he will not buy it later on if it's reprinted, and all the more so if s/he bought a used copy.
Considering ebooks, digital printing, and print on demand, my personal opinion is that if a book went out of print, it's OK to download an illegal copy - had there been money to be made by the publisher, the book would have remained on print in some form.
Whether it's on sale or not, downloading a free digital copy isn't stealing. It may be breach of copyright, but it's not stealing. They're two totally different things and should never be confused.
Bertrand R. Brinley's 'Rocket Manual For Amateurs'.
Published in 1960, it has long been something of the Holy Grail for modern amateur rocketeers.
Chock full of technical details, design specs, and rocket fuel recipes. And that's the reason why it's been out of print for decades.
Rocket Fuel. There are some seriously dangerous formulas in this book. You could easily kill yourself if you did something stupid.
And of course, in this post 9/11, "BE AFRAID!" day and age, as well as the irrational fear of anything that might possibly hurt someone, no one is going to take on the potential liability for republishing this book.
However, getting back to the subject of this posting.
The book is on the Net as a PDF scan of the pages. I downloaded it myself. Not that I'm planning to brew up rocket fuel in my apartment or launch rockets from the roof of the building.
No, I downloaded it because I'm now one more person that has the PDF, making it just slightly more difficult for this book to be lost and forgotten.
While I'd love to have a genuine hardcopy of the book, the cheapest version I have seen recently was US$50.00 via eBay. Maybe someday I'll be able to spend that kind of money on a 40+ year old paperback book.
Oh, the URL?
Sure. Here you go: http://www.filestube.com/1144a11ae0e8381203ea/details.html
You'll have to download three separate files, though, via Rapidshare, which will take you about 45 minutes to get all of them, and then use some manner of file decompression utility to expand the .rar files.
Oh, and then there's the matter of the file password.
It's Brinley.
DISCLAIMER!!! I am not responsible for ANYTHING that YOU DO with this book. Don't be stupid! If you have a "Here, hold my beer" moment and wind up getting a Darwin Award, that's not MY FAULT. No way, no how.
Got that? Good.
Similarly, the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments is similarly WAY OOP and will never, ever see the light of day as a reprint, again, liability issues.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
What is the right thing to do? And why?
With all the shit going down in this world, this is what people consider an ethical quandary?
A used copy would not be a "preferred medium"? Oh, gee whiz, sorry, your techno-highness. We wouldn't want you to sully your precious fingers on "dead tree" matter.
In all reality, it seems more that the laws that give corporations the same rights as individuals are the ones that are at fault. It is through those laws that copywrite laws don't expire with the author. Sell your patent/copyright (I know, they're different, but they're the same in this argument) to a corporation? It's like selling to a potentially-immortal person, with laws based on the lifetime of the "creator" (with those "creation rights" sold to this immortal being). There's no, "I'm just doing this to keep the money in the family, to give my grandchildren a college education." On a side note, for those of you who want to feel more justified in your hatred of big business, check out "The Corporation" on Google Video. It's a three hour documentary on the corporate system. Obviously, it's changed my viewpoint on things, and it's been six months since I've seen it.
You should find the author and beat him until he agrees to sell you a copy of the book in the format of your choosing! I didn't spend my childhood fighting the Reds so lollygaggers like him could clog up our economy! That's just Unamerican!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I've been a /. reader for many many years (but never had a reason to create an account), but finally have something to say on the subject.
Legally, it's wrong to steal. But would I do it in your circumstance? I may. Here's my reasoning:
I'm a fantasy author and want people to read my books. Sure, if you buy my paperbacks secondhand, I won't get a penny. But you know what? I've earned a new reader, one who enjoys the quality of my product and is willing to pay for more.
This is a wake up call to the publisher. Make noise with them. Maybe they'll see value in pursuing a new print in ebook form.
Sure, I want to make money, but I look at publishing from a horrific, disgusting viewpoint: The crack dealer. The first hit is always free.
If it is a book for pleasure, well I usually read in bed before going to sleep and don't have a Kindle or similar device so I'll go with the used book (or the library book).
If it is for research, then I'll take the ebook any way I can find it (as long as it is DRM free or can easily be made so). I prefer scholarly books in electronic form so much that I will scan in books if I can't find an electronic version.
If it is a new book in my field then there probably isn't a pirated copy out there so I'll have to buy it or get it from the library. If there's a pirated version out there, I'll take it.
I'm GenX if that actually does have any relevance.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Because they may want to reprint it later as demand rises? Demand has to be high enough to justify the minimum bulk manufacturing run.
Out-of-print doesn't mean the book isn't available, only that the supply comes from a retailer's warehouse, rather than from the publisher's warehouse. If people pirate out-of-print copies, under the assumption that the authors won't get royalties anyway, all that does it reduce retail sales, which reduces the manufacturing runs, which then reduces royalties.
People need to stop comparing out-of-print with out-of-stock. Most anti-DRM and anti-piracy arguments I hear involve only the authors and publishers. A proper anti-piracy argument should include the whole distribution infrastructure, no matter how many middle-men are involved or how inefficient it may be.
Complain about the middle-men and the inefficiencies in the distribution methods. Complain about DRM. Don't complain about copyrights. If a copyright allows me to copy my purchase however I like for my own use, then there's no problem.
You are a moral moron.
Corporates don't think of ethics when they charge you $210 for a textbook that costs only $10 to produce and out of which less than 20 cents goes to the author, while another 3 cents is thrown to the shareholders. The rest is eaten by the "management" for funding their latest villa in SF City.
I don't think of ethics when i download and read books that i didn't pay for.
I think of it as a service to myself.
Hey, if the copyright holder objects, i delete it.
No harm done.
Legally, it is defensible. I borrow something from the author without his permission. Once he finds out, i return it to him: intact. Where does the question of illegality enter into this equation?
Oh, you mean i *read* the book. Well then sue me to undo the knowledge i gained and unless you can prove that this specific knowledge was used by me to make a million dollars, then i ain't paying a penny to any corporate.
I pay taxes. That money is not used to benefit me. Instead it is used to fund the retirement funds and bonuses of the Rich and Infamous.
If that is not piracy, then what am doing is not piracy too.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Personally, I hate e-books. I would by far prefer the dead tree version if I'm going to sit there and read it.
While I do read a lot of books at home, I'm also on the go a lot and prefer the unabridged audiobook version. If there IS an audio version of a book I am interested in, I'll usually buy it.
As for out of print books, if I were to use the e-book format, I would have no problem at all with "pirating" it. Out of print = giving up copyright in my eyes. If the publisher cared about the work, they'd release it in as many formats as might make them a net profit. There are plenty of online companies that would be able to handle the admin end of dealing with an e or audio book that the publisher wouldn't need to deal with it...thus any argument that an e-book version won't be released due to "admin overhead" is BS.
Want my money? Support the book in the format(s) that I want it in.
there is NOTHING WRONG with using abandoned property. If the owner is taking no active ineterest in his property, and is doing nothing to maintain it, then it's yours for the taking. Frequent beneficiaries of abandoned property are tow truck operators. They pick it up, store it for 30 days, then put a lien against the title. So, download your book, store it on your hard drive for 30 days, then put a lien against it. ;)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
How can e-books be a preferred medium? It is one of most inconvenient ways to read a book.
Printed on paper, this is the way to go.
10 year form now your silly e-book files are useless, but you can still read 100+ years old books.
The idea that authorship is a tangible thing has been around for at least 1500 years. The concept that the right to control copying is also a tangible thing came somewhat later when technology intervened to make large-scale duplication at little cost somewhat accessible to the masses - but even that was over 500 years ago with Gutenberg.
To the Internet generation this somehow seems newly quaint. A book can be copied in a click, and carried in essentially no physical space, so does that change the rules?
It can't, because ease of copying and carrying wasn't the principle in the first place. The principle is that the author and publisher are in control of their works. If we're willing to take that away based on convenience, because the publisher or the author hasn't done what we wanted them to do, that's no different from downloading a current best seller or an expensive limited edition.
As to what I'd do given my own morals and ethics: if I'm going to violate the principle, I'm not going to rationalize it to anyone else because I'm not going to TELL anyone else.
Born 1953, college degrees in Economics and Electronics.
In a situation like this, the wise and honorable thing to do is get the text any way possible, copy it, and pass it along ... freely... to any one else who may be interested in it.
We must never forget, and we must have as our prime consideration here, that the media corporations have adopted a de-facto legal state of endless and permanent copyright for themselves by constantly extending the copyright period. Since they are are doing this, they are preventing any new material from entering the public domain. They have effectively stolen the public domain from us and future generations.
Having done this, they have absolved us from any ethical and moral obligation to recognize the authority of any copyright law.
To protect our culture, which includes books, movies, television shows, and software, we can, will, and should copy and distribute any copyrighted materials as widely and as freely as we can.
When they restore the public domain, and allow the materials that passed through the period of copyright that was in legal effect when the material was created to enter public domain, then, and only then, should we listen to any arguments regarding legitimate copyright considerations.
Until then, to hell with them, their copyright laws, and the politicians that they have bribed into passing these laws.
Future generations will understand and appreciate what we are doing with our P2P networks and underground distribution systems.
All financial considerations involved are private business contracts between the authors and publishers. They don't concern us. Our networks and distribution systems were operating before they signed these contracts, so they knew of our existence and our effect on their royalties. They signed up anyway.
"Upon a proper challenge, the copyright should expire after a few years if they are failing to actually print or offer the copyrighted material for sale. "
At which point, every book gets published at a price which would allow the publisher to pay for a print run of 1 (and make a profit).
What's happening with books is no different to what happened with records in the past where they got "deleted". If demand is too low, holding stock costs a lot of money and the costs of the runs to produce the records for the demand gets so high that it becomes uneconomic.
If you know how to contact her, why not just ask the author. She might be able to send you a copy in your prefered form.
I've posted on the used book business before. We specialize in a subject that has, maybe, 5000 relevant titles and we have multiple copies of many of the same title. The vast majority are out of print and of those most of the authors and publishing houses are dead or defunct. Their heirs might possibly hold the copyright but I haven't gone that deep into the research for most of them. When my current project is finished I am going to scan copies of the oldest titles I have in the worst condition(so I can break them). The earliest are about 1890-1920. I am going to give them away for free via a pdf link. I see this as a way to market my intact, very good condition copies to collectors who are sitting on the fence about spending a lot of money on a first edition as well as giving my niche's community access to the text (while vising my website) which is scholastically dubious but historically important. Assuming the books are out of copyright I feel this is totally ethical. There are a plethora of OOP Print-on-Demand titles available for sale at used book sites like Amazon Marketplace, ABEbooks.com and Alibris.com Maybe I should charge $.99 a copy like iTunes does for Beethoven or Scott Joplin.
See, if you rephrase the question a bit, this is the kind of thing we could be having polls about, instead of the lame joke polls we have.
"Good news, everyone!"
Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to. Then, on the way out, slam the door.
- Jack Handey
...just like Good Old Games have done with old, possibly out-of-print, games.
In other words, create an ebook of the original treeware version and make a deal with the publisher or author of the original to sell the ebooks.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
It depends on how you define "knowledge". I agree that manuals, scientific papers and college textbooks should be accessible to everyone. However, do you think that a novel that was created purely for entertainment purposes can be considered "knowledge" that everybody has a right to have?
Because it was created to be sold, and your "information wants to be free, as does entertainment, and anything else I want" bullshit deprives the people who make the stuff that you warez of an income?
"I don't want to pay, it should have been free in the first place" doesn't cut it as an argument. You could use that for anything to wheedle out of paying for anything - it's yet another shitty argument foisted by pirates so they can justify (to themselves) the fact that they're cheap.
I write bullshit
Commerce is founded on supply and demand. Piracy has become a leading indicator of what people demand before it is available through legal channels. Downloading movies illegally was a precursor to Netflix, and was instrumental in it's creation. If there is something you want, be it the object itself or the method most convenient for you to digest it, that you cannot pay someone to obtain and poses no threat to anyone at all really, by all means go for it. If nothing else maybe you'll convince a publisher to reprint the book and sell an electronic version. It is their loss for not seeing the opportunity.
That's what I and my 20 friends said when we raped that girl.
They would have the right to buy the texts, and then you could have used them as a beta-tester.
The point isn't are the Copyright laws wrong, the point isn't whether who gets the money, the point is whether or not it is ethical to pirate this book, end of story, in print, brand new, out of print, it doesn't matter.
Piracy is stealing. Stealing is unethical. End of Debate.
GenX (Me) is going to go straight to dlbook.torrent.now and not bat an eyelash because it takes less time to do that then to cross the road, coincidentally it may be just as ethically wrong to do that since jaywalking is a crime too. It's more of a moral compass question and in my experience GenX has got a pretty warped one in which Law is up for debate.
Since it's out of print, the most ethical thing is to support your economy by purchasing the used copy from a locally owned, independent bookstore. Only go to Amazon.com or some other national chain as a last resort.
After that, you're justified in downloading the electronic version--although, personally, I find hard copy much easier to read than e-text.
JD Salinger, writer of The Catcher In The Rye, is a famous recluse, and he has not given pubication permission for a few stories that appeared in magazines between roughly 1945 and 1963. I was curious, esp. to read "Hapworth 16, 1924" and at the same time I was so NOT going to try and find old new yorker magazine issues. i would have bought the book immediately, but here I was thankful for the existence of a pirated e-book collection.
copyright applies to the work, not the format. they has been clear even since quality printing was invented and rights to a painting were extended to its printing representation. The way in which the copyrighted work is conveyed is irreverent, except for that on must have rights to copy it into any source. (these rights may be granted by fair use) If you have a right to the first copy, AND fair use allows you to make a copy, it doesn't matter what format the copy is in.
There are only two ways to deny this, wither you rule that fair use does not apply, or you rule that copyright does not fallow formats. Not allowing fair use would be an unthinkable thing, and disallowing copyrights to extend beyond formats in unthinkable. The thing is that content creators want both sides of that coin.
Either we rule that content is integral to format which would mean that no copyrighted content could be moved to new formats until it lapsed into the public domain, or you rule that format is unrelated to content, and therefore fair use applies to all formats now and in the future.
What this ultimately comes down to is that the content owners (not necessarily the creators) believe that Fair-use is a scam and wish to wipe it out whatever it takes, however they will not admit that. This is mainly because it lifts the fog of bullshit that the keep laying.
You know, there are these things called libraries.
Copyright exists to ensure that an author retains the rights to a work that he or she doesn't sell to a pubisher. The typical deal is obvious: A publisher produces, markets and sells the book and the author gets a cut.
Buying a used book isn't unethical, certainly not because the author won't make a penny on the deal. The author's deal is with a publisher, not with individuals who buy the book, used or new.
Reproducing and distributing a published book without the copyright holders permission is unethical. It's as unethical as producing and distributing a manuscript that hasn't yet been offered for publication by an author.
The technology used to reproduce and distribute a work is irrelevant. From an ethical point of view, duplicating a book without the copyright holder's permission and making the file available on the Internet is equivalent to a publisher printing and marketing books by authors under contract to rival publishers.
Copyright is the legal recognition of an undeniable ethical reality: I retain all rights to something I create until I decide to transfer all, or some, of those rights to someone else. To believe that members of society can somehow acquire rights to my work that I do not transfer to them is, frankly, to believe in fantasy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The laws don't define ethics, and they are irrational,they provide undue favor to big content, and undue discrimination against the consumers.
fixed
It can't, because ease of copying and carrying wasn't the principle in the first place. The principle is that the author and publisher are in control of their works.
I thought the original principle was censorship ("An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses").
Pirating an out-of-print book off the Internet doesn't give a penny to the copyright owner. But neither does buying a used book from Amazon. Ethically speaking, there is no simple option that benefits the copyright owner. Might as well steal it at that point, no?
If someone owns the rights but refuses to sell copies, then fuck em. Pirate away. I feel the same way about region protection. If someone has a DVD in, say, Japan, but refuses to not only sell it in America but also makes it hard for you to even import it from Japan, fuck em.
I do not see the acquisition or reading of electronic copies to be unethical - either for in print or out-of-print books. In fact, one of the best pre-cursors to my opting to buy a physical book (my preferred format) is my acquisition of an electronic copy which I treat as a 'proof'.
I consider acquiring an electronic copy to be remarkably similar to borrowing a copy from a library - all be it at a lower cost to the state... and more convenient.
The entire approach to copyright is completely broken - a new business model is required. It is preposterous to be buying expensive books with zero evidence of applicability or quality; it is preposterous that access to published work today should be more restricted than in an era where lending libraries were used actively.
I recognise that authors might feel to have lost out should I read an unauthorised electronic copy - but not buy a dead-tree version... but this is a misunderstanding... If it weren't for a freely available electronic copy, I'd likely never have considered their work at all. A new business model is needed.
I'd love to see a commercial ebook library which would allow me access to an electronic copy of any published work (for a minimal fee)... and for the establishment of print-and-bind shops at which any books I want to buy can be printed and bound for my 'library'... and authors to be compensated at today's prices. I find it difficult to believe that we can't overcome the engineering problems which in years gone by left bulk printing and distribution far cheaper than bespoke production. It would be wonderful to walk into a small shop in a small town and be able to buy a bound copy of any book.
If you really want to be legal you must contact the entity/ies with ownership rights to decide whether you can use a different format of the book for your own personal use.
Doing it en masse, you might get sued. For example, if you were to buy tons of the actual used books and then sell the corresponding ebook you downloaded instead of those you bought (even if you disposed of the physical books). The owner of the rights to the book would probably not like that and could argue you were selling a derivative product and violating copyright.
However, there would be little to no repercussion for just using a different format of the the book provided it was done in sufficently small quantity.
Options 4 and 5 strike me as morally equivalent and probably the best course. Sending the author money is nice but does put her in an odd position re her publisher with whom she has a non-compete contract. (I shed no tears for the publisher in this case, if you won't sell me something you can hardly argue that I'm hurting you by not buying it.) If the book were still in print I would go with option 3 with the possible improvement of donating the book to a library or charity, (Although I admit that the donation is a moral grey area, I just favor letting other people read my copies of books I'm not using at the moment.)
Go over to the Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/ and read Eric Flint's take on book piracy and free books. Quite interesting and well thought out. His idea is that what little book piracy there is actually creates a bigger audience for the author's work - from which he will profit. For this reason they give away free electronic versions of many of their books, hoping to tempt you to buy more.
It's worked on me! I now look specifically for Baen books when I shop my local bookstores.
"Straddling the sword of technology..."
The solution to this have some awesome programs write some major programs for publishing companies to prevent this problem in the first place.
The program would constantly search the web looking for the books that the company prints. It finds all of the pirating sites, and then the company can take legal action from there. These pirates would be dropping like flies.
I think that it is an wide scale problem to quiet writers. Writers don't have a damn thing to do but write. That is what makes them good writers. In order to keep it this way they have to be paid for writing. They can't write and work at the same time as well. It just doesn't work that way. This all affects the population too.
The way it affects the population is that it decreases the literacy and cultural depth. Less writers AND less time to write because of a second job means the population is dumb.
For a democracy to run effectively it needs its writers to propagate literacy and cultural depth. It needs its writers to get the word out there for people to know and understand. It can be said the writers are the heart pumping the vitals across the nation and world. The world was greatly changed from a farm of humans owned by the few tyrants to a place of deep and literate people. It can return to those days. How? Make people illiterate, impoverish their speaking skills, and be susceptible as a herd stupid people ripe for the exploitation.
Impose copy right regulations on the web. Pay the writers. It all pays us off in the long run.
Even better, tell the publisher...you paid the author because the publisher is not distributing the work. Publisher then has a choice: They can sue you and the author, and try to make the case that what you're doing is illegal... (how do they prove harm? they don't publish it?) my guess about that option is: Striesand Effect. They widely publicize an arrangement that undermines their business model. Not too smart...
Or publisher can consider it marketing data, and try to figure out how to make nothing go "out of print" (have everything available.)
Depending on the details of the author's deal, the last option might be to cut the publisher out completely, and he might be able to sell copies from a web site. You might be able to convince him to sell them on, lulu, E-bay or something.
If the book is out of print, the publisher must not think it's profitable. If they decided not to port their catalog to etext, they are doing two things to harm the market. First, they are artificially keeping consumer choices low. Second they are forcing would-be consumers to voilate copyright law by forcing no other choice. The issue is, if they offered all their catalog in etext, they would have to pay royalties. This is why authors with out of print titles should take steps to publish their own etexts. Sinmce they most likely still retain rights to an electronic publication of their work. They could sell it directly on amazon without the publisher.
They're using their grammar skills there.
If the publisher refuses to care about an excellent work that has gone out of print for decades, say 2 or 3, and the author might be dead and will not receive a penny, like you said, then it is totally ethical to make an ebook.
It's much more important that the book be shared in electronic form and, therefore, be brought again to life, instead of be rotting away in some shelf.
It's called civil disobedience. In this case, the human need for knowledge takes precendece over stupid copyright laws. We must also press legislators to become aware of this "new" reality of the internet. When knowledge is shared, everyone benefits.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Consider the idea that part of owning something, in this case the copyright, is having the right NOT to sell it. This brings to mind the not so long ago eminant domain property issues. Even though in this case you are not giving up the property, does the current owner have the right to restrict its distribution? I think ownership implies that right. Many of the agruments rationalize taking the bootleg copy by saying that there is no harm done to the owner. You can't say that because we have no idea why the owner refuses to distribute it electronically.
"Corporations create nothing" seems to be the recurring theme here. If corporations created nothing, why would you go looking for the book on a corporate web server? Seems like they created an electronic marketplace so we can find things. Hence, you are paying for a service. Authors are much better off in a world with such corporations. As for the original question, would you steal a blue car because the only cars for sale are red? That is the moral issue. Obviously, very few people would buy the book and scan it. But morally (and legally), downloading pirated stuff is stealing. Consider, also, that you would then support an "infrastructure of piracy", which will directly harm all authors.
Download the book and send a cheque directly to the author with a note explaining what you did and why.
You people and your blind acceptance of education and information as good.
If the law thought education/information was good and should be readily available, the copyright laws wouldn't be this way, would they?
You figure out a way to guarantee profit for the publisher, and then you can read your book.
As a terminally broke college student, I don't see a serious ethical difference between "taking it out of the library, scanning a copy for personal use, and deleting it when I have to return the book, repeat every time I want to read the book" and "pirating it"...
Ethics don't depend on income level. If something is unethical, it's unethical when you're poor and it's unethical when you're wealthy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
As a published author, I would prefer that people read my book than that they pay for it.
In the long run, this builds me an audience, which may also be monetarily worth more than a one-time payment.
If the book is not available... pirate it.
Death metal, a tiny musical genre that thrived from 1985-1995, has many classics out of print. Our solution at the metal site for which I write (the Dark Legions Archive, I'm a blogger) is to make FLACs available of out of print classics.
The reason is simple: it's better that the artists have a new listener, than that the potential listener is thwarted by the chaos of record publishing.
Technically, it is against the law. However, from artists, we have heard nothing but encouragement. There are now new generations, new fans and new life for their art. I don't think anyone can reasonably complain about that.
Futurist Traditionalism
Pirate it. Long live the information superhighway. I am of course from the generation where Napster and Kazaa were new things in my teen years. I didn't see anything wrong with it then, and I definitely see nothing wrong with it now.
The ethical way to do something that you know is illegal but think should be legal is to do it, report yourself to the proper authority, accept the punishment and use the experience to try to change the law that you think is wrong. Too many people think civil disobedience is a legal defense. It isn't.
How is this any different than mp3s? I want to listen to a song that I cannot find on Amazon/local Record stores or via legal download. But I do find it on ThePirateBay in 500_Greatest_Rock_Anthems.torrent.
I would bet that the amount of eBook piracy is nothing compared to the amount of music piracy going on. So if you're looking for a financial compensation problem, go after music. In a few years when the Wii/PS3/XBOX360 generation grows up, we won't have to worry about eBook piracy, as this 'instant gratification' generation won't be able to sit still long enough to read a book. Maybe we'll all get lucky and they'll pirate (I mean legally download) an eBook and have it read to them.
It is simple.
Is it ethical to violate someone else's legal rights?
No, it is not. It is as simple as that.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Indeed we do.
Immoral is to create an economy of scarcity where the laws of physics would naturally create an economy of plenty. And the fact that this is done purely for personal gain really seals it as deeply immoral.
Moral is to share cultural media items with your peers, because that is how culture is formed and how it has worked for millennia. It has absolutely nothing to do with behaving like a good little consumer in order to conveniently line the pockets of producers; that's merely the position of a slave or a farm animal, and is neither moral nor ethical.
Where were we? Oh yeah, that we both know full well what is moral and immoral. What next?
If one looks at the history of copyright and its intentions, then I believe that a failure of the copyright holder to make a work available effectively puts the work in the public domain. Copyright is supposed to provide a balance between the rights of the owner of a work and of society as a whole. Copyright clearly does not give the owner the right to purposefully withhold a protected work from society. Let us not forget that at one time a copyright was obtained through the act of giving one copy to the national library.
Over time our congress has repeatedly eroded society's rights in favor of the copyright holder, but they have not yet revoked the original principles on which copyright was based. With the advent of the internet, I would even go so far as to say if you fail to release an out of print book in at least some electronic form (it doesn't have to be free) then you have relinqished any reasonable claim to copyright protections. You have simply not held up your end of the bargain and your work should be considered to be in the public domain.
Oh, common. You title your post "A non slashdot answer" and then you use car analogy.
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
You really need to understand what 'moral' is. If you did this wouldn't need any answers from others.
Their definition would differ from yours so they would come up with unacceptable answers for you anyway.
If the object here is to ensure content producers are rewarded then obviously there's no benefit to paying for it.
There will be no royalties and the publisher will receive nothing for a used book sale. Buying it will only
benefit Amazon and the seller, not the content producers. The money you don't spend on that could be better used
for something positive.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
They're about risk.
Regardless of whether it's right to download pirated material, there is a law against it and there are fines which can be levied. The risks of getting caught and fined are on par with those related to jaywalking.
Now, watch a busy downtown intersection with a lot of young people in the area; I live near a downtown which is between a high school and a university, so this is a common scene. The students blithely jaywalk in any situation which will not lead to death. Granny in a compact? Jaywalk. Bus? Don't jaywalk. Bike cop sitting at the corner? Jaywalk, s/he won't do anything, because everyone knows that you can't pay the $400 ticket. Now, witness the cop's reaction if an adult wearing a suit joins the crowd of jaywalkers...
People with careers, houses, families and cars are less likely to risk their material well-being for a few dollars worth of entertainment.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Are relative anyway.
The question isn't how WE feel about it, its what YOU feel is ok to do.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Reading this discussion is sad for me...most of the comments here are from people who have absolutely no idea of how the world of publishing actually works. So, time for a reality check.
(By the way, I've been dealing with the world of publishing since 1998, and since 2007 I've owned a small publishing company of my own - and I just put out a second book under its name, this one an amazing Star Wars book by Michael Kaminski.)
1. Book availability vs. copyright length. Contrary to belief here, one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. In fact, the thing that has the most power when it comes to determining if a book will be available is the free market.
Book availability works like this: when it comes to major publishers, the publisher figures out how many books the author is likely to sell, and prints that many. Then the publisher watches the sales figures. If the printing sells out, the book is printed again for a second printing. If that printing sells out, there's a third printing, and so on. But if the first printing doesn't sell out, and just peters out after a year or two, the publisher knows the market isn't there, and pulls the book out of print.
The one technology that is changing this a bit is print on demand technology, which is allowing books with very low sales demand to be kept in print. Interestingly enough, it's not e-books that have had this impact - e-books have a very small market, compared to print books. They're an interesting complement to the printed book, particularly useful for travellers, but they don't tend to be worth a lot economically.
2. Copyright and greedy authors limiting books published. How many copies of a book get published is not up to the author, it's up to the publisher. The author has very little say in the matter. For that matter, it's every author's dream for a copy of their book to be in every household in the world - there isn't an author in the world who has ever stated that this new novel should have only 2,000 copies published, and that's it. There are, however, publishers who have done that, but that's with a special edition, and if the special edition sells well, you can bet there's a regular edition following.
3. Copyright and books. Copyright is not the right to profit, although it does give an author the right to try. It is barely the right to control. It is, however, a very important legal framework that governs the relationship between the author and the publisher. What the public sees is the barest tip of the iceberg when it comes to copyright - they see the author being able to dictate how a book is distributed in a very broad sense. What they don't see is the protection given to the book from the publisher in the submission phase, the protection given to the publisher from the author after the contract is signed, the contract negotiations themselves, etc. It's hardly surprising that most people wouldn't recognize what copyright actually is and does if it came up and bit them - almost all of the important functions of copyright take place behind closed doors, and the public never sees it.
4. Publisher business models. While the RIAA may be dying a long-overdue death, publishing is very realistic field, with business models based in reality. It is also a field that has no difficulties trying out new business models - the people who might call publishers Neanderthals for not giving e-books massive support right now are forgetting that the reason that support is lacking is because back around 2000-2002 the big publishing companies tried to make the e-book work, and failed miserably. Even Stephen King couldn't make it work, and he tried hard to do it. The first e-book revolution fell flat on its face. I know - I was there, with one of those e-books that "couldn't fail." Turns out that it could fail quite nicely, along with the rest of the e-book market.
(I've also kept my eyes on e-books, just as a matter of course. A recent discussion with my agent had her commenting that e-books "just
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Its easy: Get both if you really like it very much.
Use the electronic version when you are reading it. Keep the hard copy as a limited edition collection, and as support for the author that you like it very much. This is what fans do, they buy the things because they love it, not because they need it.
My friend paid a very high price to buy the 1934 first edition of Security Analysis, even though he read through several chapters in pirated electronic version and there are latest edition available. He bought it because he love the book so much and is so impressed by Benjamin Graham's insight. This what true value of those out of print books in Amazon are.
Like so many of my fellow Gen Ys, as it seems, I attain almost everything I own via the internet. I haven't done much research on the subject, but my theory is that we've grown up in isolation of the rest of the world, and as the internet became more prominent we realized that we could get what we wanted, any time we wanted it. Personally, I don't think that's a bad thing but a rather large step in humanity. I can easily envision a future where analog stores are considered exotic specialty shops, and a future where there are little limitations to development. I also haven't done much research on copyright laws, but I can understand the essential concept behind it - that paying the creator pays them for their time and effort, as well as supports them and their further works. That being said, if the book is out of print, and thus the author wouldn't receive loyalties for it, then I don't understand why going out of your way to pay for a used book is an ethical decision. Yes, I understand that buying a used book would, in some small way, aid the economy, but if the original point of the payment was to support the creator then paying for a used book has completely lost its point. I think that most people here see the word "pirated" and instantly reject everything associated with it. "Abandonware" is commonly thought of as acceptable for download, since paying for it no longer does anything. Certain rules and laws should be seen as temporary, and this is one of them. In the digital age, there can be near-infinite copies of a single document. Before, copies of text were finite to the amount of resources they had enough money to pay for. As it seems, all the physical copies were sold, the author/publisher got the money they wanted, and now the circulation of money is over with. This is a confusing transition. In my opinion, the age of the finite deadtree books is over, and the authors and publishers got their money when they wanted it. Let those texts fade away and restructure copyright (or more preferably, creative commons) for the age of the infinite resource. I apologize for the semi-rant. I probably should have taken the time to write out a well-written, well-thought-out reply, but I didn't. I hope there are some strands of wisdom to be found here.
I take the view that by downloading a copy someone else has made available, you are not personally infringing copyright. The person who makes it available has done that. Your action in downloading seems to me to be entirely equivalent to finding a copy that someone has left on the bus.
So I say download the e-text and read it, but under no circumstances should you re-distribute the copy you downloaded, because that would clearly be infringing on someone's legal copyright.
If you wish, you can write to the author and say you enjoyed it (if you did) -- that's just normal respectful behaviour and no different to what you might do if you had bought a first edition in hardback.
Under the circumstances I see no need to make any payment to the author, since neither she nor her original publisher seem to be motivated to earn further payment for the work.
FWIW I'm in my mid '50s.
Wrong as in, most people believe it to be something that you should not do.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
and thus any means of avoiding thesharing of information (the basis of our species) is just plain stupid ! Just imagine ,caveman A eats ad berrys,caveman B sees it but cant tell caveman C beacuse of a tribal NDA !
bah
When referring to baby boomers, this means Wall Street and housing bubbles. When to GenY this refers to anything in ht digital domain.
Too many are stealing; just in different places.
Congress implements this as an economic right. By no longer distributing said book, the Author/distributor has given up their interest in the work. It no longer promotes the useful Art if it is no longer distributed. You're in the clear ethically.
Legally on the other hand -- others have addressed that, but let me just say that congress and the courts don't pay much attention to the quoted document.
IANAL.
Born in the 60s, after the landing.
Yeah, go ahead and download the stolen copy. Here's a simple breakdown: If the book is in print, then it and it's content are a product you can buy from it's manufacturer... and you should do so. If the book is not in it print, then the used book itself is a historical artifact, while it's contents are historical information. Historical information should be freely available to the public, so, if you're just after the information, there's nothing morally gray about downloading the digital version. If you want the actual physical artifact, the used book, you should buy that, and not steal it. But when the book is out of print, it's purely a matter of preference, not morality, whether you choose that you want the artifact or the information.
I think if you are getting the book via a torrent then as part of the protocol you are distributing (part of) a copy - and that would make it an infringement.
The law has nothing to do with it, as others have said. This is a morality question. I would question the morality that a copyright holder has to withhold access to previously published information.
The quid pro quo for reaping publication royalties should be that the publishers actually make the content reasonably available permanently. If they lack the resources to do so, there are others who will make the resources available. Perhaps this was the original intent of the library of congress.
If this were to become a requirement, then the ability to pay a publisher would, for sure, somehow emerge.
Sounds like another job for digital signatures...
My son has a "pop up medieval castle" book. Good luck getting that in plucker.
Nullius in verba
With a novel such as "Harry Potter" or "Lord of the rings" it may be a little harder to justify piracy.
But anything produced as "non-fiction" should be up for grabs. We already have libraries for this so I think copyright on books is purely to protect them and their outdated model of obtaining information.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
"Suppose there is a car that you want to race on your race track, but it is an old pink 1995 Camero (so even if you purchase the Camero, the people that built it won't receive any money) and there are no Cameros available in pink for sale on the Internet. You can buy one with a different color from Cars.com, but that isn't your preference. There is one in the parking lot of your building, however. This blog post outlines a few possibilities, and then asks, 'What is the right thing to do? And why?' I'm also curious if the answers change depending on whether you are a Baby Boomer, or a Gen X, Gen Y, etc. -- I've noticed that attitudes around stealing seem to change depending on whether someone is a college student or a recent college graduate, versus someone who can remember a time when the Internet did not exist."
You can't use your preference as an excuse to steal. Gee I can't get new songs for my 8 track - guess I can download what I want.
I'm not sure if this is the right post for it, but I look at buying / downloading Cd's and books like this... If It's something I like enough to pay for, I'll go and buy it in whichever legitimate form I can. However. If It's something that's just okay... You'd read or listen to it if it was there, but there's no way I like it enough to pay for it... Well then i'll download it. Eg. Hmm, Michael Jackson. I used to like a couple of those songs... But man, no way were they good enough to pay for now, okay i'll grab the songs. My theory is, downloading things you wouldn't pay money for isn't hurting anyone, as it's money no body would get from you in the first place. And hey, your ISP profits from the increased Bandwidth usage:P
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I'm an gen 68 and I live in Europe, so therfore I still knno a place that we in Europe call a "library". For all of you that live in the states or are born post 80 I'll explain the concept. It's a place were you can borrow books for free! You just go there and borrow the book you desire without paying the author, amazon or anyone any money. And the best - it's totally, absolutly, proven legal! Go ask your lawyer.
The idea is that knowledge should be free for anyone, like the air we breath and the water we drink from a fresh mountain spring. (You don't drink from a mountain spring, because you think the water has been poisend by industrial waste? Well then pay for some shitty water in plastic bottles, but don't ruin my metapher!)
So now here ist what you should do. Get the book from the library, then download the ebook, read the ebook, delete the ebook, bring the library book back. Now your are acting legally, right? But is that what the government had in mind when it came aup with the concept of a library? Wait wasn't it all about spreading knowledge. Well, that ideal would be best served if you'd just download the ebook and share it as widely as possible!
Europeans Stop reading here, know begins the pathetic Ending for american readers!
Some people might think: "Isn't that illegal?". But you know that the founding fathers will look at you from their heavenly hights seeing you reading and sharing the knowledge of the world and there hards would be flowing over with joy. Look here, this boy can't be put down by the powers in place. Look here he's reading, learning and sharing knowlegde in his pursuit of happiness, look here this is a true american hero!
It is a problem just like this that makes me wonder why the wonderful things for the DIY micro-label indie music scene have not happened yet for old-fashioned flattened tree corpse authors.
There's lots of competitively priced options for bashing out 500 CDs or 50 vinyl complete with covers and inserts.
The web has never been a better for putting your little basement label up for all to see.
Lots of options for handling payment and some even throw in the shipping and handling on behalf of the vendor.
I know there is that whole self-publishing thing like Lulu.com and Print-On-Demand services but the publishing houses dominate the marketing and shelf space. Nor can I think of a modern example of success through this path. Let's face it, there isn't exactly a MySpace for budding authors out there.
In the end, the authors need to be aware, informed and most of all, possess a desire to continue making it easy for them to be paid or just thanked for their work long after the publishing deal expired.
I understand reading pdf's on a computer. The concept of ebook, however, seems very recherche to me. Why in the world would buy a reader just to peruse a freely available OUT OF PRINT pdf, ps, or textfile? Or are you talking about something academic and utterly recondite, like Rolf Singer's Agaricales, which retailed at $169, brand new, in 1972 or so and hasn't been seen since, not even gathering dust, except on my bookshelf? I doubt you could pay anyone to scan that one, let along prooofread it, in rny hurnble op1nicri.
There is, of course, a difference between out of print and public domain. Public domain is fair game, provided anything value-added (like correct spelling, modern punctuation, etc.) is your own work if you re-copyright it. I'm not a lawyer, of course, or I'd have drowned myself long ago.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
As a gen. Z(ugh), I think you should rather look at how society as a whole would be affected if you pirated a book. Relatively little bad. I am for free information and stuff and through pirating society has become a better place. Almost everyone I know(in my gen.) pirates and has a negative attitude towards people that don't pirate and therefore I think there is an interesting future to look forward to in 20-40 years time. I don't have a job(looking!) and I have learnt so much from all the free information and stuff I pirate. I don't always just take, if i find something awesome or such I would donate money to the author. Free Information and books and even games = smarter kids. Piracy is almost an extension of the internet to us.
Everyone wants to make a buck. If we start with arguments like this about non-copyright holders not worth the cash, we will start to see the creep of legislation to "protect the retailers" from "unscrupulous pirates who would deny legitimate holders of copyrighted inventory their right to profit from that stock." Ridiculous? Outlandish? Wait for it, I'm sure it'll pop up somewhere eventually.
In the mean time, stay off the radar.
Except that the existence a robust market for the used product could create demand for the new product, and spur the publisher to (a) reprint the book or (b) print the author's more latest book. Publisher do pay attention to the used market, and not purchasing the used copy destroys that market signal.
.sig withheld by request
Read the pirated copy.
Save a tree.
If you feel guilty, send some money to the author.
-1980
As long as you aren't planning to sell it, I see no problem. If you wanted to read it in a physical format, you could go to a library and borrow the book. You're just borrowing it from an a different sort of library.
I would download the book. Then if I thought it was worth my money. I would buy it used on Amazon. To support the author and their writing.
It is almost impossible to legally obtain a copy of the Eyes On The Prize video series.
Of course, it's available through various torrent sites in part through Downhill Battle's efforts and a protest called Eyes On The Screen.
Many, including creator Henry Hampton's family, argue against this form of protest and the Eyes On The Screen protest specifically.
Meanwhile, the Eyes on the Screen campaign was endorsed by groups such as the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, who wrote: "Therefore, in the spirit of the Southern Freedom Movement, we who once defied the laws and customs that denied people of color their human rights and dignity, we whose faces are seen in "Eyes on the Prize," we who helped produce it, tonight defy the media giants who have buried our story in their vaults by publicly sharing episodes of this forbidden knowledge with all who wish to see it."
We grant copyright monopoly in order to create additional incentive for authors to bring their works to market.
If the author doesn't bring it to market, copyright serves no useful purpose.
If they're not selling, you shouldn't feel bad about not buying.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
1.- The author will not receive royalties whatever you do. It's part of the contract she signed with the publishing company. 2.- The publishing company has ceased printing the book, thereby implicitly ceasing their business of cashing dollars for selling the book. They do not want to continue doing business with the book. 3.- You want to read the book for personal use and not to make money with it. I would not have moral problems getting hold of a copy of the book, be it electronically or physically photocopying it.
If you borrow a book from a friend to read its ok, if you borrow a ebook from a friend to read its illegal. Why? The paper copy book borrowed is still the original book. The owner didn't photocopy it and give you the photocopy. A ebook transfered to your device even to read and delete is still a copy as all computer data transfers are copy. Copyright laws are seriously out dated for the technology age.
Huzur
If perhaps the owner of the copyright chose to remove a work from public distribution for various personal reasons, is it not that individual's right to stop the distribution of his work following the end of any existing contract? Many of these posts are making assumptions that have nothing to do with the owner's rights. What if the owner is working out an arrangement as you speak for electronic distribution of their work? Is it okay to preemptively take what is not yours because you would not wait? I agree with others here who suggest contacting the owner and asking permission.
A few years ago I read a few Larry Niven books as pirated ebooks because I couldn't buy them. Some time later I found his email address on the net and wrote him asking if he has any way for me to pay *him* for those books, cutting out the middlemen. He wrote me back with something to the effect of "Don't worry about it, I don't need every single penny that I can get."
I think that if a work isn't available in an electronic form that is open and priced at fair market value; then it deserves no copyright protection. I only pay for media that's in an open electronic form and priced at fair market value; everything else I pirate.
No, I will not work for your startup