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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."
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
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.
Well it's not quite as black and white as you make it out to be. There's a little wrinkle I'd like to point out.
First, some definitions. A "secondary market" is when people can sell assets to each other after the original creator has sold them. For example, a collectors bookstore selling a used book, or EB selling a used video game. The existance of a secondary market increases the "liquidity" of the asset, in that you're able to resell your asset quickly/easily for a fair price. This creates value for the asset holder.
In other words, a functioning used book market increases the value for all book holders. By getting rid of the secondary market, the value is destroyed for potential new-book buyers. They're still paying the same amount for a new book, but they won't have the option of receiving a salvage value when they're sick of the book. One person's actions can't get rid of the secondary market on their own of course, but if everyone did it... tragedy of the commons.
That said, in the provided example, I'd probably go for the ebook. Just consider the above when talking about used books in general.
Quick tangent: this is why I get pissed off at the videogame publisher group the ESA (EA, Ubisoft, etc) with their DRM and lawsuits. They're trying to kill off both trading and the selling of used games. They are reducing the value of their product by depriving me of a secondary market, while still increasing their prices every year. Of course they have an incentive to remove the secondary market; they want to increase the primary market to make money for themselves. Jerks.
You are talking about dissemination, not publication. Copyright encourages publication by giving the rights holder influence over dissemination.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
How many books have gone out of print in the last 50 years in the United States? How many were later brought back into print because of a resurgence in demand?
Practically all of them. Very Very Very few books are continually being printed.
The moment a book is finished its print run, and the publisher has unloaded all its copies the book is effectively out of print. (ie if you walk into your book store, and their supplier is out, they can't get it for you. It might be a couple more years before its actually 'hard to find'. At which point it may or may not be re-printed, or it may be a few years before its reprinted.
But for an example of a book that I personally know went out of print, and we later re-printed? Sure...
The "Warlock of Firetop Mountain" (Book 1 of the fighting-fantasy' series)
This book was originally published in 1982 by Puffin, it enjoyed multiple reprints in Canada, Britain, the US and Australia as the 'fighting fantasy' series proved popular, but the series was out-of-print by the mid 90's. It was reprinted in 2002 by 'Wizard Books' and that edition is also now out of print, and only available in the 2ndary markets. It was reprinted again in 2007 as a 25th Anniversayr Edition in hard-cover, which is again has sold out, and copies of that printing are only available on the 2ndary market.
So, at the moment, its out of print, again.
Now that's just one title. There were 59 books published as part of the original series (with a 60th book written, but not published, and a few spinoff books, and one spinoff series of 5 books.)
Of these, only 28 have been reprinted since 2002 'reboot' of the series (including 'book 60' which was never actually printed with the original series.) So, for example, in 2001 the ENTIRE series was out of print, and most of the books hadn't been printed in over 10 years. It was impossible to find outside of places like ebay. By 2007 almost half the series had been re-issued.
Seriously... this is hardly an unusual situation. A lot of books I have have been in and out of print multiple times over the last 50 years. Stuff by Philip K. Dick... stuff by Clarke, by Asimov, by Bester...
You only need to look for a few minutes to find this to be true.
You do know that it doesn't, right?
If he's not distributing the book or otherwise spreading around these copies, he is allowed under current fair use law to format shift his book in order to better suit his needs.
This is why the *AA types can't actually sue anyone who rips their music/dvd/whatever collection to a digital format, so long as there is no distribution (or intent to do so later) there is no legal recourse against someone who alters a work for their own personal convenience.
Nice try, though.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Yes you can, its called a scanner and OCR.
As one who has bought all his textbooks for school and then promptly downloaded/scanned them to use on his laptop, I can tell you it works quite well.
Author does not benefit from out-of-print books resales.
Author does benefit, indirectly. Significant demand for out-of-print books is precisely what generates the order for a reprint. And impacts the commissions he can command for his next book, the movie rights, etc, etc.
The argument that pirating (and going into libraries) deprives third-parties is about as bogus as my argument about bottled water sellers.
The difference is that these 3rd parties are precisely in the business of legally filling the niche of providing you access to out of print books you claim to want. You have a PERFECTLY LEGAL way of getting the book you want.
Your water bottle analogy is false because I'm not violating the creators copyright (or any other law) to get the toilet water I'm using.
Irregardless
Please do not use this non-word, it is painful to the eyes.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
IAAL and i know he is marked as a troll but he is perfectly correct.
The original post stated that he used a kindle book to print. This is disallowed :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530
QUOTE:
The Kindle Store enables you to download, display and use on your Device a variety of digitized electronic content, such as books, subscriptions to magazines, newspapers, journals and other periodicals, blogs, RSS feeds, and other digital content, as determined by Amazon from time to time (individually and collectively, "Digital Content").
and
Use of Digital Content. ... Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.
So unless express rights to print and store were provided with the ebook, printing an ebook from a kindle is illegal, even for non commercial personal use.
In short, no ebooks are sold by amazon, only licensed. You do not have the rights that you think you have.
ATTENTION: This is a posting on an internet forum and as such cannot be construed as legal advice. Contact an attorney licensed in your state for legal advice. This posting is not confidential and not covered under any form of confidentiality and cannot be construed as forming an attorney-client relationship in any form whatsoever.
have you ever heard of Hollywood accounting?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holywood_accounting
the creators often never get paid