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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.
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.
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...
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.
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 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
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.
Seriously. Who cares? This is about an ethical question, which most of us care about rather than "is this illegal". Like most sane people they want the money they spend on the book to go to the author and to read it in an electronic format.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
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?
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.
This is one of those cases you might just contact the author and ask.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There's a valid claim in that purchasing a used book does benefit the publisher...it reduces the copies of used books out there, and makes it more likely they will sell a new one.
You may think that's rather indirect, but not really. They sold every single copy of their book out there exactly once. Any behavior that results in more copies of their book out there is beneficial to them, and someone buying a used copy means someone else didn't buy that used copy and might buy a new copy. (Or might buy a different used copy, which might result in someone else buying a new one, and so on...)
In the end, every copy of a used book you buy, or even every copy of a new book you bought and then didn't resell, is, statistically, about 4/5ths of a new book sale eventually made somewhere out there when someone would have purchased that copy and instead purchased another one. Losing only the 1/5th extra when people bought a different book instead, because that one wasn't handy or they never even heard of it.
Of course, none of this applies if the work is out of print. I have no moral qualms about making any amount of copies of out-of-print works I want. I can't possibly increase their sales by buying used copies if they aren't selling it. All I'm going to do it make it harder for other people to get a hold of it.
No, I don't care that demand for an out-of-print product could, in theory, cause it to come back in print. It is not my fucking job to fix the stupidity of companies not having actually popular books in print.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Boomer: I agree.
Copyright law got royally screwed up a few years ago. Now its principle purpose is to protect corporations from loss of perpetual profits, which is damn close to the antithesis of its original purpose (protecting the actual creator of a work from being screwed by marketeers).
Until there is a US Congress with the guts and brains to rewrite copyright law in keeping with its original intent, there is a strong Thoreau-ish argument that violating this law, in those manifold instances where it provides no benefit at all to any individual, is an expression of patriotic civil disobedience.
Go make your e-copy for yourself, or acquire one through whatever means you can find, knowing that you are not harming any individual. If you share that e-copy with friends or anonymous acquaintances, you are going a step further in limiting, to some small degree, the culture of corporate greed that has been allowed to wreck the USA economy in eight short years.
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? that doesn't even make sense. I guess I'm hurting those poor used book stores as well, since I use the library. People don't "deserve" to earn money if they don't provide a service people want; those stores will exist as long as people want to buy used books, and no longer.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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.
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.
Nobody can say you broke the law unless you have a conviction, so it's only illegal if you get caught. Lawyers may disagree, but if you need to speak to a lawyer you have gotten caught, thus my argument doesn't apply.
Is it unethical to steal a second hand book? The initial cost of a book should account for the possibility of selling it second hand, so you are stealing from the original book buyers. That's not a huge deal. Also, the dynamics of the book industry relies on second hand book sales being a little cumbersome, so you are messing with their well balanced system. Maybe their system needs to change though.
OT: nice sig. Slashdot *should* have a -1 disagree, that is secretly ignored.
you DO know that this violates copyright law, right ?
you have no right to reproduce a copyrighted work without reproduction rights from the author.
format shifting for personal use is legal.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
exactly. we need to shape our laws to conform with our sense of ethics, not shape our ethics to conform with our existing laws.
i think this is a very interesting moral dilemma.
since the book is out of print, there's really no way of paying the author/publisher for a copy of the text. even if you buy a book used, the copyright holder doesn't see a cent of it. it's not like if the used book store sells out of their stock they'll order another shipment of that text from the publisher.
legally you'd be violating the author or publisher's copyright. but your decision won't make a difference to anyone except you and the used book salesman if you decide to buy a used copy. however, there's no ethical obligation for you to purchase your copy of the text from the used books salesman on Amazon.
personally, i don't see anything wrong with downloading a pirated copy in this situation, just seed the torrent until you have at least a 1:1 ratio. you're not hurting anyone financially or otherwise. but if you really want to support the author, you can look up his address or PO Box and mail him some money.
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.
>Nobody can say you broke the law unless you have a conviction, so it's only illegal if you get caught.
so i can kill you and provided i dont get caught its not illegal ? uuh ?
>Is it unethical to steal a second hand book? The initial cost of a book should account for the possibility of selling it second hand, so you are stealing from the original book >buyers. That's not a huge deal.
uuh ? so every book should cost $1000 to account for the possibility of second hand sales ?
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.
What you say is completely reasonable, ought to be true, used to be true in the U.S., and still partly is, but unfortunately the DMCA screwed it up. Circumventing a technological measure meant to prevent copying is now illegal in and of itself, even if your use of the copy is completely innocent under copyright law. Commercial DVDs and most proprietary ebook formats have encryption measures that invoke this legal "protection". (I am not a lawyer and this may be an oversimplification. The DMCA does provide some exemptions to the anti-circumvention clauses but overall the consumer seems to get screwed over pretty well.)
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?"
By downloading the pirated ebook, aren't you reducing the general market for the used book? So even though you're not necessarily going to purchase a specific copy from a specific used bookseller, in principle you're weakening his market. Why is that any less wrong than diluting the original creator/publisher's market by illegally duplicating a book that's still in print? Used bookstores are extremely valuable parts of our commercial landscape, IMO.
(not judging/flaming you, I agree: it's an interesting moral dilemma).
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.
This is a bit of 'if a tree falls , and there is no one around to hear it , does it make a sound'
In law ,if no-one knows you killed someone , then you didn't.Until someone finds out you did.
(Innocent until prooven guilty).
Slipping shoelaces ?
The public does not, and should not, have immediate right to override the wishes of the creator, simply because the technological means are readily available. In a capitalist society that values individual means fairly gained by individual achievement, the gains of copy-rights should be upheld.
Actually no, the public should have the right to override the wishes of the creator of the copyright. Copyright is granted by the Government and the only reason content creators have copyright is through the support of the public through Government enforcement. Copyright is not a God Given right, it is an artificial construct that is supposed to benefit society in the long run and the copyright holders in the short term. In a truly capitalistic society, copyright wouldn't exist because it is not the free market, it is a Government granted monopoly on your work. Nothing about copyright is free market.
Copyright is not supposed to be a one sided deal where someone creates a work and profits off of it forever and ever. It is (was?) meant to be a contract between content creators and the public. You profit off of your work and the Government will enforce your copyright through laws/courts in exchange for the work being available to the public sometime in the future. These days copyright holders are not holding up their end of the bargain. As a matter of fact it seems that copyright holders believe that a creation of these should belong to them for ever and that the tax payers should forever guarantee they profit off of it until the end of time. Sounds like a bum rap to me, especially in the case of abandonware/out of print books where the copyright holder still has enforcement rights over something they seem not to have an interest in anymore.
Judging by your sig you seem cynical about people benefiting from copyrighted works by "being cheap" and "wanting things for free" but it was never free for us. Every day we foot the bill for copyright enforcement and the amount of money gets higher and higher. Look at criminal enforcement of protecting copyrights, that is a lot of salaries to pay to make sure Company X, Y, & Z profit. Perhaps you should look at piracy as a market force rather than "a bunch of cheap fucks" because there will always be the latter but when a whole bunch of society does it, it is time to change your business model, not try to force society to conform to an outdated business model.
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
They would have the right to buy the texts, and then you could have used them as a beta-tester.