Copyright Lobby Targets "Pirate Bay For Books"

An anonymous reader writes "TTVK, a Finnish national copyright lobby, is threatening a book rental service called Bookabooka for allegedly running the 'Pirate Bay for Books.' Bookabooka however does not offer a torrent tracker service, nor does it enable a user in any way to download eBooks; it simply provides a place for book owners to rent textbooks to each other via the traditional mail service. It is mandatory that all textbooks must be originals. The service is used by a lot of School and University students, and it does not handle the shipping or returns of the textbooks. Nevertheless, the Finnish book publishers' association (Suomen Kustannusyhdistys) is convinced the service is breaching the copyright laws and threatening their business. TTVK has given Bookabooka until Friday to cease operations or face a lawsuit. Bookabooka's founders have vowed to keep the service online and ignore the threat."

Comments

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[petermgreen]

I don't understand how this works. If this was the case, what incentive would the professor have to require four of his books and never use them in the course?
I see americans on /. talk about this as if it's a normal thing. Maybe it is in the USA, that doesn't mean it is everywhere.

At least on my course ( electronic systems engineering at manchester in the uk ) with a combination of good handouts and a reasonable library there is little need to purchase books. I think i've purchased one textbook so far on my course (and i've nearly finished said course)

The one time i've noticed a lecturer putting one of his own books on the "reccomended books" list he made sure there were plenty of copy of copies in the library, printed a large chunk of the content for us free in the form of a handout and basically explicitly advised us not to buy it.

Very strange system you guys have there.
I have to say I think the american system which drives students into insane ammounts of debt both directly with fees and with very high other expenses is pretty strange/fucked up.

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Re:Wait...

[jsiren]

In Finland authors get compensated for library loans of their books ("kirjastokorvaus"). It's recognized that copies in public libraries account for some lost sales, so a small compensation is paid.

About DVD rentals: It seems that the rental DVD itself is no different from a purchase copy, but it comes with a "permission to rent." Should I happen to lose or destroy the disc, I would be charged something like 45 to 90 e (asked a movie rental place once). I don't know if that's the real price or if the shop has an insurance that pays for the rest - or if it's an incentive not to lose the DVD...