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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."
Speaking as a student at the University of Helsinki, nearly all textbooks I need are offered by one of the libraries, who keeps a number of copies of each textbook around so that students can take them out, do the course, and then return them at the end of the semester. Until I read this, I never imagined that university students in this country ever have a hard time getting access to textbooks and would need some kind of outside service like that.
Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Book renal services are supposed to be very hard on the kidneys.
If I do not get any money, you are in breach of copyright laws.
I was about to say that books usually have a "do not rent" clause in the legal jargon on the inside, but I've just flicked through four of my uni textbooks and not one of them said it.
Assuming this is the same for the books being rented out, they're trying to stop a technically-not-illegal service from encouraging people doing something perfectly legal.
Eh?
This gets really stupid after a while. I mean everything you do will be a threat to someone's "business model". If I choose to walk to work then I threaten Fords model. If I choose to go the Gym instead of buying a wii-fit I'm hurting Nintendo.
Could my ISP sue me for writing a letter instead of an email?
Ridiculous is what it is.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Somebody is smelling blood here...
The logical conclusion of all this (including that EU law that is being looked at at the moment, where you have to be able to prove ownership of all media on your laptop/mp3player when crossing the border) is that private ownership cease to exist, and only corporations can own anything, and then allow the rest of us a peak once in a while, for a fee of course.
My only comfort is that when (if) the revolution comes it will no longer be the politicians who are first against the wall, but the copyright lobbyists...
In the USA, reselling a book is totally legal. I imagine that renting one is, too. Which part of the copyright law are they accused of breaking?
Robert Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein
.: Max Romantschuk
In the latest news publishers have launched legal action against the postal service for facilitating copyright violation. It has been discovered that copyright works have been transported through the postal system and publishers say that they are entitled to a payment from the postal service as they have access to material that is not theirs. A publishers representative has said "Why should the postal service profit from delivering our material to our customers without paying a fee to support our authors. After we send it and before our customers receive it the postal service has unauthorized access to copyright material denying our customers access to it during that period. We therefore believe that the postal service should pay a royalty to cover this period".
It seems to me that "copyright" refers, in the most straightforward way possible, to the "right to copy." There are no copies being made in this case. It is simple, exclusive transfer of one embodiment of a book's content, convenient embedded in the physical, tangible medium of dead tree.
No copy, no outrage.
But the lawyers are getting paid, so as usual they will entertain the self-serving legal theories of their clients with dignity and care until such time as they lose or go broke.
We need book DRM so that only the person who bought the book can read it. We also need to prevent people from reading books aloud so that they cannot be shared in other ways. That's the REAL reason I don't read books to my 2 year old... it would be immoral!!
I have seen some greedy bastards in my day, but this really takes a new low. This is essentially a social book club!! It's not like people are making copies of books and selling them. The publishers need their asses handed to them in a BIG way.
We gotta stop these RIAA/MPAA morons before they ruin every little thing.
Next thing these morons would change the law to outlaw public libraries. Politicians as they always are, care about the next campaign, and almighty money. So they would say to the public that terrorists used libraries to steal ideas for making bombs, and so libraries must be closed or terrorists would take over the world.
O'Reilly would jump in with a pinhead or patriot question about Paris Hilton being a pinhead for supporting libraries and Miley Cyrus as a patriot for saying libraries are dull (Jamie Foxx says that Cyrus should make a s*x tape in Library).
First of all, create a group, donate liberally to it, hire the best lobbyist and make politicians fight for you, against RIAA/MPAA. Fight fire with fire.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
This is such a poor plan. When you take music away from people, you take away entertainment. Take away books (especially text books), you make people dumber. And we have a problem with this already.
Pirate Bay? What the hell does this have to do with the Pirate Bay?
Somehow, I think that, since the pirate bay guys got a bad verdict, comparing organizations to the Pirate Bay because they're screwing with your profits will become a fad. In which case, with due credit to that Godwin chap, I hereby claim ownership of Alperxe's Law: "All discussions about an organization hurting IP-based corporations will eventually devolve into the target of the discussion being compared to The Pirate Bay".
Do we still have the right to read?
Posted by a Debian GNU/Linux user
TTVK:n mukaan vuokraaminen ilman kustantajien ja tekijöiden lupaa on laitonta, koska palvelu toimii internetissä, eli kuka tahansa voi käyttää sitä.
TTVK (Copyright-information and enforcement Association) says that renting without rights from publishers or writers is illegal, because the service operates over Internet, and everybody can use it. Source.
How can you possibly argue over so eloquent argument?
Chronologically late.
Now that the western society "wealth" generation is completely dependent on artificial scarcity, people who benefit the most from this charade will be trying very hard to protect their revenue streams. They will only fail if the "third world" manages to gather behind China's lead, emancipate itself from corporate slavery and take back what they rightfully deserve. The concept of intelectual property is flawed in surprisingly similar ways the idea of communism was. Instead of promoting well-being of the masses through supporting investment in research and creativity, it has become a tool of manipulation used by the elites.
Your business model is dead. Your lawsuit is the wake.
~kulakovich
This was the last straw for me so I decided to do something and I ask my fellow Finns to do the same:
Request and sign a supporter card of The Pirate Party in Finland. Do it here, it obliges you to nothing and doesn't make you a member of the party, you only sign it to show that you want The Pirate Party to be registered. Once they have 5 000 signatures, they can become a registered party and enter elections. The immediate advantage will of course be the increased publicity once they are registered.
Ps. Please mod this up.
Hello everyone, I'd like to announce that I have a solution which will work for everyone. Through my solution, you will actually OWN the copyrighted works you purchased, in accordance with the law. However my solution includes a safeguard which 100% guarantees that copyrights will not be infringed outside of the framework of Fair Use.
My solution is revolutionary, and yet so obvious, it's amazing to me that no one has ever considered it. To me, the "intellectual property" holders seem completely stupid, just barely approaching the intelligence of an idiot savant.
Now, please, hold back your excitement. I'll reveal my proposal very shortly, but first I need to inform you that both my copyright enforcement/protection method AND my business method are patented. You may contact me privately to inquire about licensing my patent and of course to learn where you may remit the licensing fees, which I am confident you will find completely reasonable.
Surely you are familiar with gold and other precious metal certificates, and you are familiar with futures. What I propose is selling not your copyrighted works, since distributing them makes your intellectual property vulnerable to relentless infringement and violates your right to control the resale and/or rental of those works due to that pesky doctrine of first sale.
Instead, what I propose is not the sale of books, CDs, MP3s, and DVDs, but rather, that you sell book CERTIFICATES. MP3 CERTIFICATES. DVD CERTIFICATES. Perhaps even COMPUTER SOFTWARE CERTIFICATES (I still have to work out the licensing details on the software - that is a business idea which is patent pending, because you know, the methods with movies and books are patented, but "doing it with computers" is a completely novel implementation so of course you understand I must patent it). Instead of delivering that copyrighted work to the customer, the customer receives a hologram-imprinted official certificate of deposit, where the book, MP3, CD, or DVD is always retained by the copyright holder and placed into escrow.
These certificates may be sold, resold, and rented to the owners' hearts' content; use of the Copyrighted Work Certificates are unrestricted in their use. Need toilet paper? Use your certificate. You're a worthless stoner and need a hit? Just roll one up in your certificate. Want to run a book or movie rental business? This program is for you, Need to invest in your college education? This solution isn't for you. Instead see the "Futures" section below.
Regarding Copyrighted Work Futures: this is somewhat similar to the Copyrighted Work Certificate, except in this case you are trading on the the speculated future worth of our intellectual property. Of course, the futrure value of each Copyrighted Work Certificate will vary based on the demand and popularity of our works. You may trade these futures any time you wish, but we recommend purchasing in advance of our non-publication dates for our copyrighted works for maximal investment value.
As you can see, my solution is completely flawless. Copyrights cannot be infringed by reading, listening to, or watching them, so no unauthorized, infringing copies are retained in anyone's brain. Our copyright cannot be violated by parodies, commentaries, or criticisms. We will never receive a bad review, so no one can possibly libel our works. Most importantly, no one will be able to steal our rightful revenue by reselling those copyrighted works. We even will admit that you own these Copyrighted Work Certificates.
It is the perfect solution that doesn't allow those pesky first sale doctrine and fair use clauses interfere, nor DMCA exceptions! You can start thanking me now.
Aren't you happy I created this noteworthy solution?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"pirates"
I know you are joking about pirates, but this "pirates" meme is pure PR. This legal move isn't about pirates or copyright or even about Pirate Bay. This is companies (using the smoke screen of the national copyright lobby) as a means to game the legal system into preventing people from using a business model that reduces their income. Using the name Pirate Bay is simply an attempt to use it for PR purposes to imply the business model of sharing is wrong. Book companies want to sell books and prevent people from sharing books.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Well, speaking as an actual publisher, I don't see a problem with Bookabooka. They aren't making any copies, and what people want to do with books once they've bought them, so long as they aren't breaking the law, is their own business.
Besides, if one of my company's books is being rented, hopefully whoever rents it will like it enough that they buy a copy for themselves.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Of course, maybe with all the piracy paranoia we allowed things to degenerate into a situation that companies want to be protected from ANYTHING that would hurt their sales. Not something I like.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I did not complain as I do not listen to music. They came for my books and I did not complain as I do not read. Then they came for my porn, and then I joined the revolution.
oh wait... they do!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
First the seize ships off the coast of Somalia, and then it's on to giving people who want books the names of other people who have them...
(sarcasem) I'll be happy when they focus on the Taxi companies. Damned pirates, if they weren't buying a few cars and then renting them to deadbeat consumers, those deadbeats would have to BUY A CAR!! If all consumers had to own their own car, GM would be healthy!! This piracy is the root of the world's economic ills, I tell you!! (/sarcasm)
Seriously, there goes the right of first purchase.
"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
If they win, the TTKV most likely will need to pay for bookabooka's legal expenses.
- Raynet --> .
You seem to be a Finn based on your other comments - I would just like to clarify. Normally I'd say "like hell they would". But this would likely be tried in Finland, and so I assume your comment means "loser pays" is common in the legal system there?
On principle, US law has avoided that due to it being a potentially great imbalance. If I defend myself against the RIAA hoardes and loser pays, a technicality ruling could mean I have to pay millions in legal fees to RIAA laywers, while my defense is going to be a single affordable lawyer. My single guy against a hoarde of legal eagles makes it likely they can get out on a technicality my guy never saw coming. Losing the case means I am also bankrupt.
So "loser pays" can have the effect of making the little guy roll over for anything but the surest of victories.
The first thing that I thought after reading the TFS, "this BookaBooka thing is a wonderful idea, I wonder if there's one around here".
No, really. No matter how I look at it, it sounds great. It's perfectly moral (despite the fact that I'm not anti-copyright in general), since all books have been bought. Authors have been compensated. And it's a service valuable for the society as a whole.
I hope this lawsuit dies the way it deserves, and the idea catches on around the world.
In Finland the loser usually has to pay the legal expenses of the winner, doesn't matter who brought up the case. But even if you win, you cannot just send the bill from your 200 lawyers to the loser as it is the judge who decides what is the reasonable amount of legal expenses to be paid. Usually it is thousands, maybe tens of thousands of euros, but not more.
It does have somewhat chilling effect, but also is very effective to prevent frivolous cases. And many people have home insurance that also pays some of the legal expenses.
And to protect the little guy, we have things like Consumer Protection Agency, who takes the company to court on your behalf if it thinks there is a reason to make them comply with the law.
- Raynet --> .