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

Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[CRCulver]

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.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[Sockatume]

Unfortunately it varies for entirely predictable reasons. At my UK university, while there are plenty of postgraduate or specialist texts compared to demand, there are usually at most three copies of anything, which is insufficient for undergraduate classes in the hundreds. Therefore year after year there's a stack of new editions of the basic texts in the book shop which are eagerly snapped up. I imagine the publishers wouldn't be happy if the university bought 200 of the current edition every five years.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have to disagree with you. The availability of books depends significantly on your major. The situation which you describe can be true with books which are used on courses with a few (20) students. I'll dare to say that you are in the tiny minority of university students in Finland, who can find _nearly all_ or even a significant amount of their textbooks in libraries.

Unfortunately all books in first-year studies in, for example engineering, are quite scarce in libraries. Three examples from my own university:

University physics by Young & Freedman: 9 copies, approx 100 students, price ~80e
Calculus by Robert A. Adams: 8 copies, approx 50 students, price 77e
Microelectronic circuits by Sedra & Smith: 10 copies, approx 50 students, price ~60e

So, I have no problems imagining that such a service would be needed.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[TheP4st]

Erm

no one uses this site

Just wait for the Streisand effect to kick in. ;-)

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[cjfs]

Speaking as a student at the University of Helsinki, nearly all textbooks I need are offered by one of the libraries,

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?

Very strange system you guys have there.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[marsu_k]

Or maybe Finns on average are smart enough not to install Alexa Toolbar? Anyway, the service is quite new, and before this incident relatively unknown. At least I had never heard of it until this incident, and same applies to several people who discussed this on Helsingin Sanomat website (many of which noted they shall be using the service as text book prices are not reasonable for majority of students).

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:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[mrphoton]

Thank you Finish copyright police TTVK or who every you are. I had never heard of this service before. It sounds great and now I might just use it!

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[oodaloop]

I hope these book publishers never find out about these things called "libraries", where in the US they outnumber even McDonalds. They're the original Pirate Bay, dens of malicious copyright infringers, intent on taking money away from the poor little book publishers.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[Lumpy]

it is human nature to treasure those things that are hardest to obtain either by price or by work.

By work? yes. by price? that's funny.

something hard to attain by price is folly, and are only treasured by the shallowest of humanity.

Those that work HARD are always more celebrated and respected. It's why a man that builds his own hotrod is far, FAR, more respected than the rich guy that bought his.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[Firethorn]

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.

Like a lot of things in the USA, we're actually very fragmented. Remember, we don't have a national school system, we have 50 state level systems.

Some universities this practice is prevalent, in others it's actually forbidden. I remember one university that would allow a professor to teach from his own book - but such book had to be sold to the students at printing cost.

printed a large chunk of the content for us free in the form of a handout

Time for me to get a bit technical. Assuming said book had enough copies for economies of scale to take effect(several thousand copies IIRC), it's actually substantially cheaper to print the book than to 'copy' it using a laser printer/copier. You can get better results as well.

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 have a theory that easy availability of credit/assistance has actually skewed the cost of a degree higher, much like the housing market.

Easy availability of credit means that individuals that wouldn't have gone go, and those that would have gone to a cheaper school go to an expensive one instead.

As a result, many universities haven't had to control their spending in quite a long time, despite all the moaning about not wanting to raise tuition. They've almost forgotten how to economize. To save money.

Restrict credit such that students don't actually HAVE the money to go to their college, and I'm willing to bet that the college would find a lot of ways to save money and reduce their expenses.

It's my personal philosophy that students DO need to pay for most of their degree; it's a good way to make sure they value it.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[MasterOfMagic]

Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. I had assumed that there were more McDonald's in the world than libraries in the US. Around my apartment, there are no fewer than 4 McDonald's within walking distance, but only one branch library.

I had begun to think that maybe Americans liked cheap, disgusting food more than they liked reading.

Re:Who needs to hunt down textbooks in Finland?

[TooMuchToDo]

Funny story. I was at the library the other day looking for a very specific electronics book and passed a teen with a laptop, and external hard drive, and a stack of DVDs. As I walked past I glanced and saw him him running DVD Decryptor while he surfed the web. I said "Don't fill that drive all in one place chief." He just laughed as I kept walking.

Don't mess with renal services...

[lxs]

Book renal services are supposed to be very hard on the kidneys.

Copyright laws redefined

[tangent3]

If I do not get any money, you are in breach of copyright laws.

Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Wait...

[91degrees]

But even if it did, what difference does it make?

You can't make arbitrary demands on a purchaser after the purchase. What if it said "You agree to pay the author a subscription to continue using this book after a year"?

Re:Wait...

[rednuhter]

Books and even DVDs cannot be "do-not-rent" if you BUY them. It's the "first sale doctrine" -- you bought it, it's yours! You can lend, rent and sell them, at your hearts will.
In what country/ies ?
We are talking about Finland here

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...

Re:Wait...

[mrvan]

I'm not completely free to ignore it if as soon as I engage in the behaviour that the GPL covers I have to abide by it.

You're free to ignore the GPL as long as you don't do anything restricted by copyright law, ie distribution, creating a derived work etc.

You can *use* the copy you bought in any way you like, as you have not entered in a contract with the developers. However, to *copy* something you need permission because of copyright law (not because of the GPL per se), and the easiest way to get this permission is to enter in the GPL contract, which gives you this permission in return for certain considerations.

There's an offer, which you are free to accept or refuse, and there are fair considerations for both sides, so this is clean contract law matter.

If copyright is abolished, you have no need whatsoever to enter into the contract, so it is copyright law, not the GPL, that is forcing you to do stuff.

Re:Wait...

[RKThoadan]

IANAL but I believe there is a significant legal difference between a license (the GPL) and a contract. If someone "breaks" the GPL you would sue them for copyright infringement, not breach of contract. Those are two very different sets of laws.

Stupid.

[haeger]

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.

Re:Stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the USPS, and you are threatening our business model by posting an 'electronic message' in lieu of sending said message through our mail system. Please cease and desist all electronic messaging, as it could lead to the bankruptcy one of a critical US system (which is too big to fail without detriment to the economy).

Re:Stupid.

[toyjoy]

I agree with you.

The Finnish national copyright lobby should be sued just by putting this in consideration. Why shouldn't i rent something that is mine ??? Or when i buy a book i'm not really buying it but i'm only getting the possibility to read the book and put it in a shelve getting dust over the years.

I'm reading a book that were from my parents i hope that's not a crime.

Re:Stupid.

[Renraku]

Companies exist only because we the consumers support them.

You are not threatening someone's business model if you do not buy from them. The onus is on the company to come up with a business model that will compel you to buy from them. If they fail to do that, then that's their own fault. As long as you aren't breaking any laws.

In the end, its all about money. Buggy-whip manufactures never did have millions of dollars to waste trying to lobby to congress to outlaw cars. Nintendo doesn't have that kind of money to waste, either. Hell, even Ford didn't back in his day.

However, media companies do. Oil companies do. Banks do.

Guess who law will favor in the future?

You could very well be looking at criminal charges for not paying off your credit card bill, or at having your door kicked in by the SWAT team because you downloaded some music online.

The companies with the most power are exactly the ones that shouldn't have any.

Re:Stupid.

[Creepy Crawler]

Not exactly.

Once certain companies gain a certain critical mass, they are seen as "vital to the economy" and the government will bend over to them. In cases of copyrights and media companies, this means a rather unfair Media Tax.

Garbage like this also guarantees that killing them is that much tougher. Government has seen to their protection, so then govt is the thing that needs to be brought down a notch to stop the support.

Re:Stupid.

[freedom_india]

If i continue to live, am a threat to the Hearse makers consortium.
If i die, am a threat to the pharma companies.
If i read, am a threat to RIAA.
If i write, am a threat to MPAA.
If a watch a movie, am a threat to Authors Guild
If i sit at home idle, am a threat to Comcast Cable.
If i browse the internet, am a threat to NY Times
So basically, everything i do or not do is a threat to some industry.

Re:Stupid.

[Ed Avis]

The onus is on the company to come up with a business model that will compel you to buy from them.

Ugg, be careful what you wish for: DRM systems are exactly designed to 'compel' you to pay money for things which were previously your fair use rights.

The onus is on government to make a system that creates just enough artificial monopoly rights to 'promote progress in science and the useful arts', while minimizing the effect on individual liberty.

Re:Stupid.

[WCMI92]

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?

This is pretty much the welfare mentality that has infected business. Businesses and industries now think that just because they have made money in the past that they are entitled to it in the future, even with changing technology and such that might make what they are doing obsolete. IE: the recording industry... So, just like the lazy do-less welfare slob, these companies thinks that the public owes them something for nothing regardless of what they do or don't do.

"Adapt or Die" has become "Pay me or get sued"

Smell of blood/books in the morning, etc.

[BeShaMo]

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...

Re:Smell of blood/books in the morning, etc.

[redhog]

The "revolution" is already here. It isn't a bloody one though, just the Pirate Party lining up for the EU parliament election the 7th of June.

We fight for your rights. We fight for a Free Internet. Vote for your local Pirate Party.

Re:Smell of blood/books in the morning, etc.

[CarpetShark]

Somebody is smelling blood here...

Yes, and given how corporations are lining up on one side, and how young private citizens are lining up in Sweden, that blood might well come in the form of a civil war one day.

Is this even illegal?

[eyal0]

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?

Re:Is this even illegal?

[MichaelSmith]

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?

Apparently some people actually borrow books from libraries without paying at all. Its a scandal.

Coming from an author...

[Max Romantschuk]

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

Robert Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

Re:Coming from an author...

[MichaelSmith]

Arthur Clarke used to say that if anybody sent him a book to sign (and send back) he would just give it to a local library. He may lose a sale by doing that but it is more likely he will gain a sale. When I was young I mainly read library books, and books borrowed from other sources. I only bought books when I had the money, which wasn't very often.

Re:Coming from an author...

[mspohr]

When you send something to somebody in the mail, you are giving it to them. They can do anything they want with it. It is no longer your property.

This is firmly established in the US because companies used to send unsolicited merchandise to people and then demand payment. They sent it to you, you can keep it.

Where else can we extract money ?

[Going_Digital]

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".

What copy?

[Moblaster]

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.

What we need is a little DRM

[erroneus]

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.

Next will be Public Libraries

[freedom_india]

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.

Don't do this

[Idiot with a gun]

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.

Godwin variant

[xouumalperxe]

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".

The right to read

[tpwch]

Do we still have the right to read?

Because of Internet

[iJusten]

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?

Re:Because of Internet

[oneirophrenos]

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.

That is super retarded. What about libraries? Since when could *everyone* not use them? Greedy people will think of any justification to get more money.

TTVK: Your dinosaur is double-parked.

[kulakovich]

Your business model is dead. Your lawsuit is the wake.

~kulakovich

Finns do this! (And anyone: Please mod this up!)

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Well.

[MindKata]

"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.

Re:Speaking as a publisher...

[Garwulf]

I'd also add that the point of a publisher business model is to get the books you publish into the hands of paying readers. This means being realistic about what is out there, and not wasting valuable time on side-issues.

For example, I don't sell e-book versions of the books I publish. I have e-samples available for the new books, and full e-books for the public domain reprint(s), but I don't charge a cent for either. That's just because the e-book represents so little of the book market (frequently less than 0.7%) that concentrating on making inroads there just doesn't get books into the hands of readers - although they are very good for free advertising on file sharing websites. On the other hand, a new technology is being tested called an Expresso Book Machine, or EBM, that prints a book for a reader within minutes, and could allow any bookstore with one of these machines to have access to millions of books. That is something I am going to try to get into at the earliest opportunity.

This Bookabooka thing is a waste of time for a publisher. It's not going to cut into book sales any more than the second hand book market will, and the only thing you can do by trying to fight them is enrich your lawyer while alienating the people your business model relies on to buy your books. It's a side-issue, and wasted time that could be spent publishing more books.

Re:Well.

[Runaway1956]

(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.

Re:Well.

[b4dc0d3r]

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.