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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."
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...
Robert Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein
.: Max Romantschuk
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.
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.
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.
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).
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? /. talk about this as if it's a normal thing. Maybe it is in the USA, that doesn't mean it is everywhere.
I see americans on
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.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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!
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.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
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.
I don't read AC A human right