Slashdot Mirror
Author Encourages Users to Pirate His Book
mariushm writes "Peter Cooper, the author of Beginning Ruby, breaks down how he gets paid for the book, including the advance and royalties, giving a nice clean explanation of how authors get paid for their books. He also describes the negotiations over the second edition of the book, in which he begged his publisher, Apress, to offer the ebook version for free, believing (strongly) that it would promote sales of the paper book. He even notes that the original version's ebook barely had noteworthy sales, so it seemed reasonable to offer up the ebook for free to drive more attention. No dice. Even though Apress has done that with other similar titles, it wouldn't agree. As he retains the copyright for the actual text, he encourages people to buy the book and create an online version of it without covers, contents table and indexes, promising not to enforce his copyright over the new work."
IAAL. 17 U.S.C. 501(b) authorizes an exclusive licensee to sue for inringement. he has granted an exclusive license. thus he might not want to sue you, but his publisher can. Look through the Silvers v. Sony Pictures case -- unless his contract specifically deals with the right to sue for infringement....his publisher can.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)