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Russian EBookseller LitRes Gets Competing EBook Apps Booted From Google Play
Nate the greatest writes "The developer of the popular Android app Moon+ Reader was surprised to discover this weekend that he is a filthy stinking pirate. Google informed him via an automated email that Moon+ Reader had been removed from Google Play because the app had switched to using pirate sites as the main sources of ebooks. Or at least, that's what LitRes claims, but when they complained to Google LitRes didn't tell the whole truth. What was really happening is that users of the app are enabling piracy, not the app itself. Thanks to the way Moon+ Reader is designed to let users share links to ebook sources some of the sources are indeed pirate sites (less than your average Google Search). In reality the app was no more a source of pirated content than your average web browser. What do you say when an ebook distributor's anti-piracy plan involves going after app developers rather than pirate sites? Something printable, IMO."
First of all, not everybody on earth can legally buy every book that he or she wants.
Depending on which country that you live in, there are restrictions imposed, prohibiting people from buying the "banned" books.
And in some countries, the "banning" has reached the cyberspace ... that is, not only you can't buy the dead-tree version of the book, you can't legally buy the ebook version, either.
Some of the government even installed bots watching over people who are on the Net.
For example, there are some books - if I want them - I can't get, from the place that I am staying right now.
They are not on display in brick and mortar bookstores. I can't place an order for them either.
And if I go online and try to pay and buy an ebook version (using my credit card) the bot may spot what I do and I may be invited for a cup of tea with some religious / political officials.
People in such position have two options:
1. Move out from that goddamn country
2. Download the pirated version
Option #1 seems obvious, but in some instances, not very practical. For family, business, or for whatever reason, people may not be so easily move from one country to the other.
Option #2, it's illegal, it's immoral, but then, government bots do not often watching over connections to the pirated sites.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
As the summary states, your argument applies equally to any web browser and google search, since those make it easy to find and download pirated material.
I've published two books in both print and eBook versions. Not surprisingly, the eBook versions have better sales. My digital editions are DRM-free, and I never thought twice about resisting the pirates. Most of these are likely to be in countries for which it would be a hardship to pay the book price. People in developed countries would rather have the convenience of a quick download from their usual, trusted site (Amazon, B&N), rather than what amounts to a fraction of a Starbucks coffee. Unlike someone stealing a print edition, I'm not losing anything, and that includes any thoughts about a potential lost sale.
It is proprietary software for the simplest of operations on a computer. Who really cares. Let the business people have their pissing match.
http://fbreader.org/FBReaderJ free and on github.
What do you say when an ebook distributor's anti-piracy plan involves going after app developers rather than pirate sites?
"If I were human, I believe my response would be, 'go to hell'. If I were human." -- Spock
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
No. You're the idiot.
That distinction is entirely imaginary and is dependent entirely upon the intent of the end user.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Sounds to me like the Moon+ Reader author should sue LitRes for Unjust Enrichment.
Also, seriously: Google taking action on an illegal app without judicial oversight?
This should be handled in exactly the same way as law enforcement requests: show the warrant first. (Or in this case, the judgement against.)
Society is quickly descending into a feudal corporate arms race. These sorts of shenanigans should be stomped on with both feet. If you can't compete fairly, then you shouldn't be in business.
There's a huge difference between "exists solely to facilitate piracy" and "can be used to facilitate piracy".
That distinction is entirely imaginary and is dependent entirely upon the intent of the end user.
You're both idiots. Let me explain by example: A nuclear bomb's purpose is to cause destruction. That doesn't mean it cannot facilitate peace. In the same way, even a tool designed solely to facilitate piracy could be used to reduce or prevent it. For example, if movies and other things now available on pirated websites were made available through an "official" site where you could get the same materials, and same quality, but it came with a time bomb that would cause it to cease being usable after a period of time. The problem with DRM is they put it on things you buy, but if they made it available for free, as a "try before you buy" product with the option to upgrade. It's been proven in case study after case study pirates buy more material outright than those who don't pirate. In other words: Your best customers are pirates.
As far as the line in the sand being dependent on intent, much of copyright law (not all!) falls under the umbrella of strict liability, which means intent doesn't have to be proven. The mens rea, or the "state of mind" of the criminal, plays no part. It is strictly the act itself which is considered. Either you did it, or you didn't. Intent is irrelevant. For example, if murder was a crime of strict liability, even if you shot a gunman who was about to mow down a bus full of children (a heroic act by most people's standards!) you'd be more of a criminal than the gunman -- he only threatened to shoot. You actually did.
This is why strict liability is so damned evil... it was created for situations where intent was unlikely to ever be proved (for example, improper toxic waste disposal... how can you prove any member of the corporation knew it was in violation? It may be impossible due to shared responsibility to identify the perpetuator of the criminal act as opposed to those who sincerely thought it was on the up and up), but expanded to include everything under the sun. It was also supposed to be a relatively lighter sentence, because there was no mens rea considered. That's also gone by the wayside.
So yeah, in short -- you're both wrong. But you both had the right idea.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I heard from a friend of a friend of an enemy that someone once used the Nook reader application to read a pirated book.
But I wouldn't trust a person like me, if I were you.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Yes, it's the same as the photocopier in the library... it can be used to facilitate breaking copyright laws... should the librarian be jailed or the photocopier maker be shut down for this ability?
No, but in a library where there is hard evidence of 99% of people using the photocopier to make illegal copies of books it might be smart to remove the photocopier from public access.
People jumped down Napster's throat because it didn't have substantial non-infringing uses. FTP, web browsers, Google, and other such technologies you and other commenters mention, have substantial non-infringing use.
So does Napster.
Napster had basically one purpose. That was to distribute MP3 files around the internet,
Actually, the one purpose Napster had was to index things that other people were making available.
Either choice is acceptable. The owner (google) of the library (play store) is perfectly free to choose whichever option they want. I've read the terms of service (https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html) and they allow for removing apps that "encourage or induce infringement of intellectual property rights", not just because of outright infringement. What exactly constitutes "encouragement" isn't spelled out, but leaves a lot of leeway for interpretation on Google's part.
I paid good money for what I consider one of the best ereaders on the google store. Now i have no access to it through Play if I ever need to reinstall it on any of my devices. I couldn't give a rip if some people were using it to pirate cause i wasn't. My license for the app is through Play so I have to pay again to get if from another source. So everybody that used the reader is now screwed. I most certainly won't be using Google's reader cause it sucks.... way behind moon reader in features and customization. But I guess that's okay since it supports DRM. Crap move Google... go after the sharers and not the users.
Well, I'd been meaning to check out Moon Reader, ever since Aldiko blocked the third party plugin that was providing Dropbox sync. This will likely push me over the edge.
Do I think it's bogus that Google pulled the app with seemingly no warning or no review? Yes. But, thanks to the fact that Android allows users to sideload (unless further blocked by horrible carriers like AT&T) this developer at least has recourse to continue providing his app by direct channels, and users can continue using it. Had this happened to a developer on the iOS app store (as it does all the time) that developer would have no recourse at all.
I hope that this gets resolved quickly, and I hope that this developer winds up getting more attention from this publicity in the end.
<pedantic>
1. ... (it's 'altogether', dammit.) - Punctuation should be inside parenthetical
2. "Your" is possessive, as opposed to a contraction of "You are" makes no sense when describing "inability."
3. privateer is spelled incorrectly
</pedantic>
<pedantic class="extra-pedantic">Punctuation should be outside of parenthetical remarks unless they form a complete sentence, which this probably doesn't. I cannot parse your second point as a valid sentence. You also missed other spelling errors ("ellipse" vs "ellipsis"), and phrasing errors (I assume that GPP did not actually intend to suggest the person he was replying to had misplaced incomplete sentences, but that is what he wrote). </pedantic>
Not seeing much difference between your post and the OP from an editing perspective. Something about glass houses and rocks.
Indeed.
One thing you are ignoring is that the kindle software will load ebooks that are not drm protected, you are not forced to buy ebooks from Amazon to read using the kindle software as long as you can get the ebook of interest on the device you can read it.
Realistically if I wanted to pirate ebooks all i need is a browser a search engine and a copy of the kindle software.
The issue with this software is it allows users to share links some of which can lead to commercial ebooks on pirate sites and some links are to non commercial ebooks. People create content all the time with the intent that it be freely shared. I like to write music, some people like to write story's, poetry, manuals and other stuff.
I honestly don't see a problem with this app if anything it seems like an improvement to the many other ereader programs out there. You seem to be arguing for approved sources and texts , do you really think that is a positive move?
The most positive thing we can do as people is the sharing of our culture and ideas.
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