It would be interesting to see some surveys on how much people who buy new books care about the resale value.
I suspect not much. Most people who buy new books don't sell them. It would be much more interesting to see some surveys on how much people who sell the books they buy care about the resale value. Strangely I think this group might actually care a fair bit.;)
#2: What? I haven't bought my music as CDs for ages, I buy digital (yea, drm-free) files. Does this make me a bad person for making the brick-and-mortar music store owners starve?
Not at all. But if a title you want isn't available legally as a DRM free download, does that make it ok to just take an infringing copy? Or would you be obligated to buy it? And if it wasn't in print, to buy it used? I'd argue that if you wanted that title badly enough, you should buy it legally where you can legally get it, or else not have it.
If its not available AT ALL, then at that point, I could see their being an ethical justification for making a copy.
Digital distribution would help here,... There are also print-on-demand shops, which might be a decent idea, but I suspect the production costs per book are much higher than with mass printing.
I agree. I see these as the natural endgame to this issue.
See I think that's a big step. Recognizing that the rights holder should have the opportunity to issue another print run within a 'reasonable time frame' I think is a big step towards making it 'ethical to copy it'. And that clearly simply acheiving 'out of print status' is jumping the gun.
Personally, though I think that 'reasonable time frame' should be at LEAST several years after the channel clears, and even longer if the title is readily available in 2ndary markets.
So while I agree you shouldn't have to trawl the world for 5 years to find the 'last new copy', if spending 5 minutes typing the book name in abebooks.com, amazon.com, or yahoo... nets you dozens of sellers with used copies, the market is adequately satisfying your desire for the book. But if you can't find the book at all, then yeah, after a couple years it should be ok to make a copy... but where are you going to find one to make a copy from if no makes an unethical copy before that?;)
Personally I think all IP should be stored in a government run database and released into the public domain when copyright expires, and sooner if the rights holder vanishes (make them renew copyright every few years for a couple bucks), or if the IP is no longer readily available to the public. (I see a print-on-demand business model springing up to 'protect' ip rights holders... but the public benefits from it too -- the stuff is always available.)
But at what performance cost. If we are talking about the whole "Vista Capable" debacle, aren't we talking about low spec machines that coughed and wheezed when running the low-end version of the OS. Great, lets add 3D rendering to the processor load on those machines.
Seriously, its not the CPU utilization on these low end units was the bottleneck. Low RAM, crappy video cards yes, but even on an 4+ year old Pentium 4 vista doesn't exactly tax the cpu much.
You're assuming we were going to buy a copy to begin with, the very same false logic the RIAA/MPAA uses.
It you read what the original article writer actually wrote, he would have bought a copy if it was available new from the publisher. So we've got that as our starting point. That is the context here.
Now, as for what you actually wrote, look, either you agree with copyright or you don't. If you don't agree with it, fine. But that's a separate issue.
If you do agree with it, then you should buy a copy of the book, borrow it from a friend, or borrow it from a library. You shouldn't download an infringing torrent. Period.
If you can get it for free from the library, then ACTUALLY DO THAT. There is no reason for you to infringe copyright, so don't. The fact that its 'more convenient' your way is the price you pay to use the library. Suck it up. If you don't want to buy a copy for yourself you should be limited to actually using what you can legally borrow for free. Once you've bought a copy, you can exercise fair use to format shift it, YOURSELF.
The fact that some else has come along and taken the book, format shifted it into a form you find most convenient, and is distributing it for free is a gigantic exercise in infringement. If you want send a message to publishers that this is how you want your books, stop reading books that are only published on paper, and start reading ebooks.
Similarly if you want to send a message to the RIAA/MPAA don't download their content, just STOP CONSUMING IT. If you want their content, then buy it, or listen to it on the radio, or borrow it from your friends who bought it. Spend your money on bands that are selling mp3s or whatever it is you DO want.
Well... then they better try again. It still sounds like a complete failure to me. Since the integrated graphics is equivalent, there is no advantage, and no resolution to the problem. What exactly are you try to get at?
Except the integrated graphics on a bunch of 'Vista Capable' laptops DON'T do DirectX10 or Aero... but if a patch to Vista (or Windows 7) will get Aero working on directX10 on the CPU... a buttload of PCs that CAN'T currently do Aero, now CAN.
Though sadly, the authors won't benefit either way in this case, only the publisher will.
This is possibly a clue as to why it won't be reprinted. There may be multiple parties who own the rights that can't come to an agreement.
Another possibility is that they want to funnel interest into their current product line, and print large runs of that, rather than print smaller runs of multiple product lines. Of course they have no interest in delegating the job of handling this to antoher company that's interested in doing... the paperwork alone would eat up the profits... and it might cannibalize their own sales... so its never going to happen.
Both of these are negative side-effects of copyright combined with the free market.
2. We shouldn't have to buy books on the used market just to keep someone from starving. If the used book selling business is obsolete thanks to digital distribution, those people need to get new jobs.
I agree entirely with that. However, if the author hasn't made this book available via digital distribution, then what gives us the ethical right to override that decision and download an infringing copy to avoid paying for it, given that the book is readily and legally available?
So why is ok to make an infringing copy, against the authors wishes, simply because a 3rd party profits instead of the author. Why is up to YOU to decide that if you don't like the party that will profit (from the author/publishers) decision, that you can override it?
Sadly, never as long as the GUI works most Joe and Jane sixpacks will be just fine; and yes I do know about the Vista debacle but I think the point is still valid.
Then you'd be mistaken. Both OSX and Microsoft effectively require hardware 3D acceleration for their desktop effects. All new Macs and any PC that actually meets Vista's real requirements feature 3D acceleration.
Since Switzerland didn't declare war, "pre-war" is a non-sequitor for them.
Not at all. Just because a country wasn't in the war, that doesn't mean they don't acknowledge that it existed, that it started or that it ended. Switzerland can talk about what it was doing pre-WW2, post-WW2, and during WW2 without it being a non-sequitor.
I agree with the Chinese viewpoint that WW2 started in 1931...
The date the world has agreed a war started is pretty arbitrary in almost ANY war, but it serves as useful frame of reference, and its not generally useful not use the 'agreed date'.
It's not out-of-print until it's not available brand new from retailers or by order from the publisher.
So if 3 new copies are available and in stock at a single small retailer in New York, then its not out of print? That meets the 'available brand new from retailers' qualification.
Interesting definition. I think it falls short.
What if its not available from the publisher, but another print run has already been scheduled? What if that print run is scheduled a year from now? What if it goes 10 years without a run, and then make a movie of one of the authors other works gets made into a movie, and the publisher, at that point, feels their is a market for the rest of the authors back-catalog?
There's a small possibility of a reprint.
A chance that goes to zero if demand satisfies itself by just making their own (infringing) copies.
If the publisher ever makes the hypothetical reprint of the book, well, then you can buy it properly at such time as they're willing to sell it to you.
That's silly. The demand is already satisfied, why would a publisher order another print one if everybody who wants it has already made themselves a copy?
Long term I think we're going to reach print-on-demand and/or digital distribution of all work, so NOTHING will ever go 'out of print' again.
I think if you want to make an argument here, the only real angle I can see is that, if you destroy the secondary market for a book, you're also diminishing the value of new books (i.e. if I can't resell my books, then the price I'm willing to pay for new books is less). However, that issue is complicated by the fact that the book is out of print. lessening the market for out of print books isn't going to retroactively decrease the price of the book when it was new, taking money out of the pocket of the author.
Step back a moment, and think about how most books are 'in print'. Most of them aren't. Books are printed in a run. And the momemt the run is finished, if there isn't another run already scheduled, then its technically 'out of print'. Very very books are constantly 'in print'.
Or you could say the book is 'in-print' until the publisher sells all their copies, and doesn't have another run scheduled. Because after that point if a given bookstore doesn't have any, and their supplier doesn't have any, that's it. There might still be 10's of thousands of copies in the pipeline -somewhere- but 'Amazon.com' can't get any more, and if you phone the publisher, its 'out of print'.
Is it ok to start making your own copies the moment 'Amazon.com' can't get them in? Even if there are thousands of unsold books in warehouses that don't sell to amazon? what if there are merely hundreds? what about 10? What if there are zero and the publisher has scheduled another print run? (so its 'in print' but none are available?) What if the pubisher is merely 'considering another print run?
Thousands of titles go years between print runs. Books are often out of print while the rights are being bought and sold or new publishers are being lined up. Its clearly wrong to declare open season on a title the moment your local bookstore is out and the supplier can't commit to a date it will have more.
I agree there is a continuum between books that are simply between runs, books that go a long time between runs, and books that have gone a long time without a run and probably won't ever get re-run... but its impossible for us to say which books definitely won't see a re-print. If the author writes a book and its a hit, their entire back catalog will suddenly be in greater demand... if an author sells the movie rights to a book and its a hit, their entire back catalog will see a spike in demand.
Frankly, I agree copyright is too long. But to decide to make copies of a book simply because its "out of print" is ethically bankrupt, ESPECIALLY when copies of the book are still readily available on the market.
1) Copyright laws are not there to protect the "book market" as some kind of ephemeral whole. They are to protect creators of works.
Right. But is it ethical to see a book you want, and then 'wait it out'? Not wait it out of copyright, which even at 'reasonable' levels is designed to be "too long", but simply wait until its out of print, to make copies? That might take a mere year. There are thousands of books printed in 2007 which are not in print anymore, can't be ordered directly from amazon etc, but are still readily available on the 'market'. You are saying that its perfectly ok to copy these?
The exclusive right of the creator to make copies for the copy protected period ensures this abuse of the creator can't happen.
Copyright laws are not there to protect used book sellers.
That's not the point. The point is 2ndary books sellers are providing the book he wants to buy, many of these sellers also often have NEW unread copies of many books printed in the last decade. Remember, the book is out of print as soon as the publisher finishes printing it and sends them out. If a warehouse in Texas has the last 20 'new' copies, and a small book seller buys them, why should you be be able to choose not to buy it from him, and opt to make yourself a copy instead?
3) True, but the ultimate aim of copyright is to encourage production and distribution of creative works. When the owner lets them go out of print they are abusing the system.
For it to be worth reprinting the their has to be sufficient demand. If demand is ZERO because everybody that wants it after the first print run just makes their own copy there will NEVER be 2nd print run.
Author does not benefit from out-of-print books resales.
Author does benefit, indirectly. Significant demand for out-of-print books is precisely what generates the order for a reprint. And impacts the commissions he can command for his next book, the movie rights, etc, etc.
The argument that pirating (and going into libraries) deprives third-parties is about as bogus as my argument about bottled water sellers.
The difference is that these 3rd parties are precisely in the business of legally filling the niche of providing you access to out of print books you claim to want. You have a PERFECTLY LEGAL way of getting the book you want.
Your water bottle analogy is false because I'm not violating the creators copyright (or any other law) to get the toilet water I'm using.
How many books have gone out of print in the last 50 years in the United States? How many were later brought back into print because of a resurgence in demand?
Practically all of them. Very Very Very few books are continually being printed.
The moment a book is finished its print run, and the publisher has unloaded all its copies the book is effectively out of print. (ie if you walk into your book store, and their supplier is out, they can't get it for you. It might be a couple more years before its actually 'hard to find'. At which point it may or may not be re-printed, or it may be a few years before its reprinted.
But for an example of a book that I personally know went out of print, and we later re-printed? Sure...
The "Warlock of Firetop Mountain" (Book 1 of the fighting-fantasy' series)
This book was originally published in 1982 by Puffin, it enjoyed multiple reprints in Canada, Britain, the US and Australia as the 'fighting fantasy' series proved popular, but the series was out-of-print by the mid 90's. It was reprinted in 2002 by 'Wizard Books' and that edition is also now out of print, and only available in the 2ndary markets. It was reprinted again in 2007 as a 25th Anniversayr Edition in hard-cover, which is again has sold out, and copies of that printing are only available on the 2ndary market.
So, at the moment, its out of print, again.
Now that's just one title. There were 59 books published as part of the original series (with a 60th book written, but not published, and a few spinoff books, and one spinoff series of 5 books.)
Of these, only 28 have been reprinted since 2002 'reboot' of the series (including 'book 60' which was never actually printed with the original series.) So, for example, in 2001 the ENTIRE series was out of print, and most of the books hadn't been printed in over 10 years. It was impossible to find outside of places like ebay. By 2007 almost half the series had been re-issued.
Seriously... this is hardly an unusual situation. A lot of books I have have been in and out of print multiple times over the last 50 years. Stuff by Philip K. Dick... stuff by Clarke, by Asimov, by Bester...
You only need to look for a few minutes to find this to be true.
Since the US did not declare war on Japan until December 8, 1941 (and Germany on December 11, 1941) July 1940 is legitimately pre-war as far as the US is concerned.
er... By that logic since Switzerland did not declare war at all, July 1940 is legitimately 'prewar' for them too? Of course, so is November 2008... in fact as far was the Swiss are concerned there was no war?
Are we still 'legitimately pre-World War II as far as the Swiss are concerned'?
You do realize in both ways, the creator gets nothing. So where exactly is the problem?
1) You do realize that when you buy a used book, you are still very much supporting the new book market that paid the creator.
2) Why is it only the creator of the book who matters? Do you think the reseller of used out of print books deserves to starve?
3) Just because a book is out of print that doesn't make it ok to make copies. That ensures it STAYS out of print, which again, utimately deprives the creator. It might be ok to make copies of a book where the owners have no interest or intention to ever reprint it... but the mere fact that its currently out of print doesn't mean its been abandoned by the creator.
Ok. Remind me what GUI API the javascript standard has? Bearing in mind that stuff provided by the browser DOM isn't part of any Javascript standard.
The browser's problem is compatibility, not speed. Neither memory nor CPU power help solve that.
Really? You think the megabytes on top of megabytes that make up IE quirks mode don't consume vast amounts of ram and speed? Its easy to implement most browser features to the standard in a mimum amount of code, and have it run quickly. Supporting the trash code that makes up the web takes orders of magnitude more resources.
This is pretty consistent with what I've seen in the real world. There are a few professions where multi-monitor is more common, but most people aren't.
How do you figure this?
See the 'grip bar' in the corner? Put your mouse on it, click and pull. That is how you resize windows.
vs
'Hover your mouse over the border, it might turn into a multi-arrow-head cursor, if you grab a left/right edge its left-right and you can resize horizontally, if you grab a top/bottom border, its up-down you can resize vertically, if you grab near enough to a corner its diagonal and you can resize in both directions. Some borders don't work, the arrow won't change, and there is no way to know in advance. Oh, and some windows also have a grip bar, so you can use that too if its there.'
The Apple solution is simpler. There really is no question about it. The apple solution is consistent, and the functionality is always visually represented (instead of showing up only when the cursor is in the magic spot.
Now, having said that, I agree with you. I LIKE the windows solution better, because its more flexible and more powerful. But there is no question that the apple solution is simpler, easier to explain and understand, and more consistently implemented.
A deficit occurs when the entity spends more money than it earns. Debt, is the accumulation of deficits, the government can have money in = out, and still have debt from the past.
Exactly. That is precisely why A) is WRONG. It says -debt- not -deficit-.
Out of curiosity, what dialect of C is both supported in many platforms and has a standard API for making a graphical UI ? Because I couldn't find any mention of anything but outputting text strings in the libc documentation.
wxWidgets and qt and opengl ?
And, for what its worth, last time I checked 2D vector graphics in Javascript are still a big challenge.
And yet it works.
Not well. I get more crap in my browser than in EVERY other application I use combined... floating elements that aren't in the right place, images that are distorted, css bugs causing all kinds of issues, javascript "apps" getting their internal models out of sync with the actual page state...
For some reason our expectations with web content are so low that this is deemed 'hey pretty good'!
This qualifies as 'it works' the same way Windows 3.0 qualified. Except that at the time, Windows 3 was pretty cutting edge in terms of what it did on the hardware it ran on... what's the browser platforms excuse? 1GB of ram and a core 2 duo is too tight to properly layout some text and graphics with a bit of crude/rudimentary animation?
Were it written in C/C++, it would generate a segmentation violation or a buffer overflow for each of these errors.
Right. Which would mean that it would get FIXED.
That's another reason to use web programming languages: they help mitigate the damage caused by incompetent programmers.
No, they just propagate the damage onto end users with crash prone, and often barely working apps. Even at their best its easy to break them. Its not hard to break even gmail. If the browser rejected junk, the web wouldn't be full of it.
I have a Samsung rear projection DLP set, 3 years old now, 56" 720p. 1280x720 is the native resolution. Beautiful picture in my opinion - which is why I bought it. But yeah, it seems that 1366x768 is common in flat-panel LCD and plasma... no idea why.
Until this botnet makes an overt or covert attack on the USA, neither the NSA nor the DOD have a responsibility to take action. It is just electronic junk mail.
Its not out of the realm of possibility to deploy military resources to provide aid in the event of a disaster - including floods, bio-hazards (disease)... why not to kill a computer virus that's costing the country billions of dollars a year?
Hell, it would be good practical exercise for the 'cyber warfare' divisions to boot.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be interesting to see some surveys on how much people who buy new books care about the resale value.
I suspect not much. Most people who buy new books don't sell them. It would be much more interesting to see some surveys on how much people who sell the books they buy care about the resale value. Strangely I think this group might actually care a fair bit. ;)
#2: What? I haven't bought my music as CDs for ages, I buy digital (yea, drm-free) files. Does this make me a bad person for making the brick-and-mortar music store owners starve?
Not at all. But if a title you want isn't available legally as a DRM free download, does that make it ok to just take an infringing copy? Or would you be obligated to buy it? And if it wasn't in print, to buy it used? I'd argue that if you wanted that title badly enough, you should buy it legally where you can legally get it, or else not have it.
If its not available AT ALL, then at that point, I could see their being an ethical justification for making a copy.
Digital distribution would help here,... There are also print-on-demand shops, which might be a decent idea, but I suspect the production costs per book are much higher than with mass printing.
I agree. I see these as the natural endgame to this issue.
See I think that's a big step. Recognizing that the rights holder should have the opportunity to issue another print run within a 'reasonable time frame' I think is a big step towards making it 'ethical to copy it'. And that clearly simply acheiving 'out of print status' is jumping the gun.
Personally, though I think that 'reasonable time frame' should be at LEAST several years after the channel clears, and even longer if the title is readily available in 2ndary markets.
So while I agree you shouldn't have to trawl the world for 5 years to find the 'last new copy', if spending 5 minutes typing the book name in abebooks.com, amazon.com, or yahoo... nets you dozens of sellers with used copies, the market is adequately satisfying your desire for the book. But if you can't find the book at all, then yeah, after a couple years it should be ok to make a copy... but where are you going to find one to make a copy from if no makes an unethical copy before that? ;)
Personally I think all IP should be stored in a government run database and released into the public domain when copyright expires, and sooner if the rights holder vanishes (make them renew copyright every few years for a couple bucks), or if the IP is no longer readily available to the public. (I see a print-on-demand business model springing up to 'protect' ip rights holders... but the public benefits from it too -- the stuff is always available.)
But at what performance cost. If we are talking about the whole "Vista Capable" debacle, aren't we talking about low spec machines that coughed and wheezed when running the low-end version of the OS. Great, lets add 3D rendering to the processor load on those machines.
Seriously, its not the CPU utilization on these low end units was the bottleneck. Low RAM, crappy video cards yes, but even on an 4+ year old Pentium 4 vista doesn't exactly tax the cpu much.
You're assuming we were going to buy a copy to begin with, the very same false logic the RIAA/MPAA uses.
It you read what the original article writer actually wrote, he would have bought a copy if it was available new from the publisher. So we've got that as our starting point. That is the context here.
Now, as for what you actually wrote, look, either you agree with copyright or you don't. If you don't agree with it, fine. But that's a separate issue.
If you do agree with it, then you should buy a copy of the book, borrow it from a friend, or borrow it from a library. You shouldn't download an infringing torrent. Period.
If you can get it for free from the library, then ACTUALLY DO THAT. There is no reason for you to infringe copyright, so don't. The fact that its 'more convenient' your way is the price you pay to use the library. Suck it up. If you don't want to buy a copy for yourself you should be limited to actually using what you can legally borrow for free. Once you've bought a copy, you can exercise fair use to format shift it, YOURSELF.
The fact that some else has come along and taken the book, format shifted it into a form you find most convenient, and is distributing it for free is a gigantic exercise in infringement. If you want send a message to publishers that this is how you want your books, stop reading books that are only published on paper, and start reading ebooks.
Similarly if you want to send a message to the RIAA/MPAA don't download their content, just STOP CONSUMING IT. If you want their content, then buy it, or listen to it on the radio, or borrow it from your friends who bought it. Spend your money on bands that are selling mp3s or whatever it is you DO want.
Geez perhaps a DX10 demo, floating cube or some such, certainly MS could conjure up something that would be less embarrassing.
Right, because the world would be impressed with a floating cube... in 1990.
Well... then they better try again. It still sounds like a complete failure to me. Since the integrated graphics is equivalent, there is no advantage, and no resolution to the problem. What exactly are you try to get at?
Except the integrated graphics on a bunch of 'Vista Capable' laptops DON'T do DirectX10 or Aero... but if a patch to Vista (or Windows 7) will get Aero working on directX10 on the CPU... a buttload of PCs that CAN'T currently do Aero, now CAN.
Though sadly, the authors won't benefit either way in this case, only the publisher will.
This is possibly a clue as to why it won't be reprinted. There may be multiple parties who own the rights that can't come to an agreement.
Another possibility is that they want to funnel interest into their current product line, and print large runs of that, rather than print smaller runs of multiple product lines. Of course they have no interest in delegating the job of handling this to antoher company that's interested in doing... the paperwork alone would eat up the profits... and it might cannibalize their own sales... so its never going to happen.
Both of these are negative side-effects of copyright combined with the free market.
2. We shouldn't have to buy books on the used market just to keep someone from starving. If the used book selling business is obsolete thanks to digital distribution, those people need to get new jobs.
I agree entirely with that. However, if the author hasn't made this book available via digital distribution, then what gives us the ethical right to override that decision and download an infringing copy to avoid paying for it, given that the book is readily and legally available?
So why is ok to make an infringing copy, against the authors wishes, simply because a 3rd party profits instead of the author. Why is up to YOU to decide that if you don't like the party that will profit (from the author/publishers) decision, that you can override it?
Sadly, never as long as the GUI works most Joe and Jane sixpacks will be just fine; and yes I do know about the Vista debacle but I think the point is still valid.
Then you'd be mistaken. Both OSX and Microsoft effectively require hardware 3D acceleration for their desktop effects. All new Macs and any PC that actually meets Vista's real requirements feature 3D acceleration.
Since Switzerland didn't declare war, "pre-war" is a non-sequitor for them.
Not at all. Just because a country wasn't in the war, that doesn't mean they don't acknowledge that it existed, that it started or that it ended. Switzerland can talk about what it was doing pre-WW2, post-WW2, and during WW2 without it being a non-sequitor.
I agree with the Chinese viewpoint that WW2 started in 1931...
The date the world has agreed a war started is pretty arbitrary in almost ANY war, but it serves as useful frame of reference, and its not generally useful not use the 'agreed date'.
It's not out-of-print until it's not available brand new from retailers or by order from the publisher.
So if 3 new copies are available and in stock at a single small retailer in New York, then its not out of print? That meets the 'available brand new from retailers' qualification.
Interesting definition. I think it falls short.
What if its not available from the publisher, but another print run has already been scheduled? What if that print run is scheduled a year from now? What if it goes 10 years without a run, and then make a movie of one of the authors other works gets made into a movie, and the publisher, at that point, feels their is a market for the rest of the authors back-catalog?
There's a small possibility of a reprint.
A chance that goes to zero if demand satisfies itself by just making their own (infringing) copies.
If the publisher ever makes the hypothetical reprint of the book, well, then you can buy it properly at such time as they're willing to sell it to you.
That's silly. The demand is already satisfied, why would a publisher order another print one if everybody who wants it has already made themselves a copy?
Long term I think we're going to reach print-on-demand and/or digital distribution of all work, so NOTHING will ever go 'out of print' again.
I think if you want to make an argument here, the only real angle I can see is that, if you destroy the secondary market for a book, you're also diminishing the value of new books (i.e. if I can't resell my books, then the price I'm willing to pay for new books is less). However, that issue is complicated by the fact that the book is out of print. lessening the market for out of print books isn't going to retroactively decrease the price of the book when it was new, taking money out of the pocket of the author.
Step back a moment, and think about how most books are 'in print'. Most of them aren't. Books are printed in a run. And the momemt the run is finished, if there isn't another run already scheduled, then its technically 'out of print'. Very very books are constantly 'in print'.
Or you could say the book is 'in-print' until the publisher sells all their copies, and doesn't have another run scheduled. Because after that point if a given bookstore doesn't have any, and their supplier doesn't have any, that's it. There might still be 10's of thousands of copies in the pipeline -somewhere- but 'Amazon.com' can't get any more, and if you phone the publisher, its 'out of print'.
Is it ok to start making your own copies the moment 'Amazon.com' can't get them in? Even if there are thousands of unsold books in warehouses that don't sell to amazon? what if there are merely hundreds? what about 10? What if there are zero and the publisher has scheduled another print run? (so its 'in print' but none are available?) What if the pubisher is merely 'considering another print run?
Thousands of titles go years between print runs. Books are often out of print while the rights are being bought and sold or new publishers are being lined up. Its clearly wrong to declare open season on a title the moment your local bookstore is out and the supplier can't commit to a date it will have more.
I agree there is a continuum between books that are simply between runs, books that go a long time between runs, and books that have gone a long time without a run and probably won't ever get re-run... but its impossible for us to say which books definitely won't see a re-print. If the author writes a book and its a hit, their entire back catalog will suddenly be in greater demand... if an author sells the movie rights to a book and its a hit, their entire back catalog will see a spike in demand.
Frankly, I agree copyright is too long. But to decide to make copies of a book simply because its "out of print" is ethically bankrupt, ESPECIALLY when copies of the book are still readily available on the market.
1) Copyright laws are not there to protect the "book market" as some kind of ephemeral whole. They are to protect creators of works.
Right. But is it ethical to see a book you want, and then 'wait it out'? Not wait it out of copyright, which even at 'reasonable' levels is designed to be "too long", but simply wait until its out of print, to make copies? That might take a mere year. There are thousands of books printed in 2007 which are not in print anymore, can't be ordered directly from amazon etc, but are still readily available on the 'market'. You are saying that its perfectly ok to copy these?
The exclusive right of the creator to make copies for the copy protected period ensures this abuse of the creator can't happen.
Copyright laws are not there to protect used book sellers.
That's not the point. The point is 2ndary books sellers are providing the book he wants to buy, many of these sellers also often have NEW unread copies of many books printed in the last decade. Remember, the book is out of print as soon as the publisher finishes printing it and sends them out. If a warehouse in Texas has the last 20 'new' copies, and a small book seller buys them, why should you be be able to choose not to buy it from him, and opt to make yourself a copy instead?
3) True, but the ultimate aim of copyright is to encourage production and distribution of creative works. When the owner lets them go out of print they are abusing the system.
For it to be worth reprinting the their has to be sufficient demand. If demand is ZERO because everybody that wants it after the first print run just makes their own copy there will NEVER be 2nd print run.
Author does not benefit from out-of-print books resales.
Author does benefit, indirectly. Significant demand for out-of-print books is precisely what generates the order for a reprint. And impacts the commissions he can command for his next book, the movie rights, etc, etc.
The argument that pirating (and going into libraries) deprives third-parties is about as bogus as my argument about bottled water sellers.
The difference is that these 3rd parties are precisely in the business of legally filling the niche of providing you access to out of print books you claim to want. You have a PERFECTLY LEGAL way of getting the book you want.
Your water bottle analogy is false because I'm not violating the creators copyright (or any other law) to get the toilet water I'm using.
2) Do you use bottled water in your toilet? Why not? You deprive poor bottled water sellers!
Nice try. But that's a false analogy.
How many books have gone out of print in the last 50 years in the United States? How many were later brought back into print because of a resurgence in demand?
Practically all of them. Very Very Very few books are continually being printed.
The moment a book is finished its print run, and the publisher has unloaded all its copies the book is effectively out of print. (ie if you walk into your book store, and their supplier is out, they can't get it for you. It might be a couple more years before its actually 'hard to find'. At which point it may or may not be re-printed, or it may be a few years before its reprinted.
But for an example of a book that I personally know went out of print, and we later re-printed? Sure...
The "Warlock of Firetop Mountain" (Book 1 of the fighting-fantasy' series)
This book was originally published in 1982 by Puffin, it enjoyed multiple reprints in Canada, Britain, the US and Australia as the 'fighting fantasy' series proved popular, but the series was out-of-print by the mid 90's. It was reprinted in 2002 by 'Wizard Books' and that edition is also now out of print, and only available in the 2ndary markets. It was reprinted again in 2007 as a 25th Anniversayr Edition in hard-cover, which is again has sold out, and copies of that printing are only available on the 2ndary market.
So, at the moment, its out of print, again.
Now that's just one title. There were 59 books published as part of the original series (with a 60th book written, but not published, and a few spinoff books, and one spinoff series of 5 books.)
Of these, only 28 have been reprinted since 2002 'reboot' of the series (including 'book 60' which was never actually printed with the original series.) So, for example, in 2001 the ENTIRE series was out of print, and most of the books hadn't been printed in over 10 years. It was impossible to find outside of places like ebay. By 2007 almost half the series had been re-issued.
Seriously... this is hardly an unusual situation. A lot of books I have have been in and out of print multiple times over the last 50 years. Stuff by Philip K. Dick... stuff by Clarke, by Asimov, by Bester...
You only need to look for a few minutes to find this to be true.
Since the US did not declare war on Japan until December 8, 1941 (and Germany on December 11, 1941) July 1940 is legitimately pre-war as far as the US is concerned.
er... By that logic since Switzerland did not declare war at all, July 1940 is legitimately 'prewar' for them too? Of course, so is November 2008... in fact as far was the Swiss are concerned there was no war?
Are we still 'legitimately pre-World War II as far as the Swiss are concerned'?
Any Swiss care to weigh in on this absurdity? ;)
You do realize in both ways, the creator gets nothing. So where exactly is the problem?
1) You do realize that when you buy a used book, you are still very much supporting the new book market that paid the creator.
2) Why is it only the creator of the book who matters? Do you think the reseller of used out of print books deserves to starve?
3) Just because a book is out of print that doesn't make it ok to make copies. That ensures it STAYS out of print, which again, utimately deprives the creator. It might be ok to make copies of a book where the owners have no interest or intention to ever reprint it... but the mere fact that its currently out of print doesn't mean its been abandoned by the creator.
Those are part of C standard ?
Ok. Remind me what GUI API the javascript standard has?
Bearing in mind that stuff provided by the browser DOM isn't part of any Javascript standard.
The browser's problem is compatibility, not speed. Neither memory nor CPU power help solve that.
Really? You think the megabytes on top of megabytes that make up IE quirks mode don't consume vast amounts of ram and speed? Its easy to implement most browser features to the standard in a mimum amount of code, and have it run quickly. Supporting the trash code that makes up the web takes orders of magnitude more resources.
Putting aside the fact that most people aren't running multiple monitors (which may or may not be true)
According to the steam survey... (an opt-in survey of steam gamers).. 3.47% run multi-monitor setups.
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html
This is pretty consistent with what I've seen in the real world. There are a few professions where multi-monitor is more common, but most people aren't.
How do you figure this?
See the 'grip bar' in the corner? Put your mouse on it, click and pull. That is how you resize windows.
vs
'Hover your mouse over the border, it might turn into a multi-arrow-head cursor, if you grab a left/right edge its left-right and you can resize horizontally, if you grab a top/bottom border, its up-down you can resize vertically, if you grab near enough to a corner its diagonal and you can resize in both directions. Some borders don't work, the arrow won't change, and there is no way to know in advance. Oh, and some windows also have a grip bar, so you can use that too if its there.'
The Apple solution is simpler. There really is no question about it. The apple solution is consistent, and the functionality is always visually represented (instead of showing up only when the cursor is in the magic spot.
Now, having said that, I agree with you. I LIKE the windows solution better, because its more flexible and more powerful. But there is no question that the apple solution is simpler, easier to explain and understand, and more consistently implemented.
A deficit occurs when the entity spends more money than it earns. Debt, is the accumulation of deficits, the government can have money in = out, and still have debt from the past.
Exactly. That is precisely why A) is WRONG. It says -debt- not -deficit-.
D, on the other hand, is clearly correct.
Out of curiosity, what dialect of C is both supported in many platforms and has a standard API for making a graphical UI ? Because I couldn't find any mention of anything but outputting text strings in the libc documentation.
wxWidgets and qt and opengl ?
And, for what its worth, last time I checked 2D vector graphics in Javascript are still a big challenge.
And yet it works.
Not well. I get more crap in my browser than in EVERY other application I use combined... floating elements that aren't in the right place, images that are distorted, css bugs causing all kinds of issues, javascript "apps" getting their internal models out of sync with the actual page state...
For some reason our expectations with web content are so low that this is deemed 'hey pretty good'!
This qualifies as 'it works' the same way Windows 3.0 qualified. Except that at the time, Windows 3 was pretty cutting edge in terms of what it did on the hardware it ran on... what's the browser platforms excuse? 1GB of ram and a core 2 duo is too tight to properly layout some text and graphics with a bit of crude/rudimentary animation?
Were it written in C/C++, it would generate a segmentation violation or a buffer overflow for each of these errors.
Right. Which would mean that it would get FIXED.
That's another reason to use web programming languages: they help mitigate the damage caused by incompetent programmers.
No, they just propagate the damage onto end users with crash prone, and often barely working apps. Even at their best its easy to break them. Its not hard to break even gmail. If the browser rejected junk, the web wouldn't be full of it.
I have a Samsung rear projection DLP set, 3 years old now, 56" 720p. 1280x720 is the native resolution. Beautiful picture in my opinion - which is why I bought it. But yeah, it seems that 1366x768 is common in flat-panel LCD and plasma... no idea why.
Until this botnet makes an overt or covert attack on the USA, neither the NSA nor the DOD have a responsibility to take action. It is just electronic junk mail.
Its not out of the realm of possibility to deploy military resources to provide aid in the event of a disaster - including floods, bio-hazards (disease)... why not to kill a computer virus that's costing the country billions of dollars a year?
Hell, it would be good practical exercise for the 'cyber warfare' divisions to boot.
Irritating doesn't even begin to describe my feeling about this one.
Don't worry, they have a cream for that... look for it online. ;)