'Elitist': angry book pirates hit back after author campaign sinks website

[Brian G Turner]

(paper) books are passed-on, resold, lent-out (usually not returned), etc.

Which is apparently illegal according to the opening copyright statement at the front of UK paperbacks:

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Simply saying.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Which is apparently illegal according to the opening copyright statement at the front of UK paperbacks:



Simply saying.

This is against reproduction in 'a different binding or cover' etc? Not illegal to redistribute the original book as purchased? You buy it, it's your property. You can keep it, give it away, sell it, use it for fish-and-chips or float it down the river if you want to? It's your property. But you may not re-print it?

 

[Cathbad]

An author only expects to be paid once for each book sold - whether it be paperback or ebook. But (s)he deserves that compensation.

Give me an app that allows me to read ebooks without ever paying a dime, I won't use it. Not just because it's illegal... but because it's wrong.

The ease with which theft is possible is a horrid reason to do it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

This is against reproduction in 'a different binding or cover' etc? Not illegal to redistribute the original book as purchased? You buy it, it's your property. You can keep it, give it away, sell it, use it for fish-and-chips or float it down the river if you want to? It's your property. But you may not re-print it?

I dunno - my reading has always been that you may not lend or resell it. Not technically, anyway. I've long thought of raising that point when people claim that ebooks are not actually owned by the buyer.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm pretty sure it just refers to not changing the cover. For example passing it off as something totally different. Legalese is always very precise and that's certainly how I read it. Otherwise all second hand bookshops would be contravening the copyright as would libraries.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I dunno - my reading has always been that you may not lend or resell it. Not technically, anyway. I've long thought of raising that point when people claim that ebooks are not actually owned by the buyer.

Pretty sure that the statement says you're allowed to re-sell it or loan it, but on the condition that the book is in it's original binding and cover.

There's quite a few internet companies that seem to be based in the UK and advertise to acquire second hand books for cash, for example.

It's a bit easier (I feel, at least to understand) in the US where second hand books operate under first sale doctrine. Or, you are not reproducing/reprinting the work when you re-sell it, but selling the physical good that represents the work. And that's fine and dandy. (Assuming you acquired the book through normal retail practices of course...)

 

[SilentRoamer]

I was not examining your moral stance, but the danger of calling something an infringement -- specifically an infringement of something seemingly airy-fairy (copyright) -- when it is, basically, taking something without consent... the absence of consent being an important factor when determing when an activity is or is not criminal.

We on this site should realise the importance of words, and how they can change perceptions. (If words are not important, why are euphemisms used?)

So if we cannot use "theft"**, we should replace it with the logically correct terms: "taking without consent" or "using without consent".


** - Surely there isn't but a single definition of that crime, given how many different legal jurisdictions and codes there are in the world.

You don't take it, the original stays exactly where it is.

Ok I'm going to say this one last time and try to preface it. I work in the IT field and have done for all of my adult working life which probably informs my view on this particular subject, not the copying of a book (which this is) but the more base crime of the copying of a digital file. I'm going to be really pedantic here but the actual thing you are talking about is a collection of 1s and 0s in a particular order which constitutes a file, it is stored on a data medium and can be copied or deleted or moved, in the case of as copy the 1s and 0s stay on the data medium (in most cases storage is HDD which means that the 1s and 0s are stored on a chunk of metal.)

If you make an unauthorized copy of a file to your system then this is called Copyright Infringement. It is mainly covered by heavily US influenced International treaties. Of course many major nations have their own national regulations as well - I am obviously no authority on global law. In the Uk Copyright Infringement is the illegal and unauthorized copying (or broadcasting) of digital content. It does not deprive the owner of their original digital information. If someone were to break into someone else systems, copy and then DELETE the original and any recoverable backups or damage the systems beyond irretrievably then that would be theft, among other worse crimes (at least to me as I would consider the System Entry worse).

Now Theft is defined under most law differently, but in terms of both US and UK law, copying of digital content constitutes Copyright Infringement because it does not permanently deny the content owner of a product.

First of all, the person reading copyright material without the permission of the copyright owner, permission that is granted only when payment has been made, has taken something: the price of that consent. Besides. I also mentioned "using without consent".

(By the way, what were you saying about morality?)

Have you ever given a book away? if you have a lot of people would consider that to be the same thing, if someone had already read a digital copy a book would you consider it immoral for them to give a digital copy to their friend if they deleted the original, or what if they kept the original but didn't give it to anyone else? Do you consider that different somehow? Genuinely curious.

I dunno - my reading has always been that you may not lend or resell it. Not technically, anyway. I've long thought of raising that point when people claim that ebooks are not actually owned by the buyer.

Exactly this. The only difference is scope - because digital copies are infinitely reproducible and transferable.

Just to finish I don't consider Copyright Infringement to be "airy - fairy" as @Ursa major categorized, I consider it to be a very serious digital crime, both legally and morally wrong. That doesn't mean I consider it Theft.

 

[Dave]

Ok. But (paper) books are passed-on, resold, lent-out (usually not returned), etc. No author expects that every individual who reads his paper book has paid the full-price for it?

That's true, but I still don't see it as the same as copying, even though I can't tell you exactly why.

One thing that is very different for books compared to other media would be the number of times a book is read. There are only a few books that I have read more than once. (Other people may say more than me, but it would still be a low number in proportion to all the books they must have read.) If I give you a book I have read and that I won't read again, then it doesn't deprive me of anything. That would not be the same with a record, CD or even a DVD, which I would listen to or watch multiple times. If I loaned you those, I would certainly expect them to be returned.

So, yes, I do agree that books are different in that respect which explains the charity shop sales and the shelves for loan in railway stations and youth hostels. However, physical books are not copied in the way that a digital copy can be, or a recording can be. That can be done on an industrial scale with an original item leading to millions of copies. That is the difference, I think.

PS. I think @SilentRoamer just explained it better than me.

 

[SilentRoamer]

@Dave I agree I don't think it's the same for the reasons I listed above. Although technically loaning a book is the same thing in legal terms, I think it is more the inherent scale of digital medium, the whole world would be your friend in this comparison, and if you could would you lend the entire world your favorite authors work and give them the ability to loan it to everyone as well? No, you wouldn't want to ruin him/her.

 

[Ursa major]

I work in the IT field and have done for all of my adult working life which probably informs my view on this particular subject, not the copying of a book (which this is) but the more base crime of the copying of a digital file. I'm going to be really pedantic here but the actual thing you are talking about is a collection of 1s and 0s

Bully for you! My career has been spent in telecommunications. (I started out as a programmer, and later became a designer and analyst, collecting a patent along the way.)

Neither our different career paths nor your musings about 0s and 1s have anything to do with the logical process of pirating ebooks, which is taking income from those books' creators and those distributing them. The same is true of your resort to legal definitions, which is also beside the point.

Or, to put it another way: I do find it rather worrying that you confuse legal ways of thinking and IT's ways of thinking with the logic of what is happening. Or do you really think that people pirate books to get hold of all those 0s and 1s? (Or perhaps there's a world shortage of 0s and 1s that I haven't heard about...?)

 

[Brian G Turner]

I thought SilentRoamer was simply making the point that copyright infringement and theft are both different legal terms - though in everyday use the former is often presumed to be the same as the latter, despite being technically different.

 

[RJM Corbet]

That's true, but I still don't see it as the same as copying, even though I can't tell you exactly why.

One thing that is very different for books compared to other media would be the number of times a book is read. There are only a few books that I have read more than once. (Other people may say more than me, but it would still be a low number in proportion to all the books they must have read.) If I give you a book I have read and that I won't read again, then it doesn't deprive me of anything. That would not be the same with a record, CD or even a DVD, which I would listen to or watch multiple times. If I loaned you those, I would certainly expect them to be returned.

So, yes, I do agree that books are different in that respect which explains the charity shop sales and the shelves for loan in railway stations and youth hostels. However, physical books are not copied in the way that a digital copy can be, or a recording can be. That can be done on an industrial scale with an original item leading to millions of copies. That is the difference, I think.

PS. I think @SilentRoamer just explained it better than me.

Agreed: the crime is to reproduce a book or part of one and distribute it. It would be copyright infringement for a teacher to photostat a chapter of a maths text book whose author has copyright and give it out to students in a ring-binder, for instance.

However this would not apply to a Shakespeare play, because the author's rights have expired, so the publisher has no copyright protection??

With ebooks this reproduction happens to be the only way to pass-on the book. It's impossible to give away or lend-out your ebook, unless you give away/lend the device.

So here we seem to have the kernel of the issue, lol?

 

[Dave]

However this would not apply to a Shakespeare play, because the author's rights have expired, so the publisher has no copyright protection??

Legally, yes. Morally, questionable. The publisher can't make much on out of copyright books like that as they usually sell them in the 'Poundshops'.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I thought SilentRoamer was simply making the point that copyright infringement and theft are both different legal terms - though in everyday use the former is often presumed to be the same as the latter, despite being technically different.

I got the point the first time, but if they are, in reality judged to be the same, why belabour the point that there is some difference? One could skim over @SilentRoamer's posts and potentially walk away with the idea ' Ah so, it's not stealing, so....' ;-)*

I don't see the pertinance of the point. Morally and ethically, no matter what the law defines it as, copyright infringement is, for me at least, on the same equivalent level as stealing.

------------------
* Before you protest SR, I know that's not what you are trying to suggest, but us modern skim readers that partially digest posts... ;-)

 

[Ursa major]

I thought SilentRoamer was simply making the point that copyright infringement and theft are both different legal terms - though in everyday use the former is often presumed to be the same as the latter, despite being technically different.

He is... but all that resorting to legal niceities does is to disguise what is happening as some sort of technical offence, when it is the real world deprivation of people's rightful incomes.

If something is wrong, it shouldn't matter what law it does (or doesn't) come under. To take an admittedly extreme example: when slavery was not a crime, its lack of illegality did those enslaved no favours at all (and, indeed, rather the opposite).

 

[Vertigo]

Agreed: the crime is to reproduce a book or part of one and distribute it. It would be copyright infringement for a teacher to photostat a chapter of a maths text book whose author has copyright and give it out to students in a ring-binder, for instance.

However this would not apply to a Shakespeare play, because the author's rights have expired, so the publisher has no copyright protection??

With ebooks this reproduction happens to be the only way to pass-on the book. It's impossible to give away or lend-out your ebook, unless you give away/lend the device.

So here we seem to have the kernel of the issue, lol?

With regard to copyright expiry you should also be aware that if a work is translated the translator holds a separate copyright for the translation. So, for example, a very old translation of the Iliad will be out of copyright (and available on Gutenberg) whereas a more recent translation will probably still be within its copyright (and not available on Gutenberg).

 

[The Big Peat]

Yes I agree that some sort of usage model that makes piracy effectively redundant would do the job and I would also predict that whoever comes up with a truly effective one will probably make a killing.

Coming back to this and using this post as a jumping off point -

You can get a 12 month subscription to all of Angry Robot's new releases for £100. That's not bad.

But the 12 month subscription to pretty much all of Marvel - including new releases six months afterwards - costs about half that (pound to dollar exchange rate varying). More content and more complete series for half the price.

I'd really like to put my money where my mouth is and say "I'll support the subscription service I asked for". But to get my money's worth, I'd have to read about half of Angry Robot's new releases for the next year, and I'm not sure they've got that many books coming out that I want to read.

Something cheaper offering 2/3 books a month would be far better for me.

 

[Brian G Turner]

f something is wrong, it shouldn't matter what law it does (or doesn't) come under.

I think he made the point originally that he didn't at all condone it - that he was simply indicating that there was a technical legal difference between the two.

Either way, it's a policy at chrons (unofficially at least) that we never promote sites that offer pirated books, and I know we've removed posts in the past that provided such links (even posted by regular members).

Also, when I raised this with my eldest, she didn't condone it either, but raised the point that for millenials - especially in the US - price pressures means that free may be seen as a requirement rather than an entitlement due to the reduced personal income available to them:

Being 30: Spending way less on booze, cigarettes, books

The chart at the top of that piece has to be disturbing for authors.

 

[Cathbad]

Being 30: Spending way less on booze, cigarettes, books

*Is confused!*

How 'da heck can Educational spending be way up, but Reading so far down??

 

[The Big Peat]

Also, when I raised this with my eldest, she didn't condone it either, but raised the point that for millenials - especially in the US - price pressures means that free may be seen as a requirement rather than an entitlement due to the reduced personal income available to them:

She's not wrong. I didn't want to be the one bleating but when I hear people saying things like "It just costs a cup of coffee", I smile, because I have an argument with myself everytime I consider buying a £1 sausage roll from Tesco because I can't really afford it.

There's a reason that these days my reading is almost solely from libraries, kindle sales, second hand bookshops and beta copies. I've brought two brand new paperbacks for myself this year. I used to buy... gods, I don't really know much I used to buy if we're honest. Being a student was great.


Cathbad - Post-grad study and higher student loans.