Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

time to stir the pot a bit...the subject this time is inter-net pirates as relates to e-books...i think we can all agree it is wrong to download a in-print book by a living author without paying...you know EXACTLY what im talking about...but let me turn the question on its head...what if the book you are stealing (via file-shareing or what ever) is a long out-of-print book? Is it fair game then? Case in point: I recently "stole" a copy of Mike Ashley's Time Machines (a historical survey of SF pulps) via file share...even went so far as to print a hard copy. Why? I can't find it in print, used copies in decent shape are over $100 on amazon. So, you make the call...do you think i am without sin, or am i a evil pirate?

Used books don't pay the author anything, but have built-in obsolescence. Library books pay very little, but their check out numbers can mean more purchases & reviews.

If you have a copy of a book in a couple of other formats (HB & PB for instance) is it immoral to get a copy of it in a pirate PDF or other electronic format?

It's certainly illegal, but I don't think it's immoral. Electronic books are very portable & handy for searching, which makes them great for those of us who discuss them on a place like GR. That makes it better for the authors as their book gets more air space.

If a publisher ties a book up in copyright but doesn't republish it, is it still wrong to pirate it?

If they're not going to republish it, I'd say absolutely not. I recently wanted to read a duology by Joseph Wharton Lippincott - Wolf King & Wilderness Champion: The Story of a Great Hound. Back in the 70's, a publisher renewed the copyright & republished the latter which I bought, but not the former. Copies of Wolf King go for $300 used. Since copyrights now last for such long periods, it's pretty unlikely that this book will ever see print again. I think that was a grossly irresponsible & should be an illegal action by the publisher. Use it or lose it. They're like cyber squatters, but they're tying up books instead of domains.

Neither the publisher nor Lippincott's estate gets a dime if I buy it used so the only people a pirated e-copy might hurt are a dozen or so book sellers who purchased these used books at a high price & maybe not even them, most collectors being as picky as they are. While I like those folks (I'm on a first name basis with a few around the US & one in GB.) I can't afford to spend $300 or more on a YA novel, so IF I were ever lucky enough to find it in electronic format, I'd grab it, legal or not.

That's like asking if all thieves are bad. Are all murderers bad. The brand of pirate means they ARE bad.

A better question would be, is it always considered Piracy.

In your case above, if a book isn't available anywhere, I wouldn't consider it piracy since you aren't cheating anyone out of anything.

Here's another stir of the pot.....

Let's say you have the opportunity to get an ebook for free that is currently being sold. It is the first in a series and reviews are widely varying. You're not sure it's worth buying but you would read a copy if you got it for free. You end up liking it and proceed to purchase the rest of the books in the series.

The author has lost the income from the first pirated book but gained on the subsequent books that you never would have purchased otherwise. Not to mention the reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations you give it. Many authors are now using this as a business model - giving the first one for free in hopes to hook you on the storyline.

In this case, is the person illegally downloading the book a bad person? I have read authors discussions both for and against. What do you think?

Rose wrote: In this case, is the person illegally downloading the book a bad person? I have read authors discussions both for and against. What do you think?



Yes- the author should get to decide if they give a book for free. If you steal a TV from bestbuy, but like the brand so much you end up and go back to buy more stuff of the same brand, it's still stealing.

Yes- the author should get to decide if they give a book for free. If you steal a TV from bestbuy, but like the brand so much you end up and go back to buy more stuff of the same brand, it's still stealing.

I agree - it is stealing. But...just to play devil's advocate: Is it OK if a friend lends me her book? Is it OK if I get this for free at a book swap? I'm getting it for free both of these ways and this is considered normal and not unethical. The author is not getting any more money. Where is the difference?

I'd say, yes, it is okay- you bought the book, it's your property. You no longer have use of it, while she has it. It's no different from loaning your neighbor a mower, or silverware. Duplicating exactly an item, and failing to remit a royalty to the patent/copyright holder seems like stealing to me.

I know a lot of authors however, don't like used book resellers or the loaning of books.

I think the bottom line should be- if you make money off an author's work, whether it be from a pirated version or raising the price of a used book, the writer should be entitled to some of that money.

And I'll note that in some states, the resale of event tickets (Scalping) is illegal, in others, it's not. I guess it all depends on who you can get to lobby for what in the halls of lawmaking.

I only brought it up because after reading Spooky's post, it reminded me of what an author had written on the subject once. He was flattered that people thought his book was good enough to pirate. He started noticing more reviews on the book and an increase in sales after the pirating. He ended up making more money because of the pirating and I thought it was interesting how this happened to him.

Rose wrote: " Is it OK if a friend lends me her book? Is it OK if I get this for free at a book swap? I'm getting it for free both of these ways and this is considered normal and not unethical. The author is not getting any more money. Where is the difference? "

Getting a book second-hand isn't unethical because no copy has been made of the book. Loaning a book to a friend, or checking a book out from the library are ethical for the same reason. Once someone buys a book, be it digital or paper, they can do what they please with that copy. Copyright is concerned with who has the right to copy a book. When a book is "shared" via a torrent site or what have you, the book is being copied without the consent of the author or publisher who have the right to do so.

There really aren't as many gray areas in this issue as people think. The ethical arguments, legally speaking, were settled a long time ago. Morally, most of the arguments people use to justify pirating content boil down to justifications for the practice.

Back when Napster first became available, I used it. I still have a Yahoo: Internet Life magazine which talks about how cool it is to be able to find just about any song you can think of. That was beofre the RIAA and the court case and the rulings which definitively said file sharing was illegal. Even before that, though the FBI was tracking down people who were making copies of CD and DVDs and selling them. When you strip away all the rhetoric there's really no difference between using a file sharing site, and buying a CD from a guy on a street corner.

So how is there an argument about how this is illegal, and therefore, wrong?

Daran let me push you a bit on the Napster thing. thru napster i got into collecting Old Time Radio shows...Lone Ranger, Jack Benny, Superman and the like. from there i got into a OTR collecting group....there i discovered many of the shows i was missing could be found only one place...the Library of Congress. To make a long story short, the LoC refused to allow copies of these shows to be made because of copyright issues. Holders of said copyrights were dead or corp. gone out of biz long ago. Because the orginal recording media was cheep and not very stable, by the time the copyright was up, the recording would be lost FOREVER...in fact, many already have been lost already. Keep in mind THESE ARE THE ONLY COPIES LEFT...yet due to copyright laws the LoC can't even make archive copies because there is no one left to give the OK.

another file-shareing story...i am a comic book collector, have been for 40 years now. i use to be part of a group that scaned and shared comics...everything from new stuff to books from the 1940s. We were schocked when one day a rep from Marvel Comics pops up in our group...we thought we were BUSTED....but no, the rep was asking if Marvel could have some of our scans...they were doing a reprint book, and because they no longer owned paper copies (their in-house library was a mess) they needed them for color-checks. we shared, Marvel gave us their blessing....sometime later DC came to us with a similar problem.

so, here are two cases from my own personal experience....one, the copyright laws are responsable for the loss of art (that would be the OTR case) the other, art (and yes, comics ARE a art form) was saved by out right Piracy and file-shareing.

Comments anyone?

Rose wrote: "I only brought it up because after reading Spooky's post, it reminded me of what an author had written on the subject once. He was flattered that people thought his book was good enough to pirate...."

xkcd has done a couple of comics on this, I think. I do recall one comic that hit the big time once it got pirated, too. You make a very good point.

one i saw a video the director of Battlestar Galatica 2ed series did, called "How Piracy Saved BSG" maybe its up on youtube...bottom line, BSG's rateings were in the crapper, the series about to be canceled, UNTIL, in despration, the producer started putting each week's show up on the major file-shareing trackers an hour after the show was broadcast...rateing grew...and grew...and grew, until the show was saved

Spooky1947 wrote: "Daran let me push you a bit on the Napster thing. thru napster i got into collecting Old Time Radio shows...Lone Ranger, Jack Benny, Superman and the like. from there i got into a OTR collecting gr..."

Actually, making archival copies to preserve the work would almost certainly fall under the "Fair Use" provisions of copyright law.

you would think...but not according to the LoC...as i said, those recordings are literly rotting on the shelves...many have already been lost forever

Spooky1947 wrote: "you would think...but not according to the LoC...as i said, those recordings are literly rotting on the shelves...many have already been lost forever"

That's tragic.
They should talk to the US Copyright office:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

J.D. wrote: "Spooky1947 wrote: "Daran let me push you a bit on the Napster thing. thru napster i got into collecting Old Time Radio shows...Lone Ranger, Jack Benny, Superman and the like. from there i got into ..."

Yeah, the Library of Congress has been making digital archive copies of ALL their media for several years now. The LoC can make as many copies at it feels it needs. They just can't make copies for us.

I'm not defending our current copyright laws. Though, I don't have a real problem with the written term of life +70 years. It's the automatic renewal process that allows works to remain in copyright long after anyone really cares, creating what are called orphan works.

Is it a waste? Yes. Does the law need to be rewritten without Disney looking over our national shoulder? Absolutely.

But, breaking an unjust law is still breaking the law. If the law attempts to deprive you have life, liberty or property, then breaking that law can be a moral act, but still unethical (and the law is only concerned with ethics.

What is available to the public is here:

http://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

Not for nothing, but I've listened to every extant episode of The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, and most of the Green Hornet.

Daran, yep, breakin' the law is breakin' the law....if it were within my power to break it to save things worth saveing, i would (and have, as admited)

in a perfect world, EVERYTHING in the Library of Congress would be digital...the only charge for access would be the royalty payment to the copyright holder....orphaned works and out of copyright works would be free...

Spooky1947 wrote: "Daran, yep, breakin' the law is breakin' the law....if it were within my power to break it to save things worth saveing, i would (and have, as admited)

in a perfect world, EVERYTHING in the Librar..."

I think you misunderstand what the Library of congress does. It's a curation collection, not a circulation collection. As George Putnam famously remarked, it's the “library of last resort” for America. Think of it as a spa for media.

For instance, the radio shows you want are in Culpeper Virginia, in a bunker designed to withstand a nuclear assault. Within that bunker, the temperature is kept at 46-50 degrees F, and kept at 30-40% relative humidity. These conditions were determined by a team of experts employed by the Library, who, along with the Bodlien Library, determine the standard world wide. How are they “rotting on the shelves?”

The Library has been making digital scans of every acquisition since 1996, and has been going through the collection to make a digital copy of everything in the Library (including pottery and musical instruments!) as part of the American Memory project. As part of that project everything in the public domain is made available to the public. If it's still under copyright, it can't be distributed to the public. But if you went to Washington, and proved you were a qualified profession, and had a pressing need to do so, they'd let you listen to those radio shows.

Assuming you could conclusively prove they didn't exist anywhere else. Remember, the staff of the library are archivists, not librarians (the Librarian of Congress a title, currently held by a former publisher), so there's none of that helpful to the public business. Their job is to preserve the collection. They don't like you handling the collection with your dirty hands, or seeing it with your dirty eyes. The Legislative Reference Service keeps the President, Supreme Court and Congress from checking anything out. Which is good, because, frankly, they're the last people I'd trust with important archival material.

All of this is by saying that your problem isn't with the Library of Congress, it's with Congress. The laws need to be changed. And that's not as hopeless as you might think. Britain passed copyright legislation last April that allows orphaned work to transition into the public domain. And the US and UK try to keep their copyright laws mostly lockstep.

And in the meantime, those radio shows are quite safe.

yes, they ARE the Library of last resort....and i dont belive that gives them the right to sit on the only known copy of anything...ANYTHING...the devil with their mandate, the devil with copyright laws, that is WRONG...

Where's my rum bottle, i be needin' another drink...arrrrr

the LoC wants to preserve their collection....THAT is a laff...the LoC USE to have one of the finest comic book collections in the world...until it was mis-handled by the staff, stored with NO EYE WHAT SO EVER twords protecting the tens of millions of dollars worth of history (and as art, priceless) those books represented...and that was before the inside-job theif started...ive been collecting for 40 years....i KNOW how comics should be cared for, and i have BEEN to the LoC and what i saw made me want to cry...i understand the rare book collection hasn't faired much better....maps stolen, sections ripped out of books (all apparently for re-sale)...im not mad at you Daran, dont mean to bite your head off, it just hurts when you see stuff crumbleing on the shelf for lack of proper care. ...more rum for the pirate please. :(

what you say sbout the radio shows is news to me...when i was putting together my collection (about a zillion cds), we were always talking about the shows we knew were already gone forever...and even the best presivation methods wont help save all they havent lost...asatate (sp) pressings ment to be played once and tossed out in the trash (as was done back in the day) wont last much longer under the best of the best....they should be recorded and released before they are lost...

thanks for letting me vent....did not mean to flame

Spooky1947 wrote: "thanks for letting me vent....did not mean to flame"

That's fine. I can tell this is a topic that's important to you.

Be glad you live in the US, if you lived in the UK it would all be gone or sold off by now.

Would appreciate any documentation about the LoC's treatment of its comic collection. I don't know much about it.

Daran wrote: "... The laws need to be changed. And that's not as hopeless as you might think. Britain passed copyright legislation last April that allows orphaned work to transition into the public domain...."

Oh, let's hope! As many problems as there were with the Google book initiative, it did have some upsides.

Daran, i will dig around for the docs...part of what i said about the comics came from the trades, stuff i read years ago (wizard, overstreet, ect.) and part from my own vist to the LoC (as a turist, i was no VIP)...i talked to some of the folks that worked there, and saw some stuff and was told horror stories...no budget, understaffed, theift and worse...it was pretty much the same thing at the Smithsonian...the poor people there were not even sure what they had or where things were in many cases...really sad.

About 8 years ago while I was getting my degree I had some graduate friends who were compiling and cataloging recordings of Washoe Indians for the Oral History Project. Most of my knowledge of comes from that.

The Smithsonian is just huge. They have acres of warehouse space in every state in the Union, and in most countries. It's chaos there. they'll buy an entire collection for one ting, and store it all.

I had a friend who worked in the physical anthropology section (bones) tell me they had enough confederate soldiers to reenact Gettysburg, enough federal cavalry for Custer's last stand (with horses), and clothes and kit enough for both.

Are they all bad .... ? No. Just the ones who rob, steal rape, and murder.

Well, check this out and then decide:

Treasure Island

James wrote: "Well, check this out and then decide:

Treasure Island"

You picked the most morally ambiguous pirate in all of literature. How about Captain Blood

BLUEBEARD!!!

This is what pirates are like. If they don't do what these guys do, they're not pirates. They're Johnny Depp in dreads and mascara.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ASoB...

Modi wrote: "This is what pirates are like. If they don't do what these guys do, they're not pirates. They're Johnny Depp in dreads and mascara.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ASoB..."

Seeing modern day pirates are like seeing modern day Good Humor Men. You know there was glory there once, but now it's just a reminder of how far the world has fallen.

Here is a blog post from an author supporting piracy (the stealing kind - not the parrot and an eye-patch kind)
http://www.hughhowey.com/maker-hacker...

Thanks, Rose.

He said it perfectly, "The other question I get a lot of these days all fall into the category of: Are you freakin’ stupid? These are questions on DRM, piracy, and fan fiction. I’m against the first and all for the second and third. DRM is bad for those who pay for their media and a minor annoyance at best for those who steal it. And my stance on piracy is that I don’t care if people steal my work. I similarly don’t care if they buy my books at a used bookstore, read them on a friend’s Kindle, or borrow a copy from a neighbor’s bookshelf. The challenge is to be read. Figuring out ways not to be read seems silly to me. I’m not alone in either of these stances, but my view on fan fiction is a bit more outlying."

I've found most pirates highly opinionated and discriminating when it comes to literature, and less inclined to waste time (however minimal) hacking crap.

If someone wants to share you with the world, what author has the right to strangle that dream? That desire to share greatness?

And who can say whether or not, in an alternate universe, I ran over their cat?

I probably owe them one. :}

I'm reading John Jakes' Bicentennial series now. The time is the late 1700's & our hero starts his own printing business. The first book he publishes is the collected essays of Thomas Paine. Like the others who have done this & published most other books, he just gathered the pamphlets, set the type, & printed them. No permission was asked or royalties paid - he frankly stole the content. He knew it was stealing since the copyright law had been enacted in 1762 (I think) but everyone did it. The penalty, IF anyone bothered, was too small to worry about.

In a later book, Whitney is mentioned in respect to spending all his profits defending his patent on his invention - the cotton gin. It was so awesome that everyone was making copies & selling them.

Yesterday, I was listening to one of Fred Saberhagen's short stories about berserkers from the late 1960's. The crux of the story was a false entry in an encyclopedia which was planted to make sure those who republished the content as their own could be prosecuted. This is a longstanding practice among dictionary & encyclopedia publishers.

No real point to this except I found it interesting that piracy was so rife at the birth of the US & that I keep stumbling across it whatever I read.

I can't believe this thread is 2 years old....

I hope I don't get in trouble talking about this on this site, but I will anyway....

recently, I got a few hundred gig of old pulp magazine scans, about 90% or more of them being SF, going all the way back to The Steam Man of the Plains from the Frank Reade boy's magazines from around the turn of the century...I snagged over 4,000 of them....what's more, I sort of know some of the original scanners (I use to hang out in some of the same hidden places on the net they did when I was into old time radio and comic books they did some decades ago.....). It's an incredible amount of material of great historical import to SF.

I'm 50 years old this month. I had a serious health scare last month, turned out to be not nearly as serious as we thought, but it drove home the fact I truely am getting old for my health profile, so likely I'll never be able to read it all. Even so, I am super-excited...every time I pull these scans up on my computer, I enter my own personal time machine and go back to the time when, as Asimov said, "it was possible to know the feild entire..." It really means everything to me, and I hope to put it all to good use.

my book-buying habits haven't changed much...I dropped my usual wad of cash at the bookstore last month, and will likely do the same next month....

the question before the court is, am I bad evil pirate or just a pirate not doing any real harm?

second question before the court....should I share where I got this stuff with the group, or not?

I've been wondering for weeks if I should even mention this here in the group or not.....hope I don't start a firestorm......

Evil pirates do not ask such questions. :}

Spooky1947 wrote: "second question before the court....should I share where I got this stuff with the group, or not?..."


Don't. The posting of pirated material would be a violation of both the group's rules and Goodreads terms of use.

C.E. wrote: "That's like asking if all thieves are bad. Are all murderers bad. The brand of pirate means they ARE bad.

A better question would be, is it always considered Piracy.

In your case above, if a boo..."

I agree with this!

In the case of a pirated first book, but then buying the rest of the books, I would still have a problem with that, personally. If the author wants to give the first one away for free or $1.99 as a lure, more power to them, but it should be up to them to choose.