Pirated digital books

Discussion in 'Electronic Publishing' started by GingerCoffee, Jun 28, 2015.

  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So you would steal a movie if you personally didn't like it, and steal candy? I was hoping you might see those as wrong. At this point I'm really not sure why you have any issue with car theft.
     
  2. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Well, I'd go with IMmoral on this one.

    But it doesn't make you a terrible person.

    I think that's an important distinction to me. I may have said this before (maybe the first time this thread was active) but I think one of the best ways to combat piracy is to refuse to normalize it.

    You're not a terrible person if you pirate, but what you're doing hurts authors. So if you care about authors, you should probably stop.

    At the very least, don't justify your behaviour, and don't pretend you're interested in helping authors. It's adding insult to injury.
     
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  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think "information" may be a bit generous. It's pretty difficult to get hard data on something as underground as piracy. And when your most frequently cited source is a torrent site, I have trouble accepting the impartiality of the reports.
     
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  4. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    I would probably still pay for the movie/candy regardless of it's quality. The answer is the same for hypothetical 'me' too.

    The real issue is that I haven't USED the book. It's not gone, it's not disappeared, it's still there. I've read a copy, and if it's worth the money, the original gets bought. A book hasn't disappeared from existence because I've read the copy. There's no actual damage done. There is no effect on the author or the rest of the world. The author won't feel me reading a copy and die of an aneurysm. The author won't feel their lifeforce draining away as I read each sentence. The author is completely unaffected by this chain of events. So the idea of it being wrong doesn't exist. No one, no one is hurt, damaged, punished or detrimented in any way.


    If I ate candy and didn't pay for it, the shop is at a loss.

    If I steal a car, the person who owned it is out of a car.

    If I sneak into a theatre, the theatre is at a loss.

    If I read an e-book and decide it's not worth my time to pay for it, the author isn't out of a loss, because the e-book is still there. The potential for the sale would have been zero at the start, because something prompted me to pirate it in the first place, but the potential for the sale could have been improved from the experience. The author only has a potential sale from in the area of "didn't buy" or "did buy". Not "didn't buy and lost money".
     
  5. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    How is the theatre at more of a loss than the author? Were they not going to play the movie anyway?

    And how does this current argument connect with your statement above that taking something without the owner's consent is wrong? (Post #337)
     
  6. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The theater didn't lose anything if they weren't full. You made the movie look more popular. You're doing them a favor!

    I think that if you didn't want to pay for movie tickets, you'd come up with some premise for avoiding it.

    And are you saying that if piracy were not an option you'd never, ever, EVER buy a book that you're uncertain about?
     
  7. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    That torrent site isn't a 'torrent site'. It's a site that talks about news relating to torrents, such as when the pirate bay website was shut down and why, and it has given only objective and backed up statements there. But if you're ignoring the other sources based on the name of that first source, rest assured the others are verified sources of information. Through reading through the studies, I have reached a conclusion that piracy is not damaging and not positive either.

    I hope you won't take it as insulting if I walk through it here.

    Category 1: You have fans of your book. They will buy your book, because they respect the quality of your work. They are considered 'guaranteed buyers' in the sense that they're not likely to pirate. This means your baseline sales will usually stay consistent so long as your work is.

    Category 2: You have your new customers, ones who are open to buying your book, but are restricted by finances, prejudices and beliefs based on the content. They will investigate your work before buying it. This means you have a portion that will buy, and a portion that will not based on their findings and availability to funds. In the end, some will buy, some will pirate then buy.

    Category 3: You have your pirates. These are people that will not buy your book but will pirate it to read it. Considering that piracy isn't going to go away any time soon, it's generally taken as granted it will always be there for the foreseeable future. These people are null sales. They aren't negative sales, they would not buy your book anyway because they're either pirating because they want free stuff, in which case no sale, or they can't afford the luxury of buying a book, in which case no sale (I can hear ChickenFreak winding up to quote and say "Public Library" but you might want to read up on studies about public libraries buddy. They're not encouraging).

    Category 4: Those disinterested in buying because of content, disinterest in reading, etc. This are all null sales. They aren't going anywhere.

    Your pirates offer a fringe benefit over the 4th category that gives you an advantage into making more sales. That is exposure. The pirating community is large and wide spread, so are capable of spreading word-of-mouth in large numbers. If they're inclined to tout your book, they most usually will when it comes to conversation about books in general. This is part of a 'guilt complex'. They're more likely to recommend books they have pirated first over books they have come by legitimately. This result in you having more exposure in communities, and a chance of getting more people into the first two categories.

    Pirating is not a good thing, not at all. I think the world would be a better without it, but to hate piracy is like hating the sky. Neither are going anywhere, so just accept that it's there and forget about it. Ultimately it just falls into the great big smorgasbord of how selling digital entertainment works these days.
     
  8. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    That post is not connected, because I'm responding to ChickenFreak's argument, who is arguing by supposition. It's unrelated, or, tangentially related to what you and I are talking about.
     
  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    You're jumping all over. If you believe these arguments are valid (and, honestly, I don't) then why is pirating not a good thing and why would the world be better without it?

    ETA: And a site with a sidebar featuring articles on "5 ways to download torrents anonymously" and "Top Ten most popular torrent sites of 2016" is not a site I'm going to go to for serious, unbiased research or reporting.
     
  10. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    You're still applying two different concepts and trying to make them fit.

    Theft is the removal of something so that it can't be sold. Sales can not happen.

    Copyright infringement doesn't remove anything from sale, it distributes copies illegally. Sales can still happen regardless.



    If I were uncertain about a book and couldn't find a review, nor even a whisper, about it's quality, I would avoid buying it, because that's a negative indicator in itself. It could mean no one has read, it could mean people have read it but didn't bother to review it, and that people couldn't even be bothered to take the time to pirate it :D if no one can be bothered with it, why would I. There's 9 billion people in the world, if none of them had anything to say about it, through review, word of mouth or the act of pirating it, then it's generally not worth it in the first place.
     
  11. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So is it "studies" that keep you from entering your public library to find the things you want? What is it about the "studies" that keep you from doing so?

    Now, if someone is in an area that has closed their public library due to government funds, I do feel bad for them. Not bad enough to excuse theft, but bad.
     
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  12. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    Pirating isn't a good thing, but it's causal. Something happened, then piracy became a thing. Money factors in. Public perception factors in. Ease of attainability factors in. It's caused by a bunch of things and exists because of something before it. If there was no reason to pirate (no, I'm not saying 'make everything free') then people would not pirate. Piracy is an indicator of underlying problems with the way things work now.

    The world would be better if piracy didn't exist, because these underlying problems also would not exist. I haven't got a solution to make that happen, and apparently, neither does everyone else, so piracy is there and will stay around until a solution is put into effect.

    Piracy isn't a bad thing in and of itself because they are not and will never be sales. If piracy wasn't there, people would make an effort to visit libraries, which admittedly you do get paid for, but even more than that they'd seek out book clubs, loaning circles, etc to avoid paying for the book. Because they are not and will never be sales, it can't possibly be a negative for you personally. It does afford other fringe benefits that I outlined above though.

    Piracy is bad in it's very principles, but it exists and won't go away. That doesn't mean you're being affected by it's existence. It's a crime, but it's not affecting you.
     
  13. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    If the theater isn't full, you didn't remove anything. So why isn't it fine to sneak into a theater?

    And you wouldn't go look for it at the library, or borrow it from a friend? You'd say, "I can't pirate this, so forget it."? Really?
     
  14. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    "Theft is the removal of something so that it can't be sold. Sales can not happen."

    So you don't think that theft of intellectual property is a real thing?

    If I invent something and have a patent on it, it's totally kosher in your view for someone else to be able to copy the design and sell it? I mean, I can still make sales, right? I'm getting the feeling that you think the idea of copyright in general is sort of a BS premise, particularly if it stands in the way of you obtaining something that you want.
     
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  15. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    Lack of desired books, movement from library to library & computer...cafe? No coffee or tea or anything, just a plethora of open use computers with access to the internet. Generally dwindling on-hand stock of books. Fewer people are likely to request a transferred book like you suggested. The studies show people are moving away from libraries as sources of books. They're not as valued anymore. Because...piracy? Shift in dynamic of studies? Shift in medium of entertainment? All of them.
     
  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    And how do those book clubs and loaning circles get the book?
     
  17. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So the lack of coffee and tea justifies theft? Okey.
     
  18. Moth

    Moth Active Member

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    Whoa, what?

    Theft - Noun: The action or crime of stealing.
    Steal - Verb: Take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.

    Source.

    Where on earth did you get the 'can be sold' part? Because that sounds like utter nonsense that exists only as justification for piracy and digital theft.
     
  19. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    The lame justification is even more enraging.
     
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  20. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    I will never be able to wrap my mind around the entitled mentality that just because you want something, you should be able to have it. It's just mind-boggling to me.
     
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  21. Samuel Lighton

    Samuel Lighton Senior Member

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    Maybe I'm reading into this too deep ChickenFreak. If I am uncertain about a book, that is because I can find nothing on or about it. Nothing. Not a word. No one has read it, no one is willing to say anything about it. If I can find sources in reviews, book clubs, etc, then I am not uncertain about it, I am in fact certain about it. Enough information from different, separate and uninfluenced sources will lead to an opinion on the book before reading it, whether it's good or bad.
     
  22. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    I didn't say I should be able to have it, but good luck stopping me from getting it.
     
  23. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So if any information about a book stops you from stealing it, why would you ever steal a book?
     
  24. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Ah yes, that reminds me of the quote 'the true measure of a man is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. ' And now we know.

    It's interesting to see people's views on ethics.
     
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  25. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Does this just apply to media, or also to shoplifting or taking your friends' excess cash while they're not looking?
     

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