Pirated digital books

I think it's safe to say that when an Author dies they can't reasonably expect to make any more money off their labour.

 

You realize that the owner of a copy of a book can only resell that one copy, right? That's a far, far cry from "full rights".

I just can't find any logic at all in your argument. Not a drop. You want "creatives" to get special privileges that no one else gets, but you don't offer any logical reason. Your argument seems to come down to, "It's wrong because it's wrong." Or possibly, "It's wrong because I say so."

 

How is this relevant?

 

That's fine by me.

 

While they can make money off it they should be allowed to.

 

In regards to the above posts.

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I can only thin of one recent example where someone tried to get around the piracy issue and even the selling of the used products. It wasn't with books though but with video games. I know they are completely different media and both are awesome.

I prefer books but still love games.

Nonetheless when they announced their Xbox One....Microsoft tried to use some sorts of DRM policies. I think you could still share games but it was really confusing and complicated and only digital.

This explains it fairly well if I recall.

Spoiler

• Every game that releases in physical form, has a digital counterpart available the same day.
• Once you install the game, you would no longer be required to use the disc to play. The disc would be "ripped" to your Xbox One and you could store the disc and avoid the usual wear and tear(adds resell value).
• You can convert your physical copy of a game to a digital version. Ex. You could rent or borrow a game, download it to your Xbox One, and then change it to a digital license. You could also purchase the physical copy, change it to a digital copy, and then sell the physical copy with the license renewal system.
• Used games could be sold as either physical or digital without a fee. This was only for Microsoft published games. 3rd party publishers had the option to add a fee for the transfer of licenses. 3rd parties could allow or deny you the ability to sell, trade, or lend their games, not Microsoft.
• Digital loaning or trading could be done but only to friends on XBL and you would have needed to be friends on XBL for 30 days or longer. There would have been an option for the amount of time you wanted to lend your game(people never return shit on time so this makes perfect sense, lol). You would initially be limited to loaning each game once.
• The always online and 24 hour check-in requirement was to verify the license of the game you're using is in fact legit, to verify if system, game, or application updates are needed, to verify if you've acquired new games, resold, traded, or given any games to a friend.
• The always online feature was required for any games that take advantage of Azure aka "the cloud".
• Download a game on a friend's console from the cloud and play without the need for a physical copy.
• Family Sharing would have allowed up to 10 members(household or not) to have access to the entire game library of the main account. On any designated Xbox One(any of the 10 selected), as long as the main account is logged in, up to 10 Xbox Ones could access the entire library at once. The main account holder could still access any of their games and also play online with anyone of the designated members. You could literally buy one copy of a game and share it with up to 10 people in your country. Anyone outside of your country would then be subject to the loaning policy.

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/original-xbox-one-drm-policies.454196923/

Excuse if what I posted on the policies is wrong and will seek for a better or more professional run down of it (somewhat hard to fimd) then another forum but just wanted something general illustrate.

Now regardless of how one feels about it.

What did happen was bad marketing and Xbox/Microsoft lost money if I recall and while they pretty much reversed Xbox One's original design. The entire issue of the policies, the confusion of how used games would work or if they would at all and all that.

BUT Microsoft and the Xbox One's sales never recovered to what they could have been and the Playstation 4 is at the top in terms of numbers (Sony really took advantage of the situation). I agree piracy is wrong and books and video games are very different but all that chaos about the Xbox One couple years back. It kinda showed you've got to be careful about mucking about with the first sale doctrine, most of all with physical media.

I know art is more then just about cash but as soon as people felt it was threatened the Xbox One lost a lot support, money and eventually just ended up reverse everything they had in place for the original set up.

Which is the same as anything else.

You can buy it and do what you want with it.

And once I again I want to state that obviously the book and publishing business work much differently then games (I assume so....haven't been in either but working on the publishing part ). But I think if you aren't careful with something like that you can actually hurt your brand, business and lose money as opposed to increasing support and all for the creators. (or in this case Microsoft itself)

I'm very sorry if my post wasn't well put together or if I'm not familiar with the full story or the business aspects of everything but the conversation somewhat reminded me of this incident.

 

That's silly. I can understand doing that on a PC (the few legal games I purchased were for multiplayer and Steam), but for a console?

 

There are a variety of Creative Commons licenses you can publish under if you want your book to be freely shared. That's not a problem.

But if someone has chosen to not publish under a Creative Commons license, then it's pretty unlikely they want their book freely shared. In which case - your preferences as an author don't really come into it, because it's not your book people are sharing. So assuming you would want people to respect the terms on which you have published your book, then you should respect the terms on which they've published theirs.

 

As I said, I don't care.
They can pirate a digital copy, I don't like or want to publish as an e-book anyway. Physical copies would cost money and can't be pirated.

 

You don't care about your own book - again, fine.

But surely you care about doing unto others as you want done to you? So if you want people to respect your wishes (like, you don't want them to scan your book and sell it as an e-book under their own name) then shouldn't you respect theirs?

 

No. I pirate e-books since they're worthless and buy physical copies since they're not.
It's what I do and what I want done to me, as I've said.

 

In what world are ebooks worthless?

 

Why would you bother downloading something that's worthless?

 

I think in the world of someone who wants an excuse for stealing them, maybe?

 

They're a line of code.

 

Not interested in a battle of semantics. You know full well what I meant.

 

So you're denying the value of all intellectual property rights? Software is also worthless, since it's only a line of code, a representation of ideas?

So your books will only be worth the paper they're printed on, with no value added by the words represented by lines of ink?

 

Well, what I currently think you meant is "I want to do this, so I'll use any silly argument I can come up with to justify my actions." If you meant something else, I'm going to need more explanation before I understand it.

 

Exactly, with added cost of the cover and such.
During WW2 books lost in the blitz were renumerated by the weight/amount of paper.

 

I think you need to look up what "ad hominem" means - calling your argument "silly" isn't the height of rhetorical sophistication, I agree, but it's not an ad hominem.

But, I digress. You're getting far too close to being a troll for my taste (THAT's an ad hominem) so I'm done with you. Good luck with your book.

 

Even if that was true, "lines of code" are sold for thousands of pounds/dollars/whatever. Neither are worthless.

 

People SAY they're worth something, just like a £100 note is worth a few pence and yet is traded as being worth £100.

 

Yes. And by assigning it worth, they make it worth...ful.

They are not worthless.

Is stealing a £10 note okay because it's just a piece of paper (or cotton or whatever)?

 

Are we talking about when free versions of published books are made available online without the author's permission?
If yes, I'll admit that I have taken advantage of this. I found free versions of the 3rd and 4th books of a series online after buying and reading the first two as ebooks. They were expensive, like £6-7 each, I'm too mean to spend £25+ on books in almost one go. I could have just taken a break in reading the series, but book 2 ended terribly for me and I was desperately hoping for the story to go the way I wanted it to go in the next two. It was an emotional decision coupled with my frugality which led me to read the pirated versions. I don't feel too bad about it since I bought the first two, and I feel the whole book series thing is just a money-spinner on the part of the publishers (unsurprising, they're a business, but still). Nevertheless, I won't try and justify it and say it was an ok thing to do. I shouldn't have done it and don't want to do it again, not least because I usually pride myself in not letting my emotions guide my decisions. Though next time a book series grips me I may have a different outlook.

So you'd pay the same for a blank wad of paper as for a book? Because the words are nothing?

You're reminding me of my childhood friend, who one Christmas gave me a smaller present than the rest of our friends because I spent less money on the one I gave her. She presented it to me saying so! Silly me thinking spending my time on hand-making her a christmas tree decoration was worth more than buying an expensive one from the garden-centre.

That's what I pay for when I buy a book, not the paper or the pixels, but the time and talent of the author. You have a warped sense of "worth"

 

A non-emotional sense of worth, ironically.