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Book Piracy BAD
- Thread starter A. E. Lowan
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Mad Swede
Auror
Not really. Stealing books shows a lack of respect for the author and their personal property. That's especially so when you're talking about books published independently. Saying it's OK to steal even when you're able to buy the book at a store or borrow the book from a library just makes you dishonest. Why would any author want a positive relationship with a thief who lacks respect for the author and their work?I have nothing against any of you being opposed to piracy, the wide tapestry of human thought is what makes the world such an interesting place. Nonetheless, I'm afraid I laughed out loud reading some of the posts in this thread (I'll politely refrain from pointing out which) -- the moral high ground does unfortunately just come across as absurdly silly to me when talking about what often amounts to a hypothetical +/- 10 book sales, assuming someone who pirated a work would have spent the money on it if the option to pirate were not available.
I've looked up my own books on these sites, and only one ever made it to the repository and it has... 2 downloads across multiple platforms.I hope both those people had a nice time with it! Creating an antagonistic relationship with any reader, even a 'thief', just feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Public lending libraries already do this. So do many central libraries, like the Royal Library in Stockholm or the British Library in the UK. All you need to do is go down to the local library and ask them for the book you want. They'll get it and then you can read it. And the author will get their little fee. No need for any form of theft at all.
Well, if you are (as you claim) a marxist or a communist then you cannot support theft. Theft goes against the basic principles of marxism and communism.
casval
Minstrel
Suit yourself.
I'm an author and I have no issue with anyone pirating my books, for the reasons I have laid out prior. I love libraries, and use mine regularly, but come on. That's certainly truer of large city libraries - though there are still limits, and it becomes less true the further from a central library you are. At least in America and Canada. I live fairly close to Vancouver but I am part of a different library system and... yeah, no, I cannot get every book I want - and the ones they do manage to order can take 3+ years before they've entered circulation. It's not exactly a perfect process. To say nothing of libraries that require you have an ID with a home address to get a library card, or which otherwise introduce policies that discriminate against the homeless. I hope it is better for you in Sweden, but it's unfortunately an increasingly common practice in some of Canada.
We're getting way off-topic, haha, but this is hilarious to me as someone who is, I think it's fair to assume from this statement, a little better read on Marxist theory.
Marx is, of course, quite opposed to certain types of theft - wage theft, the ownership of land and the means of production, none of which are applicable here - but when it comes to this sort of crime, he mostly regards it is a symptom of capitalism.Later Marxist theorists have a variety of views on the subject, and I definitely don't think it's against Marxist principles to be against working class people committing theft per se, but it's far from one of the basics. Hell, you know Lenin and Stalin organized a bank robbery to fund their revolutionary efforts, right?
Regardless, I don't really see the 'theft' of a digital object as at all similar to what Marx, or Lenin, would understand as theft. No object was removed from the possession of another, it's more akin to photocopying a book and printing out your own copy? (Even that is anachronistic, but I'm not sure by what means one illegally reproduced copies of books back then... manually reproducing the printing plates? Handwriting?) I don't know if any of the major Marxist theorists ever commented on that subject, though I'd be happy to read it if someone pointed me towards it!
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- #84
No, that's an incorrect assumption. Be it a novel, a game, a website, a movie, the use of digital does not decrease the item's stated value. It simply makes it more accessible. And as someone who hails from the era of copying out of print materials, it wasn't illegal. As we have today, copying for personal use is fine. So yes, stealing digital is as much theft as tucking a book under your coat at Barnes and Noble.Suit yourself.
I love libraries, and use mine regularly, but come on. That's certainly truer of large city libraries - though there are still limits, and it becomes less true the further from a central library you are. At least in America and Canada. I live fairly close to Vancouver but I am part of a different library system and... yeah, no, I cannot get every book I want - and the ones they do manage to order can take 3+ years before they've entered circulation. It's not exactly a perfect process. To say nothing of libraries that require you have an ID with a home address to get a library card, or which otherwise introduce policies that discriminate against the homeless. I hope it is better for you in Sweden, but it's unfortunately an increasingly common practice in some of Canada.
We're getting way off-topic, haha, but this is hilarious to me as someone who is, I think it's fair to assume from this statement, a little better read on Marxist theory.
Later Marxist theorists have a variety of views on the subject, and I definitely don't think it's against Marxist principles to be against working class people committing theft per se, but it's far from one of the basics. Hell, you know Lenin and Stalin organized a bank robbery to fund their revolutionary efforts, right?
Regardless, I don't really see the 'theft' of a digital object as at all similar to what Marx, or Lenin, would understand as theft. No object was removed from the possession of another, it's more akin to photocopying a book and printing out your own copy? (Even that is anachronistic, but I'm not sure by what means one illegally reproduced copies of books back then... manually reproducing the printing plates? Handwriting?) I don't know if any of the major Marxist theorists ever commented on that subject, though I'd be happy to read it if someone pointed me towards it!
The whole thing about libraries is just flat wrong. We are very rural and we have a small library. They're on several different services that make up the Interlibrary Loan suite of programs. There are also sites like JSTOR, which is an utter treasure trove of material. 3+ years to access materials? Seriously? 3 weeks is a long wait. 3 years is highly unlikely.
Also, an important point to make here is that as fun and edgy as flirting with Marxism is, it failed in actual use. Communism doesn't work in groups over 50. And what they called Socialism is not what is in wide use today. But don't take my word for it. I recommend JSTOR for a good literature search.
casval
Minstrel
Never said digital decreases the item's "value", though I disagree with what they are "valued" at. But it doesn't change the fact that the object is simply being copied - it is a copy of a file. If someone pirates 1,000 copies of Catcher in the Rye, the ebook for it does not go out of stock on Amazon's website. I could perhaps buy an argument that it is 'theft' of a sort to be the one uploading an EPUB to a digital repository, but downloading one? That is quite literally just copying a file for personal use. It's certainly illegal, of course, but that's not of material concern here.
I'm glad you have a great library system, though! A 3 week wait sounds amazing! I can get books from the Vancouver library in that sort of turnover time, but if they don't have it, I have to request it through my more rural library system and over the past decade or so of me using this library, the turnover rate there is between 6 months and 4 years, with a few books they've never gotten in stock unfortunately. Depends on how popular the book is, I think? I must imagine if there are like 30 people requesting the book, it gets bumped up higher on the list.
I won't even bother addressing the silliness at the end of your post, that's really off-topic for this thread.
But I've been a Marxist for almost half my life at this point, it's a bit much to attribute my sincerely held political beliefs to 'edge.' JSTOR does rule, though. I use it basically every day!
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- Thread starter
- #86
Kiddo, I'm going to give you some advice. First, this is a lovely, laid-back forum with much to offer the neophyte. We have several professional authors with years of experience in what is a notoriously closed off industry. There's a reason for all the writing advice channels, because we saw a need for some sort off openness and this is what we ended up with.
Advice the First: This industry is a small town. In other words, quixotic, gossipy, and often a little incestuous. Everybody knows everybody and in the age of social media we tend to air our grievances in public. Scribes is one of these public, professional spaces. Word-of-mouth makes or breaks careers, and as an industry we take a dim view on piracy and IP theft. Run afoul of the wrong author and if you were serious about writing as a career, you've just sunk yourself. This is a well-worn path. And sometimes no one ever says anything. Conversations just get shorter, shallower, and offers of help or guidance evaporate.
So, it's your call. How you want to proceed is all up to you. But now, at least you are informed.
Advice the First: This industry is a small town. In other words, quixotic, gossipy, and often a little incestuous. Everybody knows everybody and in the age of social media we tend to air our grievances in public. Scribes is one of these public, professional spaces. Word-of-mouth makes or breaks careers, and as an industry we take a dim view on piracy and IP theft. Run afoul of the wrong author and if you were serious about writing as a career, you've just sunk yourself. This is a well-worn path. And sometimes no one ever says anything. Conversations just get shorter, shallower, and offers of help or guidance evaporate.
So, it's your call. How you want to proceed is all up to you. But now, at least you are informed.
casval
Minstrel
Haha, don't worry about me! I'm already a published writer and have both professional and personal relationships with like-minded writers to beta or promo my work outside of these circles. I'll be fine if you decide this disagreement of opinion is a little too spicy for the vibes, that's up to y'all as the people running the forum at the end of the day. But I used to be on this forum years ago (I used to go by Ophiucha!), it's a nice place to chit chat about the process and workshop the little details. Most of my friends and colleagues are more into literary and science fiction, so it's nice to be able to chat fantasy worldbuilding with people. And I like forums more than discords, call me nostalgic. It's up to you, though, I can tap out if you'd rather.
Prince of Spires
Istar
The thing is, for a small author, 10 books does make a big difference. As Mad Swede already mentioned, Harry Potter's first print run was 500 books. 10 extra books sold can mean the difference between a publisher going for a second print run and buying the second book and dropping the author.
Or, if I look at my own books, 10 books makes a difference between an ad being profitable or not. Which can lead to more books being sold and this whole thing being more than an expensive hobby.
You mentioned that you're against wage theft. I hate to tell you that pirating books is wage theft. There is a direct 1-on-1 relationship between a book being sold and the wage of an author. Any book not sold because it was pirated is the author not getting paid. There is no evil corporation behind it or a big movie studio who still pays the writers and actors. There's only a single person typing on a laptop, getting paid for each sale. Who, as mentioned earlier makes $2.50 an hour on average.
Mad Swede
Auror
This is probably a discussion best moved to Chit Chat...We're getting way off-topic, haha, but this is hilarious to me as someone who is, I think it's fair to assume from this statement, a little better read on Marxist theory.
Later Marxist theorists have a variety of views on the subject, and I definitely don't think it's against Marxist principles to be against working class people committing theft per se, but it's far from one of the basics. Hell, you know Lenin and Stalin organized a bank robbery to fund their revolutionary efforts, right?
But, the idea that property is theft and therefore that it is OK to take other peoples property is not Communist or even Marxist. It is Anarchist, and has its basis in Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's various works on the subject. What Proudhon makes clear is that it is not OK to take peoples personal property, by which he means things produced by an individual as a result of their own labour. This is also a distinction made by Marx and Engels.
So no, it's not OK to steal someones work in the form of a book.
(And yes, I have read Proudhon, Marx and quite a lot of other political theorists. When you're out in the field on a peacekeeping mission it helps to have read these, so that you know a bit about where the various parties are coming from and hence how you might get them to at least talk to one another in the hope of bringing a little more calm to an area. It didn't and doesn't always work, but we did at least try, no matter what you or some in New York might have thought...)
Under the Berne Convention you're allowed to copy parts of a work for your own personal study. You are not allowed to copy the whole work without permission. So downloading a pirate copy of anything is theft.
AcolyteThis is probably an unpopular opinion, but I think the concept of "intellectual property" is both an oxy moron and antithetical to thriving art and culture. Intellectual property doesn't exist to benefit artist or protect their work. It exists to protect studio executives and publishing company's financial interests and control over their "product".
Also, I think it's arrogant and foolish to claim ideas as our own. We don't create ideas. They're just churring around in the collective consciousness. "Your" idea isn't yours. It has its roots before you were born, passed through you to obtain another flavor, and then will continue morphing and changing after you're gone.
Also, I think it's arrogant and foolish to claim ideas as our own. We don't create ideas. They're just churring around in the collective consciousness. "Your" idea isn't yours. It has its roots before you were born, passed through you to obtain another flavor, and then will continue morphing and changing after you're gone.
pmmg
Myth Weaver
And this is a discussion of stealing works, not ideas.
pmmg
Myth Weaver
I guess you are right. I have never held one in my hand.
When people pirate books, they aren't stealing physical books. The paper and binding don't make a book. If they did, we wouldn't be discussing this because ebooks wouldn't exists. A book is means for symbolically transmitting ideas through words.
In fact, I'd argue that stories only exist as thoughts. If I write a book, but in a language no other human on earth can read, it's a book to me. To everyone else, it's gobblygook. Everything that gives a book "substance" exists in the mind of the writer and reader. Nothing "physical" (using physical extremely loosely here to include the code that makes up an ebook) about a book inherently holds its meaning. Without thoughts and ideas, a book is nothing more than squiggly marks.
In fact, I'd argue that stories only exist as thoughts. If I write a book, but in a language no other human on earth can read, it's a book to me. To everyone else, it's gobblygook. Everything that gives a book "substance" exists in the mind of the writer and reader. Nothing "physical" (using physical extremely loosely here to include the code that makes up an ebook) about a book inherently holds its meaning. Without thoughts and ideas, a book is nothing more than squiggly marks.
Mad Swede
Auror
I think, lightruin, that you need to read up on what copyright is.
Put very simply, copyright protects an artist who creates an original work. Note that the work must be original and it must exist in some form (be that on paper or stored electronically). It's not enough to have an idea or story in your head, you must write it down. Ideas are not protected, but the creators interpretation of an idea is protected.
As an example, take the idea of a lost prince reclaiming their kingdom. That as an idea for a story is not and cannot be protected. But the authors own version of that story, as written down, is protected. The only thing required is that the authors version be original, which in practice means their own characters, setting etc. A creation does not need to be unique to be protected by copyright, so there can be and are several different cartoon mice running around in films and on TV (eg Mickey Mouse, Dangermouse, Speedy Gonzales, Jerry etc).
Copyright gives the creator the right to decide how the work is to be used, and others can use it lawfully only if they have the owner's permission. This includes the right to decide how a work is distributed and for what price. So casval has the right to distribute their stories at no cost to the reader whilst other authors can decide to charge the readers some money. The creator's ownership of the work must respect the legally recognised rights and interests of other members of society, which is why others can copy parts of a work for private study and in some cases use the work as a starting point for their own creations.
In most of the world (but not in the US) copyright includes the so-called moral rights to the work. Moral rights include the right to be attributed as the creator and owner of the work, and also the right to object to any distortion or modification of a work, or other derogatory action in relation to a work, which would be prejudicial to the creator's honour or reputation. This is why creators can object to and prevent politicians using works belonging to the creator.
Copyright as a concept dates back to the 1600s, it isn't a modern idea in any way.
Traditional publishing typically requires creators to sign over copywrite to the publisher. Intellectual property laws as they currently exists function to protect the "exclusive right" of the big publishing companies and studio execs to turn art into a marketing product. IP suits are rarely about fraud or plagiarism. It's almost always "I claimed ownership of this thing because these pieces of paper give me ownership" not "That is my (or our client's) work that you stole". The artist is rarely in the courtroom, apart of these proceeding, or benefit from judgements awarded for "copywrite infringement". Copywrite and intellectual property have done more to stifle creativity and keep "culture' monopolized in the hands of people who don't see art; they see products. What is published is what sells to the masses, which is why pop culture has become so dull, formulaic, and honestly just a series of marketing campaigns. What do you think that does to a culture when all its myths are created by corporations for the purpose of brainwashing people into spending more money, rather than to teach and promote the values of said culture?
Still, even if copywrite purely existed for the benefit of the writer, I'd argue that "intellectual property" is still not a valid concept. Are you the owner of your thoughts? Do you make them appear? Also, there's no such thing as an original thought. All thoughts are echoes.
I'm getting a bit off topic and will try to rein myself in. The discussion is specifically book piracy. First, assume everything you've ever put on the internet, including an ebook, is in 50 places you don't know about and 10 of those 50 places are sketch. If you don't want your ebook pirated, don't publish an ebook. Make someone scan every page in if they're that determined to upload it. At the end of the day, people pirating your books is probably doing a lot less harm to you than stressing over people pirating your books is.
Second, I want everyone in the society I live in to be educated, logical, and informed, which is why I'm a supporter of free distribution. Why should information be held in the hands of an elite few who decides what is distributed to the masses and how? What negatives are there to free access to education and culture for any willing to seek it out, other than eliminating a revenue stream mostly for executives, not for artists?
Still, even if copywrite purely existed for the benefit of the writer, I'd argue that "intellectual property" is still not a valid concept. Are you the owner of your thoughts? Do you make them appear? Also, there's no such thing as an original thought. All thoughts are echoes.
I'm getting a bit off topic and will try to rein myself in. The discussion is specifically book piracy. First, assume everything you've ever put on the internet, including an ebook, is in 50 places you don't know about and 10 of those 50 places are sketch. If you don't want your ebook pirated, don't publish an ebook. Make someone scan every page in if they're that determined to upload it. At the end of the day, people pirating your books is probably doing a lot less harm to you than stressing over people pirating your books is.
Second, I want everyone in the society I live in to be educated, logical, and informed, which is why I'm a supporter of free distribution. Why should information be held in the hands of an elite few who decides what is distributed to the masses and how? What negatives are there to free access to education and culture for any willing to seek it out, other than eliminating a revenue stream mostly for executives, not for artists?
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casval
Minstrel
This is really more of a semantic argument than an ethical or legal one - it's obviously a criminal act, but whether that crime is 'theft' or something more like 'copyright infringement' or 'illegal reproduction of materials' is more the point I am arguing.
I have nothing nice to say about Proudhon or the United Nations, so I won't say anything at all, but this is why I didn't say 'property is theft', haha. I agree that it is amoral to steal a person's personal property... well, I suppose I wouldn't consider it amoral if you stole a billionaire's car or something, but that's not pertinent.
casval
Minstrel
There's a lot of wage theft in the publishing industry, and it's not coming from a couple of people who - let's be honest - probably just wouldn't have bought and read the book if they had to pay for it anyway. Let's deal with the publishers and the distributors before we worry about the small fry.
Mad Swede
Auror
No it does not. No reputable publisher ever tries to make the author sign over copyright.
What the author sells is the right to publish their book. The length of time for this grant varies between countries, and here in Sweden it's nornally seven years after which the publishing rights revert to the author unless otherwise agreed.
I take it you have been following what Neil Young is doing to prevent Donald Trump using Young's music at his various MAGA and other political rallies? That sort of prevention is only possible when we have a working copyright system which recognises our intellectual property and our right to control what happens to our intellectual property.
Yes, I do own my thoughts. That's what freedom of thought and freedom of concience mean. Yes, I do make my thoughts appear on paper. No-one else can do this for me.
The problem which you and casval miss is that when ypou puyt up pirate copies on various websites you take control from the creator. That means that others (like Donald Trump) can then use those works for purposes which you and the creator may not agree with, to help them create a society which you may not want. Was that really what you intended? Because if it isn't then you need to respect the rights of those creators to their own work.
You are free to believe in a concept like that. What you have no right to do is decide for others whether their work, their creations, are distributed freely. After all, who gave you the right to control other peoples thoughts and creations?
Sorry, but all scientific progress involves truly original thoughts. It does build on previous work, true. But without originality, there would be no breakthroughs. And in any event, "intellectual property" is a complicated legal topic that involves a lot more than just "thoughts". I'll leave it to experts in the field to comment on that.
This would be a great idea if there weren't a large number of people out there who were willing to pay money for access to certain artistic media. In principle, it shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is. So there is some financial incentive for people to commit artistic piracy. They most definitely do not do so purely from altruistic motives or to promote free access to artistic media.
By the way, the correct spelling of "copywrite" in this context is "copyright". To "copywrite" is to produce some text, typically for advertising.
