Re: Re: What kinds of Books are pirated and made into EBooks?

On 3/10/10, Sensei J. Richard Kirkham B.Sc <tutor2000-/[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>  Copyright infringement is not theft, any more than posting a negative
>>  review that convinces people not to buy the book is "stealing" from
>>  the author.
>
> -------------------------------
>
>  Thank goodness
>
>  I'm on my way to Borders right now then to the copy machine. I'll then return the books and save myself a lot of money
>
>  I'm glad you cleared this up for me

I didn't say it was legal; I just said it's not theft.

If it were "theft," then copying 1 book would be a misdemeanor with
penalties of maybe a hundred dollars. Instead, making a single copy
against the will of the copyright holder can have civil penalties of
up to $150,000. (Which penalties add to the acceptability of
piracy--the penalties are so extreme as to be surreal, and people
reject the notion that there's any fairness or justice in the laws
involved, so they ignore the laws.)

If I take an out-of-print book written by an author who's now
deceased, and scan it & give a copy of the scans to my husband & my
best friend, from whom am I stealing? What's the dollar value of the
theft?

It's easy to call it "theft" when the books being exchanged are
currently available as legitimate ebooks; it gets blurrier when
they're not (e.g. Harry Potter ebooks--who's being stolen from? Most,
maybe all, of the people who have ebook versions, have paid for paper
as well.), and more blurry still when the reason they're not is that
*nobody knows* who owns the copyright.

--Erica


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