Re: Re: What kind of pirate am I?

You have to be careful when comparing issues with physical books and digital books.  There's a lot more than cost of production that's different.  A physical book is an inventory item.  When you take a physical book the owner that you're taking it from has one less of that item and you have one more.  It's a zero sum game.
DIgital books aren't that way.  If you make a copy of a digital book you haven't deprived the owner of a copy of that book.  You haven't screwed up his accounting and very likely he perceives no loss of any kind.
Of course there is potential loss if you would have otherwise bought the book.  But if you've bought it in IBooks and now you want to read it on your Kindle there's no real loss if you make a copy.  And if you do buy a second digital copy you're paying extra because of limitations.  Neither way is fair.  If you don't pay the publisher/bookseller feels cheated and with some justification and if you do have to pay you should feel cheated with as much justification.
This is only about the moral view.  Legally the two instances have little in common. Stealing a physical object is theft, and while publishers like to call sharing books theft, it's hardly the same thing.  It's cheating, not theft.  Each situation is covered by different laws with different penalties.
Nearly all the arguments I read about the various piracy issues (including my own) are propoganda and dogmatic attempts to appeal to emotions with heavy use of powerful buzzwords.
If this issue is ever going to be usefully discussed people have to find ways to stop the emotional nonsense and discuss the real issues.  This is very complicated stuff and most of the parties that care about it are intelligent people so this should somehow be possible.

Barry

--- On Mon, 10/11/10, Kirk McElhearn <[email protected]> wrote:

From: Kirk McElhearn <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [ebook-community] Re: What kind of pirate am I?
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, October 11, 2010, 9:17 AM















 
 



  


    
      
      
      

On Oct 7, 2010, at 5:00 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:



> If I already own a printed copy, _the author has been paid._ There's no reason I need to pay him again to read the same content again. He gets paid for his creative effort, not for ink on paper.

> 

> If I already own a printed copy, _the publisher has been paid_ for their marketing, the risk they took in acquiring the book, the cost of having a jacket designed, and so forth. If I already own the printed copy, there is no ethical reason why I should have to pay any more for an e-copy beyond the actual cost of production and a markup on that cost. If the book was, in fact, put into electronic form as part of the production process, the cost of the e-copy should be practically zero. If pirates have done the actual production, it didn't cost the publisher a thing and I don't owe the publisher a thing.

> 

> There may be a legal problem here--unfair, artificial law which protects unjust practices--assuming it does, and I say that because nobody seems sure of anything when it comes to intellectual property, and publishers habitually claim rights that they do not really have--but we are not talking about any ethical or moral problem.



So if you bought a hardcover copy, you think you have the right to steal a paperback copy? Because that's what you're saying, more or less. Sure, you say "cost of production"; it costs very little to produce a paperback, so do you think you should be able to buy it for a buck?.



Kirk



*Author of Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ*

http://www.mcelhearn.com/itunes

Twitter: @mcelhearn





    
     

    
    


 



  










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