Stealing Trek Literature

[label]

But is not stripping out DRM illegal as well?

It is illegal, but in my opinion, not immoral which is what I live by. If I spent money to buy a book whether it be a hardback or ebook, I should be able to read it on any device I choose.

A free program out there called Calibre is awesome for keeping your ebook catalog, converting the format from one type to another and many other useful features.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

 

[kkozoriz1]

But I was speaking just of the legality of it. Once you strip the DRM you can share it with anyone.

 

[label]

But I was speaking just of the legality of it. Once you strip the DRM you can share it with anyone.

You could share it once the DRM is off, if you were a dishonest person. But, honestly, stealing or disseminating books in ways that would allow others to steal them (seeding a torrent, etc. etc) is such a self-defeating practice one has to wonder at the short-sightedness of it.

I buy books to support art I enjoy so that I'll receive more. By stealing or being a facilitator of it's theft, you're really just taking money from an artist that you really want to have it so they'll continue. Kind of stupid really.

 

[Smitty]

But I was speaking just of the legality of it. Once you strip the DRM you can share it with anyone.

Yes, that is true. Once you remove the DRM it could be shared. But that would in essence be stealing from the author, and the publisher of course.

 

[Destructor]

But I was speaking just of the legality of it. Once you strip the DRM you can share it with anyone.

Yes, that is true. Once you remove the DRM it could be shared. But that would in essence be stealing from the author, and the publisher of course.

The sharing, or the removal of DRM?

Removing DRM is a breach of contract. Breaching a contract is, in fact, not illegal, even though you can be sued for it. A fine but important distinction.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Make of this what you will:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ But so long as you don't share it, i.e., don't make it available for others to get their grubby little cyberfingers on it, then the authorities will never know. No harm, no foul. Whether or not you get sued depends on your personal responsibility.

 

[Deano2099]

One last thing... one downloaded file does not equal one lost sale.

That's quite an interesting point and one worth picking up on, and perhaps one that might make some of the authors feel a little better. See if you're on a pirate site, you have access to a huge amount of pirated ebooks to choose from. And since they're so small (in file size, compared to a movie or even an album) pirates will download anything they're even remotely interested in. And especially with books series, like Star Trek, there's a huge amount of collectionism going on - people want to have the entire set there to read, even if they never read them.

It's an odd phenomenom, it sounds silly, but it happens. I'd honestly be surprised if more than 20% of the downloads ever actaully got read. And the portion that would have actually bought the book if it wasn't available illiegally is even lower I imagine.

 

[kkozoriz1]

^ But so long as you don't share it, i.e., don't make it available for others to get their grubby little cyberfingers on it, then the authorities will never know. No harm, no foul. Whether or not you get sued depends on your personal responsibility.

That doesn't make it legal though. If you kill some faceless streetperson and the body is never found, the authorities may never know a crime has even occured but you still commited murder.

 

[Kataaran]

^ I would happily rip the DRM out of a file I had bought, I wouldn't ever consider sharing it though. Once I've handed over my cash that file is mine whatever the law might say. If I need to format shift it I will.

My biggest problem however is that I refuse to buy DRMed files, I don't want to support DRM. Ripping out the DRM won't be registered by the seller so they go on thinking that I have no problem with it.

 

[aaon80]

Once I've handed over my cash that file is mine whatever the law might say. If I need to format shift it I will.

But, playing the devil's advocate here, you know what the law about DRM stripping is, right? So you are aware of it when you make the purchase to begin with? By making the purchase you implicitly submit to the usage of the product as defined by the law, not to mention the copyright holder. If you actually read the user agreements of the files, you find that you don't "own" the file, what you have purchased is a license to use the file as defined by the terms of the license agreement. Therefore, if you don't want to use it as agreed to, you probably shouldn't buy it at all.

 

[Kataaran]

^ Legally I don't own the file but morally I own my copy of it. But if you noticed my second paragraph I stated that I won't buy DRMed files.

I wouldn't (in theory) need to strip out the copy protection if I could buy the file in a suitably open format. Why shouldn't I be able to read the iBook version of a file on a Kindle? I can read a papery thing sitting in a field, in my house or in the crapper. Why shouldn't that functionality extend to the virtual?

If I could buy an ebook and tick a box that stated that I'll be format shifting it for my convenience I would, but since I can't I choose to not give my money (and by extension my agreement) to DRMed books.

 

[LaBarre]

Scott, appreciate your response.

You've set off a really interesting thread here.

 

[Greg Cox]

Hmm. According to USA Today, there was a huge spike in ebook sales the week after Christmas. For the first time ever, ebook sales of the big bestsellers topped the print book sales.

The big question: was this just a temporary blip, caused by lots of people wanting to try out the new Kindles and nooks they got for Christmas, or will those people keep on buying ebooks at this rate after they get over the novelty of playing with their new toys?

 

[BrotherBenny]

Hmm. According to USA Today, there was a huge spike in ebook sales the week after Christmas. For the first time ever, ebook sales of the big bestsellers topped the print book sales.

The big question: was this just a temporary blip, caused by lots of people wanting to try out the new Kindles and nooks they got for Christmas, or will those people keep on buying ebooks at this rate after they get over the novelty of playing with their new toys?

I don't know about anybody else, but now that I have my Kindle, I will only be buying eBooks provided that the money is there. The books I don't buy for my Kindle will be older Trek novels which I can buy second hand and then sell back, and ones that I probably won't read again, like Cussler's Dirk Pitt series or McCaffrey's Pern series.

I'm going digital for the new year.

 

[Smitty]

Hmm. According to USA Today, there was a huge spike in ebook sales the week after Christmas. For the first time ever, ebook sales of the big bestsellers topped the print book sales.

The big question: was this just a temporary blip, caused by lots of people wanting to try out the new Kindles and nooks they got for Christmas, or will those people keep on buying ebooks at this rate after they get over the novelty of playing with their new toys?

I love my Kindle and buy several books a month on it (which adds to my now virtual reading pile ). The only think that bothers me are the books I want that I cannot get as a ebook (regardless of device).. For example "The New Space Opera".

 

[label]

The big question: was this just a temporary blip, caused by lots of people wanting to try out the new Kindles and nooks they got for Christmas, or will those people keep on buying ebooks at this rate after they get over the novelty of playing with their new toys?

Just my 2 cents, but I am huge lover of books and never saw myself as someone who would enjoy reading on an eReader. However, after reading several books on the Kindle, I find that other than full sized hardbacks, I actually prefer the Kindle to any other format. I'm actually to the point where I will pay about the same as I would have paid for a mass market paper back as a Kindle. In fact, there are only a couple authors I have to have the hardbacks for so pretty much everything I buy now (and will buy) is in eBook format.

My wife just picked up an Nook Color and she's finding that she's enjoying the convenience of ebooks much better than having to buy/sell/store paper back versions.

 

[John Clark]

Hmm. According to USA Today, there was a huge spike in ebook sales the week after Christmas. For the first time ever, ebook sales of the big bestsellers topped the print book sales.

The big question: was this just a temporary blip, caused by lots of people wanting to try out the new Kindles and nooks they got for Christmas, or will those people keep on buying ebooks at this rate after they get over the novelty of playing with their new toys?

I have to admit, I wasn't entirely sure about ebooks, but having got one for Christmas I am seriously liking it and suspect that for new books, I'm more likely to go for the ebook version than not now

 

[Thrawn]

^ It seems like Kindles/Nooks/etc are like iPods in that way; even people that don't really see the point, after they get one, are total converts.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Are books stored on the kindle itself or do you download from an online library each time?
If they are stored on the kindle can you keep a copy on your desktop computer? It's unlikely Amazon will go away but if the discontinue the Kindle for some reason, what do you do about the books you've already bought?