Stealing Trek Literature

[Lee T]

Once upon a time I read that Looking Glass Studios was closing. I was sad at the news because they did make some awesome games (the System Shock series and the beginning of the Thief series).

And then it dawned on me that I hadn't bought those games, I casually got them from friends who didn't bought them either. None of use cared and realized as we we're just a bunch of teenagers without much money and video games were/are still quite expensive.

That being said I thought that I was partly responsible for the demise of people who actually made products I enjoyed, a rare opportunity I partly wasted.

Now I buy all the media content (video games, movies, books, etc... ) I want to enjoy and if a friend lends me a media content I really enjoy I make a point of buying it as soon as I can (I'm not made of money ). I won't miss another opportunity to "vote with my wallet" in a positive way.

 

[Thrawn]

^ That's the way I see it: voting with my wallet. I'll download things illegally, occasionally, to try them (mostly music), but I either delete or purchase after that. That's probably not quite morally defensible, if I'm being honest, but I find written descriptions of music almost universally useless. I've bought more music as a result of being able to try it out, so to speak.

Anyway, if I really like something, I'll buy lots and give them to people. Vote with my wallet as often as possible. Four people got Destiny trilogies from me, for instance. And all enjoyed.

 

[sfroth]

Well after the pBook was out and most likely read and in eReader which is not a good format. So really, it may as well not have been free.

I can't find any record of when Taking Wing was released for free (and don't remember it happening), but the paperback was originally released in March 2005, and ePub wasn't adopted as standard until September 2007. What other format would you expect it to be in? Lit was already dead, and Adobe's old format was effectively unusable. The timestamp on my pdb file for that book is April 2005.

But is not stripping out DRM illegal as well?

Actually, that is unclear. Fair use says it's legal and DMCA says it's not. So until a court of law makes a decision whether fair use or DMCA is the winner, it will remain a gray area.

And there are DMCA exceptions and I think in the case of Star trek eBooks, they meet the requirement so legally, stripping the DRM would be legal.

I'd expand that to say all eBooks, but I wholeheartedly agree with you there. I'm doing absolutely no harm by removing drm from my ebooks, as long as I don't share them. Sharing the files should be the illegal act, and should be the one punished. Opening my book so I can read it in a different program or correct problems I find in it should be completely legal.

Is nobody else here interested in the fact that the agency model is causing a rise in eBook piracy?

Do you have any evidence that it is? Other people have commented about how rising prices are probably contributing, but I haven't actually seen anybody quote stats that ebook piracy is rising all that fast, and whether any rise in piracy could be attributed to price increases, or just to the fact that more people are reading ebooks these days.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I can't find any record of when Taking Wing was released for free (and don't remember it happening), but the paperback was originally released in March 2005

I seem to recall it was a January holiday offer, so probably January 2006. It certainly wasn't too long after the book came out, although I'd already read my hardcopy.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Your arguments are good. Throwing in a homophobic slur really undercuts them.

I think he was pointing to the fact that the meaning of the word 'gay' has changed through the decades.

Yes it was intended in jest. Very sorry if didn't make that obvious enough and it offended you Daddy.

The meaning of 'theft' might well change to incorporate copyright infringement, just like the word 'gay' may change to mean 'rubbish' instead of 'homosexual'.

In the USA there's still the battle being waged by certain elements who insist on returning "gay" to it's original meaning of "lighthearted" or "cheerful." If we change the meaning again, these people will just freak out...

 

[Deano2099]

In the USA there's still the battle being waged by certain elements who insist on returning "gay" to it's original meaning of "lighthearted" or "cheerful." If we change the meaning again, these people will just freak out...

How queer.

There was a fairly recent case where a graphic novel's artist used a beautiful artistic portrayal of a favourite singer he wanted to pay homage to, and it turned out she was a devout Christian and strongly objected to her image being used in a work that had some sinister overtones. She sued - and won.

There was also the famous Leonard Nimoy case where a beer company used a Spock caricature on a billboard ad in the 70s, and Nimoy had to press Paramount to sue for damages because they own his pointed-eared image, not him. It was what led to his greatly increased salary and much tighter contractual agreements for ST:TMP.

So it can certainly happen.

To be fair though, there's a huge difference between using something in a commercial work and as a forum avatar.

Also as with a lot of things in this discussion it may depend where you live. Fair use provisions are different in the UK and US, as are the laws on stripping DRM I think.

Agency pricing boosting piracy? Can't say for sure (I'd think the huge sales of ebook readers over Christmas has had a bigger effect) but I wouldn't put it past the pirates (the ones actually providing the scans, stripping the DRM, uploading them etc.) to step up a gear to make a point.

 

[Captain Robert April]

There was a fairly recent case where a graphic novel's artist used a beautiful artistic portrayal of a favourite singer he wanted to pay homage to, and it turned out she was a devout Christian and strongly objected to her image being used in a work that had some sinister overtones. She sued - and won.

Not exactly recent. The singer in question was Amy Grant, and the misuse of her likeness was the cover of Doctor Strange #15, published in 1989...

What definitely did not help was that the storyline dealt with vampires (long before vampires became teen heartthrobs).

There was also the famous Leonard Nimoy case where a beer company used a Spock caricature on a billboard ad in the 70s, and Nimoy had to press Paramount to sue for damages because they own his pointed-eared image, not him. It was what led to his greatly increased salary and much tighter contractual agreements for ST:TMP.

So it can certainly happen.

For the youngsters...

 

[Smellincoffee]

There was also the famous Leonard Nimoy case where a beer company used a Spock caricature on a billboard ad in the 70s, and Nimoy had to press Paramount to sue for damages because they own his pointed-eared image, not him. It was what led to his greatly increased salary and much tighter contractual agreements for ST:TMP.

So it can certainly happen.

For the youngsters...

Nimoy's conversation with Spock over the meaning of the pun in I Am Spock is priceless. According to the book, Paramount wasn't doing anything about these unauthorized appropriations of his image until he nagged them.

 

[JD]

Wow, I was definitely expecting something more subtle with that Heineken add.

 

[JWolf]

[...] 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?

This type of concern, extended to file formats, is a large reason as to why I haven't switched to an e-book reader, even though it would greatly help with my physical space storage issues.

This is why you get a reader that has ADE and handles ePub. There are more devices that use ADE/ePub that if you wanted to go from say a nook to an iPad, you're eBook can go with you even if the Kindle was to go away.

You don't want to know what I just paid for the 33-cent Kooky Spooky I waited 41 years to own.
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2010/12/late-for-dinner.html

The ghost of Flavor Flav.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The ghost of Flavor Flav.

Okay, I had to Google that name, but on the second recommendation found this:
http://www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Flavor_Flav

so yeah, that's the rapper I was hunting for. Daddy Booregard was trendsetting this look in 1968. In one early design, he wears a pocketwatch-sized timepiece, then Patti Peticolas jumps to the huge clock design. I assume he's suggesting "Father Time"?

I had no idea about Flav until we had a nerdy young guy turn up on a season of Australian Idol, a few years ago, emulating the look. So bizarre.

Thanks!

 

[JWolf]

Well after the pBook was out and most likely read and in eReader which is not a good format. So really, it may as well not have been free.

I can't find any record of when Taking Wing was released for free (and don't remember it happening), but the paperback was originally released in March 2005, and ePub wasn't adopted as standard until September 2007. What other format would you expect it to be in? Lit was already dead, and Adobe's old format was effectively unusable. The timestamp on my pdb file for that book is April 2005.

Actually, that is unclear. Fair use says it's legal and DMCA says it's not. So until a court of law makes a decision whether fair use or DMCA is the winner, it will remain a gray area.

And there are DMCA exceptions and I think in the case of Star trek eBooks, they meet the requirement so legally, stripping the DRM would be legal.

I'd expand that to say all eBooks, but I wholeheartedly agree with you there. I'm doing absolutely no harm by removing drm from my ebooks, as long as I don't share them. Sharing the files should be the illegal act, and should be the one punished. Opening my book so I can read it in a different program or correct problems I find in it should be completely legal.

Is nobody else here interested in the fact that the agency model is causing a rise in eBook piracy?

Do you have any evidence that it is? Other people have commented about how rising prices are probably contributing, but I haven't actually seen anybody quote stats that ebook piracy is rising all that fast, and whether any rise in piracy could be attributed to price increases, or just to the fact that more people are reading ebooks these days.

When Taking Wing was released as an eBook for free, MS Reader (LIT) was not dead. It was still very much alive. LIT was killed off when ePub become the now defacto standard. But back then, eReader format was not a good format for any screen larger then a small cell screen. It still isn't anything wonderful. And the real problem was that the eBook wasn't released for free until will after most people had already read the paperback.

DMCA exceptions say that you can strip the DRM when the DRM prevents read aloud from working and the DRM does for Trek books.

The problem is that the Agency model is not only about rising prices. It's also about georestictions. Geo restrictions prevent people from legally buying an eBook just because it's not published in the country you are in. There are some eBooks I've wanted to purchase that are available only in the UK. But because I am in the USA, I cannot buy them. georestrictions say my point of purchase is where my IP is. But for a paper book, my point of purchase is where the pBook is. So I can buy from Amazon.co.uk a pBook no problem. But I cannot purchase an eBook from Waterstones as I'm not allowed. So really, georestrctions makes people not able to purchase some eBooks legally. Also, I've seen cases were before georestictions, people from the UK were buying eBooks from shops in the USA. Then along came georestrctions and some of those eBooks are no longer able to be downloaded even though they were legally paid for.

It is no wonder people turn to the net to try to find eBooks. With the publisher making it harder and harder to buy them. Then they find other eBooks available and go for them too. So rising prices, georestrictions, treating customers like criminals (DRM) , it was bound to happen. The agency model is doing nothing good. It's just causing more and more piracy. There is nothing good about the agency model.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's also about georestictions. Geo restrictions prevent people from legally buying an eBook just because it's not published in the country you are in.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this have to do with a model inherited from the situation with hardcopy books? A writer can sell a novel to a US publisher and, depending on the contract negotiated, can sell the manuscript again to a UK publisher, then a European one, then an Australian one, each time negotiating a fresh advance on royalties. Sometimes a publisher will have a deal going with a sister publisher in another country. Because many, many books never earn out their advance, this is a way for authors to earn more $$$.

If a US eBook could be bought from anywhere in the world, other publishers would be denied the opportunity to republish successful books in their own countries. Countries with bigger overheads and trickier markets would find it harder and harder to compete with US eBook publishers. Similarly, DVDs are region-coded, to protect the interests of countries that are simply unable to compete with the US entertainment juggernaut.

In Australia, in the 70s and early 80s, we had a publishing agreement with the UK, in an attempt to shore up our publishing industry (and the UK's) against US (much cheaper) prices for imported books. Australian book shops could only buy US-published books if there was no intention of a UK version eventually coming out. So, for Aussie ST fans, most shops usually stocked the UK Corgi editions of James Blish and Alan Dean Foster ST books, but they could legally import the Bantam ST Fotonovels (from one contracted distributor, Gordon & Gotch) because Corgi had passed on publishing UK editions of those titles.

Specialist shops started ruffling feathers by sneakily importing US ST titles in a more timely manner (supply and demand), but they could have been fined heavily if reported. The law was repealed in the mid 80s, once our governments (and the UK) were convinced that our economy could withstand an influx of cheaper US product.

These are still early days for eBooks, and to rush out a customer-friendly international model that may, in time, be realised as extremely damaging to some countries' economies and/or writers and publishers, while unfairly benefiting other countries', is why we are seeing various models being trialled.

In big news Down Under last week, one of our biggest discount chains, Harvey Norman (furnishings, electricals), complained loudly that so many Aussies buying online from the USA in 2010 was denying the opportunity for our government collecting the GST (sales tax) on such goods. The parity of the $AUD with the US has caused an exponential jump in online sales and our local stores had a truly dreadful Christmas/New Year period. But Harvey Norman has received such an angry Twitter backlash from customers defending their right to buy online and save money, they've reluctantly dropped their campaign. In the long run, Australian stores will probably have less and less opportunity to compete/survive. We have high wages in this country, and Aussies may well face massive wage cuts and unemployment as the US online juggernaut continues to flourish.

 

[Daddy Todd]

We have high wages in this country, and Aussies may well face massive wage cuts and unemployment as the US online juggernaut continues to flourish.

It's now a world economy. The USA has faced massive recession and wage stagnation as all our good-paying jobs have been outsourced to China and India. Get used to it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's now a world economy. The USA has faced massive recession and wage stagnation as all our good-paying jobs have been outsourced to China and India. Get used to it.

Is that sustainable?

And yet we have people here complaining that they can't have the free, totally transportable, eBooks - and right now. No waiting. Why can't they "get used to it"?

Why am I having flashbacks to the Janeway Death thread, wherein VOY fans said they'd much rather read the plethora of free, unwashed, downloadable fanfic than the licensed, commercial novels from Pocket Books?

 

[Kataaran]

If a US eBook could be bought from anywhere in the world, other publishers would be denied the opportunity to republish successful books in their own countries. Countries with bigger overheads and trickier markets would find it harder and harder to compete with US eBook publishers. Similarly, DVDs are region-coded, to protect the interests of countries that are simply unable to compete with the US entertainment juggernaut.

The problem with this is the disparity, I can buy a paper book from the US and have it shipped to the UK. My DVD collection is made up of two thirds region 2 (europe) and one third region 1 (US) all bought and shipped from Amazon.com. But 'virtual' products; music downloads, ebooks, software can only be bought from UK based outlets. It's an artificial restriction, there's no sensible reason for blocking these sales if you allow the physical products to cross borders.

 

[Starbreaker]

I don't understand this "agency model" thing. I go to a website, buy and download the e-book, and read it.

 

[ATimson]

I don't understand this "agency model" thing. I go to a website, buy and download the e-book, and read it.

Non-agency model: You go to a website, you buy an ebook at the price offered by the retailer. The retailer could and often did give you discounts, just like stores do on print books.

Agency model: You go to a website, and you pay the price on the book. The store is not allowed to give you a discount anymore, meaning you're paying more for the exact same title.

 

[Daddy Todd]

It's now a world economy. The USA has faced massive recession and wage stagnation as all our good-paying jobs have been outsourced to China and India. Get used to it.

Is that sustainable?

Not really, yet it's what we have in the USA. it doesn't matter if we like it or not; it's the current reality. Anyway, it was a response to your whinge about high-paying jobs in Australia being imperiled by allowing market forces to determine the appropriate price for books.

And yet we have people here complaining that they can't have the free, totally transportable, eBooks - and right now. No waiting. Why can't they "get over it"?

I said "get used to it," not "get over it." I don't use them interchangeably; "get over it" implies a measure of contempt for another's feelings that I dislike. I'm apologize if they sound the same to you; it was not intentional.

My point is: you don't have to like it, but economic reality is changing around us. Yelling at the damn kids to "get out of my apple tree!" isn't going to change it back.

And really, I wasn't (and aren't) making a comment specifically (or even mostly) about stealing Trek ebooks. It was more a general comment about the current economic upheavals taking place. The world economy is changing, and I don't believe we can do anything to stop that.

Why am I having flashbacks to the Janeway Death thread, wherein VOY fans said they'd much rather read the plethora of free, unwashed, downloadable fanfic than the licensed, commercial novels from Pocket Books?

I don't know, they seem to be clearly distinct kinds of arguments to me. I don't recall anyone saying they'd choose fanfic over licensed Trek fiction in this thread. Isn't that the whole problem? They want to read licensed stuff, but don't feel that it's 100% essential to pay for it under every circumstance?

Perhaps the situations seem similar to you because, in both cases, people are relentlessly disagreeing with you?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Perhaps the situations seem similar to you because, in both cases, people are relentlessly disagreeing with you?

I really don't know what the answer is, but to say it's "the way of the world", and to blame the publishers for not competing effectively against piracy at this early stage, and offering dirt cheap alternatives when the pirates are offering free stuff, seems to be to be extremely shortsighted.

My point is: you don't have to like it, but economic reality is changing around us. Yelling at the damn kids to "get out of my apple tree!" isn't going to change it back.

And it probably isn't a "change it back" situation. But since the current situation is not sustainable, some new model needs to be worked out.