Stealing Trek Literature

[label]

The only problem I have with the hard line that Lilith takes is the denial of any culpability that they may share in the matter. It's a little bit like this: One kid's picking on another kid and the kid that's being picked on finally get's tired of the verbal abuse and hauls off and hits the other kid.

Was the kid that hit the other one wrong? Sure. No one denies that. Did the kid have some pretty reasonable reasons for wanting to do so? Absolutely.

In the same way, stealing eBooks is wrong. No one denies that. Are the publishers and sometimes authors doing things like price fixing, artificially inflating eBook prices, with-holding eBooks at certain times to inflate dead tree book prices and other things that give people who just want to buy a book at a reasonable price some pretty reasonable reasons for wanting to do so? Again, absolutely.

As someone said a few posts ago.........don't shoot yourself in the foot and then complain when there's blood on the floor. While no one denies stealing is wrong, it'd be nice if the other side would acknowledge that they share in at least part of the problem by their duplicitous and greedy tactics.

 

[JWolf]

^ Heh, I didn't know Harry Potter books weren't available as ebooks. I've had people tell me they were reading them.

And I assure you that many of these people would have bought legal digital copies had they been available.

If the publisher of the Harry Potter books goes with an agency model, I can assure you, sales won't do all that well. Look at all the discounts given the the hardcovers when they came out. The eBooks would not have had any discounts and sold for more then the hardcovers. So what we need to do is get rid of the agency model so eBooks can be priced fairly. Not at some inflated price that allows no discount and quite often is higher then the paper edition.

 

[Keptin J D Reed]

Something from author Lilith Saintcrow on this subject that pretty much chimes with my thoughts on the matter: http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/2011/01/dont-steal-my-books/

Hmmm. The points she makes are fair enough and you can't argue. It beggers belief that people are throwing up excuses like the ones she highlights in her blog. Although I suspect shes focused on the ridiculous excuses and has not mentioned some of the valid arguments like the ones that have been discussed in this thread. Although what people have mostly been arguing for in this thread is the right to source ebooks from pirates if they have no other alternative, not for the right to download books for free even when you have the ability to purchase them legally.

One further point:
I have had a quick look on amazon as I have a kindle and as far as I can tell, only one of her books is avaiable in the US or the UK in ebook format. So some would argue that they have no choice but to use a pirate copy if they want to read her books.
Her books are available as nook books on B&N though so you can purchase them legally on there and then rip out the DRM and convert them to get them on the kindle. That's the lesser of two evils as the author still gets their money . It's still illegal though, but I think the ebook world has got to the point now that everybody ignores DRM, the publishers know we ignore it and pretty soon they wont bother at all.

But it's still the case that officially, everyone that owns a kindle cannot access her books. So what are they supposed to do?
If her response is tough, read the paper version, then she can go stick her opinions up her bum along with Rowling. They are prehistoric technophobes and should shut the hell up
(Please see my previous posts for the reasons why ebooks are a godsend to many people around the world, before attacking my previous comment )
Or is she saying that we will all have to buy one of each reader. I.e a kindle, a nook, a sony etc. etc. to be able to access the full range of digital media available. Obviously she's not but authors have to stop calling everybody who uses torrents or usenet, dirty little thievies. It's not black and white no matter how much you scream "STOP STEALING FROM ME". If the definition in this case of stealing is taking something without paying for it, is it then stealing if the author or the publisher or the retailer isn't giving you the option to pay.

 

[Keptin J D Reed]

$5.99 is ridiculous. I've also seen $7.99 & 6.99 for SCE eBooks. If these had been the prices back when the series first came out in eBook, the series would have tanked before it was even 1/2 done.

I've seen the SCE books on amazon for 8 pounds! Thats english pounds! Well over 10 dollars. Closer to 15. They are short stories, about a quarter of a full frickin book!!!! So they reckon they can charge £32 for a books worth of reading????? I sent off some well shirty emails to amazon about it demanding they explain their extortionate behaviour. Didn't get an explanation but did get a 5 quid gift voucher. I was like "wow it's only £27 for a books worth of reading now, I'm sold. NOT". They were only priced that way for a month and then came back down to the more sensible but still expensive £3 a book. Bizzare.

 

[Defcon]

They are short stories,

No, they're not. They are novellas.

 

[JWolf]

They are short stories,

No, they're not. They are novellas.

Some are short enough to be considered a short story. But still, to charge prices that should be charged for a full length novel is stupid.

 

[Defcon]

^ Must have missed those CoE stories with less than 7500 words then (SFWA definiton of a short story IIRC).

ETA: But yeah, demanding the same price for a novella that you demand for a full novel is fishy.

 

[LightningStorm]

Experiment: Here's a few very simple questions for everyone, that I'm betting won't be so simple to answer.

When you purchase a paper book what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase an e-book what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase a movie ticket what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase a DVD (movie) what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase a car what exactly are you paying for?

The answers to these questions should make it more clear exactly what your rights are with regard to being able to own a copy of the same thing.

I contend that the answers to all of the questions above are not all identical across all of the different products listed there.

When we purchase "media" we think of ourselves as purchasing the non-tangible media itself and therefore we have merely purchased the right to consume that media. Which means that we expect to be able to copy it freely and universally. However when we purchase hard-goods (like the Car) we know that we are purchasing that specific instance of that specific car and not just the right to drive a car like it. So in the case of a car we expect to have to pay again if we want another one, even if that other one is identical in every way.

The complexity with media comes with the fact that there is both a non-tangible aspect you are paying for (in the case of books it is the story itself) but there is also a tangible portion (in the case of paper books the paper the binding, the glue etc.) So when it comes to purchasing a paper book, it is understood that if you want another one then you have to pay for it because the tangible part isn't free. But, the problem here is that the majority of the book's price has nothing to do with the tangible part of the book it has to do with the story itself and the creativity and work put into it. So, theoretically, if we were purchasing the price of the story itself and we should be expected to only pay for that once, then even getting a copy of a paper book should be a LOT less expensive than the first time you purchased it.

Then take that last paragraph and apply it to the movie ticket/DVD scenario. If what we are paying for at any given time for media is merely the right to consume said media without restriction on number of times you consume it, then if you bought a movie ticket for say Star Trek (2009), then you should automatically be able to get the DVD when it releases for only the price of the packaging of the DVD and the DVD itself and not have to pay for the "movie".

This is what the media industries needs to make very clear and well defined in order to put to bed this whole "gray area" that exists between what can I copy? why can't I remove copy protections? etc.

 

[Therin of Andor]

All we want is no DRM...

Wasn't it you boasting how DRM was so easy to strip out? Why does this even worry you?

Why do we put locks on our houses? Doesn't this suggest that we don't trust members of the general public to do the right thing?

I recall people complaining that Paramount Home Video VHS tapes had a pulse imbedded that prevented them from "crosstaping" to share with friends, while other video companies hadn't bothered. The only people who realised the pulse was even there would have been the people attempting to crosstape, except they felt the need to complain.

Then take that last paragraph and apply it to the movie ticket/DVD scenario. If what we are paying for at any given time for media is merely the right to consume said media without restriction on number of times you consume it, then if you bought a movie ticket for say Star Trek (2009), then you should automatically be able to get the DVD when it releases for only the price of the packaging of the DVD and the DVD itself and not have to pay for the "movie".

There are people who buy one movie ticket at a cineplex, and stay there all day, going from one cinema to the other, boasting that because the cineplex has lax staff policies, it is their right to see more than one movie on their stub.

To apply this to DRM, or bag presentation at a store, if an usher suspects we've overstayed our welcome and asks to check our stub, should we refuse, because the cineplex should trust us and assume we wouldn't ever do the wrong thing?

 

[ST-One]

^ Heh, I didn't know Harry Potter books weren't available as ebooks. I've had people tell me they were reading them.

And I assure you that many of these people would have bought legal digital copies had they been available.

If the publisher of the Harry Potter books goes with an agency model, I can assure you, sales won't do all that well. Look at all the discounts given the the hardcovers when they came out. The eBooks would not have had any discounts and sold for more then the hardcovers. So what we need to do is get rid of the agency model so eBooks can be priced fairly. Not at some inflated price that allows no discount and quite often is higher then the paper edition.

I'm glad that the publishers of the weekly pulp booklet series Perry Rhodan decided to go without DRM since they not only trust their customers but also see the future potential in ebooks. - why can't all publishers and authors be like them?

When Frank Schätzing (author of The Swarm) got on the promotion tour for his latest book Limit, he used a Kindle to read excerpts from the novel - why can't more authors see the ease of use in these devices?

 

[LightningStorm]

There are people who buy one movie ticket at a cineplex, and stay there all day, going from one cinema to the other, boasting that because the cineplex has lax staff policies, it is their right to see more than one movie on their stub.

This can also be resolved by deciding exactly what it is you are paying for when you pay for something. Those people (assuming they're not intentionally doing something wrong -- though they most likely know that they are) believe that what they have paid for is the right to enter the complex and once inside they can stay for whatever. However it is pretty common knowledge these days that what you are paying for when buying a movie ticket is the right to view that movie at that theater once.

Purchases are basically contracts that you enter into with the seller. The problem is that recently it isn't clear exactly what the contract says, so there is disagreement with what a person has bought.

To apply this to DRM, or bag presentation at a store, if an usher suspects we've overstayed our welcome and asks to check our stub, should we refuse, because the cineplex should trust us and assume we wouldn't ever do the wrong thing?

No, this has nothing to do with that. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my initial post against this, but my objection to a store's use of illegal searches has to do with your private property. If a woman brought her purse into a store, that store has NO RIGHT to search it on a whim, without probable cause or some sort of evidence that she has put things in there that belong to them. However I think a store can (and this does happen in the US) ask for you to open the bags of items you just purchased at that store. e.g. I go to Wal-Mart and upon exiting that store I have a cart full of Wal-Mart Bags that have a bunch of items I purchased, it is OK for them to look into THOSE bags, but not any personal bags I've brought to the store with me. If a store wanted to I'd be more for not allowing bags like that to be brought into a store to begin with, but if you allow it in, you can't go randomly searching through it in the name of theft prevention.

As applied to movie tickets, yes they can ask to see your ticket (that's not private property, it's what allows you to be there to begin with), but they can't go looking through your stuff that you have with you.

How you think this applies to DRM, I'm unclear on.

 

[Therin of Andor]

it'd be nice if the other side would acknowledge that they share in at least part of the problem by their duplicitous and greedy tactics.

Mmmmm.

An actor/author says to their agent, "Get me the best deal you can."

The agent says, "Let's hold out just a bit longer."

How is that "greedy"? If actors always took the very first offer with every contract, they'd be living on peanuts.

Similarly, some hardcopy books aren't yet available as eBooks because an individual or a publisher has elected to hold off for a better offer, or for the eBook environment to settle a little before taking a plunge which might lock them into a bad deal contractually. And yet people say, "Okay, it's not available so I'll get it from a torrent site."

 

[Therin of Andor]

Perhaps I wasn't clear in my initial post against this, but my objection to a store's use of illegal searches has to do with your private property. If a woman brought her purse into a store, that store has NO RIGHT to search it on a whim, without probable cause or some sort of evidence that she has put things in there that belong to them.

I didn't say "bag search", I said "bag presentation". (Don't visit Australia if you don't want to be challenged on bag presentation in stores.)

How you think this applies to DRM, I'm unclear on.

Other posters said the DRM was totally unnecessary because it suggests that people intended to commit a crime. That DRM shows that the publishers don't trust their customers.

So if an usher asks to see your valid ticket stub, isn't he assuming you are committing a crime of seeing more than one movie in the day on the one stub?

 

[label]

An actor/author says to their agent, "Get me the best deal you can."

The agent says, "Let's hold out just a bit longer."

How is that "greedy"?

That's not greedy, nor is what I was referring to. What I'm talking about is when the publishers artificially inflate their eBook prices - or - pull eBook availability only to drive customers to their dead tree versions.

You see, it's one thing to not make a book available because the right deal hasn't come along yet.....I get that....it's when a book is known to already be in eBook format and they pull this crap that really irritates me. The problem in this thread is that everyone agrees that in general, stealing is bad. The conflict comes when individuals blindly defend corporate america who are as self serving and duplicitous as they want and apparently, bear none of the responsibility for the situation that they've helped create.

And yet people say, "Okay, it's not available so I'll get it from a torrent site."

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, the only reason I would ever look for a book on a torrent site is if I can't buy one legally and my library doesn't have it. Like Itunes has already proven over the last couple of years; if you make buying music a good mutually beneficial experience for the user, (most) people will gladly support the artist and buy the music. However, if corporations continue to jerk us around and pull the crazy stunts they pull, I honestly don't know why they're surprised at the results.

 

[Therin of Andor]

You see, it's one thing to not make a book available because the right deal hasn't come along yet.....I get that....it's when a book is known to already be in eBook format and they pull this crap that really irritates me.

Well, from the seminar I went to last September, I can say that the reason many eBooks aren't available in every format all at once, or in every region all at once, is sometimes because agents and publishers are still arguing to secure better deals. Because the original deal is not financially viable and they are seeking something better, in the long term, for their clients.

IIRC, no large Australian publisher has yet settled a deal with Kindle, because they were supposedly offering peanuts for the eBook rights and the publishers decided they could stand together and get something more acceptable to them.

 

[label]

Well, from the seminar I went to last September, I can say that the reason many eBooks aren't available in every format all at once, or in every region all at once, is sometimes because agents and publishers are still arguing to secure better deals. Because the original deal is not financially viable and they are seeking something better, in the long term, for their clients..

Let me delineate this issues involved here in a bit of a different way that I think everyone will agree with and will still make the point I'm trying to make.

1. Any decision regarding eBook publication, including banding together to get a better deal, that is taken with the intention of getting the artist a better deal/more money -> I'm totally on board with.

2. Any decision to temporarily yank an eBook from sales or price an eBook high that is taken by the publisher with the sole motivation being to fill the publishers pockets with more money or to artificially drive sales of their dead tree books for the publisher, that's when I have a problem with it.

I think pretty much everyone in this thread on both sides of the issue will agree with decisions that support number 1. Very few people are just plain old thieves who want to directly steal from the authors. That's just plain stupid and self-defeating. It's the crap in number 2 that drives some people out to the torrent sites, at least in my experience.

 

[LightningStorm]

I didn't say "bag search", I said "bag presentation".

What's the difference? Why do I need to "present" it if you don't plan to do anything more than look at it, you can do that from seeing it hanging on my shoulder.

 

[BillJ]

2. Any decision to temporarily yank an eBook from sales or price an eBook high that is taken by the publisher with the sole motivation being to fill the publishers pockets with more money or to artificially drive sales of their dead tree books for the publisher, that's when I have a problem with it.

But if it fills the publishers' pocket with more money (more sales)... wouldn't that trickle down to the author?

 

[Deano2099]

Experiment: Here's a few very simple questions for everyone, that I'm betting won't be so simple to answer.

When you purchase a paper book what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase an e-book what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase a movie ticket what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase a DVD (movie) what exactly are you paying for?
When you purchase a car what exactly are you paying for?

Interesting...

With a movie I'd argue that was a performance, and hence falls in to the same category as a theatre ticket. You're buying the right to a presence in the performance area during the performance.

The car is a physical object for certain, I also think the DVD is though that's an area of contention. Remember once you have that car it's seen as acceptable to do what you want with it: switch out the engine, paint it, whatever. But you can't strip the DRM from a DVD. Also it's now not legal to stick a chip in your Playstation that lets it play pirated games. So that 'what are you buying?' question gets even more complicated.

A paperbook, you are buying the physical object. No-one argues your right to photocopy a book for your own personal use. Or indeed to scan it and put it on an ereader yourself.

The problem, as I see it, is that the people selling us this stuff want it both ways. They want to argue that they're selling a license to read the book, rather than a physical file. As such they can include DRM, prevent you from re-selling it and so forth. But they also want to argue that you're buying just the file, and just because you've bought that file you're not entitled to a free replacement if it gets corrupted, nor are you entitled to that book in another format if your format becomes obsolete. Even though we're apparently just licensing it, not buying it.

The publishing world is reaping what it's sown, alas. Decades of being flogged hardbacks at twice the price of the paperback because "look how prestigious the format is, surely you can see why these must cost us so much more money to make and sell".

So the consumer goes "right, a hardback is twice the price of the paperback, so an ebook is half the price of the paperback right?"

Publishers: "err, well actually, when we said about hardbacks being more expensive to make... well that wasn't exactly a lie... they're just only about 5% more expensive and we used them as an excuse for charging a huge premium to people that wanted to read the book early"

Consumer: "right, so you lied about that because it was convenient, and now you're saying we should trust you about ebooks not actually being any cheaper to make?"

Publisher: "well yes, and just like before you have to listen to us as where else are you going to get your books from?"

Consumer: "well actually..."

 

[label]

2. Any decision to temporarily yank an eBook from sales or price an eBook high that is taken by the publisher with the sole motivation being to fill the publishers pockets with more money or to artificially drive sales of their dead tree books for the publisher, that's when I have a problem with it.

But if it fills the publishers' pocket with more money (more sales)... wouldn't that trickle down to the author?

It's nice that a by-product of that self-serving decision by corporations accidentally helps the artists (which I'm sure corporations would change if they could) but the point I'm making is that these publishers sometimes are a root cause of the very problems they are causing. They should bear some of the responsibility for the situation and their actions like people who pirate eBook should bear responsibility for their actions.

Most people are all in agreement that the people who make bad choices and steal eBooks are responsible, but what I find absolutely bizarre is how reticent some people are to recognize that at least some of the responsibility for this mess can and should be laid at the feet of the publishers and their greedy, self serving decision at times as well. Companies should be held accountable for their decisions too, not just the consumers here.

Why do you think Amazon has gone out of the way on all it's kindle books to make it exceedingly clear that all electronic prices are set by the Publisher in great big letters above the price??