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Could you ever imagine a local retailer in your area breaking and entering into your home, taking away all your books, and then not giving you a straightforward explanation as to why they did so? Me neither. Breaking and entering into someone else's physical property, and talking away their physical possessions without explanation is so obviously wrong and illegal!

Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor woman, except in the digital realm: Amazon 'broke and entered' into her Kindle, took away all her books, and then did not give her a straightforward explanation as to why they did so.

More alarmingly, Amazon did this with impunity, because this woman never really owned "her" books or, for that matter, anything else she "purchased" on "her" Kindle. In the digital realm, what Amazon did to this woman is perfectly legal.

Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.




It absolutely should be illegal to delete files from a device that is currently rented or owned by another party unless they give explicit permission.

It should be wire fraud, just like hacking a server and forcing it to act in a way the owner does not desire.


The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission). I'm sure there's a clause in the ToS that allows Amazon to delete content that you've purchased.

I'm not the type to sound the drum saying that piracy isn't theft, but here it seems like it's trying to go both ways. It's property if you "steal" it and it isn't property if you've bought it.

Part of the problem is that the law hasn't kept up with the digital age. Lawyers/judges are notably technophobes (as a whole) which I'm sure has kept it back. Plus, generally speaking, technology enjoys a nice balance of good companies, competition, and plenty of release valves (ie, piracy). In general, these events are rare and that keeps the world from addressing the underlying issues - it just rarely comes up as an issue for someone and when it does, they could find a way (like piracy) to make themselves whole again (and I know it isn't equivalent, but piracy is often a lower barrier than legal action). There are a lot of other issues where people are more likely to become un-whole with less easy recourse.

Right now, issues of what a license to digital content offers is a bit in flux. I think a lot of us have a similar idea to what we think it should mean, but that doesn't mean that the legal system does or will acknowledge that. We sometimes get complacent because we're in a pretty positive industry and often times regulation can stifle innovation. However, this might be an area where we want a standard definition of term rental (for things like the Zune music service) and license purchase (like a Kindle Book) that would allow for things like re-selling and such. Otherwise, we'll likely continue to be beholden to the ToS that we all just click "accept" on.


You can not give explicit permissions in a ToS, and most importantly, you can not refuse or give away rights given by the law to protect the consumer.

Both has declared so by the court in both US and EU. Every single time I have seen a court rule, and the defending company is holding up the ToS as their defense, the company has lost. Every. Single. Time.

The only real difference, is that most courts do not give out punitive damages. I guess, writing in a ToS that you are going to break into folks houses and steal their books are somehow less criminal than if you did it without saying anything.


You cannot give away many rights, but what right would you be giving away? A lot of the time (and I'd assume in this case), Amazon is not selling you a copy of the book. As such, the legal rights that come with buying a copy of a book don't apply. Rather, you're purchasing something like "an indefinite, non-exclusive, non-transferrable, revokable license". As I stated in my previous comment, we might want to create a small number of allowable agreements here: purchasing a copy (with the same rights that apply to purchasing a CD, book, etc.) or paying a rental fee for a specific item or library of items. Those have direct corollaries to things already dealt with in law.

Think of it this way: let's say that you bought a Zune and paid for the Zune music service. You download unlimited music to your Zune and later stop paying for the service. You have given permission for them to remove those songs from your Zune. You didn't purchase them, you were renting access to a library. It follows that you shouldn't be outraged when they remove the content given the absence of further access rental. And we wouldn't be outraged - it was part of the agreement.

Similarly, Amazon would argue (not me, but Amazon), that you're purchasing a revokable license to content - or maybe that you're being given access to a private club where you pay for them to purchase a book that they hold exclusively for you for unlimited time. However, you can be completely removed from the club and, as such, your access to said book. Think of it this way. You join a club which houses all of your books in a building. When you want to read a book, you go to that building. You have exclusive access to your books (unlike a library) and you have them forever, but you can't remove the book (in return, they guarantee that it won't wear out or break). However, part of the terms of the club are that you won't smoke in the building. If you smoke in the building, you'll be kicked out of the club and lose access to the books you have in the club.

Where it becomes nebulous is the Kindle. The Kindle is your kindle, but is the kindle the club or the key to the club? Let's say the key is your property and they can't make you surrender it - it's your property that they have no right to. Well, they can still change the locks.

I know it feels like purchasing something, but with DRM we can already see that we don't have the same rights as with a physical copy. With a CD, I can sell that CD to a friend or a record store. With an iTunes song, I can't. One can argue that I have first-sale rights and I usually argue that it should be treated that way, but dispassionately looking at the legal situation, it's murky. Remember the rumor that some actor (Bruce Willis?) was going to sue Apple to get a judgement that he could pass on his iTunes-purchased music to his heirs? We were excited about it because it would have established first-sale - if it were already something no one questioned, the rumor wouldn't have existed. If the Kindle book was really your copy, you could sell it to a friend. Since you cannot sell it to a friend, it's unreasonable to assume that every other right you have with physical property applies. I'm not saying this is how things should work, but describing what exists.

Heck, the circuit court in the United States just ruled that if you purchase an Omega watch manufactured overseas, you cannot re-sell that watch when you don't want it anymore - Omega can block that sale via its copyright rights. Likewise, if you purchase textbooks overseas, you can't resell them in America (again, according to courts). The Supreme Court is reviewing this case right now. So, it certainly isn't so cut and dry given that the second highest court in the US isn't holding by the first-sale doctrine for these watches.

The difference between this and breaking into someone's house to steal their books is that you own the (copy of the) book. It's your property. It's irrevocable. I'm not arguing that Amazon has done something good or that this is the system we should want - it isn't. But there's a difference between how we think the law should be and how the law is. And that's an important thing to recognize if one wants to change things.

It should work like how you say. That doesn't make it so. Right now, we aren't purchasing eBooks from Amazon, we aren't purchasing songs from iTunes, etc. They're trying to maintain in control of the relationship and to make it revokable from their side. It shouldn't be. In common law jurisdictions (US, UK, Ireland, most of Canada, etc.), this may happen through court precedent, but it's hardly something that's been cast in stone right now. Personally, maybe a simple law about purchase and rental of electronic goods might be in order. Something along the lines of "you can rent or provide temporal access to content which will be removed after the access period has expired or you can sell a copy of content with the same rights that purchasing a physical copy would confer. Other arrangements are disallowed." But we don't have that today. Maybe this story will have a court case in which a court rules that you can't offer revokable access if an item has been paid for as an unlimited time purchase. But we aren't to the point where we can definitively say that Amazon acted illegally. Amazon acted immorally - that's why we're outraged. It's her content that she paid for and she should have access to it. If it were physical property, Amazon would be dealt with swiftly. However, the rules for physical and electronic content aren't the same.


If amazon is not selling me a electronic copy of the book it should be illegal for them to call the button doing this transaction "buy".


Might not be. They might just mean buy 'temporary license' or something like that.


I'm not a native English speaker, but isn't the proper term for that "rent"?


I buy an MSDN license. I buy a fishing license. The license is simply a fixed term item that you purchase.


Yes, but in this case they use the same term and button as when they sell a physical book so to me its deceptive that its not the same transaction.


I do not remember buying a William Gibson: Neuromancer License

It clearly said William Gibson: Neuromancer -> Buy


Most MSDN subscriptions come with perpetual use licenses for the content acquired during the subscription term. More to the point, Microsoft does not reserve the right to terminate their licenses without cause, and in case of alleged cause, they have dispute resolution processes in place, up to and including binding arbitration. I'm not sure about their consumer cloud services, however.


Buying a fixed-term license for a product is basically renting the product. In other words, "buying a license" is another example of replacing "rent" with "buy".

For consumer protection, companies like Amazon could be required to state "buy access to X" or "rent X" instead of "buy book X", which implies ownership of the product.


The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission).

This is probably the case. Amazon would've covered their bases strongly.

What is super annoying is this - there are many many books, whose kindle editions cost more than their paperbacks. Imagine paying 13$ for a ebook (the same book in paperback costs 10$) and then losing that due to some arbitrary "rule" from Amazon.

I love my Kindle, but this is really really bad.


Electronic content doesn't face the same over-supply possibility that physical content faces. For example, let's say that you buy 1M copies of Book X for $2 each to sell. Well, a year later only 250,000 have sold at $4 and the rest are just sitting in your warehouse. You don't even care if you sell them at cost now (or maybe below cost). You've spent $2M and taken in $1M and have 750k copies left. If you sell the remaining 750k copies at $2 a piece, you make money ($2.5M with costs of $2M). In fact, you could sell them for less than $2 if that would make them move to recoup the remaining $1M. So, there are supply issues that make the price of physical items more variable. With electronic items, you just get the price. Since there isn't a limited supply, you can have unlimited copies on day 1. They don't over or under buy, they transmit exactly the number of copies purchased.

Likewise, as a physical book ages, competition goes up. You might be given it once your friend is done with it or be sold it used. That doesn't happen with Kindle books (or not as much, I know the Kindle has some limited lending capability) and so the price stays stable since the level of competition is stable.

Many prices face competition with many sources. With eBooks, the number of sources declines, but electronic resources are cheap and so it's stays at a point that we merely complain about rather than searching for alternatives. So, losing first-sale rights means losing the cheaply available second-hand books that provide competition that helps to keep prices low.

Now, I'm not blind to the other side: a used book is less valuable than a new book. It's creased, written in, whatnot. A used Kindle book is identical to a new Kindle book. So, it might be disastrous for publishers to have all users be able to re-sell in an unlimited fashion because there's no aging of the physical thing like there is with physical volumes. But that's something to think about for another time.


And there are many many books which are a lot cheaper on Kindle. I buy my programming and technical books almost exclusively on Kindle,since the difference is usually half the price of paperbacks.


FYI there is a calibre plugin that will strip the DRM from kindle books. I use it to read books on my Sony e-reader.


Yes, there are lots of books that are cheaper on kindle, but shouldn't all kindle books be cheaper than their dead tree brothers? May be someday.


Yes, you are absolutely right. Of course there is a clause allowing them to do whatever they feel like with the books you get from them.

I like the duality you've pointed out. They sure would love for a copy to qualify as property when determining punitive damages.

It would be great to have legislation and precise definitions for digital rentals and purchases, so that your rental term or purchased content cannot be rescinded arbitrarily. And I think it would be great to have stronger legal restrictions on removing or altering content, or running software on a device when its renter or owner does not wish for that to occur.


> The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission). I'm sure there's a clause in the ToS that allows Amazon to delete content that you've purchased.

Shouldn't this be considered a contract of adhesion? At what point does a piddly subscriber have in dictating their terms of engagement with a huge DRM'd content provider? This would get real interesting if, say, you were required to buy stuff for your school on a Kindle that your tuition money paid for.


The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission). I'm sure there's a clause in the ToS that allows Amazon to delete content that you've purchased.

This is why there has to be clear law that says that one owns the digital content on ones ebook reader. Courts might interpret that you already do, but clear statue law would be very clarifiying.

Remember if the law says one thing, and you agree (via a T&C or contract) to another, then the law wins. You cannot sign something away if the law says you cannot sign the thing away. No country is a pure libertarian utopia.


> Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission)

Isn't that implicit permission?


The issue is not the user permission, the issue is that in the physical world, the retailer would have to go through the court system to take away a right or property.

It's interesting how http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig described this situation back in 2004 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_%28book%29


Until someone rich enough to fight this to the Supreme Court is screwed by these policies, they will stand, it's as simple as that. These sorts of policies are NOT new. EVERY industry has tried to rob consumers of property rights. And every other industry has a collection of case law establishing that the types of contracts digital content distributors put forward are just illegal. But, since it hasn't been established for digital property yet, we need court cases.

If Apple, Steam, and Amazon decided tomorrow that they wanted you to pay $10/item in your 'library' of things you have 'purchased' in order to be able to access it again, according to their contracts their users agreed to, they would be entirely within the contract to do that.

Expect publishers and digital content providers to wail and gnash their teeth and swear that giving consumers actual property rights will completely destroy their business. Other industries tried the same scare tactics. They're just lies. Being able to transfer your property, sell it 'used', etc actually massively boosts the success of markets and hopefully it is inevitable that this kind of thing will be extended to digital content.


I wonder what it would take to get the accounts of well known bloggers or Mr Bezos himself 'directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies'.


I've often wondered about the viability of students purchasing or renting textbooks for the Kindle. Just imagine the panic/terror that would ensue if a student's collection of textbooks just disappeared in the middle of a semester.

If my collection of novels disappears, I'm inconvenienced. If my collection of textbooks disappears, my academic progress is severely jeopardized. Both seem extremely wrong as you mention, but I see potential for situations that are life-ruiningly wrong.


When Amazon remotely deleted 1984 from people's Kindles a few years ago a student lost the digital notes he had been creating as he was reading it for a class. He ended up suing Amazon, but I have no idea if it was ever resolved or if it's still ongoing.


Amazon settled fairly quickly: http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/10/amazon-stipulates-te...

The most interesting/relevant bit from the article "In it, Amazon's attorneys agreed to legally binding terms that describe its content deletion policy. When it comes to blog and periodical content, as well as software, Amazon retains the right to perform a remote delete. But when it comes to books, deletions will only occur under a limited number of circumstances: failed credit card transactions, judicial orders, malware, or the permission of the user."


Perhaps I'm not reading this correctly, but it looks to me like Amazon does not hold the right to delete books in the case of a ToS abuse, which means that they shouldn't have deleted the books in this case.


IIRC that case was based entirely in the US. As somehow Amazon UK seem to be involved in this case too, it's possible that those agreements don't apply to this case.


I would have thought the same. Perhaps the 'Amazon' that is bound under this settlement is a different corporate entity as the 'Amazon' in this case. E.g. Amazon.com vs. Amazon.co.uk


As a tangent, I hate how trademark law protects the "Amazon" brand for book sellers, but there are 2 different companies. I think that if the company wants to keep a trademark, then any company that uses/is licenced that trademark is legally counted as the same company. This way Joe Soap, upon seeing the "Amazon" trademark, is not able to screwed around by corporate structure shenanigans. Or Amazon Ltd. have the choice of giving up the trademark.


I doubt that would matter in this case. Different laws apply to different jurisdictions. The fact that Amazon US and Amazon UK are two different companies is a red herring; a purchase in one jurisdiction may entail different rights than a purchase in other jurisdictions, even from the same company.


First think came to my mind. I am reading textbook for a course I am taking. I am not taking any paper notes as I just highlight and take online note on Kindle Reader Webapp/mobile app. I would be devastated if I lose my bookmarkings and data.


If you would be devastated, why are you relying on something you cannot backup? That's not rational.


Did you have backups of your notes in college?


This article made me aware of it. There are not many quality options. Amazon Kindle is an amazing product. For example, Neuroscience Exploring the Brain by Bear et al. is not available on Google Play and is $30 over on Barnes and Noble.


This is the thesis of RMS's The Right to Read, written over 30 years ago, and one of the few works to have passed from the genre of science fiction to historical fact, by remaining unchanged while the world changed over time.


Over 30 years ago? Best I can tell it was first published in 1997, which is only half that.


I completely agree with you, but the consumer here isn't without fault. By purchasing a Kindle and DRM'd books for it, you're agreeing to Amazon's policies. It's true that kindle books don't work like regular books, but being ignorant of that fact isn't an excuse.

This is why I categorically refuse to pay a single penny for any digital media that has DRM attached to it and might prevent me from playing it at any time in the future and that I can't back up to my own media.


Good for you. I also categorically refused to buy anything with DRM on it, until I caved and bought a Kindle last year. I figured the DRM on the Kindle was at least easy to crack, so I could make backups of my books to keep Amazon from stealing them from me. But I must confess that I haven't been diligent about backing up my ebooks.


> It's true that kindle books don't work like regular books, but being ignorant of that fact isn't an excuse.

I very much doubt there's a plain english clause that goes a little something like:

"If we think you have violated (our?) DRM policies, we will delete every book you've ever purchased, and close your current and future accounts. If you think this is done in error, you may not ask us why we closed the account. You may only sue us to get an answer"

To call out a consumer for not being prepared for a no-warning, no explanation ban (and removal of all legally purchased content) seems extreme.


Here's what the License Agreement says:

(http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId...)

> Termination. Your rights under this Agreement will automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement. In case of such termination, you must cease all use of the Software, and Amazon may immediately revoke your access to the Service or to Digital Content without refund of any fees. Amazons failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of any of its rights.


Individuals have the right to see any personal data that an organisation holds about them. If automated processing of such data leads to a legal or significant effect (e.g. you've violated our contract, so we're deleting everything you've bought from us, and you can't use our services ever again.), they also have the right to know what the logic was behind that processing.

Amazon may have the right to terminate accounts and ban users, but when challenged by the user, they do not have the right to respond with "because I said so, so there!"


Individuals have the right to see any personal data that an organisation holds about them.

Depends where the individual is. In the EU this is basically true. Norway, however, is not part of the EU. as for the US, consumers here do not have such rights. It seems you are talking about how you think things should be, rather than how they actually are.


I wouldn't have posted a comment like that if the story was about someone in Somalia complaining about a US company.

Norway is part of the EEA, and has laws equivalent to the European Data Protection Directive.

Amazon.co.uk is a company operating in the UK, and is therefore subject to the UK Data Protection Act.

IANAL, but at least one of those two facts means that Linn has the rights I outlined above.


"It's true that kindle books don't work like regular books, but being ignorant of that fact isn't an excuse."

Have you tried explaining to a non-technical person about remote wipes?

I had a 20 minute discussion on this subject with a 58 year old friend of mine who has a doctorate, presents at conferences, etc.

I spent the first 15 minutes convincing him that the ebook publish had the right to do a remote wipe.

He remained unconvinced that an ebook publisher would ever do a remote wipe because it would be bad for business.


This story has hit the mainstream press and I am sure it will be bad for business...


> Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.

How many people, if they'd known this could happen, would have bought a Kindle in the first place? I suspect many would not. Digital rights activists need to educate the public that DRM = you have no rights.


DRM isn't exactly great for authors or artists either. Here's a Doctorow article on DRM implications for book authors:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blog...

Why use DRM? Demand an alternative, buy a physical copy, or holdout. Hopefully the ship will begin turning around soon.


Should it really be illegal? Every time legislators get involved in these Internet legalities, they don't understand what they're doing. While we (technical young folks) understand the similarities to breaking and entering, somehow they end up seeing similarities to trucks and "series of tubes." Big business can be annoying, but they are nothing like big lobbyist groups like RIAA and MPAA, and as soon as legislation comes up, these people end up being primary influencers. Or the legislators push through favorable bills for these people and immediately leave and become their chairmen (Chris Dodd/MPAA anyone?).


It amazes me how the concept of "non-scarce" goods being a one-for-one substitute for physical items only seems to work in one direction in this brave new world in which we are unfortunately inhabiting, too.

If she'd been caught torrenting those same books in the US or a growing list of other countries, she'd face fines and court fees. Her Internet browser could be diverted to "anti-piracy education" sites; perhaps one day, she could be disconnected altogether.

Yet Amazon is allowed to arbitrarily remove those very same files with no explanation.

Pretty mindblowing how severely copyright has been perverted from its original intent.


The one-way nature is exactly the crux of the matter. In a purely chaotic world where people do whatever was in their best interest in the short term, everybody would infringe on copyright whenever they wanted a book (or whatever "non-scarce" commodity) and the content producers would do whatever nasty tricks they felt would stop this from happening, including distributing your book in a form that can only be accessed via computers that you don't truly control and "reserving the right" to cut you off from what you "purchased".

We, fortunately, do not live in this world. However, from the standpoint of someone that prefers to purchase books, movies, and video games to promote these arts, it seems that the entities "selling" the content to me are more eager to head down that chaotic road than I am. That's not to diminish the fact that there are many rampant copyright infringers that have already happily moved down that road and could care less about long term benefit. It's just that I am not one of those people, and I don't deserve to be hit with the crap-storm that you intend for them, particularly when there is no evidence that they feel any of that storm at all.

So I long ago decided on a solution, just do what feels right. Buy from whatever distributor you like (I tend to stay away from Amazon, competition is always good) and then circumvent whatever DRM they place on it (for instance, go to one of those places of ill repute and get the book in an accessible format). It's not perfect, but it sure as hell is better than playing the game they set up.


Companies add DRM because people pay for DRM-ed content. Stop giving them incentives* and they'll stop.

Buyers, not pirates, are doing this to themselves.

* (this doesn't mean 'pirate'. Buying physical copies or just abstaining are valid alternatives)


I'm one of the ones to leap out of the woodwork and shout that copying is not theft, so it's only fair that I point out this; torrenting is a massive copyright violation, as you are basically republishing the content. What Amazon did in this case is not against copyright, and the user had no claim to copyright of that work anyway.

Make no mistake; I disagree with the humongous damages leveled against torrenters and I would be dead set against allowing an ISP to redirect or disconnect a user.

But Amazon doing something they claimed rights to in their ToS and sharing a copyrighted work via torrent are quite different.


The user had no copyright claim on that work, but he/she did have a reasonable expectation that a "purchased" good was hers to dispose of as she saw fit after completion of the sale, within the confines of the law. What people are objecting to is Amazon's redefinition of the rights of the seller at the expense of the rights of the buyer.


It's also interesting how similar this is to the previous round, a century ago: the first-sale doctrine arose precisely to put an end to shenanigans publishers were trying to pull where they claimed they were only "licensing" a copy of the text to the person who purchased the dead tree. It reasserted the property rights of the purchaser, which companies now are trying to erode with the same "just licensing" shenanigans.


Citation needed.


On which subject in particular do you want pointers to additional reading?

(I'm going to assume that for basic background information, such as the history of the "first-sale doctrine", you're as capable of using Google and Wikipedia as anyone else.)


If you know, it's simple enough to provide a pointer.

Are you referring to Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus (1908) later codified into 17 USC 109?


I feel that I need to point out that at no point did anyone accuse the lady in question of torrenting pirated content. In fact, that's part of the problem. Amazon refuse to say anything about why they took their action.


Yes. But as an aside, it's a good thing she lives in Norway and will have easy access to the pirate bay to get her books back.


I'm not really arguing whether one action is any better or worse than the other; seeding a pile of ebooks isn't really something for which any valid defense can usually be given.

My point is that there's clearly a very large amount of effort being expended protecting the ever-expanding rights of content owners, and -- near as I can tell -- zero effort being spent protecting content purchased by honest consumers from being taken from them without justification or recourse.


"seeding a pile of ebooks isn't really something for which any valid defense can usually be given"

How come? If you seed a pile of ebooks (let's assume it's a very big pile that contains a good chunk of books humanity considers important) than you're helping our culture spread. It is in fact very important for books to be massively copied in order to survive future catastrophes: whatever they come in form of nuclear winter, totalitarian copyright regime or cultural degradation and neglect.

I have my torrent of 20G of compressed ebooks and I feel very prepared for a digital nuclear winter.


Yes, I'm sure "stockpiling against the need to re-create society" is much higher on most people's list than "I don't want to pay for the things I want".


I don't care about that. For most of that books, their authors are already dead; most of them are also forgotten to the point of being out-of-print.

Your comment will be justified if the stockpile was smaller and more hit-driven, but 20G is a nice cultural pill you will have difficulty arguing about.


Don't forget to share Hollywood blockbusters and AAA video games. The rebel alliance is counting on your support.


Hollywood blockbusters and AAA video games are disgusting as a concept; most are also lousy and boring as an implementation of that concept.

So good news, I'm not pirating blockbusters, but bad news for you, I'm not paying for these either.

No food for your thick sarcasm.

What do I do? I support independent efforts while torrenting oldies and classics. You can say that latter is piracy, but I don't care and their authors don't care either, and I could not care less about "rights holders".


I enjoy how my comments get a few upvotes and then slowly sink. It is somehow nice to "suffer" for truth.


Maybe it's because you feel the need to use holier-than-thou language like "No food for your thick sarcasm." and "It is somehow nice to "suffer" for truth."


Well, my analogy is: I made a story where I come to a forest and pick berries and mushrooms, and then the next commenter comes and tells me that he's sure I also come to private toilets and steal the precious shit to eat. First, I am not stealing shit, and second, I don't usually eat shit. This is plainly offensive so I had to "brace myself".


Seriously 20g? I bet you didn't read all of them!


Not yet. Other than reference materials and favorites "worth rereading", shouldn't most of the books in one's possession be those one hasn't yet read? When you're done with it pass it on to the next reader!

Well that's how it works for physical books; I'm not sure about electronic ones.


While I think your reasoning is noble, even commendable, I don't think it would hold up well in a civil case.

For the record, I'm in favor of this sort of "cultural hedging" as well, but I don't think it's something that most people would even think to do.


Well, so sue me.

I was just arguing with books seeding "not being really something for which any valid defense can usually be given" If I should have read it as "any valid defense IN COURT can be given", then again, so sue me. But it's pretty easy to defend the morality of this case.


I'm with you on the morality of it.


And in the times when I can torrent a whole library of culture-defining books (whose authors mostly either passed away or no longer care), the book selling industry should reconsider the question: what exactly are they selling? What is their place to contribute to the society? Is it only about pushing vampire books by living authors while withholding vampire books by deceased authors?


I mistook your comment for saying they were roughly equivalent, I didn't get that you were pointing out the expanding rights for corporations vs. contracting rights for individuals. Please accept my apologies, I do believe that what you are talking about is one of the most important problems we have to address in the coming years.




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