
Book Piracy as Peer Preservation - ingve
http://computationalculture.net/article/book-piracy-as-peer-preservation
======
lossolo
In my country you can download any pirated game, movie, tv show, ebook or
music legally and store it for 48 hours but you can't share it/upload it. And
i am doing it with one exception. There is a company CD Project RED that made
Witcher series and even that their games are without DRM (that is their choice
- "we can't force you to buy our game but we can convince you") i am buying
their games and i will buy them in future also. I could just download and do
not pay for it but their product is so good, their policies, customer care is
just great. I can see they have put their heart and souls into this games,
they don't force you to buy with DRM that's why they get my money. They sold
10 mil copies of Witcher 3 without having any DRM. If you make good product
you don't need to worry about piracy.

~~~
theandrewbailey
CD Project is perhaps the best video game company ever. They have earned all
the praise they get.

------
Wildgoose
I used an App on my old iPod to BUY and read the first in a series of books.

I then tried to purchase the second volume, only to have the transaction
declined because I don't live in North America.

I wrote to Penguin USA to complain about this, pointing out that the book I
wished to purchase was freely available on download sites so Why were they
refusing to sell it to me?

Their response was that I should find a US book store online, place an order
for a physical copy and then either wait around 4 weeks for it to be delivered
via surface mail or pay a premium price (more than the cost of the book) to
have it delivered by airmail.

The fact that I actually specifically wanted an electronic copy for its
convenience and immediacy was just ignored.

A downloaded copy does not deprive anyone of the original possession. The only
issue in these cases is the legitimate right to be recompensed for that copy.
However, if the owner refuses to exercise that right, how can downloading a
copy still be considered "theft"?

~~~
6d6b73
"I wanted to buy copy a famous painting from the museum for the market price
but they did not agree to sell it to me because they don't ship to my state.
So I drove there and took it when nobody was watching. How is that not a
theft?"

That's pretty much what it boils down to.

~~~
Wildgoose
Don't be ridiculous. A better analogy would be that the museum sold JPEGs of a
work of art you wanted to use as a desktop background, but refused to sell one
to a different state. So instead you downloaded a copy of the photograph.

~~~
6d6b73
And you think JPEGS are free? It takes hardware, software and some skills.
Someone needs to spend time creating them. They have the right to refuse to
sell you whatever they created. That refusal does not negate their right to
their work.

~~~
Wildgoose
You're still missing the point.

They refused my money.

They were happy for me to buy the work second-hand and ship it at great
expense (and environmental damage) across the world to my home where I could
have then scanned it into an electronic format.

All with NO further recompense for the author.

All I wanted to do was pay the author for their work in return for a
downloaded copy of the next volume, just like I had bought the first volume,
and just like they were happily selling it to other people.

Instead I was redlined on the basis of my nationality.

------
y7
Article from 2014, which looks at people engaging in digital book piracy not
as thieves but as modern-day librarians or collectors, who are focused more on
preservation than providing easy access to the materials. Mainly, the authors
write about various online libraries and how they're organized, with a small
amount of technical details.

I found it a somewhat interesting article, but I'd hoped they'd go a little
more into the ethics of it, and also give more of a view from the perspective
of the various stakeholders they mention (publishers, authors, etc.).

~~~
danthejam
There was a very nice spanish community that would scan/ocr books and convert
them into epubs. They had very high standards and their forums were full with
epub documentation, best practices, boilerplate/skeleton files, scripts, etc.
To the point their curated epubs were better than those of some publishers.

It all died when one of the founders was arrested.

Edit: it seems my information was incorrect, the site's owner sold it and the
new owners wrapped the download links with malware and closed the forum. Users
left and the site closed.

~~~
jackfrodo
Sounds awesome. Any links to remaining documentation?

~~~
danthejam
I just googled and it seems like the users have moved over to
[https://www.epublibre.org/foro/](https://www.epublibre.org/foro/)

On the front page it shows a warning about how applications for editor are
closed due to having too many. So it seems the community is still alive and
well. Here's their documentation as an epub (in Spanish):
[https://www.epublibre.org/libro/detalle/2398](https://www.epublibre.org/libro/detalle/2398)

------
tdsamardzhiev
There's a huge amount of books/music/movies/games that I have no means of
obtaining legally. There's also tons of stuff I don't have convenient way to
buy (e.g. no way I'm paying full HBO NOW subscription for watching a single TV
show). We are 16 years into 21st century now, it's about time for big-name
producers to stop calling people "thieves" and offer them an acceptable
service instead.

~~~
segmondy
Listen, you have no right to someone's else own work. If you don't want to pay
HBO NOW to watch a single TV show. No problem. If you do however pirate their
show, then that's stealing and the owner has a right to call you a thief. If
HBO decides to charge $1,000 per episode, that would be very outrageous, but
that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal their show. BTW, I know the
pain, I really want to watch Showtime's "Billions" but I'm not willing to pay
$12.95 for one month to watch it. I pay for Netflix and all my shows is
restricted to Netflix, youtube and what's on TV.

~~~
duozerk
No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're
copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to
access that content, _unless_ you would've bought it had it not been available
through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule.

I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would
definitely never watch if they were not available easily like that.

As for the moral aspect of this, I personally consider that the advantages to
society provided by the free, widespread availability of cultural material far
outweighs the inconvenience to content distributors & creators; moreover, I
consider downloading content 'illegaly' like that to be a form of social
protest; to be practiced until their outdated, absurd model changes. Part of
this is certainly me rationalizing my behaviour, but I genuinely believe that
most of it is not.

And when content is available without any form of DRM and with a minimal
amount of intermediaries, I always pay for it (a good example is games through
gog.com). Personally, I'll stop downloading illegaly when all content is
available like that. And no, netflix doesn't cut it; I want the _same_ ,
convenient service I get through piracy: a mkv/mp4/whatever without any form
of DRM that I can store, read on any of my devices, copy, backup, etc.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Curious that this argument only ever applies to the intangible bit patterns
that define creative works, but never to the equally intangible bit patterns
that define money.

If I copy the numbers in a very rich person's bank account to my bank account,
I haven't stolen anything from them. All I've done is made a copy of some
information.

And yet one kind of copying generates rants about the cultural value of free
distribution, while the other generates nothing but fear and horror.

It's all very strange. And not particularly thoughtful or consistent.

IMO either you have a free economy, in which case you make every damn thing
free, or you accept that rules of ownership are necessary and that the output
of labour has value independent of the ease with which it can be copied.

Claiming that rules of ownership are irrelevant for IP you personally want
from others, but very important for IP you personally want to monopolise, is
the very worst kind of special pleading.

~~~
icebraining
_either you have a free economy, in which case you make every damn thing free,
or you accept that rules of ownership are necessary and that the output of
labour has value independent of the ease with which it can be copied._

Rules of ownership are necessary for rivalrous goods, and not for others.
Citing Thomas Jefferson,

 _" He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without
lessening mine; as he who lights his taper [(candle)] at mine, receives light
without darkening me._

 _That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems
to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made
them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in
any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical
being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. "_

~~~
clock_tower
Jefferson's talking about memetics -- about the spread of ideas and ways of
thinking. I don't see how IP law interferes with meme competition; and I don't
see how meme competition justifies pirating entertainment (which requires
large investments in visuals, audio, acting or voice-acting, computer
programming, and so on, all of which the spread of ideas doesn't need).

~~~
icebraining
The argument he used works for any non-rivalrous good, even if his specific
concern at the time was with memetics.

------
aluhut
Since it's down here the cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VukgERl...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VukgERl4Q0AJ:computationalculture.net/article/book-
piracy-as-peer-preservation+&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=ch)

------
The_Hoff
One sees this kind of thing within niche P2P communities. For example, on a
popular BitTorrent tracker dedicated to music, one often sees indie artists
"leak" their content. Consequently, the artists receive more recognition and
appreciation for their work. I'm not claiming that piracy is victimless, nor
that P2P sharing is more beneficial to the preservation of arts/academia than
it is harmful. There is, however, some degree of promotion and conservation
that occurs through sharing.

~~~
Mithaldu
I have a friend who doesn't only preserve media, but also makes it more
accessible. Specifically DVDs of the non-english sort are digitized,
translated, and subtitles added, without removing any of the existing content.
If there are space limitations, existing content is slightly compressed (for
example audio commentary tracks). Additionally great care is taken to strictly
adhere to (or even make adherent to) industry standards, so the resulting
files, when burned to any dvd, will work with any player regardless of age or
compatibility.

Some would call it piracy.

But effectively media from the 80s and earlier, that would otherwise become
completely unavailable, or rot, becomes preserved and available for many
generations to come.

~~~
banterfoil
I absolutely love that, and hope that I can one day contribute in a similar
way. It's a shame that these people get clumped in the same camp as that
college kid who watches bootleg theatre films just so they don't have to pay
for an admission ticket. There is a community that attracts these people:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/datahoarder](https://www.reddit.com/r/datahoarder)

~~~
Mithaldu
Yeah, said friend has long overtaken those and is working with way more
professional and safe storage solutions than anything i see browsing over that
reddit. :)

Though that's secondary to the focus on quality and value of the material.

------
ideonexus
I think the most fascinating aspect of this article is the conflict between
preservation and curation. The world of books is no different than the world
of content online: it's mostly low-quality and not worth the reader's time.
The authors' observe that for book preservation, building a curated library of
high-quality texts demands a certain amount of exclusivity in who's doing the
curation. At the same time, this exclusivity increases the centralization of
the repository and makes it more prone to being taken down if hosting
copyrighted content. Whereas a distributed library reduces the exclusivity,
but also reduces the overall quality of the library because anyone can
contribute to it.

They cite Wikipedia as an example of these competing qualities, where user-
contributions declined as stricter quality controls were put in place. I've
watched this debate over what qualifies as "notable" for Wikipedia rage for
years now, as the community tries to strike a balance between hosting an
expansive encyclopedia with one that hosts relevant content that isn't
watered-down with too much trivia.

I'm curious what others think about this conflict? Will algorithms and machine
learning one day curate out the literary gems for us?

~~~
soundwave106
To me it depends on the meaning of where they are applying quality.

For _content_ to be preserved I would personally hope that the direction is
more on the preservation angle, personally.. There is very little cost for
storing information these days, so there's no real reason to me not to cast a
wide net on exactly what content is archived. There is no single good
definition of "quality content" after all; even the works considered "top
quality" can shift over time, plus there are people out there who really get
into niches that a group of curators seeking "top quality content" might miss.
(Some of these niches after all _deliberately_ include kitschy or trashy "low
quality" content.)

From what I gather from the article, the barrier was more on the technical
side of preservation. This is easier to see: the "barrier to entry" is more
making sure an e-book isn't fuzzy low-resolution junk, or making sure the
e-book has correct title, author, etc.

------
muddyrivers
I have family members who are writers. By association, we know many writers.
They are in a dilemma. From talking to them, I think they agree, in principle,
that books ought to be "distributed, [...], spread abroad, given to all, given
cheaply, given at cost price, given for nothing." They are book-lovers in
essence.

In reality, most writers can hardly make a living from writing. Their book
deals are essentially decided by if the book will sell. For published writers,
the biggest factor in publishers' minds is the selling history of her/his
previous books. So writers are trying all the means to boost the sale of their
books. As far as I know, most writers hate book tours, public readings, etc.
They will, however, fly 10 hours to another city, give two readings, each of
which may have only 10 people show up, so as to sell several copy of their
books, as long as the publishers can cover the travel costs. Most writers are
poor and can't afford the travels at their own expense.

So writers really want people to buy their books, not to become rich, simply
as a way to support, so that they can afford to write. Writer friends buy each
other's books once they are published, as a means to support, both in spirit
and in finance. I remember once my family member gave a reading to promote her
newly published book. After the reading, a writer friend came to say bye to
us, empty-handed. She didn't say anything, but with a very apologetically
expression. We know she was having a hard time financially. That expression
really hurts.

The financial burden hits hard when writers have family and children. The
majority of writers hate teaching, as far as I know. Whenever there is an
opening position in a college's writing program, there would be hundreds of
applications, including some well-known writers, even although they are aware
that teaching will take a big part of their time, their energy from them to
work on their own novels, their own books. It seems the cost of context switch
between teaching and writing are very high for most writers. A well-known
writer, whom I believe most educated people should at least have heard of,
can't work on his own books at all when he is teaching. So he has to negotiate
with the college to teach only one semester per year, so he can write in the
other semester without teaching obligations. I wish his books have higher sale
number, so that he can get higher book deals. Thus he doesn't have to teach.

~~~
gakada
Today must be a golden age for writers. Many local libraries are struggling.
With the historical source of free books in peril, writers can once again
prosper!

Most fiction writers don't face a piracy problem, they face a marketing
problem (nobody knows their book exists) and an economic problem (there is an
abundance of supply of novels).

Every new novel has to compete not just with novels released that year, but
with all novels still in print. In that way it is unlike most other markets.
If you make soap, you only have to compete with the soap manufacturers of
today.

------
speeder
Doom, has Denuvo DRM, a very heavy-handed DRM, that is a bit buggy, and has
been locking legitimate costumers out of the product, and also blocks many
common uses of PC games (Denuvo blocks running the game with custom DLLs,
including using Wine, and graphics-altering wrappers, and also blocks any
modding that affect the game in-memory binary in any way)

I made a post on Steam, about it, avoiding commenting on piracy, saying only
about the problems Denuvo creates for legitimate costumers.

Quickly, got accused of being a pirate.

So I just went ahead, and admitted that I actually own pirated copies of Doom
1 and 2, and explained why, and how I got them (it was very expensive and hard
actually), got piled-up by people using many of the most absurd arguments I
ever saw, but that I guess are result of never seeing how life in the third
world works.

For example, many people asked me if I would steal a car, I replied that yes,
if I needed one urgently, I would, gave for example if my mother needed to go
to the hospital immediately, I would happily steal a car and drive her there.

Lots of people then replied I am evil, because they would just call 911... and
that any argument about third-world emergency services was a lie. (while today
we have on the headlines, Brazillian police kidnapped New Zealand Jiu Jitsu
champion in Rio de Janeiro and stole 2000 BRL from him, and now he is
requesting protection from the NZ embassy).

Also another argument I saw a lot, is that "if you really want it, you work to
get it", I mentioned for example a poor kid that might work reselling trash
from landfill would want pirated photoshop, and pirated photoshop books, to
get a better life working with photoshop.

Lots of people told me that this kid should just get a better job and buy
photoshop, or that should work harder to get money to buy photoshop with the
current job...

I concluded that many people that defend DRM and is very strongly anti-piracy,
don't know how the rest of the world works, that people that are strongly
anti-piracy, lived lives where their suggestions: "just move out of the shitty
country", or "just get better job", or "just save money", or "just ask help of
the government", as things that work, and don't know how it is to be stuck in
a country where calling 911 is a good way to get killed, instead of getting
help.

------
jonathansizz
Book piracy as a way to get free stuff instead of paying for it.

These rationalizations for ripping people off are pathetic; just admit you do
it because it's quick, easy and there's little chance of getting caught.

You aren't a freedom fighter, and if you actually paused the trackers long
enough to think about what you're doing, you'd have to admit to yourself that
what you're doing is simply wrong. At least be honest enough with yourself to
admit that.

------
mrmondo
This is a really big problem in Australia and not just for written media but
also digital content such as TV/Film/eBooks/Audiobooks

I WANT to obtain ebooks / to series etc... in a way where the authors get paid
but they're either inflated in price due to the USD, not available outside of
the USA, not available without some sort of awful DRM that prevents me from
using a device or my choosing to read / play them on or are low quality.

IMO Amazon are the worst offenders for this, they make ebooks far more
expensive then physical books and yet still plaster them with their
restrictive DRM on top. A lot of their library is unavailable outside the USA
or if it is - comes at a great cost. On top of this, while their ebooks
readers are great I've found I really need the higher end models with the high
DPI screens which are /really/ expensive outside the USA and reading on a LCD
screen is just too hard.

HBO go isn't available in Australia so that's our.

I currently pay for and subscribe to:

\- Audible (highly overpriced, limited content available in Australia, about
to cancel)

\- Netflix (well priced, good quality, poor interface and limited content
available in Australia)

\- Apple Music (well priced, good quality, poor interface although the latest
betas on iOS 10 and iTunes are much, much better)

\- Spotify (Overpriced, medium quality, good playlists / sharing features)

The cost of all these services plus the devices to use them with and the
connections for them really adds up. I wish someone / the govt could just act
as an international media aggregate and you pay a subscription based on what
kinds / levels of content you want and they provide it from various upstream
sources in standard formats (never going to happen I know).

In the past I've tried:

\- Safari books online - cancelled due to extremely high costs and very
restrictive DRM

\- Paktpub subscription (Can't remember the name) - overpriced and quality
varied greatly

\- Scribd - overpriced and very hard to get what you want in Australia

\- Stan - overpriced, poor interface, no 4K support

\- Quickflicks - overpriced, poor interface, no 4K support

... and many others

After all this, just like with licenses software, it would actually be easier
for me just to torrent (or whatever) the thing I wanted, but as I said I want
to give money to the people that create and maintain the content.

The only media provider that does his well in my opinion is Bandcamp, ok they
have no subscription model because that's not their thing, but I have spent
more money on bandcamp than I ever did on CDs or Vinyl, and the artists get
more of a cut.

</end rant>

------
someone7x
I was struck by the use of "shadow library". It makes me sad to think of a
world where the library experience is analogous to the buy drugs experience.

------
frobozz
Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe:
[https://www.lockss.org/](https://www.lockss.org/)

