

ASK HN: Illegal Book/Mp3/* Downloads. - chanux

Hello HNers,<p>Today I stuck in an argument with one of my good buddies about Illegal book downloads. The guy believes that illegal book downloads are okay.<p>He refers to it as Borrowing a book from a library. But my point is that libraries have certain restrictions which an illegally downloaded e-book does not give us.<p>Then he said the deleting the book after referencing is OK. I don't agree with that because it doesn't help proving his "library theory" in anyway.<p>Then he asked me why I always refer to a physical library. Then my argument was that true online libraries do not give a complete copy of the book to download. Maybe they just let read it online but not save it locally in anyway (not in an easy way at least). I gave Google books as a close example. SO he said he would rather prefer Google style than than downloading a whole book. But then again Google do not give the whole book to read. That's how it differ from an online library &#38; Google has a reason for that. "The complete content has a value".<p>I know there are lots of ACTUALLY free books out there. There the thing is the authors are so great not to expect money for whatever time/effort they put in creating content. But if the author expect for money &#38; we bypass the paying step in anyway, I believe it's illegal.<p>This is the case with the software that has a price &#38; software that are zero cost. If the author expect money we should give him/her. But it's always good (err.. GREAT) to have DRM free digital copy.<p>What do you dear HNers think about this argument?
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noonespecial
_He refers to it as Borrowing a book from a library. But my point is that
libraries have certain restrictions which an illegally downloaded e-book does
not give us._

Not to pick a side or even make a moral argument but here's a fun thought
experiment:

What if you had special mental abilities that allowed you to circumvent these
restrictions. Some people have nearly perfect photographic memory when it
comes to printed words. Is it theft every time someone like this enters a
library?

If not, could we just call my kindle and bittorrent a prosthesis for my mind
so that I have equal ability?

The point is that these arguments are a lot like matter. It looks discrete and
easy to quantify from a distance, but the closer you look, the more you find
that deep down, its made of nearly nothing at all. We (society) just picked
something out of our asses, nearly at random, and went with it. It only got
the force of morality attached to it later in the game when people had lived
with it for a while. Kind of like running a stop sign on an empty street makes
some people feel guilty for no apparent reason.

------
vonsydov
I think it should really be a personal decision.

Maybe you're luckier than he is in other ways. Maybe he'll create something
great by using the knowledge which will benefit everybody. Maybe he can't buy
the book at all, so downloading might not have that bad an effect.

I personally feel all creative content should be through some sort of a rental
model (e.g. pay per view) that takes into account lots of different details
like affordability, amount of use, importance, relative importance to other
content etc.

In this way, if I still get to keep every book on the planet, but if I just
spent a few seconds on it browsing the pages, I'm not really going to get
charged for it.

Although, a lot of popular books make money because of their popularity and
the big names associated with them and not because they get read so much.

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Tichy
What are your reasons for considering it wrong? Not saying it is not wrong,
but all the laws are man made. There is no absolute way to decide. Personally
I like to think at the possible outcomes of policies. and decide which outcome
I would like best.

Free books could lead to more reading, but less books being written. On the
other hand, they could even lead to more reading and MORE books being written
(because authors would have more readers, which might matter more than the
paltry income they get from book sales). Who knows, they could even lead to
LESS reading, because the perceived value of books could go down. It is not so
clear cut to decide...

One thing I am 100% sure about: libraries and the "free" books they provide
are very important for a society. At least for me, being technical minded and
entrepreneurial minded, they can make the difference for me between being able
to create a viable business or not. Also I am quite certain that for technical
books the motivation to write them is not the money - it is very hard to make
any money with technical books, so I think they would mostly be written to
boost reputation.

For fiction books I don't know. Clearly a lot of them were written regardless
of the income they might generate, but probably hoping for riches and fame
motivates at least some authors.

~~~
ErrantX
> which might matter more than the paltry income they get from book sales

Citation. & where does the rest of their income come from?

If it's not commercially viable why do it?

(never looked into the book world, as in the writing side of it, so am
clueless :D)

~~~
Tichy
I am currently in talks with a publisher to write a non-fiction book. They
offer 11% on what they make from a book sale, which would amount to about 2€
per book. They would at first print 1000 books. From talking to other people
who have written books I got the impression that these conditions are normal.

So I would expect to make 2000€ for several months of work, which is
effectively nothing (in fact, it is a negative income). Nevertheless I want to
do it. I expect to justify digging deeper into some topics that have always
interested me. Maybe I could consult in that direction later on (even though
my long-term goal is not consulting). Also I am interested in the process of
writing a book, hoping it becomes easier over time.

But with 2€ per book, it is next to impossible to make any money directly from
book sales. The time I plan to invest costs me 40000€ in opportunity costs -
even if they sell 20000 copies, which is extremely unlikely, it would merely
be break even.

Maybe the e-book writers who sell their e-books for 100$ have another
perspective, though.

Another case in point might be PG: his essays are available for free. Why is
he writing them? While some of them got issued in book form, I highly doubt
that was his primary motivation for writing them.

Also a lot of university professors seem to have written books - maybe it
helped them to get tenure?

~~~
ErrantX
Im not sure I agree PG is a good example: he made his money elsewhere, essay
writing isnt a revenue stream, right?

Anyway going back to topic; that's interesting. I imagined (from your first
post) that margins were bad but not THAT bad. Sucks. Is you book a niche or
local interest book or something? I imagine Fiction probably hasd a bit more
in sales prospects right?

What about long term sales? 20,000 seems a small # to sell over the course of
several years - but then, as I said I havent a clue :P

(as an aside have you considered self publication - if what your selling is
local interest or that low in sales prospects Lulu.com might be an option? as
I said Im a dunce in respect to this but it looked quite good when I checked
it out)

~~~
Tichy
I think selling 1000 copies would be hard - it is a technical subject.

I don't know, maybe it is a stupid idea, but I also kind of want to trick
myself into writing a book. In theory I could write it for Lulu or as an
ebook, and perhaps have better margins. But knowing myself, my chances of
success are _much_ higher if I have another party being interested in the
project (the publisher). There is a deadline and so on, and hopefully some
experience the publisher can bring to the table.

Maybe it is silly, but I am also thinking "this could be the last opportunity
to do this, before publishers and maybe even books cease to exist". Doing it
the old fashioned way I mean. I can very well imagine that if it works out, I
would try to publish future books via Lulu or as e-books.

PG as an example: that is exactly the point though, he made his money
elsewhere. But I also think that without his essays, YCombinator would
probably not be what it is.

As for fiction books, I don't know, but I don't think the sales prospects for
an average book are much better. It could be a bit like an iPhone app store
multiplied by a million - thousands and thousands of authors writing books,
but only very few of them taking off and making money out of it.

~~~
ErrantX
hey, sorry I wasnt suggesting you plan was bad :) it sounds badass. I have
considered writing briefly in the past but gave up due to lack of motivation -
so your probably going the right way for attempt #1. Thinking about it now
were I to go back and seriously try again I suspect I'd end up in the same
place.

Well r.e. PG I just meant that it's not the same as a penniless author
considering writing a book. PG can invest his time in writing those essays
because it serves a purpose (i.e. establishes his credentials and respect).
BUT he gets coverage on a lot of those essays by already being respected (like
topping up the tank :)). And if they get ignored (unlikely) there's no
financial fall out for him.

Im sure there are lots of people in the same boat with some great things to
say: but many get passed over and go unnoticed.

But, meh it's hardly worth disagreeing over :D thanks for the info.

~~~
Tichy
A lot of times I think it also goes like this: you blog interesting content,
and eventually a publisher approaches you and asks you if you want to make a
book out of it. Then the work to prepare the articles for publication in book
form might be acceptable.

Wasn't trying to defend my silly idea, just trying to portray some ways of
thinking that might go into writing a book. Although admittedly I also wrote
it here to hear criticism, in case it actually IS stupid.

------
johnnybgoode
It depends on many things, such as whether or not you believe in intellectual
property.

~~~
rw
It's all integers, man!

~~~
johnnybgoode
Illegal numbers! :)

~~~
nailer
That effort has been put into sequencing and arranging, which would still give
a claim to copyright.

------
brl
If you believe that author entitlement trumps the social benefit of
distributing books to everybody whether or not they can afford to buy them,
then why aren't you advocating closing down all the libraries?

~~~
chanux
I'll do so on the day the libraries start to have same number of copies from
each book equal to the number of users.

~~~
brl
Is that really important? It seems that the relevant observation here is that
just like piracy, libraries reduce opportunities for authors to receive
compensation for their work.

~~~
chanux
My university library always make me feel actually buying the book. And I've
done that some times. Most other times I've given up on the library book.

~~~
brl
I have never borrowed a book from a library and then later bought the same
book. On the other hand, some of the pirated ebooks in my collection have
turned out to be valuable enough to sell me on the convenience of owning a
physical copy.

Your anecdote vs. my anecdote. I think that neither of us has a very strong
case that piracy and/or libraries help authors sell more books.

------
timothychung
Economically, the bottom line is whether we are supplying enough reward back
to the info publishers to sustain their work in long term.

Before the legal system has caught up in this area, we need to make a personal
moral decision.

And I think respecting those who work hard to produce the books will give you
a good ground for making such decision.

~~~
brl
I don't agree that there is a moral dimension to this debate. As you mention,
it's an economic question about optimizing the production of valuable creative
works in our society through incentives to authors. This needs to be balanced
with the obvious social benefit of making creative works available to the
largest audience possible.

In the last 20 years, the variables in this equation have shifted radically.
Computers have reduced the effort needed to write and edit a book, while
distribution now has no cost at all.

Our intellectual property system very desperately needs to be reexamined in
light of the way technology is changing creative production. What matters here
is what benefits our entire civilization the most, not what any individual
author 'deserves'.

It's clear to me that author moral rights are barely relevant here, since the
decision to write a book or not is up to the author. Piracy is a fact, and so
are libraries. Somebody who is thinking about writing a book needs to evaluate
the effect that both piracy and libraries are going to have on their personal
motivations for writing the book and reach a conclusion about whether or not
it makes sense for them to put in the effort.

~~~
timothychung
The moral decision I am referring to is whether we choose to use a pirate copy
of the book.

"Our intellectual property system very desperately needs to be reexamined in
light of the way technology is changing creative production"

I totally agree with you point. However, we do realize that legal system is
always catching up to the real world. Before legal decision arrives, we need
to decide ethically based on our judgement.

This is a model I learnt at uni on computer ethics. And I think it applies to
most cases in technology field.

------
sho
_"But if the author expect for money & we bypass the paying step in anyway, I
believe it's illegal."_

Well, sure it is. I don't think anyone will argue with you there. The much
more interesting question is _should_ it be illegal; and to answer that we
need to decide whether it's right or wrong. Laws are just an expression of
morality, and often a pretty old expression at that.

Personally I think the discussion is near moot anyway. Sharing of digital
content is basically impossible to stop on an open network, so trying to
legislate against it won't change a thing regardless of anyone's ethical
views. Good luck getting that infinitely replicating horse back into the barn.

~~~
chanux
'Sharing of digital content is basically impossible to stop on an open
network'

I agree on this. But the problem is again whether it's right or wrong.

A close example is "You hire a coder to code your idea. And somehow you bypass
the paying step."

Yes authors don't write custom books for you. But he expect something back to
support his time & effort. But you bypass the paying step by downloading it
illegally or let's say 'without paying any'. This logic is applicable for any
other intellectual property.

And I support software freedom. I love the freedom. When it comes free (cost
wise) it's great. But there's not always free lunch. If the author expect
money, we should pay. If the author doesn't expect money we should make him
happy for his great work someway.

