5 ms·

As a self published author I have to say that the publishing industry is providing a huge service to me and the rest of the industry here. The IA blatantly sto

As a self published author I have to say that the publishing industry is providing a huge service to me and the rest of the industry here. The IA blatantly stole the work of thousands of people. They saw a problem and wanted to act - laudable. They could have done that be arranging to buy unique copies of each book they lent out. Or they could have tried to come to some agreement with the publishers. Or a bunch of other alternatives. They didnt. They stole the work and thankfully there is some players with enough clout in the market to do something about it. If the big publishers ever do go away it will be a bad time for those like me who are never going to make enough revenue from our works to warrant a court proceeding while our works are stolen.

EvanAnderson 6y ago
They didn't "steal" anything. If you mean copyright infringement, say "copyright infringement". There's no scarcity involved-- nobody lost the use or ownership of any physical article-- so nothing was "stolen". re: your business model being sustainable if the current "industry" goes away - Maybe that ship has sailed. You can't make a living being a buggy whip manufacturer or an elevator operator anymore either.
- jfk13 6y ago
  > nobody lost the use or ownership of any physical article Presumably the author and/or publisher lost the use of the income they could reasonably have expected to receive corresponding to a certain number of copies of the work going into circulation. Anyhow, physical articles are not the only things that can be stolen.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    Each act of copyright infringement does not equate to a lost sale. We have a term for copyright infringement. We have a term for unlawfully taking things that are subject to scarcity. They are two different things. The lack of scarcity matters.
  - zucker42 6y ago
    If you have a successful bed making business, and I decide to start making beds too, you'll certainly make less profit, but I haven't stolen from you. Deprivation of income is not theft, practically any action you take deprives someone of income. Most justifications for property (both personal property and real estate) invoke the fact that pieces of property are rivalrous (one person's use interferes with another's). Calling unlicensed copying "stealing" ignores the crucial difference between physical goods and digital files.
- StormChaser_5 6y ago
  I will agree that the writing is not stolen when you give every line of code produced by you or that you will produce in the future or any code produced by any company you have ever been part of or invested in to me for free to use as I wish. Until then if you want to read an authors work then you need to pay their (usually very small) fee.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    If someone pirates my code that's not stealing, that's copyright infringement. I would love to live in a society that would recognize the post-scarcity nature of many goods nowadays and de-commodifies them, including computer programs, basic food, and in certain cases housing.
    - StormChaser_5 6y ago
      Me too. I would love to be able to make anything I write free while having all my material needs seen to and only writing for the love of it/prestige. But we don't live in that society. I guess we could argue about semantics but depriving me of my ability to legitimately profit from my work while the IA wrapped itself in a flag of doing good seems like at the very least a very low form of behaviour, as well as illegal. And I doubt many people would describe us any word other than theft.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Sure, but as it's going to only way for this to happen, and it certainly is possible, is if people start acting against large actors that have a vested interested against this in ways that make de-commodification necessary for the existence of the industry. It is theft in the same way that someone squatting unused land in the north of Canada and being granted ownership is theft. The fact that we live in a system where this might cause loss of income for someone is neither necessary nor the moral responsibility of the Internet Archive, SciHub or Library Genesis.
      - cornishpixels 6y ago
        And so long as people use that logic, we'll never live in that society.

EvanAnderson 6y ago

They didn't "steal" anything. If you mean copyright infringement, say "copyright infringement". There's no scarcity involved-- nobody lost the use or ownership of any physical article-- so nothing was "stolen". re: your business model being sustainable if the current "industry" goes away - Maybe that ship has sailed. You can't make a living being a buggy whip manufacturer or an elevator operator anymore either.

jfk13 6y ago
> nobody lost the use or ownership of any physical article Presumably the author and/or publisher lost the use of the income they could reasonably have expected to receive corresponding to a certain number of copies of the work going into circulation. Anyhow, physical articles are not the only things that can be stolen.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  Each act of copyright infringement does not equate to a lost sale. We have a term for copyright infringement. We have a term for unlawfully taking things that are subject to scarcity. They are two different things. The lack of scarcity matters.
- zucker42 6y ago
  If you have a successful bed making business, and I decide to start making beds too, you'll certainly make less profit, but I haven't stolen from you. Deprivation of income is not theft, practically any action you take deprives someone of income. Most justifications for property (both personal property and real estate) invoke the fact that pieces of property are rivalrous (one person's use interferes with another's). Calling unlicensed copying "stealing" ignores the crucial difference between physical goods and digital files.
StormChaser_5 6y ago
I will agree that the writing is not stolen when you give every line of code produced by you or that you will produce in the future or any code produced by any company you have ever been part of or invested in to me for free to use as I wish. Until then if you want to read an authors work then you need to pay their (usually very small) fee.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  If someone pirates my code that's not stealing, that's copyright infringement. I would love to live in a society that would recognize the post-scarcity nature of many goods nowadays and de-commodifies them, including computer programs, basic food, and in certain cases housing.
  - StormChaser_5 6y ago
    Me too. I would love to be able to make anything I write free while having all my material needs seen to and only writing for the love of it/prestige. But we don't live in that society. I guess we could argue about semantics but depriving me of my ability to legitimately profit from my work while the IA wrapped itself in a flag of doing good seems like at the very least a very low form of behaviour, as well as illegal. And I doubt many people would describe us any word other than theft.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Sure, but as it's going to only way for this to happen, and it certainly is possible, is if people start acting against large actors that have a vested interested against this in ways that make de-commodification necessary for the existence of the industry. It is theft in the same way that someone squatting unused land in the north of Canada and being granted ownership is theft. The fact that we live in a system where this might cause loss of income for someone is neither necessary nor the moral responsibility of the Internet Archive, SciHub or Library Genesis.
    - cornishpixels 6y ago
      And so long as people use that logic, we'll never live in that society.