3 ms·

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

by beedogs 14y ago

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.

pi18n 14y ago
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.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  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.
  - speleding 14y ago
    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.
- beedogs 14y ago
  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.
  - pi18n 14y ago
    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.
  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    "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.
    - VMG 14y ago
      Don't forget to share Hollywood blockbusters and AAA video games. The rebel alliance is counting on your support.
      - guard-of-terra 14y ago
        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".
- smacktoward 14y ago
  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.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    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.
    - dredmorbius 14y ago
      Citation needed.
      - _delirium 14y ago
        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.)
        dredmorbius 14y ago
        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?
smithzvk 14y ago
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.
- icebraining 14y ago
  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)

by beedogs 14y ago

pi18n 14y ago

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.

chris_wot 14y ago
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.
- speleding 14y ago
  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.
beedogs 14y ago
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.
- pi18n 14y ago
  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.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  "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.
  - VMG 14y ago
    Don't forget to share Hollywood blockbusters and AAA video games. The rebel alliance is counting on your support.
    - guard-of-terra 14y ago
      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".
smacktoward 14y ago
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.
- _delirium 14y ago
  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.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    Citation needed.
    - _delirium 14y ago
      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.)
      - dredmorbius 14y ago
        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?

smithzvk 14y ago

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.

icebraining 14y ago
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)