4 ms·

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the owner of that site doesn't have permission to have that story on his site. Edit/Elaboration: This is pirated cont

• swombat 17y ago
  Assuming that there's more than one story in this book, chances are that those of us who do occasionally buy books are now that much more likely to purchase that book, if we liked this story. The percentage of us who both a) buy books, and b) enjoy reading books on a computer screen, is so vanishingly small that it is unlikely to cause any financial damage to Mr Allen. In any case, Woody Allen is already filthy rich (deservedly), so I doubt he gives a toss.
  • azgolfer 17y ago
    It's up to Mr. Allen to decide if he wants to give away his work for promotion and his wealth doesn't make stealing from him right.
    • swombat 17y ago
      It certainly is, from a legal standpoint. From a moral standpoint, I think the fact that the story was written in 1975, 34 years ago, makes it really a borderline case whether Woody Allen should still have exclusivity over the story he published and profited from for 30+ years. Even going by the 2x14 years principle, he's out. Imho, the world would be a better place if there was a deadline of about 30 years on the exclusivity of reprinting rights.
      • lucumo 17y ago
        The problem with morals is that they are different from person to person. If you want to have a debate on copyright law, I'm perfectly happy to have it, but I don't think anyone should rewrite copyright law based only on their own morals. After all, that's why laws are created, to unify all morals and all interests in a country. In any case, I don't think HN should be a place to swap pirated stories (or movies, music, etc.). Especially not so when they are as terrible and uninteresting as this one.
        • delackner 17y ago
          I'm surprised that the original comment here was voted down. It was thoughtful and although I disagree, it expresses a point of view that is respectful. The Law governing the area you reside in is not magically imbued with moral authority. It is simply a set of rules, some of them enforced, some not, that are backed up by the threat of violence. When the law contradicts a society's overwhelming sense of morality, conflict occurs and either the law changes or (worse) police begin to refuse to apply the law, further undermining the clear authority of the law.
  • unalone 17y ago
    That's a jackass line of thinking, Dan. I agree with what you're saying; it's why I release things online. But to make that decision for Woody is rude. If Woody did want to release his older essays online, I'm sure he'd want them as nicely-formatted as they were in his original book, not vomited up on a shitty Tripod page. Formatting certainly chances our attitudes toward what we read. Furthermore, in a case like Without Feathers each separated story loses something of its context, which is a shame and makes it a less fulfilling read.
    • swombat 17y ago
      As I've just posted in the previous reply, I don't think it's a jackass line of thinking, because I think that after 34 years exclusive reprinting rights should have expired already.
      • unalone 17y ago
        But they haven't. Hacker News wouldn't post up torrents to old movies or albums, and posting this is no better.
        • swombat 17y ago
          Common sense ftw.
• dkarl 17y ago
  It's one small step better than blog-jacking in that he gives proper attribution to the legal publishers of the content and doesn't pretend to have any affiliation with the author.