Re: sf not worth stealing?

Jasper Janssen <jasper@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<dburkhead@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Jack Tingle wrote:
Yet another data point, confirming that books are not worth stealing.

Or simply confirming that some people have at least a smidgen of ethics
and will obtain legal copies rather than steal them.

However, the existence of honest people does not invalidate the
existence of theives. If something is worth buying then, to a theif, it is
worth stealing. Funny how that works.

Unlike physical objects or even DVDs, though, ebooks are nigh on
impossible to sell on. So thieves only steal them for their own use,
pretty much, which rather limits the thievery market.

What about someone who buys a legitimate copy and then shares it on to many
others? That happens a lot, and is a clear case why "theft" is not an
adequate description of copyright violation.

The person who shares on a copy to many others is NOT "abetting many small
thefts," but rather violating the author(/copyright holder's) rights by
unauthorized republication. Similarly, the primary gain is on the part of
the republisher, whether in terms of cash (in the case of pirates) or in
terms of prestige and access to other unauthorized copies (in the case of
traditional tape bootlegging or p2p filesharing.)

Just MHO of course.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
posting domain | Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." (Groucho)
.

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