On Sun, 20 May 2001, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
> Niklas Nordebo [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] quoth:
> *>On Sun, May 20, 2001 at 07:27:39AM -0500, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
> *>> You can't expect to steal music and then bitch about how someone is
> *>> stealing copies of your book on line.
> *>
> *>Ah, good old "piracy is theft" analogy - what would we do without you?
>
> Well, I don't make the laws and it's not my property but yes, it's
> stealing. Steal is an ugly word but if you didn't pay for the copy of the
> book and are getting a digital copy for free I don't see how one could
> think it as anything else.
'steal' also covers a wide gamut of acts .. by parking wihtout paying the
meter while you nip to the shops you are stealing from the car park
owner, but its a million miles from banging old ladies over the head with
a brick and stealling their handbags.
but there is no question that piracy *is* theft, quite where you place it
on the long line between the two extremes suggested above is matter of
personal morals.
And since the argument put forward by the publishers is related to loss
of revenue rather than moral highground, I maintain my view that the loss
of sales revenue is essentially small compared to the costs of
enforcement and the induced sales from owners of pirate copies.
The interesting question for me is : if I already own a paper copy of the
book, which costs 30p to produce and the remaining £39.70 is for 'a
licence on the copyright' .. why do I have to pay full price for a CD
version as well? ... seems to me that I already have a licence to the
copyright, surely I can choose to view it any manner I see fit?
[ thats a purely hypothetical question anyway, I just cant stand CD
books .. yuk yuk yuk .. there is something rather satisfying about a
nicely printed book, on nice paper with good typography that the digital
version will never match. .. The Addison-Wesley ones for instance, and
Robert Bringhurst's 'Elements of Typograhic Style' come to mind ]
--
Robin Szemeti
Redpoint Consulting Limited
Real Solutions For A Virtual World
