[OT]Re: Books...

[John Reimer]

On Sat, 10 May 2008 10:00:21 +0000, Manfred Nowak wrote:

> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> 
>> If someone provided us with such information in private communication
>> (which is easy to accomplish), then this would be true.
> 
> I disagree.
> 
> If someone has the (legal) (co-)ownership of some information, which is
> believed to be not in common knowledge, then only in rare circumstances
> one has the right to restrict the channel of distributions for that
> information.
> 
> Without this principle you would not have been able to publish your
> book. But the same principle holds for Bob and his information of
> existing torrents.
> 
> 
>> did in a followup show that he thinks such breaches of copyright are
>> ok.
> 
> I disagree. To me his statements do not expose such a thinking.
> 
> He only emphasizes the pure fact, that there exists a free _torrent_ for
> _some_ ebook, which looks like to be the one of you and your colleagues.
> Bob did not give any clue, that the "advertized" ebook is indeed that of
> you and your colleagues.
> 
> Furthermore it seems to be unknown, where Bob resides and therefore it
> is pure speculation that he might be bound to some copyright laws.
> 
> -manfred


I think this is silly, manfred :).  You are getting all technical over 
the details.  It appears you are defending Bob's "freedom" to post the 
link and disregarding the actual /effect/ of his post, which really is 
what is important here.  Wouldn't it be better to consider the effect 
than to baffle ourselves over the legality of the medium?  DRM, 
intellectual property, and copyright will always have muddy waters 
because of their very nature... but why don't we just keep it simple and 
recognize the need for respect of the author's work.  It's likely the 
authors would have to "buy" the book to give it away, so perhaps the 
readers should too?

Honestly, if nobody says something against this habit, this forum will 
eventually be overwhelmed by this very mentality: each person decides for 
himself what's free.  The inconsistancy among the definitions of freedom 
will eventually completely cripple the interactions across cultures. 
Perhaps that just the way it has to go, but I think it's pretty simple 
just to respect the authors work and keep such links out of this public 
forum.

(On the other hand, maybe I've completely jumped the gun, and the 
author's secretly wish for their ebook to get into as many hands as 
necessary by whatever means... so that Tango can finally be #1, in which 
case my argument loses its strengh... :D).

-JJR