[OT]Re: Books...

[Fawzi Mohamed]

On 2008-05-10 15:25:52 +0200, John Reimer <terminal.node at gmail.com> said:

> On Sat, 10 May 2008 06:21:57 +0000, Manfred Nowak wrote:
> 
>> John Reimer wrote:
>> 
>>> I'm especially surprised people do this in the very forum in which the
>>> authors participate.  Kind of a slap in their face, really.
>> 
>> Some years ago my statement of intent to bind executables to specific
>> hardware was arraigned here.
>> 
>> I wonder how you would call that arraigning, when considering your
>> statement above. For this please observe, that printing a book is also
>> binding some intellectual property to some specific hardware.
>> 
>> Please observe further, that the owners of the website holding the
>> torrent promise to remove torrents for copyrighted files from their
>> website on request of the copyright holder. I believe that no one is
>> allowed to criticize a decision of copyright holders to take no action
>> on beeing informed of a possible copyright breach. Especially is an
>> information on a possible copyright breach no slap in the face of holder
>> of the copyright.
>> 
>> -manfred
> 
> 
> Manfred,
> 
> Once again, my post did not approach the topic of drm or copyright
> holding.  It referred to common courtesy, respect for investment of work
> done under the terms it was completed.  Posting such a link is not
> helpful, useful or respectful to it's authors, unless the authors have
> given express permission to do so.  Even opensource operates under
> similar principles of courtesy.  And indeed, litigation can and may occur
> if the opensource licenses aren't followed.  It that sense even
> opensource "freedom" comes with it's own set of controls.
> 
> I see, though, that the demand for a subjective "freedom" that fits each
> persons ideals, is becoming more the cultural norm.  I sorry to see this
> because it lacks consistancy and respect for a persons contributions.
> 
> -JJR

The original goal of copyright was to support the development of new work.
I fully support and agree with that goal.
I often don't support how the law implements it, but the goal is worthwhile.
With respect to this I found the way the numpy book was distributed 
interesting (see http://www.tramy.us/), limited time and money.
People that do some work should be compensated for it.
In this case I fully agree that posting such a link just shows 
disrespect for the work
that the authors have done.

With respect to the way the book is distributed (and it is a good book 
and I paid for it, and I think it is worth it), I had some reservation 
to the fact that it is encrypted, I find an approach like the one used 
by http://www.pragprog.com/ (generate a pdf just for you with written 
in in each page <This book was generated for xxxx>) much better and 
even more effective.
Anyway (to my surprise) I didn't have any problem with the encryption, 
neither on mac not on linux.
I had thought about stripping it immediately, but I still haven't done it.

Fawzi