Piracy in the Go industry.

[snorri]

Out of genuine curiosity, how do people classify the following? (mainly with respect to morality as opposed to legal classification)

1) Downloading unpurchased non-free material to keep with no intention of making payment
2) Downloading unpurchased non-free material to see if it is worth purchasing, and deleting or purchasing accordingly
3) Borrowing non-free material to read or play, and return without a desire to purchase even if enjoyment was had
4) Borrowing non-free material to read or play, and purchasing on return if enjoyment was had, regardless of whether there's an intent to re-read or re-play
5) Accepting gifts of non-free material to read or play, with no intention of buying your own copy
6) Purchasing second hand copies of non-free material from individuals, where no profits go to author or publisher
7) Sharing non-free material with the intention of only needing one copy for multiple persons

I'm particularly curious with 3, 4, and the logical extension of 5 in the same direction (that is, accepting a gift, then passing it on and purchasing your own copy regardless of whether you'd read it again or not, if you thought that the material was good).

EDIT: I'm also interested to see how people compare the morality of 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7

They aren't independent questions. 7) is illegal. Whether or not I believe it to be immoral also depends on whether I subscribe to the idea that there even should be such a thing as intellectual property. Some people clearly don't, but I do. Although patents, copyrights, etc. can be abused I think it is fair to say that a large number of contributions cannot be made without some protection. I don't think it's viable to try to develop most new drugs without IP protection, for example.

All of the others (1-6) indirectly help those who do 7), just to different degrees. If someone breaks into an armored truck and starts flinging cash all over the street, I'm sure there are many people who wouldn't feel too guilty about picking some up. I probably would if I was sure I wouldn't be caught or that if caught, the consequences would be minor. I can justify this to myself by saying, well, hey, I wasn't the one who broke into the truck. That's one thing. But what if picking up the cash somehow encouraged the thief to do this again and again, breaking into armored trucks everywhere? And furthermore, what if that thief spent significant time and energy teaching other thieves to do the same thing successfully and with impunity? If I thought that would happen, I wouldn't want to encourage such behavior. (If you think the armored car analogy is too far-fetched, consider looting, which occurs quite often in association with riots.)

Now I know that for cultures that don't believe intellectual property exists (or has a right to exist), that analogy will resonate somewhere between meaningless and offensive. But you're asking my opinion. Because I believe that IP has a place in the world, I think 7) is immoral and all of the others are as well, just to lesser degrees and they are immoral to the extent that they enable 7). Specific situations will vary.

[Solomon]

Helel, I only have one thing to say to you.

Good to see you playing Ban-Go with your bet on the table in your avatar

I'm only kidding tchan001, you have a great blog and a wonderful collection that I really would like to steal.

Can we please keep things a little more civil here? Pretty please?

[Horibe]

Helel, I only have one thing to say to you.

Good to see you playing Ban-Go with your bet on the table in your avatar

I'm only kidding tchan001, you have a great blog and a wonderful collection that I really would like to steal.

Can we please keep things a little more civil here? Pretty please?

I am pretty sure they were kidding, and quite cleverly.

Question - were you kidding when you called John Fairbairn a condescending bigot? Pretty please?

[Bill Spight]

In the U. S., anyway, the express purpose of granting copyright and patent monopoly is to promote art and science. IMO, currently it is having the opposite effect, overall. In the case of go, however, I think that it is serving its purpose.

Support your go authors, translators, and publishers!

[Solomon]

Question - were you kidding when you called John Fairbairn a condescending bigot? Pretty please?

Never called him a condescending bigot, simply suggested he add the category to his list of categories of people who are against him.

[tchan001]

This series of books came out between 1969 and 1975. So are you trying to tell me that something written in 1955 is ancient while something originally written between 1969 and 1975 is considered modern?

I would argue both at this point are ancient. They made the money they were going to make in their print runs. What matters is what authors and publishing companies do from now on.

Oren, if those books are ancient books from a period which doesn't matter, why is Smartgo books recycling "Killer of Go"?

I quote from Smartgo Book's listing for this book:
"This work went through more than 100 printings during the late 60s! The English translation has been out of print for a number of years; we're excited to bring this book back to life."

The key is that good old Asian go books that are still under copyright have the potential to attract western publishers to negotiate and pay for translation and publication rights. It does matter even if you don't pay attention to the world of Asian go books.

[oren]

The key is that good old Asian go books that are still under copyright have the potential to attract western publishers to negotiate and pay for translation and publication rights. It does matter even if you don't pay attention to the world of Asian go books.

Sorry, you keep missing my point....

The most interesting thing in this thread is what to do in a future world where piracy will occur more. Bringing in examples of past books that have or have not been pirated has little to no bearing on what will occur from now on. When I mean I don't care about releases from 1950s and 1960s has little do with the legalities but has more to do with the fact that people will take more time before copying those than modern releases.

How do we keep new authors and publishers wanting to produce books in the age of easy piracy? That is why I don't think examples of a 1950s and 1960s book are really what is important.

[tj86430]

I have heard that in Finland you can still get fined for crossing, so there everybody crosses the streets some meters away from the crossing, since crossing a street where there is no signal is not a crime.

Totally OT, but you've heard wrong (because while you can get fined, it is extremely rare, nobody does what you suggest, and if they did that would be against the law, too)

[flOvermind]

@cata: "people have been purchasing second-hand copies of everything for ages. It's pretty well enshrined in culture." You mean when people have been pirating things for long enough for it to be enshrined in culture (if we aren't there already!), it becomes ethical? Do you consider common cultural practice to be the benchmark for setting ethics?

Now I'm curious. Do you really think buying a dead-tree book, reading it once, and then selling it to someone else, is immoral and should be illegal?

On a similar note, concerning question 7): Does anyone here seriously think that buying a (dead-tree) problem book for a go club and using it to teach 10 people is immoral and should be illegal? Do you really think you ought to buy 10 copies?


As I see it, the only real problem is that in the digital world, it's hard to distinguish "giving away" from "producing another copy". The technology gives us the ability to easily do something that's morally not ok (that is, producing more copies without paying the author). Copyright law tries to fix that problem by placing restrictions, but in doing so, it takes away a lot more: Suddenly, you're no longer allowed to sell something that you previously bought. If I buy a dead-tree book, I'm allowed to sell it later (or even give it away for free, the price doesn't really matter). If I buy an e-book, why should exactly the same behaviour suddenly be immoral or illegal?

I have always seen the purpose of anti-piracy laws as protecting intellectual property in a way that authors (or other figures in the "commercial chain" somewhere) receipt of benefits (normally money) are protected.

That's only one side of the story. Business laws always have two sides, in the case of copyright, the side of the author and the side of the customer. The law has to strike a balance between the interests of both sides. Anti-piracy laws are necessary to protect authors, and that's what they should do, not more.

I think that's the critical point: The internet, and digital media in general, make it easier to produce copies. Anti-piracy laws *should* protect the authors, so they still receive benefits. In an ideal world, that would be the same benefits compared to before the invention of e.g. CDs, DVDs and e-books.

But what anti-piracy laws *actually* do is, they grant the authors (or more accurately the publishers) new rights that they never had before. For example, with DRM, suddenly it's technically possible to enforce that reselling or renting is not allowed. So hey, let's go ahead and make this actually illegal. That's something completely new. Before digital media came around, it was unthinkable to outlaw that. Ok, technically reselling is still legal, and in the EU it's actually not even possible to explicitly forbid reselling in the EULA. But hey, we have DRM, and circumventing DRM is illegal. Horray! All rights to the authors!


TL;DR
I think that you should be able and allowed to do everything with an e-book that you're allowed to do with a dead-tree book. Not more, not less.
That is, of topazg's list, 1) and 2) are immoral and also illegal, as they should be. Everything else on the list is morally ok and should be legal. In the case of dead-tree books, it actually is legal. With digital media, unfortunately not.
Try for a moment to ignore the existence of e-books, and answer the questions with dead-tree books in mind. Suddenly, the questions become easy

[Solomon]

I think that you should be able and allowed to do everything with an e-book that you're allowed to do with a dead-tree book. Not more, not less.

Lots of people would want this; but in the same world, people wouldn't need to lock their doors. It's impossible to enforce.

[jts]

Does anyone here seriously think that buying a (dead-tree) problem book for a go club and using it to teach 10 people is immoral and should be illegal? Do you really think you ought to buy 10 copies?

Are you not listening to what tchan is saying? When you whore out your go books to an entire club worth of players, you are immorally cutting down on the market for pristine, unsullied copies of the same book, and damaging the livelihoods and happiness of creative people everywhere.

[Horibe]

Question - were you kidding when you called John Fairbairn a condescending bigot? Pretty please?

Never called him a condescending bigot, simply suggested he add the category to his list of categories of people who are against him.

Wow, well I guess I need to apologize. I would never have read that meaning into post 39 in a million years.

[prokofiev]

I think that you should be able and allowed to do everything with an e-book that you're allowed to do with a dead-tree book. Not more, not less.

<de-lurk>

I understand this sentiment, but I think it's misguided. The value of a book is split in two: A, the physical value of the book; and B, the intellectual value of its content. Maybe ideally the first purchaser pays A+B, and then subsequent people given the book pay B to the copyright holder and potentially some portion of A to the previous owner (like the sale of any other good in terms of A). This wasn't practical in the past, but it didn't matter: for a long time A was large compared to B. Thus it made sense, practically speaking, to treat books like any other physical object. A modest mark-up on A could easily encompass B, or even several times B so that lending was fine. Libraries that would lend many times pay a higher amount to encompass many times B.

Now A is infinitesimal. I see no reason why we should be held to our past working approximation that no longer works. In fact, now that A is so tiny, if you like the "ideal" above, then everyone should just pay B to the copyright holder. A side issue is that we've lost the ability to browse, but this is being replaced by previews or samples. Practically speaking there are additional problems, since either you have DRM, which is irritating, or you don't have DRM, and then there's no way to enforce subsequent payments (other than by appealing to morality and a desire to be lawful).

To be fair, there really is no "ideal" here, just something the seller is willing to offer that the buyer is willing to buy. All I'm trying to convince you of is that, as a buyer, you need not feel that morally you should be able to give your book to someone else. (Maybe you don't want DRM on your book. That's not quite the same statement.) If you mourn the ability to lend a book you loved to someone, maybe simply recommending it to them instead is acceptable, assuming again that booksellers offer sufficient samples of books.

</de-lurk>

[Xyiana]

Out of genuine curiosity, how do people classify the following? (mainly with respect to morality as opposed to legal classification)
2) Downloading unpurchased non-free material to see if it is worth purchasing, and deleting or purchasing accordingly

2. Absolute correct behaviour and good for authors/publishers. Dont forget that we are talking about go books without chance for checking them in most countries bookstores. Nobody is complaining about checking common books even for few hours in bookstore but checking go book pdf version and buying it if looks good or deleting otherwise is piracy??? Rly weird dicsusssion.

[topazg]

Firstly, don't confuse immoral and illegal, being one doesn't mean it is necessarily the other (nor necessarily should it be). Law is amoral by definition. Immoral is an absolute in theory, and comes down to personal definition and interpretation in practice.

Now I'm curious. Do you really think buying a dead-tree book, reading it once, and then selling it to someone else, is immoral and should be illegal?

I don't think it should be illegal, because laws are up to the state to decide for whatever purposes they prioritise. I however do think that the second purchaser is doing the author out of business they deserve, under the basis that the second recipient clearly thinks it is worth money, and there is a case to be made for some level of immorality.

I believe the author of the material should get reward for each individual that enjoys and values the material. To take an extreme example, imagine I buy a book, and then sell it to someone else, who sells it to someone else (etc) for 20 cycles. Imagine everyone who purchases the book does that? That give the author only 5% of the revenue for the amount of value he has provided all those readers. It's like I got to read his book for free, as did the 19 people after me, and only the last person had to pay for it. There's no difference in my mind between that and straight piracy downloading - in effect, you are getting all the material you want to read, and then recouping all your costs by passing them on to someone else.

On a similar note, concerning question 7): Does anyone here seriously think that buying a (dead-tree) problem book for a go club and using it to teach 10 people is immoral and should be illegal? Do you really think you ought to buy 10 copies?

If the copies are to be studied by the students, then yes, I personally think 10 copies should be bought. Otherwise you remove the value of publishing books aimed for group teaching environments, as the bang for your buck that the author gets is an order of magnitude lower.

Ask John F how he would feel about a Go club of 20 players purchasing one copy of one of his books, and they each read and study it at the club, eventually with all 20 consuming all the material to their satisfaction despite him receiving royalties for only one copy.

I have always seen the purpose of anti-piracy laws as protecting intellectual property in a way that authors (or other figures in the "commercial chain" somewhere) receipt of benefits (normally money) are protected.

That's only one side of the story. Business laws always have two sides, in the case of copyright, the side of the author and the side of the customer. The law has to strike a balance between the interests of both sides. Anti-piracy laws are necessary to protect authors, and that's what they should do, not more.

That's pretty much exactly my point. Anti-piracy laws make an attempt to do that on a digital platform, but the amount of money lost for paper copies of books (comparing purchases to potential purchases) could be considerably higher due to lending and re-selling, and without breaking the law. There's a fair amount of research in the video game industry that those who admit to downloading games illegally contribute more to the developers and producers of video games, per capita, than those who only make legitimate purchases of material. Perhaps this is because they get more exposure to the sorts of products they would potentially like to purchase, and thus end up buying more products than they would if they had never pirated the material in the first place.

Lending your books to other people so that they never feel the need to purchase is the exact opposite of protecting authors, and legality is irrelevant to whether this is moral behaviour or not.

That is, of topazg's list, 1) and 2) are immoral and also illegal, as they should be. Everything else on the list is morally ok and should be legal. In the case of dead-tree books, it actually is legal. With digital media, unfortunately not.

The legality of this is irrefutable. The morality is refutable, and your opinion is only one of many.

Try for a moment to ignore the existence of e-books, and answer the questions with dead-tree books in mind. Suddenly, the questions become easy

Rather, the questions are easy if you already think you have the answers

I've borrowed a number of books and returned them, and I consider that exactly the same to downloading a book illegally and then deleting it. In both cases, I have acquired a copy, enjoyed it, and not paid a penny to the author for the privilege. This is exactly why I opt to both purchase books I borrow, and media I pirate, if I considered it to be enjoyable or in some way valuable. Sometimes, such as a number of Indie developed video games, and the GoGoD database/CD, I buy purely to support the authors and their efforts, even when I haven't had the time or inclination to make the most use of the products. I don't consider try-before-you-buy piracy moral because I'm making excuses to get things for free, I do it because I already consider it morally justifiable - no-one loses out due to my actions, and many artists and developers have received money from me who otherwise would not if I hadn't done it.