Life In 19x19

John Fairbairn wrote: ...
Being out of print is not a valid reason for copyright infringement.
...

I have strong mixed feelings about this. I love purchasing go books, not only because I like them but also as encouragement for writers. But I'll take as example a book I own and IIRC you know something about: How to Improve on a 5x5 board, by Fukui Masaaki. How could I, on the west, legally (actually there's even no way to do it illegally) get this book?

I was incredibly lucky a friend of mine was selling his whole go collection and happened to mention he had it in passing on a chat (since he wasn't going to sell this one, so it was not on the list.) So, now I have it. Likewise with a book on commented (in Japanese, sadly...) 9x9 games from a TV tournament (I think it's from there.)

RBerenguel wrote: I have strong mixed feelings about this. I love purchasing go books, not only because I like them but also as encouragement for writers. But I'll take as example a book I own and IIRC you know something about: How to Improve on a 5x5 board, by Fukui Masaaki. How could I, on the west, legally (actually there's even no way to do it illegally) get this book?

I was curious if I could find one right off the bat but failed. Six copies are on amazon.co.jp but limited to Japan only shipping. Akashiya would be a best bet since they will ship internationally and may have it. Nowadays, it's not too hard to find the books and get them shipped out.

edit...
Actually I was looking at this.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... 2%E7%A2%81

This one you can just buy new and have it shipped anywhere.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%94%BB%E6%9C ... 2%E7%A2%81

oren wrote:

RBerenguel wrote: I have strong mixed feelings about this. I love purchasing go books, not only because I like them but also as encouragement for writers. But I'll take as example a book I own and IIRC you know something about: How to Improve on a 5x5 board, by Fukui Masaaki. How could I, on the west, legally (actually there's even no way to do it illegally) get this book?

I was curious if I could find one right off the bat but failed. Six copies are on amazon.co.jp but limited to Japan only shipping. Akashiya would be a best bet since they will ship internationally and may have it. Nowadays, it's not too hard to find the books and get them shipped out.

edit...
Actually I was looking at this.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... 2%E7%A2%81

This one you can just buy new and have it shipped anywhere.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%94%BB%E6%9C ... 2%E7%A2%81

Funny, the new edition didn't appear on the Nihon Kiin page for Masaaki (at least didn't when I checked last time, 2-3 years ago,) and searching for title (the Japanese title, which I got from searching for masaaki in yesasia.com) on amazon.jp didn't yield any result.

Also, weird this book is not on yesasia.com, I thought they more or less had all go related books by this publisher

Edit: also, there's a matter of convenience. A year or so ago I read a submission on HackerNews about why people pirated Game of Thrones, and the usual answer was not because it was cheaper, no. A lot of "pirates" were actually paying for HBO go or whatever it is called to watch it on their computers/devices through the producer. But it worked *so* bad and rarely that for them it was much more convenient to get it illegally.

RBerenguel wrote: Edit: also, there's a matter of convenience. A year or so ago I read a submission on HackerNews about why people pirated Game of Thrones, and the usual answer was not because it was cheaper, no. A lot of "pirates" were actually paying for HBO go or whatever it is called to watch it on their computers/devices through the producer. But it worked *so* bad and rarely that for them it was much more convenient to get it illegally.

We tend to have both here. People who like the pdfs of Cho Chikun's Encyclopedia of Life and Death and people who just would never pay anything getting it for free. This pdf is a continuation of that trend.

oren wrote:

RBerenguel wrote: Edit: also, there's a matter of convenience. A year or so ago I read a submission on HackerNews about why people pirated Game of Thrones, and the usual answer was not because it was cheaper, no. A lot of "pirates" were actually paying for HBO go or whatever it is called to watch it on their computers/devices through the producer. But it worked *so* bad and rarely that for them it was much more convenient to get it illegally.

We tend to have both here. People who like the pdfs of Cho Chikun's Encyclopedia of Life and Death and people who just would never pay anything getting it for free. This pdf is a continuation of that trend.

I think people that prefer books will get them anyway, even if the pdf is lying around free.

A decently produced book really appeals to people, in a way that a tablet or phone couldn't.

There's even companies who intentionally publish out-of-copyright books as a way to make money.
Not all of them do it well, but the fact that there's money to be made with it is clearly established.

Somehow, a physical book has more presence than letters on a screen. I don't know if that's just nostalgia from people who grew up with mobile phones or ereaders, but I've always felt more relaxed reading from printed paper.

tentano wrote:I don't know if that's just nostalgia from people who grew up with mobile phones or ereaders, but I've always felt more relaxed reading from printed paper.

Personally, I cannot read anything online which take more than two minutes. The whole idea of electronic media is anathema to me. I skip any post on here which cannot be read and digested in one or two minutes. I find that glaring at a screen for prolonged time gives me a headache, and as I have to do it for my job I don't want to do it for pleasure. But give me a good book and I can read for hours.

I've actually found that by dimming the brightness to "unusable" levels, I can stand reading from a screen for much longer. I really don't need that much light to be able to read, especially on a high-contrast text such as pitch black on perfect white.

It's still not as pleasant as dead tree format, though.

Most of my go books lately have been Japanese kindle books and the Nihon Kiin e-gobooks. It takes some time to get used to, but it can be very worth it for the convenience factor.