On Feb.13, 2012, a judge in Munich granted an injunction against Library.nu and iFile.it. Seventeen different publishing companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany have accused the two websites of illegally sharing online book files. Each publisher listed 10 illegally copied books in their injunction. One illegal book copy can lead to a 250,000-euro fine or six months in prison.
Online piracy has become a popular issue in the news in the past few months. SOPA and ACTA caused an uproar, and the take down of MegaUpload shows that the government is cracking down on online piracy. Still, is piracy even theft? Theft is taking something someone else owns. Online piracy is receiving a copy of the original. If someone invented a machine that copied physical objects and copied a neighbor’s Corvette, is it stealing? The neighbor still has his car and now you have a car too. Everyone’s happy.
It comes down to money. Companies want you to pay for what they provide. We can’t blame companies for wanting us to purchase their products. Without us, they wouldn’t be in business.
Unfortunately for companies, people like receiving products and services for free. There are also companies that tempt people with free yet illegal products. It may be the cheaper option when it comes to buying your textbooks next semester, but that still doesn’t excuse someone from illegally downloading a book. The law defines it as theft. It’s one thing for a person to download a book illegally, but the companies that provide these illegal copies are doing more harm than good. They’re stealing business from companies that need the money to stay afloat. But of all the items people can download illegally, books are much more harmful than music and movies.
I’ve never heard of people illegally downloading books until a few days ago. When I hear “illegal download,” I think music and movies. I used to not feel bad when I heard about people illegally downloading some Adele or the latest Fast and Furious. But think of it this way. A typical song on iTunes costs 99 cents or $1.29. If that song is downloaded illegally a million times, that’s a loss of approximately one million dollars or more.
The money doesn’t only go to the artist and the record label. It goes to the people who sell the album, the people who design the album’s cover, the guy who drives the truck containing the albums to the music store, just to name a few. Those people aren’t making millions of dollars. They need that money to pay bills and buy food like the rest of us.
The same thing can apply to movies and books. An illegally downloaded movie hurts the people who deliver the DVDs to wholesalers. Illegally downloading a book takes money from the pocket of editors who spent hours searching for the tiniest grammatical errors in the text. I plan to write novels in the future and I wouldn’t be happy if somebody took half of my pay from a book I spent months researching, writing and rewriting.
Many students would jump at the chance to download their textbooks for free. | James F Clay/Flickr.com
If websites like Library.nu and iFile.it continue, other authors will lose a good chunk of income needed to provide for themselves and their families. There has to be a better way to solve the problem than online piracy. If a friend has a book you want to read or has the textbook for a class you are taking or want to take, ask to borrow it. Libraries have all sorts of books you can read. You can read it there or check it out for a week or so.
Even though I think it’s wrong to illegally download books, the punishment seems pretty steep. As I mentioned earlier, one illegal download equals a fine of a quarter million dollars or half a year in prison. Multiply that by 17 (one for each publishing company that is filing charges against Library.nu and iFile.it) and each company could face over four million dollars in fines or over 16 years in prison.
It was not stated whether the jail time would be consecutive or concurrent. This is shocking considering you can do less time for burglary and sexual assault. According to the Florida Department of Corrections website, it is possible for someone to receive 15 years for sexual assault. It sounds weird for someone to go to jail for illegally downloading a textbook for class longer than someone who is convicted of sexual assault.
Buying books can be a hassle and the price for online piracy is a bit harsh, but is a book so important that you’re willing to commit an illegal act to obtain it? Wait until you’ve saved up enough money for the book. Working for the book will make reading it that much better.
Jake Koniszewski can be reached at john.koniszewski@spartans.ut.edu.
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The authors suffer terribly because of such crimes related to piracy and illegal viewing or downloading of books or movies for free. They have rights too and they need a considerable amount of income to support their families too.
part 4
betah.co.il was the pioneer site in ebook distribution and sharing.
betah.co.il was the pioneer site in ebook distribution and sharing.
part 3
The murders and stealth of man-centuries that the west has carried out in the third world amount to such a debt that even its total wealth cannot pay it back if calculated at the Roth schild rate of compound interest. Now, as a result of the 9-11 and subsequent wars, you have damaged the whole world economy including your own. Blaming Obama wont get you anything. Instead, give him a thanks that he lent his black face to shield your crimes and came to do the work of janitor which is rather too much for the mess that the white bush and white cheney and white kha zar neocons have created on 9-11 including Larry Silverstein.
part 2
The world will not wait for the YANKEE to grow up and mature. The students of the world will not wait. I am NOT advocating ANY copyright infringement. but I am giving a clear message to the USA ruling elite that you are essentially faced with your own crimes and incompetence and the multitude of billions of students whom you can neither catch nor terminate nor arrest. You have lost moral authority as a result of your 9-11 CRIMINAL MISCHIEF busting open on your own HYPOCRITICAL face.
Listen, there is a fair method for separating poor and rich authors of the books.
Each author claiming to copyright should declare his assets or his salary history , and his grant history. There should then be a formula based on the country, the average income, average living expense on the basis of which it can be granted if he of she deserves copyright protection or if his work was financed on tax payer money and so on.
Unless there is some statistics and data to do more informed analysis, we cant really make a decision and be honest and just (from the concept of JUSTICE) to the people.
The greatest blame for CORRUPTION and INJUSTICE goes to the YANQUIs and the ZIONIST Jews who are the RULING ELiTe of the UNITED States, a super power. In 1995, I wrote a lengthy article how the USA economy is SCREWED up and UNWINDING the mess would take a lot of trouble and must be done. The article was written on the newsgroup ALT.WAR.NUCLEAR under a PSEUDONYM and the title
“West Stealing all the oil dirt cheap” – but instead of STRUCTURAL REFORMS, the CRIMINAL and EVIL MINDED elite of the UNITED STATES composed of the NEOCONS and Bush and Cheney and the Banksters Stages a FALSE FLAG operation of 9-11 and BRUTALLY murdered 3000 of their own people.
The white race and the ruling elite of the united states must be held responsible for CORRUPTION. Instead of using its VICTORY over the SOVIET UNION to carry out REFORMS and justice in the world, and an amiable and TRANSPARENT and JUST system, it started an OPAQUE and mischievous war of terror starting all the way from the FIRST gulf war.
The Congress and the Law makers of this country have NO idea of the plight of the common people and their educational needs, because their own LIBRARY of CONGRESS is so well endowed at the expense of taxpayer who is BEGGAR as far as access to college level scientific and academic books is concerned.
The rest of the world will not give a hoot to the international copyright treaty and the countries shall withdraw from the treaty, and even go to war on their right to knowledge, and the USA shall be left behind the rest of the world unless it changes its ways.
The BRICS countries is mainly an alliance to resist USA and European oligarchs and monopolists, specifically in the area of the so-called intellectual property.
The first such electronic file-sharing library appeared in Israel and was the site, betah.co.il, meaning books for the people.
After acquiring the contents of library.nu, it has mainly gone underground. This leaves the rest of the world at a terrible disadvantage. In addition, must skills of file-sharing were taught by the israeli operators to the rest of the world from vietnam after they had themselves obtained the bulk of the files to deflect attention away from themselves.
In the United States, the typical holdings of city and other public libraries consist of children’s books, and sex/romance novels and books for the bored housewives. There are some books and videos on self-help. But the library acquisition public budget is used on rather non-educational books. One visiting such libraries would find it hard to believe that this is the library of the world’s leading scientific nation.
The university libraries are closed to the general public from borrowing books.
Most likely, the city libraries spend their budgets on sex and romance novels because that is the type of literature priced to be affordable within the libraries budges. Some exceptions to this rule are the newyork state libraries, but mainly because a different ethnic elite lives there and controls the priorities and state budget as well as the volume of donations and the age of those libraries.
Library of Alexandria was in ancient Egypt well known for the centre of Knowledge disappeared due to the fire. But in the present era one such library – the digital library – has recently disappeared. That was shocking demise of the great Library
Library.nu was excellent site. Almost two years ago, I came to know about the site due to my student who was pursuing research for his PhD. That actually brought a new life for me as far as using the net to access for knowledge. I found thousands and thousands of books – gems of knowledge – on Physics, Astronomy, Popular Science, History of Science … thanks for Library.nu. Some times I felt amaze – how all these books once a priced possession of huge Library made available freely, because in Library.nu one estimated that there were almost million books in digital format. So, that was simply ocean of books and books. No other site can match it and difficult to replace it. Shear joy to go for the site, search for the books, down loading and reading and sharing. Oh! difficult to believe – the whole world of Library – in front of you. I feel it is the real spirit of open source.
I had apprehension that one day the site will be stopped and forced to shutdown. And that apprehension became true. Publishers joined together and by forcibly made the site to quit by that they have drawn the shutters for those people who really wished to read scholarly books for acquiring the knowledge to scale new heights in their chosen field.
In fact, books on Sex and pornography should be heavily priced so much heavy that people who really wish they have to pay and buy them – not the scholarly book, since the knowledge and wisdom should freely available or at least at minimum price. But this is the other way. The books on Frontier areas of Science and Technology can’t afforded by the common people. Only library can have. Sorry, that too not for all library – only for Institutes which are heavily funded. That means they are only for the selected people. Library.nu actually made those books available for all those – simply they require the net connection. My self, and other millions and millions, certainly have enriched by this site
In the era of Internet, I believe, publishing Industry has changed. One should accept the fact. Just few years ago, no one have dreamt the possibility of reading NewYork Times, Gurdian, and many other frontline news papers and magazines without paying in our home which are situated in remote areas – other corners of the globe. But now it is possible. In the name of piracy if they stop, who are the losers? We the the readers and the society in large. In a way Wikipedia is an alternative for Encyclopedia. It is the collective efforts of the people to share the information. Archxiv.org is also an alternative for the standard Journals. Slowly it has acquired more and more acceptability in academia. Many scientists – even Nobel laureates – are publishing their findings in them. Those people who wish to derive more knowledge are now heavily depend on Archxiv.org. Off course, they know that all those information there are not fully authentic. But whatever information available are at least sufficient for them as guiding light.. LINUX , LATEX and many other open software are also the voice against the monopoly of the company. There was a time – pictures and photos were priced to print and copy one should have pay heavily. But now scenario has changed. They are available freely. By giving the proper credit, breath taking pictures taken by Hubble, Chandra and other telescopes can be used. The same is happening in the field of music and arts. YouTube itself is the example. The society is enjoying this new trend. Music has gone into the masses. But the music industry has not closed. On the contrary the music industry has been flourishing. The same is true in book publishing.
That means Library.nu has not done any criminal activity. It has done the activity in pace with the changing time. By forcing the site to shut down, the people behind this action have created a huge void in millions and millions people who were using the site to acquire the new information and knowledge. Shut down of Library.nu is a terrible loss. Hope soon it will be restored and available for the public.
Great job Sweetie!