Internet Book Piracy Page 5

  Their responses, in turn, can be seen as a stand-in for the vast majority of individuals who engage in piracy for their own personal benefit of getting the information they need or entertainment they want at low cost. These individuals feel they are part of a community that shares information and defines away piracy as something else by considering it an ordinary, acceptable activity, whether it has formed online or is a group involved in some activity together. As such, they differ from the much smaller number of active pirates who are involved in running websites, making money for selling pirated materials, or uploading massive amounts of materials because they want to earn money doing so or gain recognition for their contribution to the pirate—whoops, sharing—community.

  More specifically, here are the various issues and rationales for their actions as described in their interviews.

  An Interview with a “Researcher”

  My researcher interview was with Duncan, who described himself as an “independent researcher” who generally looked for material dealing with sports, health, personal development, and music. At one time, he got his information at the public library, and he compared accessing information online through blog sites or file sharing as essentially the same thing. It was free to look at this material at the library and one could take it out for free with just a card, so why should it be any different to get free information, where available, online?

  The other comparison he made, much like others obtaining information through sharing files, was to sharing with others as part of a community. And those obtaining the information weren’t the only part of this community; so were the writers who provided the information they shared. In fact, he considered the community to be helping the writer to reach more readers than he or she might otherwise. Or as Duncan explained:

  “If you look at piracy from the old standpoint of the many generations in traditional publishing, I could see how piracy could be a problem. The publishers are thinking of the pirates as stealing something from them that is covered by a copyright. But if you embrace the new model based on a community that shares, then writers should be flattered because of the way the new model works. Because if somebody has read your material and is making comments about it online, you can reach a lot more readers that way. Then, those readers have a choice—whether to find your material through more traditional sources, like paying for it, or maybe borrowing the book from somebody or going to the library to get it. But whatever readers do, you as a writer are reaching far more readers through this sharing by others and you’re participating in a community. And that’s the whole point of this new online sharing model. You’re building a community this way.”

  It’s a community that doesn’t view this “sharing” of files as piracy, since they are like people lending something they own to others and getting loans from others in return. So they don’t think what they are doing is or should be considered illegal, and therefore should not be penalized heavily. Conversely, writers and publishers might view them as sharing something they don’t own, so they are really giving or obtaining stolen property. Or as Duncan explained the online community view:

  “This community of people who do file sharing don’t consider themselves as pirating or engaging in an illegal activity. They see it as sharing, like being part of an online lending community. So when you ask questions like, “Is this illegal?” or, “Is this piracy?” those terms don’t register with people that are sharing, because in their belief system, they are engaging in lending to each other as part of a community.

  “Accordingly, given their view that they are engaging in justifiable actions, they think the penalties for any actions of piracy should be much lower.”

  So how did this process of sharing work in the community? Duncan went on to explain:

  “When you download, you’re downloading from one online source directly onto your computer or whatever device you’re using. By contrast, file sharing is peer-to-peer, so basically somebody uploads a piece of material, whether it’s music, writing, or a film. And then this file-sharing program, which uses a BitTorrent platform, doesn’t just download from one person. Rather, it picks seven or eight people who have that file, and it downloads simultaneously a section from all of them at the same time. The reason for this simultaneous download of parts from different users is that it’s quicker to get a file from a computer as compared to having to wait for the download time for a file from just one source. And the process occurs automatically when you go to share a file; there are no terms of use that come up or statements that you have to accept these terms when you share files; it’s just assumed that you’re sharing when you do so.

  “This is basically how it happens. Let’s say somebody gets a book on Amazon, which they pay for. Then, they download it onto their computer and read it. After that, they think the book is great; they’re very excited about it, so they want to share it with others. Since the file is located on their own computer, a lot of times, they don’t even have to upload it; they just have to participate in a file-sharing program that looks through their computer’s hard drive. Once the program finds the file by its name, it can upload this material, and often people don’t even know their material is being uploaded. It’s being shared.

  “Then, after you upload something, others in the online community may be excited to share this material with their peer group, their friends. They’ll tell them, ‘Hey, look what I just read. This would really be great if you read it, too. I’m sharing it with you.’”

  Still another rationale for considering this kind of file sharing perfectly legal is that Amazon offers its own incentive for sharing to encourage book purchases. Plus, the experience of sharing a book online is much like sharing a book one has either bought in a bookstore or obtained from a library, according to Duncan. As he explains:

  “There is another thing online that you can do on Amazon. When I buy a book there, I can still share that with my friends, just like a library. Amazon usually gives buyers about a two-week time frame, where others can download the book that a buyer purchased and read it for free.

  “The experience is the same as going to a library. Whether someone goes to the library and checks out a book in person or buys it online and shares a book with me, or if I file share a book I have bought or borrowed from a library, it’s the same experience to me. The book is from one, singular source—the library or store, whether online or on a street. It’s only when you look at this act of sharing from the writers’ or publishers’ perspective that you think of it as one copy going to a bunch of people. But from the perspective of those in the community, it’s just one document. So if one has possession of the document, then one can share it with others.

  “This is the way it is in the new model, whereby people in general are sharing as part of a community. For instance, in the old model, if I had a book and I was in a community, it would be fine for me to pass that book through a network of friends in that community. The new model simply applies this old model to our new technologies, so in today’s mode somebody who has a piece of material online is like that person sharing a book. So now people are sharing that material through different vehicles for their peer group to participate in and read online, instead of passing around a physical book.”

  This is a completely opposite perspective from those held by the authors and publishers who see the material that is shared as separate from the physical book or online container for that material. This is what they want to protect from multiple copying, which they see as theft, not sharing, because they are losing money from these acts of sharing. But from the perspective of the online community members, this action of sharing shouldn’t be subject to high criminal penalties. Since most people who are sharing don’t think they are doing anything illegal, the more appropriate response from writers, publishers, and the government would be to educate them that what they are doing is wrong, and perhaps send repeated reminders to wean them off bad habits. Or perhaps reduce their online bandwidth to lessen t
heir ability to share. As Duncan commented:

  “Penalties with $150,000 or more for sharing are excessive. For example, in a criminal proceeding, the fine can be $250,000 for each offense; $150,000 for a willful infringement in a civil case. I think these penalties are too high, because the government is criminalizing something that doesn’t need to be criminalized. I think that when you do that, you’ll maybe catch one or two people and try to make them pay an exorbitant amount of money that they can’t afford.

  “But that approach is not going to change the habits of people that are file sharing at all. I think education is probably the best strategy to use. A lot of people, or even the majority of people, don’t even know they’re doing something illegal. It’s just a habit that they’ve gotten into because they feel file sharing is a convenient way of getting material.

  “Instead, a way to educate people is to send them a notice from their Internet service provider saying, ‘Hey, what you’re doing is illegal.’ It’s a reminder notice. Then, if that doesn’t work, send them several reminders and then maybe limit their bandwidth in the case of the big offenders who are doing a lot of file sharing. Sending these notices would be a great way of not just penalizing somebody; instead you’re weaning somebody off their habits. And it’s really important to do so, because when people have a habit, it’s an automatic response. They don’t mean to do anything illegal. It’s just that they spend so much time online. They date online, they find cooking recipes online, they read material online, they get their news online, because they’re part of this online community. So a lot of times they don’t realize that they’re doing anything illegal.

  “For instance, in my personal life, if I was to receive a notice saying, ‘Hey, we just want to let you know that what you’re doing is something the courts have deemed an illegal activity. Is there any way we could help you break your habit in doing this? Please let us know or we’re going to take these actions,’ it’s a completely different and better approach than threatening me from the outset. This kind of notice enlists my participation. However, if you send me a notice saying, ‘Cease and desist or we’re going to fine you $150,000,’ you’re coming from a completely different place.”

  By contrast, using threats of legal action or criminalizing the act of sharing would only result in confusion or resistance, because of the different perspective of those who believed they were part of a sharing community, although there was general agreement that—claiming someone else’s work as one’s own—was definitely wrong. As Duncan noted:

  “Any time you bring in legal jargon and try to apply it to a mass audience, nobody knows what that means. You have to use terminology that the average person is going to recognize, acknowledge, and accept. You also have to consider your motive in getting out a message about why sharing is wrong. Is your motive to criminalize or is it to educate? When you use legal jargon, you make it sound very serious and people are going to go to jail, you’re criminalizing somebody. But when you put your message in terms where you want to educate somebody, you’re coming from a completely different place, and you’ll get a completely different, more cooperative response.

  “However, in the case of plagiarism, the situation is different. Taking somebody else’s material in its exact form or even translating it and putting your name on it and then publishing it in China, India, or some other country is plagiarism. And that’s plagiarism across the board. Whether you’re old school or new school, in any community, that’s straight-out plagiarism, which should be penalized and should be criminalized. I would be more concerned about that than somebody who is sharing my work online and may actually be doing me a favor by giving me a wider audience, so I don’t think there’s much difficulty in arguing with that premise that plagiarism is wrong.”

  This argument that those sharing the material are helping authors is one that resonates widely with this online sharing community, and a key way that they define what they are doing as not piracy. They even use examples of what Google is doing—making more information widely available—to support their position, though writers and publishers have actively opposed Google’s efforts. Some have even taken Google to court to stop this widespread distribution of free books or to make sure that a system is in place to compensate the writers for each download. Duncan explains this community position:

  “Even companies like Google are making large amounts of documents freely available to people. There’s one project that Google participates in called the Gutenberg Project, which is putting a very large number of books online for free.

  “So I think it’s really important for every writer, regardless of their medium, to turn the mirror on themselves and ask: Why are you writing this? If it’s for the message, then somebody who’s pirating your material will be an asset to you and not a deterrent, because they are spreading your message.

  “So that’s how you flip the switch and stop looking at people as pirates and start looking at them as soldiers who are distributing your work for you because really, that’s what file sharing is about. Many people will still go to whatever source where they can get the physical book. They will still go to Amazon; they will still go to Barnes and Noble; they will still get their books through bookstores. But how did they hear about it? In a great many cases, they heard about it through a friend, an online blog, or through their own online channels. So in that respect, online sharing is actually helping the writer get the message out to many more people.”

  In short, Duncan’s interview reflects the popular opinion among many modern-day pirates who consider themselves researchers or online file-sharing community members. They believe they are not pirates and are not engaging in anything illegal. They need some education to convince them of the other perspective—held by the writers, publishers, and law enforcement—that they are in fact engaging in piracy that is undermining the ability of writers and publishers to make money and survive in today’s economy. So should the new model be embraced as one that writers, publishers, and others should accept and adapt to, as the price of social change making old models obsolete? Or are their arguments really an apology for supporting their participation in illegal activities that could lead many writers to abandon their profession and many publishers to go out of business, no longer able to compete against the free sharing of their material? The debate goes on, though from the perspective of writers and publishers, it is only fueling the continuation of the theft of their material, by providing a justification for that theft.

  An Interview with a Student Sharing Books with Other Students

  Another rationale that some pirates use is that the cost of certain books is much too high, and if they are part of an audience that has to buy these books, such as students in a class where the professor requires them to read the books, they are justified in sharing them. So they aren’t pirates doing anything illegal; they are students taking action against an unfair system. That’s the opinion shared by A. Otto Thay, the owner of a consulting firm called Envisioneering, which helps companies to visualize information. In the course of doing this consulting, he discovered many revealing things in the company database that the CEOs didn’t even know about, so he wrote a book to be marketed to students to help them better understand what was going on in different companies. That led him to talk to both students and professors, who told him about the common practice of professors only using their own books in their classes and arranging with other professors to use each other’s books, so they can sell their books to a captive audience. And those books are overpriced, so students are justified in creating their own network to buy one book and share it among themselves. As Thay explained:

  “In other words, these professors have a system where they only buy books from other professors, and the reason they can do so is because these professors have a captive audience. The students can’t go anywhere else for these books, so they are able to overcharge these students. That’s why graduate books often cost about three to five hundred dollars a copy, whi
ch is ridiculous.

  “And so some of the students I spoke to at grad schools told me they have a way of getting around this. They have an underground system where one of them makes copies of the books, so they provide it free for all the students.

  “The situation is different for professional book writers, since their books are the main source of their income. So yes, book piracy is a problem for writers, like myself too, although I do consulting and other things.

  “But with professors, it’s the outrageous prices that they are charging for their books that’s the problem. They don’t need to make money off of their books, because they’re already making thousands of dollars in their salary. So it’s unjustified for college universities to charge these high prices, and only fair for students to create this underground system to get around their system.

  “I can see where ordinary writers and publishers would have a problem with readers sharing their books, because it does drive them out of business. But the situation is different for the textbook publishers, since they’re getting a big percentage of the five hundred dollars per copy for these overpriced books, versus the twenty dollars per copy for the average book written by a professional writer. Unfortunately, a lot of students don’t know about this underground system, so they end up paying full price for the books, so these books are still being sold and those publishers will still be profitable, while the small publishers with the writers of ordinary books are having problems due to readers sharing their books. And in that case, readers should buy their books and pay the full price.

  “By contrast, the students are justified in sharing these books among themselves because of the outrageous prices that the professors are charging for their books, whereas there’s no justification for pirating a regular book which sells for around twenty dollars or even less. So I can understand going from five hundred dollars to a dollar or a few dollars for the cost to buy a book, though I don’t think it’s right to go from twenty dollars to five dollars or whatever it costs to buy pirated copies of these regular books.