Comments on: History of piracy, reviewed by EFF's senior copyright lawyer

By: Roy Trumbull

Roy Trumbull — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Edison, who invented and held patents on the light bulb, had many companies infringe his invention. Because of his other projects he was only able to enter litigation during the end of the life of the patent. In those days you had to litigate state by state. An infringer’s political connections were important with regard to how the judge viewed the case. In the end, for all the money spent in court, there was no gain for Edison.
Lawsuits are a crap shoot. A big payday for the law firms but the clear possibility of bankruptcy for those bringing the suit.

By: zikman

zikman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

yeah, it’s DRM crippled.
scribd link to book: http://tinyurl.com/25fwtjz
scribd FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/2anxdrd

By: Church

Church — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Is there a torrent?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Not available as an eBook.

By: adonai

adonai — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Heh @ Church. Think I may have to grab this book. Also worth checking out is Pirates of the Digital Millenium.

By: whizse

whizse — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Heh, do you really need to ask?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Just pirated this book, should be a great read…. What?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In Reflections in Bullough’s Pond, Diana Muir makes the case that Eli Whitney’s contract to make muskets with interchangeable parts was a total fraud, intended only to raise enough money to pursue his claims of patent infringement on the cotton gin (which, being a pretty simple idea, was immediately pirated).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Speaking of history, remember that sometime in the next 9 years the mouse is going to want another copyright extension. I am hoping all the copyfighters out there are planning for this battle.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

By: PARLIAMENT

PARLIAMENT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Please understand that I’m a student with no money at all but I am buying this right now. I have an enormous amount of respect for the EFF and their work is incredibly comforting to me personally when the *AAs are indiscriminately suing random people, and just about anything interesting you do on a computer can be somehow construed as illegal. And the position that piracy is a business crisis rather than a moral one is exactly what I’ve ineloquently been trying to communicate. So you see, I must have this book, and I won’t have the audacity to pirate it.

Registered to make this comment.

By: zikman

zikman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m with PARLIAMENT. this is going to be my very next book purchase. yes, I will actually buy it, even though I, too, am a student with no money.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

By: Cornan

Cornan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve got 25 bucks in the bank but work like this is something I’m happy to send my dollars to support. As soon as that bank account value goes up a bit I’ll be buying a copy.

By: loonquawl

loonquawl — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

” If that’s right (and I think it is), then opposing the “intellectual property defense industry” is not the same thing as opposing “intellectual property.”"

The Something defense industry never is the same thing as The Something, even the Defense Industry defense industry is not the same thing as the Defense Industry.

As to something completely different: The hurried assurances of ‘i’ll buy it, not torrent it’ for this book show that the moral components of the divide between theft and Piracy are well recognized, even though the divide itself is partly uncharted.

By: Arnau Fuentes

Arnau Fuentes — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Seriously,kindle version costs more than hardcover…? Sorry Amazon.

By: Arnau Fuentes

Arnau Fuentes — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: the book is available at Scribd for $10, I don’t know if fully DRMized or not. Only to US based people :/

By: Karlos

Karlos — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@zikman & @PARLIAMENT I’m ordering this tomorrow for the Library.
You should do the same for any books you don’t want publishers to magically turn into non-shareable locked-down DRM’d ebooks.
The Library’s current “business model” of public access is not compatible with the publishing industry’s future plans of digital distribution.
So while everyone else may be able to “grab a torrent” -for varying values of “everyone” :) – your Library’s ability to allow shared access through purchasing for your community doesn’t quite work out. New model needed ASAP.

By: Karlos

Karlos — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shoulda added this link…

http://www.eff.org/wp/digital-books-and-your-rights

By: Ugly Canuck

Ugly Canuck — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Morality follows the money?
Stop! You’re being too funny!

By: redesigned

redesigned — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m going to go order this book right away.
Thanks for the heads up.
Looks like a fabulous read.

By: wnoise

wnoise — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I hate how the unauthorized duplication and distribution of intellectual property is called “piracy”. Yes, I know it has a fairly long history, but this history was initially of an inflammatory comparison between sharing and copying on one hand, and the violent boarding of ships for the purposes of seizing loot and kidnap victims. Why do the authors want to reinforce that connection?