Copyright laws

[Aeden]

Here’s an interesting question: am I allowed to read copyrighted materiel? Initially, you might say no, but, look at it with this information as well: It is the copyright holder’s job to enforce copyright and take down infringers. Until the infringer is told to stop by the peoson via a cease-and-desist or a court order, they are legally allowed to assume that the other party finds their activities acceptable. The particular websites used for sharing the materials are not very well known and the holder of copyright took down one last year and left the other, almost equally well-known websites untouched. Thus, since the problem with copyright is the illegal nature of it and not an inherently immoral aspect, am I allowed to use these websites?

 

[1ke]

You are attempting to rationalize your desire to use copyrighted material without paying for it. You have expended a lot of energy trying to come up with a justification, but that does not change the fact that it is wrong.

 

[edwest2]

Here’s an interesting question: am I allowed to read copyrighted materiel? Initially, you might say no, but, look at it with this information as well: It is the copyright holder’s job to enforce copyright and take down infringers. Until the infringer is told to stop by the peoson via a cease-and-desist or a court order, they are legally allowed to assume that the other party finds their activities acceptable. The particular websites used for sharing the materials are not very well known and the holder of copyright took down one last year and left the other, almost equally well-known websites untouched. Thus, since the problem with copyright is the illegal nature of it and not an inherently immoral aspect, am I allowed to use these websites?

It should be the file sharing site’s job to monitor the content it has and not the copyright holder’s.

I work for a company that has published a lot of books. Imagine what it’s like to see a large, hardcover book of yours scanned perfectly from cover to cover on a “file sharing” site 30 days after release.

It is 100% wrong to take a book and make it available for free - that’s called stealing. Stealing is immoral.

If anyone hears that their book is available on a file sharing site, you can submit a takedown request and send it to the site, which must be submitted by the original author if you are not a company or an officer of the company if you are. Make sure you have filed a Copyright form with the US Copyright Office to help prove you are the author/publisher.

copyright.gov/forms/

They are required by law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to take it down. Now different stealing sites may have this info described in different ways, like: “report abuse, or report infringement, or just ‘contact us.’” You might see: “To report DMCA claims, click here.”

So, to all authors, type your book title and your name into google and see how many hits you get. Take a deep breath. You are not alone. You might find your book on scribd or another file sharing site.

We’ve been doing takedowns for a while now.

Peace,
Ed

 

[thewanderer]

The fact that it is illegal is enough to make it immoral. While it is not necessarily intrinsically immoral, the fact that the government is a legitimate authority means that one is morally bound to follow their laws unless they would actually be sinful to follow.