The Huffington Post is reporting about a coordinated injunction obtained by a group of publishers against a site which allegedly offers/ed ebooks for download.
The story perhaps demonstrates the complexity in taking action against online resources such as websites; in this case, several jurisdictions seem to be involved, at least one of which outside the reaches of EU law.
With the rise of electronic ink / other ereading devices, it's perhaps unsurprising that there would be an increase in the downloading of electronic books — now that there is a massive increase in the number of books available in electronic form legitimately, perhaps the number of infringing downloads will decrease. I have certainly studied the entire course so far purely in electronic form, and would much rather buy books electronically than in paper copy; I have a problem at home when it comes to storage of hard copy books, for lack of space. I do, however, object to being tied to a particular software or hardware platform for reading, which makes books wrapped in DRM far less attractive to me — fortunately, much of the common DRM is easily removed, which means the publishers still get my money and I still get the book I want to read.
I'm sure that there are people who would download books in a way which infringes copyright even if they were priced fairly and without DRM, but I am not sure if these people represent a loss — if they would not have paid for the work in any case, the only loss is effectively the equivalent of their unjust enrichment. Far better to focus on making offers attractive to those who would pay, to encourage and ensure that they do so, in my opinion!
What do you think? Do you read electronic books? Would you download a book without a licence if you could not find a suitable electronic copy legitimately?
A interesting view of the situation here — 'Modern era’s “Destruction of the Library of Alexandria”.'
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame that we can't seem to have such a resource on a licensed basis.