NOTE: I’ve had a series of increasingly great responses from Toby – please see the comments
Toby Hemenway, a leading permaculture author sent me a message with very very thinly veiled threat to sue me for including his great book Gaia’s Garden here https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Permaculture/ (someone else has also put it up on Scribd)
Here is the text of his message:
at https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Permaculture/ you have a pirated copy of my book, Gaia’s Garden. My publisher, Chelsea Green, has prosecuted pirates often. You also have copies of Paul Stamet’s books, and Paul has been known to sue the shit out of pirates. You also have Fukuoka’s books, which my friend Larry Korn took years to translate. Larry, a pioneer organic farmer, badly needs the money from sales. Why would you steal from your colleagues and teachers like this? It makes it very hard to write again if we aren’t supported. You might want to take those books down. Free is not sustainable.
And here is my response:
Hi Toby,
Thanks for getting in touch. 🙂
Please forgive me in advance for this lengthly email, but this is a topic that is of great import to me (and I’m supposed to be doing my tax return! 😉 )
Firstly, let me share with you that I’m currently in the process of designing my first Forest Garden and I was just last night reading the 2nd edition of your great book (of which I own a hard copy). Thanks for all your great work!
I must say, however, that it saddens me greatly that people as enlightened as yourself have not yet realised how backward and pointless trying to enforce copyright is, nor accepted the fact that digital content that exists can be, and usually is, copied many many times.
It is time for many more authors and publishers (especially the good ones!) to acknowledge that the current, rather dated, publishing model is no longer sustainable in the digital networked age we find ourselves in.
The commons-based peer production of free software and content is in fact much more so; Linux dominates the server market and more and more enlightened people use it on their desktops too. Firefox is now the most popular web browser in Europe. Wikipedia, whose software and content has always been free to share, is consistently in the top 10 visited websites on the planet.
Perhaps even more excitingly, the Open Source 3D Printer, RepRap, cost 60 times less than commercial competition and Open Source Ecology are designing, building and sharing a whole Global Village Construction Set, (think PermaFacture of just about everything 🙂 ) https://openfarmtech.org
The electronic copy of your book (and all the other important and timely information nicely organised into folders on https://files.uniteddiversity.com ) is out in the wild already, and was so before I got my hands on it (that is how I got my hands on it). There is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that, however many lawyers and court cases are involved. This is a fact that publishers and authors stuck in an old mindset and dependent on old business models ignore at their peril.
For some context, I’d really love it if you could please take 30mins to listen to this great presentation that Lawrence Lessig of the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave back in 2002:
https://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.htmlHe sums it up at the beginning with a short refrain:
1. Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
2. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
3. Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
4. Ours is less and less a free society.Perhaps also read these articles by Sci-Fi author Cory Doctorow…
Why free ebooks should be part of the plot for writers:
“My problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity, and free ebooks generate more sales than they displace.”
The real cost of free:
“The topic I leave my family and my desk to talk to people all over the world about is the risks to freedom arising from the failure of copyright giants to adapt to a world where it’s impossible to prevent copying. Because it is impossible.“
if I give away my ebooks under a Creative Commons licence that allows
non-commercial sharing, I’ll attract readers who buy hard copies. It’s
worked for me – I’ve had books on the New York Times bestseller list for
the past two years.https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/oct/05/free-online-content-cory-doctorow
Free data sharing is here to stay
I sell my printed books by giving away electronic books
https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/18/informationeconomy
This post (and the comments) on Rob Hopkins book is also relevant:
https://transitionculture.org/2008/06/20/the-fascinating-story-of-a-viral-drum-break/
The fact is, copying isn’t theft (the owner of the original copy still has their copy) and ALL creative work is derivative.
As for your threats to get Chelsea Green etc to sue me…
1. I have no money and no assets (OK, I admit, I do have about 300GBP in savings and 1000GBP invested in the Ecological Land Co-op, plus a few other bits and bobs here and there), so not sure what they’d achieve with that.
2. The small two-person co-op I work for and founded, United Diversity, is all about helping people to discover, contribute to and replicate intelligent responses to climate, energy and economic uncertainty. Our purpose is to improve quality of life on Earth whilst simultaneously reducing ecological footprint. Is this really the sort of organisation you want to sue?
3. As part of our work, we are indirect long-term customers of your publisher, Chelsea Green (through UK distributors, Green Books). I have personally set-up and run market stalls at green fairs and festivals all over the UK and have sold 100s, probably 1000s of their hard copy books, including yours. Is this really the sort of person you’d want your publishers to waste their time and money trying to sue from across the Atlantic? Are there not many many far more urgent and important (let alone more fun, interesting and inspiring) things to be getting on with and using precious resources to do?
4. I personally take the viewpoint that whilst sharing copyrighted material that is not released under a Creative Commons (or some other modern, open, license) is technically illegal, that sharing it is in fact preventing a far greater crime; widespread ignorance and the destruction of ecosystems everywhere. Note that in the UK this argument has on numerous occasions stood up in a court of law. See, for example: https://uniteddiversity.com/damaging-property-to-prevent-climate-change-is-legal/
So whilst I “might want to take those books down”, then again, I might not.
Afterall, what good would it really achieve?
Like I said before, everything on https://files.uniteddiversity.com is not only really important info very pertinent to our times, but its also already out in the wild. It is literally impossible to remove it from the Internet at large (which is where I got it all from in the first place).
What is really the point of removing it from my lovingly-collated pdf collection when anyone who can get online (that’ll be nearly 1/3 of the population on Earth then, nearly 2 billion people) and knows how to search https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gaias+garden+.torrent will be able to find it and download it from peers spread all over the globe (some of which, no doubt, live in jurisdictions with more sensible, i.e. non-existent, copyright laws).
Of course, we’ve all got to make a livelihood. And in this overly monestised world we find ourselves in, part of that involves creating/ producing stuff for sale to others for money – because most of us still need money to live (although don’t say that to my friend Mark “Moneyless Man” Boyle who has lived for about 2 years without using money at all and is currently blogging about others who’ve been doing it for years https://www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog ).
And, of course, I think creators of all kinds, authors included, ought to be fairly compensated for their efforts.
One possible solution to this conundrum in the digital age is what is known at the Street Performer Protocol or Threshold Pledge System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system
https://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/rspp
https://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.htmlNumerous online crowdfunding platforms (e.g. Kickstarter.com, IndieGoGo.com etc.) are now available that facilitate such a system.
Flattr https://flattr.com/ , launched last August, is also a great model that nicely fits the world we now inhabit.
How about we try an experiment?
Next time you are about to start writing a new book, or a new edition of an existing book, you estimate the amount of work it’ll take, and the revenue you’d expect to make, and then, using one of the many crowdfunding platforms, simply ask people to give you however much you think is fair, up front. In return you could agree to publish it as a public domain work, gifting it to the global commons. That’d be awesome! You could also simultaneously publish the book online and put flattr buttons on each and every post/ page.
I bet that would work. You could probably make even more money from your writing by publishing that way than you do now. Meanwhile your important work would be legally free to share (thankfully its already free to share, just not legally) and we’d all be a step closer to creating and living in the the world we want (not in a world dominated by bankers, lawyers and monocultures). Moreover, people like me who dedicate their lives to collecting and spreading important information wouldn’t have to live their lives in fear of law suits!
You’d also gain respect from all the cool young kids who’ve grown up with the Internet (i.e. the very people we NEED to get doing permaculture NOW) and who understand intuitively that artificially creating scarcity of electronic goods is as absurd as pretending the world is infinite and the economy can grow forever.
If you try it and it doesn’t work, I’ll happily take your book down from https://files.uniteddiversity.com despite the fact that this would be fairly pointless and the only thing it is likely to achieve is to very very slightly reduce your book sales as less people (i.e. those few that find it via my website) discover your important work.
Warmest regards and much respect,
Josef.
What do you think about all this?
Woah, just got another message in a similar vein from another author called Steve Solomon:
My response:
Thanks for showing how foolish the consistency of copyright and leading such a clear and erudite line through the potential minefields around it. That mud made a very fine lotus 🙂
Toby is right about this. Giving whole copies of books away is freeloading. If this happened to every book, what would the incentive be to publish (or write) books like Gaia’s Garden? It’s awfully presumptuous to appropriate someone else’s work and give it away. It’s like me walking into your car and liberating your car stereo. Like it or not, we all need some money to live by. I’m grateful to guys like Toby for writing books that matter. He doesn’t deserve the punishment of being stolen from. The market needs to learn there is a demand for these kinds of books. Besides, if you can’t afford it…go to the library.
If you feel you need to liberate this material because it is so important, then write your own book and give it away for free.
On another note, if you look at the kind of time Toby gives away (often at no cost) speaking to others about permaculture, I think everything more than evens out in the end.
Hi Sean, thanks for your comment.
“It’s like me walking into your car and liberating your car stereo”
I disagree, it is not really like that at all. As Tom explains in the comments above:
“Copyright infringement != Theft. Theft is deprivation of property. Copyright infringement is deprivation of potential earnings, or at the very least deprivation of the right to control the distribution of such an asset. While you can argue that both are bad (and arguably, _as_ bad, if not worse) they are quite different, but the creative industries have spent a lot of time and money trying to convince us that they’re the same, because “theft” is easier to understand and easier to side against.” (although, as it has also been pointed out, it is very likely that sharing digital copies of books increases sales rather than decreases them – as best selling author Cory Doctorow points out “My problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity, and free ebooks generate more sales than they displace.”).
It is interesting that you suggest going to a library. Why are libraries not considered as thieves? What is the difference between online and offline libraries?
I think something you are missing here is that the decision to open a book for free distribution lies with the writer/publisher…not with you. It also seems you think Toby is being some kind of jerk about this and that he is clearly wrong. There is much more gray area here.
In the case of Cory Doctorow, he directly benefits from free distribution because (1) he’s an advocate of the Creative Commons and this bolsters his credibility, but also (2) this directly benefits his books because would be obscure otherwise. Cory derives his income from being a public figure on the internet. Obscurity for him does threaten his livelihood.
I don’t think Cory quote or circumstances universally apply. Interestingly, I think you would find that Larry Lessig would be on Toby’s side. Lessig has a bigger problem with copyright being extended indefinitely, as is the case with the music industry. This problem represents a threat to future creativity and derivative works. He is still in favor of copyright for new work and for a limited time (which Toby’s 2nd edition certainly falls under).
Also, from what I’ve heard Toby say, he is not an opponent of derivative works. So if the message is important to you, write your own book, or keep up the blog posts…make your contribution. As for furthering certain points, Toby also doesn’t have a problem with excerpts of his book.
It seems the problem, then is with the wholesale giving away of something that is not yours.
(Note on libraries: They are very different. They are buy their books–or receive them as donations. They are loaning the book out one at a time, not giving away full copies for keeping.)
Just sent another reply to Steve, I wonder what his response will be:
I first borrowed Gais Garden from the library. Then I bought it
This post brought my attention to Gardening When It Counts. I’ll probably borrow that now or use the torrent to preview it, then probably buy that too.
Then I thought “I should shoot you $5 for recommending the book”
Which immediately created the thought that “a $5 donation to you is probably more than the author Steve would make from the book sale itself”
Great discussion
Its surprising how many people, however innovative and brilliant in their own sphere of work, fail to understand the importance of free culture to a free society. Makes me quite depressed about the world. If they can’t even innovate on workable business models for the 21th century what chance do they have of dealing with the ecological threats that out-of-date business models continue to propel.
Steve’s initial response to my first email:
And my reply:
Steve’s response to my second email to him (about googling his name, working out which book it was he’s written and ask for him to clarify his position):
And my reply:
I think if writers could see proper research that said that having effectively free copies of their book on the internet would lead to sales of hard copies then that might convince them that this is the way to go. Until then, it’s just hearsay from new media types (of which I admit I’m one). I don’t know if there is such research, but publishing companies would know. James Bridle – https://shorttermmemoryloss.com/ – would probably know. If there is such research, it deserves to be more widely known.
I love open source/gift economy and I love doing things for people for free, but that’s my choice, and I think that writers of these books should have the same choice.
It shouldn’t just be about money and I don’t think it is but the margins here are really small. It costs money to live – unless you’re Mark, and Mark’s life is hard. So you have a couple of choices, you can either make this money from doing something cool like writing a book. Or you could do something cool for free and get money to live from other sources, like doing something crappy part time, being on the dole or being supported by someone else like parents or a partner. This really matters to me at the moment, because I chose the ‘do something crappy part-time route,’ and I’m now sick of it. I don’t want to compromise. If you chose to write the book for money then the difference of a few thousand pounds really matters if say, you have to pay rent or feed your family.
The traditional system is that writers get an advance, say around £5,000. Then, if their book sells well, they get royalties. That’s not a living wage for the amount of work that it takes to research and write a book, even as it stands. If you used something like Kickstarter, you may well be able to raise £5000 to pay you to write the book, but then that’s it. Plus, you’d have to spend writing time promoting the project so that you raised enough to cover your advance, and then you’d have to act as an internet publishing company to get it well known enough that people would read it. A lot of work, and you probably wouldn’t have the technical savvy or the confidence to do that.
I don’t think that books are in the same place that music now is. It’s too early on in the game. It’s totally possible to launch a musical career without a record company, but I really don’t think its possible to launch a writing career without a publisher just yet. I agree that copyright doesn’t make any sense these days – but a sensibility that people need to get paid for the work they do hasn’t yet arisen either.
Thanks for your comment Beth, mostly agree with gist of everything you say (as usual).
But you also seem to be missing one my central point here (as do these authors); it is literally impossible to remove their books from being freely available on the Internet. Once someone out there feels a book is so important that is must be shared, goes to the trouble of manually making and good scanned copy and then gets it out there is the bittorrent world, there is no going back.
Like I said, I will have a board meeting about this, and we no doubt will agree to remove our copy of these authors books. But that does absolutely nothing about the fact their books are out there and always will be.
The only conceivable way of stopping this from happening (and it would very likely be totally impossible to actually implement) would be to give Gov’ts and Corporations the right see absolutely EVERYTHING on ALL computers. If that ever happens it will be a very very sad and scary day and would make George Owell shit in his grave.
I just noticed another bit of irony in this whole tragic comedy. One of the Fukuoka books that Toby mentions and complains about being in included in https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Permaculture/ is his classic The Natural Way of Farming.
I wonder, can any of you guess where my copy of the book actually comes from?
No? Well, I’ll tell you. From the totally BRILLIANT Soil and Health Library set-up and run my Steve Solomon.
What a strange world we live in.
Excellent! Great job.
Thought I’d share the comments I received via email after sending this to the United Diversity list and the the Hub London members list:
Misty Oldland wrote:
Daniel Simpson wrote:
Kirstie wrote:
Daniel Simpson asked Kirstie:
To which she responds:
Adrian Gilpin wrote:
All very positive and supportive 🙂
On the more critical side of things, I also received these comments:
Catherine Conway wrote:
And Blake Ludwig added:
To which I responded (mostly to Cath):
Which Blake rounded off with:
Oh dear, just got this message from Steve Solomon:
I have chosen respect his wishes and “go away”, i.e. I will not reply to him again and I have now taken down his book from https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Food/
You will now no longer find a copy of his great book here:
https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Food/Gardening_When_It_Counts-Growing_Food_In_Hard_Times.pdf
I’d also encourage you to buy a hard copy of the book
This actually makes me not want to buy or even read his book.
Interesting, would you care to elaborate on your reasons why? Did you read the many great responses I received from Toby in the comments? (linked to at the beginning of the post to make them easy to find)
totally agree with all the sentiments you’ve expressed regarding open-source publishing.. good reading – have had a good look at flattr today as an option for my own web creations 🙂
can’t help but think that these particular authors are caught up in the problem of selling their copyright to a ‘publisher’ that they then have to defend via threats of legal action against people like yaselves.. they’re not defending their own copyright but that of their ‘publisher’.. catch 22 : until they’ve got control of their own material, they’re not gonna be persuaded to alter their current model.. hopefully you’ve made ’em think twice about how they go about publishing and copyrighting their works in future 🙂
Wow, great conversation you’ve got going here Josef. And I find it interesting that you did take Mr Solomon’s book off your server, seemingly because he expressed strong emotion in his words and capital letters. I guess the conversation is a lot about value and how to value and taking Mr Solomon’s book down showed that you have valued his emotions. Just curious- if you didn’t know that the book was already floating around online for people to read would you have taken it down?
Its really a great debate and one I think a lot about (with no real answers yet.) I’m with Beth in that giving stuff away and ending up broke, or having to split time on a soul sucking part time gig so that you CAN give stuff away kind of sucks after awhile. If you do get ahold of any of those new business models or studies of how giving books away online brings up hard copies sales please do publish them. I’m sure it will work itself out over time but it might take a few brave souls to take the plunge and document it for the rest.
Just checked Wikipedia to see how that Radiohead album, In Rainbows, did. You are probably aware of it- it was a big deal in 2008 for being a digitally released album where the consumer named their own price. Reports said “although most people paid nothing for the download, pre-release sales were more profitable than the total money from sales of their last album.” Of course digital music is a different experience than ebooks (like I would much rather hold a hard copy book than a cd cover) but it does show that there are some people that are willing to give money for things they find valuable, perhaps enough people. If it wouldn’t be too technically difficult (or expensive) maybe an alternative for your free download section would be to put some sort of ‘donate to the author’ button next to each download and route that to the author’s own paypal account. And though publishers might be pissed at first, they would surely be fine with it if book sales really did rise through that free marketing tactic. Just thoughts..
Thanks for opening up the dialog
Cheers,
EVe Sibley
worldfoodgarden.org
Oh dear, that is sad Josef. Good on you for trying so admirably to keep Steve’s book available on your site. You can’t please all the people…
I agree with your points and feel that the publishing industry, like many other ‘modern’ industries, are behind the ‘real’ times. Where you and I and all the social networking, file-sharing etc people live.
The thing is, it’s extremely hard for the ‘establishment’ and those that abide unquestioningly by its laws, to see that the ‘rules’ by which we live are rapidly evolving. By its very nature, the establishment will always be playing catch up as it is not designed for change.
Many of the folk who think they are living the future.and ‘changing the world’ are actually too stuck in the past to realise this fact. But they will eventually catch up. And then we’ll all be able to access and disseminate useful, ground breaking information and ideas without such energy wasting threats.
Thanks for all the work you do to keep us moving forward and keep up the good work,
Rache x
Another positive comment from Daniel Smith, also via The Hub list, remarking on the similarities between my pdf collection and a library:
I replied:
Got final response from Toby:
And my response:
On behalf of New Society Publishers, we respect your right to hold differing opinions from ours in this rapidly evolving digital age, but we also deeply appreciate your decision to agree to take down our author’s copyrighted material.
If you wish to promote our books (which is also something which we appreciate, as we too think that our authors have critical messages to impart in these uncertain times), then may I suggest that you consider linking instead to a Google Books preview. This approach allows a potential reader to (completely legally) get an excellent sense of a book so he or she can then make an informed decision about whether to support the author and our company by purchasing it. For many of our titles we also offer table of contents and sample chapters on the book page on our website.
Best Regards
Heather
Hi Heather,
Thanks for your surprisingly lovely message.
Linking to a copy of the Google Books preview is a great idea!
Since you seem to understand the benefits of letting people get a taste of books electronically before they buy a hard copy, and also acknowledge that we’ve moved into a digital age, I’d strongly encourage you and your board to consider releasing your books under a Creative Commons license or similar.
Either way, keep up the great work!
Warm regards,
Josef.
Another comment from Tom Salfield via The Hub list (note that Tom has been at the heart of the Hub business for some years now)
More from Tom:
Blake replied:
To which Kirstie chimed in:
Lili Larratea wrote to me saying:
Jane says:
Have a bunch of less than positive comments to share from the thoughtful people on the [_] mailing list which I shall add in due course…
If you’re desperate to read them now, head over the their online archives
OK, so here are some of the things people on the _ list said:
Oliver Humpage from Watershed said:
Mac Jordan agreed:
As did Neil Elkins:
More from Oliver:
Tom Giddens agreed too:
Andy Kisaragi chimed in, in reply to Tom:
Tom responds, making it clear that on that point he actually agrees with Andy:
Rick Edwards asks why Copyright infringement != Theft:
Tom explains:
Amias Channer added (making what I think is a very valid point):
Again, Tom agrees with that point too, but still thinks its just plain wrong to break the law:
Keir Moffat pointed out that pretty much everyone (I’d guess this includes Tom) has infringed copyright law at some point:
I chimed in quickly myself (by this time I was actually doing my tax return! 😛 )
Oliver isn’t sure that people who get an ebook for free will really value it ( I disagree – I personally have a hard copy of Tom’s book and know many other people who own both digital and hard copies of books)
Oliver also makes it clear that is what the tone of my message to Tom Hemenway that bothered him, not the actual sharing of Tom’s book online:
Tim Beadle agrees with Oliver that sometimes people don’t value cheap things as much:
Whilst this clearly does apply to “luxury goods” and other artifacts like Parket Pens, I really don’t think it applies at all to books or other content such as music and film.
Why? Because one’s enjoyment of a book, piece of music or film ISN’T diminished by the price one pays for it.
Conversely, the “look at me I’m a big successful person” kudos someone feels by having a fancy pen, a flash car, or any other luxury display of wealth IS very clearly diminished if said item is suddenly cheap and commonplace.
Going back to the _ comments; Oliver demonstrates that he has superior divining-intention-of-email-(without benefit of body language and tone)-skills than I:
Well, the evidence is in. It is clear from later responses from Tom that that was indeed Tom’s intention.
But anyway, Tom Giddens took it upon himself to re-iterate Oliver’s point and further point out my twonkly nature:
Considering my track record on interpreting people’s intentions from the emails they send, I may be totally off track here, but I think Tom’s insistence that everyone should always obey the law is probably both hypocritical (I bet, as Keir pointed out, he is NOT a digital saint, and most people in the UK have sped in their car and/ or purchased/ consumed alcohol/ tobacco underage, or smoked pot etc etc.) and scarily obedient to authority.
If my actions are undermining the validity of the legal system, good. The UK is NOT a democracy and our legal system is far from just or sensible (what with laws being written by and for the wealthy few as the expense of the many)
And, on his final point about society and animals he is way off track. People do not not kill each other because it is against the law to do so. To suggest as much is totally ludicrous in my opinion. The wider animal kingdom also demonstrates this point very clearly; the vast majority of mammals and other animals engage in non-fatal ritual battles to work out who the “top dog” is, NOT fight to the death battle over disagreements (all chimps DO kill other chimps they find trespassing on their territories and lions DO kill the offspring of another lion when they take over a pride).
But, to be fair to Tom, his killing me point was probably not serious. As demonstrated by the general jovial tone the _ list has, and by his closing comment “I love Underscore Fridays”.
The insane theory I’ve just come up with to explain Tom’s defence of Tom (Hemenway) and attack of me/ description of my twonkness is this: solidarity between Toms! 😛
Anyway, back to the _ comments….
At this point, Tim Beadle, perhaps feeling there was a bit too much anti-twonkness going on, before getting stuck in again himself, said:
Nick Morgan summed up his take:
Andy Kisaragi clearly then saw Rick Edwards’ question about why Copyright Infringment != Theft and decided to give his own answer, despite the fact the question had already been answered by others already.
Then Dan Fairs, also playing catch up, felt compelled to explain it again too.
Conversely, Mark Chitty made a point that no-one else had yet made:
Mark’s point about the mis-leading nature of my examples is valid-ish. All my examples do, of course, involved funding and resources from somewhere, .eg. Linux as it is now was mostly written by paid employees of large corporations). But that wasn’t really my point. My point was that they’ve found a way to couple that with Linux being available for free.
At this point Jan Grant, arriving very late, turned up and re-made the point that Oliver started the _ discussion with:
But then added (in a similar vein to Oliver himself):
Neil Elkins agrees too:
Very unsurprisingly, Olive agrees with those that agree with him:
And, finally, Rob ends where we left off too:
In my defense (!) I think its pretty clear (from both the many positive comments this post has received, and Tom Hemenway’s own responses) that this discussion has been a valuable one. 🙂
In a similar vein, see this short chat I had with tav in his #esp IRC channel on freenode
Hi Josef,
Nice summing up, but if you don’t mind I’d like to just clarify the interpretation of a couple of my comments 🙂
Firstly, I must point out that I’m a programmer, not a lawyer. Reading my comments there, I really should have pointed it out, just in case anyone picks me up on this bullshit.
One thing to take into account here is that Underscore is quite combative in nature, with arguments taken to the extremes of absurdity at times. This is one of the best things about it, but it can be misinterpreted by newcomers. I must say, I’m quite guilty of starting Underscore fights, and this is no exception. The key is not to take it to heart!
In particular, your interpretation of my last comments about society and animals. I think you’re missing my main point there. I’ve argued in the past strongly for the belief that there’s a massive difference between legal rights and moral/ethical rights. I think as an atheist, it’s even more important to establish a moral code rather than rely on what’s passed down from a man on a cloud. That moral code is what stops me from murdering, raping and pillaging, not law. That’s a different discussion, though.
My point there is that Law is the basis for which we codify what we collectively consider acceptable behaviour in society. We create that law through political engagement, and we must subscribe to the validity of it to be able to participate in society properly. Otherwise it really is hypocrisy: the archetypal obnoxious middle-class social studies student who lives a frankly cushy existence without actually contributing anything (eg. income tax) towards the society they rail against. If you start picking and choosing, then you really lose the ethical right to the benefits of society. That’s taking it to extremes, but I don’t often think in shades of grey, at least on Underscore.
This comes directly back to the hypocrisy charge.
I am certainly no saint. As I mentioned in my posts, I have committed copyright infringement in the past, and will almost certainly continue to do so. I don’t do it lightly, and I don’t do it particularly often, either. When something is of value to me and is reasonable in price, I apply my personal litmus test, which is to consider the hypothetical case where it would be _impossible_ to commit copyright infringement, ie. perfect DRM. If the likelihood is that I would (in that circumstance) purchase the product rather than do without, then I strongly consider buying the product.
This sounds hunkydory, as I’m not depriving the publisher of potential revenue, as they’d never see that revenue from me anyway. However, it doesn’t mention that I’m depriving the publisher of the right to control distribution, which is a more fundamental right than the right to derive revenue from it. Take Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange: he decided to withdraw it from distribution in Britain, rather than risk personal attacks. It had NOTHING to do with revenue, as he was clearly sacrificing earnings. I do believe it was his right to control his creative work that way.
The litmus test pragmatically makes me feel slightly better. I don’t obey (or conversely, purposefully violate) Copyright law because it’s the Law. I obey it because — for the most part, and Feargal Sharkey notwithstanding — I agree with the principle of the right of authors to control their work. I can’t stand the corporatist distortion of recent intellectual property law (eg. the Digital Economy Act, the various Copyright Term Extension Acts in the US, sponsored by Disney who benefit the most from properties they’ve pilfered from public domain sources, eg. Aladdin), but I believe the authors have expended time, money and effort on the basis that their creation will be protected, and I don’t think it’s fair to pull the rug out from under them.
If they publish freely, it’s up to them to choose to do that. If the law is to change to make Copyright works freer, then it should not be retroactive, as it’s unfair to those authors working under what they thought was a safe assumption at the time: protection from infringement.
I applaud actions to encourage authors to make what we agree is the right choice: freedom of information, freedom of expression, etc. I condemn those who believe it’s _moral_ to take that choice away and make it for them: that’s what I wholeheartedly believe you were doing.
My main point, however, is that while I may choose to violate Copyright law, I have NEVER (as far as I can remember) _endorsed_ the violation of Copyright law. It is my personal, private choice to violate it even while I agree with the law in principle. That’s just me choosing to be a bit bad. I’d also concede that it is a bit hypocritical of me to lecture others on obeying the law when I myself sometimes don’t. However, I’d consider encouraging others to violate law is far worse, unless such law is patently unjust. I’ve never seen a compelling argument that the concept of Copyright is unjust in principle.
This is my problem with your initial post, though: it’s not that you copied the guy’s book; it’s that you chose to do it and publicly (and flagrantly) assisted and encouraged others to do the same.
Reading your analysis (“my actions are undermining the validity of the legal system, good”, “The UK is NOT a democracy”, etc.) I’m afraid I’ve realised that you’re a bit of a nutter. Sorry. Some of us believe that the problems inherent in the system can be fixed within the system, but if you’ve got a problem with The Man, then good for you: feel free to do something about it. However, you lose the moral high ground when you try to stick it to The Man by sticking it to The Little Guy, and the vast majority of authors, musicians, artists (but not publishers!) are quite definitely The Little Guy.
Just realised that’s another epic rant. Sorry about that.
Tom
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the clarification of your viewpoint 🙂
I find it funny that you think I’m a bit of nutter, but fair enough. And perhaps the fact I find it funny proves I am indeed a nutter! Personally I think anyone who believes we live in an actual democracy and not a in system of rule by the rich to be completely nutty myself! 🙂
Thankfully my nuttiness has lead a great author, Toby Hemenway, to say “perhaps my next book will be print on demand, more eBook, and more freely distributed”.
To me, that makes it all worthwhile.
Regards,
Josef.
😀
I do believe we live in a democracy, but I also believe that it’s the very nature of a democracy that embraces freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom to petition that the richest and best-connected members will have unfair influence. I really don’t think it’s possible to create a free democracy that won’t be corrupted, thanks to scarcity of resource and the resulting evolution of humans to have the tendency to be complete shits. I do believe it’s the Least Worst option.
I think the main problem is that corporations have (almost) all the rights but none of the responsibilities of people. (Limited term) copyrights and patents would (and did) work very well when an inventor/author/artist was one guy. However, purely through the unfair influence I mentioned above, these laws have been distorted to benefit the corporation more than the person.
But make no mistake, this was done through Democracy: the free press and other influences to get their candidates elected, and then influences them to adapt the laws to suit them. Now, how is that NOT democratic? I’m not asking whether it’s good, as it clearly isn’t. I’m just asking how it is counter to democracy. Look at the Digital Economy Act, for example. While it was an odious piece of legislation, written by the recording industry, that tried to screw The Little Guy in favour of Big Media (especially w.r.t. the thankfully-dropped provisions concerning Orphaned Works) and the dodgy way it was passed, it _was_ done democratically.
This is really summed up by one nasty word: lobbying. However, unless you can figure out how to remove lobbying without removing some fundamental freedoms (and to do it retroactively, ie. in a system that already supports lobbying) then it’s not going to work. Lobbying is unfortunately a nasty but inevitable side-effect of liberty in a democracy.
I think the problem here is that your rose-tinted belief in what Democracy is.
Incidentally, I do agree strongly that income tax is not a good metric, but I would say that the archetypal middle-class-but-wannabe-Che-Guevara social studies student contributes little: financially or not! 🙂
Hi Tom,
My theme doesn’t seem to allow threaded comments deep enough for me to be able to respond to your response to my response – I had to use some lateral thinking to make it do what I wanted! (i.e. go manually to https://uniteddiversity.com/email-to-toby-hemenway-re-piracy/?replytocom=3037#respond )… was worried for a moment that this would end up in totally the wrong place! (maybe it will!) 😛
I’m a bit too tired and busy with other stuff to give as good as I’m getting here, but I think it depends what we mean by the word democracy!
Yes, the UK has some processes that approximate what I’d called democratic. But I think, in this day and age, there are lots of obvious things that we could do to make it both far better and more democratic.
I’ll start with my favourite 3: land, money and media reform. I don’t see how we can hope to have peace, justice and sustainability whilst land is owned by a tiny fraction of the population, whilst privately owned banks run for private profit have a virtual monopoly on the creation of the money supply and that they are allowed to create it as compound interest bearing debt, nor whilst only 6 companies own more than half of the planet’s media outlets.
In general I take the approach that “you never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”. Hence why I’ve a keen interest in community land trusts (see https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Community_Land_Trusts/ ), am an investor in the Ecological Land Co-op, have been involved in projects like OpenCoin (more examples listed at https://p2pfoundation.net/Complementary_Currency_Software ), and do my bit to help people “be the media”.
I’m also working on starting The Crowdfunding Co-op to help people start co-ops, and do community share issues to invest in community scale infrastructure (because the infrastructure which keeps us alive is both dependent on cheap fossil fuels – as thing of the past, and owned and controlled by large unaccountable corporations, i.e. what presently keeps us alive is ultimately destined to fail)
However, despite me preferring such routes (and thinking they are more likely to succeed), and despite the fact I don’t actually believe in party politics, I’m also cooking up plans to create a new political party called The Obviously Good Policy Party, or something! 😛
Starting with things that are obviously related to the word “democracy”, we could start by have a voting system that results in proportional representation. But really, why stop with such an antiquated concept as representation?! I really like the idea of “Liquid Democracy” based on “trust maps”, i.e. everyone gets to vote on everything, but for anything for which you are not inclined to vote on (because you can’t be bothered or don’t trust yourself) you could accept the “vote recommendations” of people you trust in that particular area. We could also have participatory budgets. The whole budget could be participatory!
And how about something like a Land Value Tax or Site Value Tax to help begin to deal with the land ownership problem (or, more specifically, the problem of absentee landowners benefiting massively from leaving land and property undeveloped through the work of others who develop the land and buildings around it). We could make it a crime to leave buildings empty, rather than a crime to put them back to good use.
As for the banks, what about doing what the new economics foundation, the Positive Money and Professor Richard Werner of the University of Southampton have proposed to the Independent Commission on Banking:
https://www.positivemoney.org.uk/solutions/submission-independent-banking-commission/ – very sensible ideas indeed
A shorter working week also makes a damn lot of sense if you ask me. The new economics foundation have proposed a 21 hour week! Sounds good to me! https://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours
And, while we’re at it, lets put CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain plan into action: https://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/
And revoke the Digital Economy Bill.
The green party actually have quite a lot of fairly radical policies too, but they don’t seem to have the balls or wherewithal to actually bang on about them: https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/
Now, the question is, will you vote for The Obiviously Good Policy Party despite thinking I’m a nutter!?! 😛
I’m really not sure, as I’m quite disillusioned by the current range of parties. I’m quite the bleeding heart liberal, and even for a time a bona fide card-carrying member of the ACLU.
Unfortunately, the nearest match (but by no means not the perfect match) for me was the LibDems, right up until they sold out. I’d consider the Greens, but I just can’t abide Hippies. 😀
I don’t hold out a great deal of hope for the way things are going, but I also don’t think direct action or revolution is going to work well. People’s minds need changing, as for every left-wing nut job, there’s an equally crazy right-wing nut job, and that just won’t work for a revolutionary society. Instead, we’re going to swing violently between paradoxically similar but pragmatically opposed parties that end up (or even start by) being corrupted.
Basically, we’re all screwed.
Saying that, we still live in a far freer society than the majority of the world’s population, and that’s due — in part — to the Rule of Law. 😛
Two points I forgot to mention:
1. I’m glad you said “e.g. income tax” as opposed to “i.e. income tax” with reference to contributing to society. Because the belief that the only way one can contribute to society is by selling one’s labour for money is one of the nuttiest beliefs out there 😛
2. (I know this potentially makes your arguments stronger but) Toby Hemenway’s publisher, Chelsea Green, also certainly fall into the Little Guy category.
Wow, just got another really great response from Toby Hemenway, that to me justifies and makes worthwhile this whole discussion so far:
I’m going to respond again and keep this fascinating dialogue going, but just had to post Toby’s response up right away!
Smiles,
Josef.
That was a great response. You’ve made a difference Josef.
Thanks Dennis, does seem that way, doesn’t it! 😀
Marvellous debate – good work all round – especially to the authors and the cybrarian who collate and distribute the knowledge as they do so very effectively.
As one currently considering writing a book, which I was going to give away, I agree that it would be lovely to see more research findings on the most effective tools for monetisation. Flattr? Freemium (with the download having limited content)? Threshold?
Do you offer research cybrarian services, too? In which case, can you find data on this? I daresay you could make a lot of authors very happy if you could help them with ascertaining the most effective ways to distribute and still be rewarded.
Was a long conversation but well worth the time reading:)
I remember one famous author who chose to post his book, one chapter at a time, whilst he was reading it. He left each chapter up for about a week and then removed it. By doing this he created a buzz around the book as well as very valuable feedback and critique that he could implement in the final version of the book. Forget if he had any type of donation linked to the publications of the chapters and forgot the name of the author (Seth Godin?).
Josef, dood, you rock. Keep on truckin’ =D
OK, finally got around to responding to Toby’s amazing most recent response:
Toby’s response:
And mine:
Yet another eloquent and reasoned response from Toby:
And my reply:
Of course Eric Schmidt, the spokesperson CEO of Google, who make a mint from communicating knowledge concurs with the above, though not as eloquently as you did.
Free is a better price than cheap. And this simple principle has been lost on many a business person. There are business models that involve free with adjacent revenue sources. And, in fact, free is a viable model with branding [advantages], [charges for] service, and other things. But it’s a different business model from what most of us are used to
The harsh message is that everything will happen much faster. Every product cycle, every information cycle, every bubble, will happen faster, because of network effects, where everybody is connected and talking to each other. So there’s every reason to believe that those who are really stressed out by the rate of change now will be even more stressed out.
People have to accept that, at least in the digital world, the cost of transmission and distribution, is not going to go up. It’s on its way down. The people who build physical devices that connect to [transmission and distribution] will eventually morph their models into more of the prepay model, because it will be more consumer efficient.
Schmidt goes on to adress the Long Tail, first coined by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine and then broadly adapted. About the longtail he says:
So, we love the long tail, but we make most of our revenue in the head, because of the math of the power law. And you need both, by the way. You need the head and the tail to make the model work.
https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Googles_view_on_the_future_of_business_An_interview_with_CEO_Eric_Schmidt_2229
This discussion has been one of the best informed and level-headed I’ve ever read. Here’s my two-penny’s worth:
Copyrighted content is (generally) being sold for too high a price, per copy. I’m not saying that copyright owners are earning too much money, but rather that they would probably earn just as much (or more) if it was 1) very easy to purchase the product and 2) very cheap to purchase the product. Remember, the content is available for free. The Publishing industry cannot stop that (Toby’s polite emails notwithstanding), but they can influence the punter’s choice to be a pirate or a customer.
Take Music Albums. At £8 – £12, the decision to buy an album or copy it for free free mostly falls on the copy side. So there must be 10 or more copies of every album for each one sold. Now if the album cost less than a pint of beer (£3), 3-4 times as many people would pay for it. If it cost a £1 (and it was real easy to buy, with clickable links everywhere and the ability to press a button on your car stereo to buy the album after hearing a track on the radio), then they’d probably make 8-12 times as many sales.
The supply-demand curve is probably a little different for Toby’s books (much more of a niche market, I expect), but a similar effect would be observed, I’m sure. It would have the advantage of reaching a larger audience with the author’s message. Perhaps a pay-per chapter approach would help sales, just as you can buy individual tracks from an album.
Of course, for this to be most effective, you’ll need to drive costs right down. Digital books are almost free to distribute, without all that overhead of print presses. I would support a campaign to extend the zero-rate VAT (sales tax) to e-books, as this would help support a cheaper distribution model and help break the print publishers’ stranglehold on the market.
With regards to copyright durations, perhaps we should follow the pharmaceutical industry model – Drug companies have 12 years to make their profit on their invention, before the medicine is open to all companies to make generic versions. (Wonder why ibuprofen is available for 30p/16 tablets? Generic copies, that’s how). The drug companies still make plenty of money on this basis, despite the fact that FDA approval often takes 5 years to achieve, leaving only 7 years of high value sales.
The author’s lifetime or 100 years seems a bit long to me (feel free to correct me on the correct durations), especially for copyrighted content which could be of great benefit to mankind as a whole. How many poor people in developing countries would have died unnecessarily if the pharmaceutical industry kept their patents for 100 years?
Finally, Toby’s request to remove the book from the website is totally fair. It is, after all, his intellectual property (or arguably his publisher’s). But one thing is sure: If it is easy to get something for free, human nature is such that most people will take the free copy, over paying for it. Taking the PDF off the website makes it just a little bit more difficult to get the book for free. Simply selling something cheap won’t make people rush out in droves to buy it. They need to know about it, want it (marketing) and it needs to be easier to buy than to copy, bearing in mind the cost.
I support the principle behind Josh’s arguments (encouraging the spread of knowledge), but not the arguments themselves, because it is likely that the author (and his publishers) are losing revenue as a result of his actions.
That said, with the ease of acquiring free copies, publishers in general need to “get real” and adopt a lower-cost distribution model, with more units sold.
Wow. That was a wonderful debate. Thank you guys. Esp Josef and Toby. Would just like to add a ‘like’ star to the last fellow who said make e-products cheaper.
x
Ollie
Thanks Ollie 🙂
Interesting discussion. Toby has probably done more to promote his book & reputation by showing his openmindedness that any publisher would have ever done. The very concept that we own words or ideas individually is one of the programmed ideas of a now crumbling capitalist society.
I have in the past, often been advised to take out Patents on some of the designs we have produced…. however nothing could be further from the concept of getting the ideas out into the wider world. Anyone who patents anything that could benefit other people is showing their greed is more importnant to them than their love for other human beings.
Its not about book, but I just came across this article about how putting all their videos online for free increased Monty Python’s DVD sales by 23,000%!
https://www.slashfilm.com/free-monty-python-videos-on-youtube-lead-to-23000-dvd-sale-increase/
Nice discussion. Late for the party but just wanted to throw something more into the mix. The Telekommunist Manifesto has an excellent section on copyright and free culture and a critique of them, with a historical account. For the people who wanted to see a good argument on why copyright is bad, in principle, there you go. You get a critique of Lessig’s liberal-capitalist-lets-change-this-bit-so-that-most-of-it-stays-the-same views and a whole lot more. This would be a great addition to your library, of course.
https://www.telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-manifesto
https://ecommons.tuxic.nl/?p=2440
This is relevant here:
FCForum Declaration: Sustainable Models for Creativity
https://fcforum.net/sustainable-models-for-creativity/declaration
“We can no longer put off re-thinking the economic structures that have been producing, financing, and funding culture up until now. Many of the old models have become anachronistic and detrimental to civil society. The aim of this document is to promote innovative strategies capable of defending and extending the sphere in which human creativity and knowledge can prosper freely and sustainably.
“This document is addressed to policy reformers, citizens and free/libre culture activists and aims to provide practical tools to actively bring about this change.”
You naughty anarchist boy!
..but i can see why people might get stressed if their income gets blagged…’real world’ issues type thing. (bills to pay and the like). I just hope that you follow the sharing ethic fully yourself Josef..not just in cyberspace by the way.
I think I do 🙂 (follow the sharing ethic that is).
What sort of thing do you have in mind though?
Free Love
Epic conversation, it’s taken me about an hour to chew through, but well worth the effort. Josef you are a legend, the world needs more like you. As for Toby, I was about to write you off to the Permaculture Hall of Shame, along with Stevo Soloman, I now wouldn’t buy one of his books even if he’d found the elixir of life itself, shame on him, but big respect to you too my friend, you’ve proved your metal.
As for the the earlier mentions of democracy and law, in todays world such things equate to the wars in Iraq, Afganistan, Libya, et al and the provision for disasters such as Fukushima. Democracy is an artfully crafted mask for capitalism, which is merrilly destroying the world beneath our feet, the law is used to justifiy the crimes against us all.
Thank you for your comment Ku Tek 🙂
https://uniteddiversity.com/support-our-work/ 😉
I’ve even talked with Toby about this too. The fact remains that the old guard of permaculture doesn’t understand the true power of the internet or how one makes money with it. I had the exact same discussions with Tagari and Lisa Mollison, it came to nothing….. I did however get thank you’s from people around the world including ethiopia for making the designers manual accessible to them via scribd.
https://punkrockpermaculture.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/permieliberation/
Just came across these good related links:
https://www.dolectures.com/lectures/why-copyright-needs-to-change/
https://questioncopyright.org/promise – The Surprising History of Copyright
Some copyright stuff:
Steal This Film I (2006) + Steal This Film II (2007) + Trial Edition (2009) – Documentary Films and Anti-copyright Resources
https://permaculture-media-download.blogspot.com/2011/07/steal-this-film-i-2006-steal-this-film.html
and
Permaculture illegal stuff:
Permaculture and Organic Gardening – Ebooks and Documentaries Collection – Torrent Download
https://fuckcopyright.blogspot.com/2010/09/permaculture-and-organic-gardening.html
Earthship illegal stuff:
Earthship Biotecture Collection of ebooks, documentaries and videos – torrent download
https://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/10303/Earthship-Biotecture-Collection-of-ebooks-documentaries-and-videos–torrent-download
finally, good old
An Introduction to Permaculture – Torrent
https://kickass-top.com/an-introduction-to-permaculture-tt4071953.html
There is also this Geoff Lawton pack with all his recent stuff including Permaculture Soils:
https://www.demonoid.me/files/details/2673163/003021224100/
This:
https://www.kat.ph/permaculture-design-course-box-set-t5630595.html
And these massive torrents:
https://isohunt.com/torrent_details/265575877/permaculture?tab=summary
https://isohunt.com/torrent_details/288059605/permaculture?tab=summary
Here is a site specifically for crowd funding books:
https://unbound.co.uk/
1. Keyword: “Choice”
It is the author/creator’s choice on how the content is distributed- not yours. If they choose to sell their content, you can choose whether or not to buy; it’s your choice. By distributing someone else’s content against their wishes or intent, you are going against someone’s choice. Call it thievery, pirating, stealing, disrespect… whatever you call it in this case, making a choice for someone against their own wishes is not legal.
2. I challenge you to write and publish your own book.
1. Hence why I (sadly) no longer share Toby’s book in my online library https://files.uniteddiversity.com. Thankfully (for those striving to feed themselves etc) it is still very easy to find online. FYI, I also chose to buy a copy of Toby’s book (this is not uncommon – according to my research people often choose to buy hard copies of books they have pdfs copies of already)
2. I will hopefully complete that challenge at some point! 🙂 I’ll most likely use something like https://unbound.co.uk/ when I do 🙂
This looks like an interesting article:
https://p2pfoundation.net/Copyright,_Ethics_and_Theft
“copyright is theft, unauthorized copying is not theft.”
Hey Josef. I think this Copyright/piracy thing is really funny. I personally have bought and or downloaded just about every gardening book/ video/ mp3 I could find. I have been appalled that the same visionaries who would tell us to tear down the corporations, and that nature comes first, people need to stop pooping into flush toilets, and that only after the last birds, fish and trees have been killed will people realize you can’t eat money. Are in fact quite taken with money.
You might question why mushy vegan veggie wraps (disgusting as they are) sell for 5 pound, or why farmers markets cost so damn much. Basically people are still completely in love with money (except for your moneyless friend of course). “hippie” farmers charge extremely high prices because they are selling to upper class educated people who want to spend the money. I think as a better goal farmers should match or even undercut tesco’s and walmart’s prices every chance they can. Maybe then healthy food can be considered normal instead of a luxury. I am very tired of how hypocritical some people are. “this can save the world”… but I will restrict who can read it. “Corporations are evil”… lets start our own, and sue the shit out of anyone who doesn’t pay.
I have recently done some soul searching, and caught myself not sharing as freely as I could be. It seems that my studying has given me a bit of an advantage over other farmers in my area. I have extremely low operating costs, and a very productive farm. I realized recently thanks to some of stamets’ philocybe friends that I might be an asshole too. I’m not sure I want everybody doing things in a well designed manner, because then I lose my market advantage. I’m not sure I want everyone growing their own food. Who would I sell to?
As the price of oil goes up, food prices go up… but my operation doesn’t require fossil fuel. hmm more profits for me. I’m not sure how to handle this. On the one side I feel like screw those other farmers for not reading anything other than truck magazines. And on the other I realize I’m probably just fucking myself by watching people poison the water my kids swim in, and sitting safe and secure until the masses stumble like zombies out to my place and take the food they don’t have.
Share… don’t share… Donkeys like Mr. Hemenway are just regurgitating stuff he has read or learned from others. (Stamets on the other hand is a real scientist… and a business man patenting nature) What few interesting things Hemenway has “discovered” in his own gardening experience is like something from 1000 years of solitude. Writing his book while standing on the combined experience of the entire human race, and calling it his property, is like me sitting in a boat and calling the ocean mine.
A relevant article in The Guardian:
https://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/01/paulo-coelho-readers-pirate-books
“Paulo Coelho calls on readers to pirate books. Multimillion-selling author links with Pirate Bay, saying ‘the more people “pirate” a book, the better’ “
I see this is an old conversation — literally ancient in terms of the Internet.
I just wanted to add, I own or have owned hard copies (“legally” acquired) of almost every book mentioned on this page. Although online copies of books are great and come in handy for figuring out what I actually want to own, when a book is truly useful, I like to have it on hand.
But, I bought all the aforementioned books used. I’ve enjoyed them all to some degree, but it’s not in my nature to buy something new when hundreds of that same thing exist in fine form secondhand. I don’t deserve a cookie or anything for that, but if I wrote a book with information people who had little or no money desperately needed, and my book was *still* selling, I don’t know that I would blanch at this kind of sharing.
I know that this is how these people earn money, but are they really hurting? Like me, do they have to worry about whether or not risking the investment seed-buying is worth it, just in case the garden were to fail to produce? If they’ve been there in the past, wouldn’t they want to help someone out who really needed the guidance?
Every book purchase I make is pretty well-researched, because I have so few dollars to use to educate myself and my kid. But people like me, and people who are in even stricter financial situations, I guess, don’t matter to authors!
toby’s book is awesome. currently, i am borrowing it. without getting it for free, i would’ve never considered buying it.
i think josef nailed it.
and toby, now is aware and enlightened about the situation.
Dear Josef
Great response and very educational. I have worked in the world of copyright for art and am left stunned by the importance artificial art holds on our being when the organic art of life is held in such disregard.
Where is the copyright protection of our children who are entitled to “Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Food, Clothing, Shelter, Education and Healthcare?
Where did Toby, who i greatly admire, get his material? On what existing knowledge did he build from? Does he pay it back?
Your well thought out presentation I hope will resonate with him and become the accepted model for the future. It is moving us back to a model we all once understood before religion and the “Agricultural Revolution” which has and continues to supplant the last remaining earth cultures. Sharing because our survival requires it.
Joe LaBonte
Pres./CEO
Constitution Restoration Cooperative Association
http://www.crca.coop
justjoe@justjoe.org
Interesting perspective. The biggest “scam” and lost business opportunity is the fact that there’s no “legal” “Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual” ebook. I guess Bill doesn’t need money anymore.
I must admit that I’ve first read the book in the library. I like it so much, that I’ve downloaded it for free…
I also own the hardback, but I use the “illegal” copy as I am traveling, so carrying my paper books with me would be impractical.
I wouldn’t call it a scam, but it is certainly a missed opportunity. I’ve got the scanned pdf copy too but I imagine that lots of people would love to buy a proper epub or mobi version of the book that would work well on ebook readers.
I posted some reflections on this interesting debate at https://smallfarmfuture.org.uk/?p=793
Thanks! 🙂
Why don’t you just go to your local public library and check out the book for free to preview it if you want it? If your library does not have it, many can borrow it from another library or MEL. Instead of being illegal about it and making people mad, just do it the old fashioned way. Get off your butt and go out, see people, socialize, get a book, read it, and be legal about it. If you really like it, then go out and buy it. If I created a book and wanted to sell it, I certainly would not want people being able to get it for free. I would, however, give plenty of previews or pages so people could get an idea of what they will get for the money. I just went to the library and inter loaned a few books on permaculture and one that sells on Amazon for almost $30. Now I can look at them and decide if I want to buy them. No need to be illegal. NOW, if the author authorizes you to be sort of a digital library, then great, but otherwise, stay out of people’s business. I love free stuff just like anyone else, but I don’t want to be illegal. So I will never return to this site. Here I thought I had found a good resource.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Deb. I’m very happy for you that you live near a decent library. Most of humanity does not. You also seemed to have missed the bit about me having a hard copy of this book and how in the past I went out all over the place selling hard copies of this book. And how many best selling authors also give away digital copies of their books. I no longer share this book in my online library, but of course it is still out there for free if anyone cares to look for it in wider online library known as the Internet. Once the genie is out of the bottle there is really no going back. Can I just ask one question before you go Deb: can you honestly say that back in the day you never recorded a TV show with a VHS recorder? Do you really have no cassette tapes up in the attic with music you recorded from a friend (or mp3s a friend shared with you)? Because if you do you’ve broken the exact same laws as me.
Hi Josef, somehow the link: https://files.uniteddiversity.com/Permaculture/ is not working.
Request you to confirm an alternative location for the amazing collection of material that was there on this location.
http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Permaculture/ 😃
Guess I should set-up some redirects or something.
Enjoy!