« Flock is F***ed | Main | The Broadband Bandwidth Boondoggle »
Latest Stories
- Creating a Bell Labs for Quants
- Sneak Peek at Weekend Reading
- Quote du Jour: Vonnegut
- Traveling, Jobs Report
- Geithner Gives Best Explanation in Senate Hearing Today
December 20, 2005
Adventures in #bookz
Granted, book theft isn't nearly as exciting as music theft, but it is remarkable to me how little attention the ongoing adventures in book piracy in the IRC channel #bookz gets. On any given night virtually any reasonably selling book you want is being offered up like it is some of free electronic book bazaar. From technical textbooks, to New York Times bestsellers, they're all available.
Why do publishers and the usual cast of media finger-waggers not seemingly care? Granted, it's more work to "share" books over IRC than it is to fire up the file-sharing application of your choice and start grabbing music, but nevertheless, the scale of the offerings (if not the acquirers) strikes me as similar.
Note: I'm not condoning this sort of thing. Far from it. The book industry is in at least as awful shape as the music industry, and the consequences of widespread book piracy are nasty for a group of people, writers, that I like much more than another group of piracy-affected sorts, musicians.
Sphere It
| 
Digg it
| 
Bookmark it
| 
Stumble it
I can't imagine kids in college dorms trading the latest copy of stolen online book files...
plus with books, the alternative to online is that bulky physical thing with pages that ppl still enjoy using (or at least tradition has them using)... the alternative to an audio file, is...me singing.
I've lurked on that channel in the past and grabbed a few things but until I have a device which can nicely replace a paperback, those files will sit on my computer. I assume the same is for publishers. Until there is an ipod (I guess this is the new term for killer device) for books, they won't show any interest.
Yes, I think you may be right. Maybe that's merely generational and a new crew will come along that doesn't mind reading books on computers, but for me it's a show-stopper.
Seems like a hoarding behavior, building collections for the thrill of acquisition. I'd bet many of the participants have many books they've downloaded but never read.
The hoarding thing is spot on. Specially since, who knows, it might all get cracked down on tomorrow.
So I personally have downloaded tens of thousands
of books from there, and read only, approximatly a thousand of them. And yes, I read nearly all my books
electronically now and have for some years. It's
pretty neat to see some mention of a book and
have it already downloaded and ready to go on
your laptop.
let's not forget that there ARE people who simply can't afford to buy books. in my opinion, book theft is the only somewhat acceptable form of warez, because it is caused by one's thirst of knowledge, which is definitely not a bad thing...
There's plenty of music piracy on IRC too that isn't targetted. So perhaps it's simply that the people in these companies aren't aware of these less densely parts of the Internet (usenet being another example).
Also reading a bestseller off a computer monitor isn't fun.