fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2022 ]

[ SECRET POST #2022 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2022 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 088 secrets from Secret Submission Post #289.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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So this is just about technicalities?
Sharing offline is legal, sharing online is not (depending on the country, though) so the first one it's ok even if the author doesn't get any money, which is the main anti-piracy argument?

Ok...

Do you not get the point that if you share at the library it counts toward the publishing company/artist versus if you share online the publishing company/artist gets bupkis?

There's a big difference.

What I don't get with the library logic is... The library has paid for each book ONCE. Hundreds, maybe more will read it. Most scanlators purchase the book ONCE to translate and share. Guess what, hundreds, maybe more will read it.

And some will decide they like it enough to buy it. How is one copy being purchased to share better than... one copy being purchased to share?

Hundreds of people will probably not read a book. Most books, especially paperbacks like manga, do not stand up to that kind of abuse. I think ours can take, eh, depending on how bad they've been roughed up, anywhere from 20 to 50 uses before they fall the hell apart. But you're not getting a hundred uses out of one book, and certainly not "maybe more."

Library purchases track differently than regular purchases (we have to purchase most of our items through one supplier, and I'm pretty sure that's part of the reason). Also, if a book by a certain creator checks out fairly often at a library, that library will buy more copies of the book, and buy more books by that author/creator/artist.

Most people don't seem to realize that libraries, at least in the US, do not work quite so simply as: "Acquire book, lend to people." There's a little more to it.

Out of curiousity (and not an intent to rouse anger) do you hold the same anger for people who buy books used, secondhand, etc? These are still books where no money is getting back to an author/artist/editor.

I only ask because I have seen people who say you should never buy a book secondhand, even if it's out of print, because it's not fair to the creator, which is just BS in my opinion, especially since if I pick up Book One of Bob's World from a garage sale and like it, chances are I'm going to go and shell out my own money for Book Two, etc.

Not really. The big difference, I guess, is that a book is a finite thing. It only exists as itself.

I guess maybe it's a concept of scope, too. Like I said, a library book is really only going to reach about 50 people per physical book. Maximum. (I'm really trying to remember if I've ever seen an item come up with over thirty uses. It's rare.) A book bought second-or-third hand only goes to one or two other people. It isn't turned into hundreds or thousands of itself. For the cost of a single item, it only reaches a (relative) few people, as opposed to hundreds/thousands.

I've honestly never heard anyone say "don't buy second hand books." I've never even heard creators say that.

I'm a pretty big fan of second-hand books for a number of reasons (we get/sell a lot of them at the library too, and staff always gets first crack. I've picked up a lot of awesomeness that way). They have a certain feel to them, a weight that's comforting. And yeah, cheap helps. I hear you on that last bit. Some 25-cent copies of early Dresden Files books are why I shell out way too much money for each hardcover the day it comes out.

(reply from suspended user)

physical books just aren't all the durable and almost impossible to make a physical copy of for backup uses

I keep hearing people say physical books aren't durable for more than 20-50 reads... but they are if you treat them like you'd treat anything of value. I have books that I've had since I was a kid that I read repeatedly, and a lot of them look brand new.

I have a 1901 copy of Emma that despite a little fading of the bindings due to sun and age is in wonderful condition. Books are the same as anything else, they will last if cared for.

Individuals may treat books like they're valuable but in general people don't, especially library books. I've seen library books with torn covers, writing in margins with some sort of liquid ink, ripped pages, water damage, damage from foodstuffs, mold, pages falling out and taped back together because of damaged spine, books becoming even more damaged after being taped back together because some idiot used acidic tape...

And when I lent books out to friends and explicitly told them to keep the books in mint condition, they were returned with folded corners and creased spines. Guess what? I learned my lesson. I don't let anyone borrow my favorite books anymore. The general public doesn't know how to keep books in mint condition and they don't care to even when the books are other people's property.

In my experience video game cartridges and discs can take way more abuse than paper books. If your experiences are different, good for you. You're a lucky anon.

Fun fact about libraries--nobody treats our stuff like it has any value. It doesn't belong to the patrons, so they have no problem letting their infants get their gummy little hands on it or whatever. Library books get destroyed. Frequently.

Your own personal collection, sure, those will last because you take care of them. I take care of my books, and they last. Because they're mine. The General Public will not extend the same courtesy to Free Stuff from the library. (That applies to movies too. I watch patrons let their infant child hold/open the cases to DVDs because, as far as they're concerned, it's a toy, right?)

What? I treat my games like gold, but I know plenty of people who break, chip, and scratch the hell out of them in no time at all. Especially kids. Leave a DVD out of its case shiny side down and see how long it lasts.

That's why they sell game insurance. You can't make a book unreadable just by stepping on it.

Books don't last long in the hands of kids either. Sure books can be stepped on and still be readable, but books don't exactly survive being chucked in water, dunked in juice, being the subject of a coffee spill, drawn all over with markers and permanent markers, having pages torn out and scattered to the winds, having pages eaten.

Insurance exists because people put value on the item being insured. I think the lack in book insurance reflects how little people care about books rather than how durable it is.

And yet, the argument that it's okay to resell books and not games because books are cheaper, less durable, and more replaceable is completely and utterly negated by the presence and social acceptance of the used car market.

Wait, what? You talked about the durability of games (DVDs) and books and insurance. I replied about the durability of books, DVDs and insurance. What does reselling books and games have to do with our conversation?

For the record, I do not think it is not okay to resell games.

Yes, but your argument that it is okay to resell books because they are less expensive and less durable than games is completely negated by the fact that - unless you believe used car sales are wrong, and you'd be the first person I've ever met - it is entirely socially acceptable, with no debate, to resell your car. Cars are much, much more durable and expensive than games.

So yeah, that argument doesn't really hold water in light of what is and is not generally considered "okay" to resell.

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(Anonymous) - 2012-07-19 23:14 (UTC) - Expand

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ariakas - 2012-07-19 23:16 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2012-07-22 02:27 (UTC) - Expand

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ariakas - 2012-07-22 06:01 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2012-07-22 16:07 (UTC) - Expand

A friend and I buy Eighth Doctor books secondhand (for obvious reasons) and he actually had someone go apeshit on him about how you should NEVER EVER EVER BUY SECONDHAND EVEN IF IT'S OUT OF PRINT!!! because it's not fair to the author...

It was seriously one of the most bizarre displays of anger we'd ever seen. XD

Well, aside from the reasons I just stated, there's the bit where a video game is usually pricier than a book. And the same store that sells used copies sells them new as well, but there's a bit of a difference in profit from one to the other, so it might affect the store that way more than it would a used book store.

Also, not so many folks who read a book once and then sell it/donate it a week or two after buying it. Maybe with romance novels, but for comics especially, people tend to hang onto those for a while. So there's a bit of time lapse as well, whereas you see people turn around and sell a game back as soon as they've beaten it, which makes fairly new games available for cheap, no-profit-to-the-original-source, second-hand more quickly, while the game itself is still up on the shelf.

There's the other thing about comics. Western comics, at least, have grown up almost needing the second-hand market, because most floppies haven't been collected into trades, and trades go out of print. Those new games are still pretty available.

I don't really think it's killing the industry, though. Just maybe those could be some of the reasons.

I love second hand teach-yourself books. :) It's always interesting to see at what point exactly the previous owner stalled and it always encourages me to go on to somehow virtually "prove" to the previous owner that this thing can be finished. :D It helps in learning, seriously.

I think (I'm not sure, libraries may not buy products this way) the difference is if the library buys, say, five hundred copies of the The Avengers, they didn't buy one copy and rip it so they could share it, they bought five hundred copies to share. The sellers don't care if you share five hundred purchases with thousands of people, they still made thousands of dollars. Compare that to the twenty bucks they made from Joe Pirate ripping his one copy for thousands of downloads.

I understand the butthurt companies feel over those numbers (though I'm of the opinion they were never going to see that money anyway).

Ah, I guess because to me where our library got most of it's books through donations/secondhand etc, it never occurred to me that a library would shell out serious money compared to any average joe, but I guess if it's a private owned or big city library that does buy everything new, it makes more sense, especially if they're buying multiple copies.

Yeah, I live in NYC, largest public library system in the country. They tend to buy a minimum of a hundred copies of most popular stuff. They accept donations, too, but serving millions of people, they can't rely on it.

Haha, until last year I lived in a town of 10,000 so whenever we actually got a brand new book at the library I always did a happy dance that it wasn't all wrinkled/marked up. XD

I believe somebody else linked about the difference between libraries and file sharing sites, but some of those differences hold true.

If you've got a copy of a manga--which you paid for--and you share it with your friends, a maximum of, what, maybe ten people will pass it around, probably? That's being pretty generous. If it gets pretty well-loved, it might fall apart before then anyway. And it's still just the one copy of the book. If anyone decides they want their own copy to have forever and read whenever they want, they have to buy their own.

A file can go to thousands of people. It doesn't get worn down. It doesn't fall apart. It doesn't benefit the author.

this!

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