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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on April 8, 2012 at 2:35pm

Do you think the author would object? If I were dead and wouldn't get any benefits from it anyway I'd tell you to go ahead. Even if the book was not out of print, the author is dead so he wouldn't get a single penny either way.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on April 8, 2012 at 2:37pm

Without personally taking a position on copyright infringement either way, even once an author has died, it's often the publisher or the author's estate or living family members that still have a copyright claim. Just because the author has died doesn't mean there's no longer a copyright claim on the work.

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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on April 8, 2012 at 2:43pm

True but I think he was asking if it's morally ok, not legally. If the book is out of print there is no way for the family or the publisher to receive any pay anyway.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on April 8, 2012 at 2:49pm

I agree when it comes to the moral issue. You're right. That is what he was asking. But I'm not sure they can be divorced so easily.

Yes, the book is out of print. But there IS still a claim to copyright. That claim is one that says "This is my intellectual property or intellectual property I own the rights to." So it seems to be the case that regardless of the legal penalties of violating that copyright claim, there's a moral issue. For instance, if there were no penalties whatsoever for violating copyright claims, more people would surely do it, but I think we can agree that we wouldn't therefore say that it was no longer a moral issue.

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Permalink Reply by Rocky Oliver (LotusGeek) on April 8, 2012 at 5:03pm

One quick thing - the book is out of print; any books bought (tree-based, not digital) would be second-hand, and no one but the seller would receive any cash.

In a way, it is almost like someone is giving someone the out-of-print book for free - since it isn't being sold.

Thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on April 8, 2012 at 5:05pm

That's a pretty good way of thinking. And as was already said, the people who should get the money, if they wanted it, wouldn't get it anyway. So it's really up to you whether you want a random seller to receive the money, or take it from someone who gives it to you for free.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on April 8, 2012 at 5:32pm

If you're trying to rationalize violating the copyright then I'm not saying there aren't ways to do that. But let's admit that it is a rationalization.

Is it not the case that:

1) the copyright holder retains their claim to the property in question regardless of whether the book is still in print, even if the current rights holder is not the author of the work (as in the case of the author's death)?

2) copyright law allows for the selling of used physical books without payment being made to the copyright holder but DOES NOT extend this right to digital copies of books?

Then everything else is a rationalization for why it's okay to violate the copyright holder's claim regardless. Who knows, maybe the copyright holder specifically does not want the book to be in print anymore. I can certainly imagine situations in which that is the case. An author expresses to their family that she does not want her book to continue to be in print after her death (maybe she's concluded it's not a good work and doesn't want it out there, maybe her philosophical or religious beliefs have changed) and the fact that the book is out of print is as a consequence of this. To continue to circulate the book under these circumstances is not only to violate intellectual property rules and the morality grounding them but also to flatly oppose the express wishes of the author.

At any rate, your argument is not an argument for why it's okay to infringe copyrights in this case but rather an argument for buying the physical book used from somewhere without infringing intellectual property rights.

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