Darknetted e-books and Prohibition II
Isn’t it interesting–the most recent choices of e-books at one pirate site–probably in Europe or the States: 1984 (apparently an audio edition), Brave New World and Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil? The site isn’t storing the books but rather linking to them elsewhere.
Regardless, might there be a message here? It’s one thing to pirate or encourage the piracy of ephemeral music. But what do you do when modern literary classics and other serious books become pirate fodder–including those on matters of human freedom such as 1984? Perhaps content-providers should focus less on killing off high-tech innovation and more on lobbying for well-stocked national digital libraries to reduce the incentive for piracy. Restoration of sensible copyright terms would also help. Look, I’m pro-copyright. I’m actually for merciless prosecution of commercial pirates and large-scale amateur ones.
Details: My guess is that the site originates in a country where all the mentioned books are still under copyright, especially the oil-related book–published last year. Oh, and by the way, Dark Net actually isn’t the operative word here. I found the site through a popular tagging service. Increasingly, people are rebelling openly against lobbyist-molded copyright laws. When will John Edwards and his cheerleaders get it–right there in one of the public domain centers of the world? Why the silence? We’re headed toward Prohibition II–in fact, worse. The WCTU didn’t profit off the cash-driven manipulation of the legislative process to the extent that Hollywood and friends have.
Related: The Real Lessons of Grokster, in Wired News.
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