标签: download

In the 70s and 80s, when I was still in South Africa, it was fairly difficult for me to keep up with technology. I had set up my own company and bought myself an Intel MDS II development system. The cost of the system was more than the cost of my house. But the real problem was the cost of software for both the Intel system and later PC software. When you translated the cost in South African rands and compared it to the cost of living, it was impossible to fund the purchases. What might cost an American one month's salary would cost a South African a year's salary or more. This problem persists around the world. As a result, I must admit there were times that I was less than fully legal in my use of software.   When my book, Excel by Example , was published in 2004, within four or five months a copy appeared on the EDAboard.com website. I believe the forum was based in Eastern Europe. Its philosophy was that it was OK for anyone to upload any book until the author or publisher objected. I decided to engage the participants of the forum and proceeded to call them a bunch of pirates. There was some reaction. As you can see in the quote below, one respondent actually threatened me if I requested that the site take down my book:   I forget to say, if you don't give up EDAboard with your complaints, I going to put your book at rapidshare.de and others file share web sites (and spread it to any know EBOOK forum to me, only 10 multiply each 100000 users). That means 10 of thousands free of charge downloads. That I gonna do for all your publishers, and all theirs books that I have (round 200). Other users think same, as I think about that. You gonna suffer, because you exposed your name here, and you will be "crucified". EDAbord just have (or have had) your book, that someone took from somewhere at internet, and simply upload it. There is numerous places that post your book, there are not gonna remove it by your request like EDAboard easily do. Just ask, don't harm all users. Whats done is done. I managed to download 30Gb science book just from one place for just one night. Give me your email I'll send list to you. Round 7000 titles. Lot of Newnes books, few houndred. You can't do that from edaboard. Just 300 Mb max downloads for one month here. What do you what, I can put them in circling .Let Newnes harm EDAboard and me, and your publishers are going to pay . Here is a one example, and that can be done for all. Newnes books. h**p://www.edaboard.com/ftopic122544.html Try to stop that first my angry friend, free sharing. Edaboard gives you bigger benefit than harm (even in your case). Give up, your book is deleted. I don't want any harm to you, don't make harm to me and others!!!!!   Aside from that extreme, there appeared to be two schools of thought. The first seemed to be one of entitlement. I think this was based on the fact -- as I mentioned earlier -- that these books could never be purchased normally and so everybody simply downloaded copies anyway. At that time, there was another web site (rapidshare.de) based in Germany that seemed to have every book under the sun. These were somehow locked until you registered. It was pointed out to me that the knowledge was out there anyway. I passed all the information on to my publisher, but they seemed completely unable to do anything about it.   I got involved in a more philosophical argument with an engineer from Pakistan, in which he took a far more intriguing argument that all knowledge should be free. He made a good case for this point of view in that it was for the betterment of mankind. Sooner or later the copyright would lapse, and it would become public. Besides, he thought, there was nothing really revolutionary in what I had written. On top of those things, I had a job and I was financially supported during my acquisition of the knowledge, some of which happened on company time.   Of course, I countered with the argument of the expenses associated with my education, the hours spent researching the subject, the hours spent writing the book, and the hardware and materials purchased. All of this did not include the publisher's cost of printing the book.   In the end, the forum administrator put the kibosh on the whole discussion and withdrew my book. When I checked just prior to that, it seemed to me that there had been several thousand downloads, so I guess I should take it as a compliment that my book was that popular, even though I saw no financial reward from these downloads. In the years since then, EDAboard.com has cleaned up its act, and there is no pirated stuff there at all. You can still find illegal copies on the Web, though, without really trying too hard.   Nevertheless, my experience in South Africa -- followed by my discussions on EDAboard, have left me conflicted. Certainly, when you go to an event like the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC), the lecturers are not paid, and they present information for free. The same is true for trade magazines  -- the readers get the information for free. Yet books can be quite pricey, and -- when translated into foreign currency -- they can become unaffordable. And as for software …   What do you think?   Aubrey Kagan Engineering Manager Emphatec