[Commons-Law] Bootleg Azkaban
Via: "Sunil Abraham"
Bootleg Azkaban - Aniruddha Shankar
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main33.asp?filename=hub280707Bootleg_azkaban.asp
A scanner, a web page and a world-wide plot: this is Potter piracy
they just can't stop, says Aniruddha Shankar
Strangers came together and destroyed their own property in a carnival
of reading
You stand in line for hours to be one of the first to get your hands
on a copy of the latest Potter book. You gladly pay the large sum
required to buy the heavy, hardbound tome. You rush home and settle
down. You then tear each page out.
If the events I witnessed on July 16, 2005, when The Half-Blood Prince
was released, are any indication, a band of determined, quixotic
purchasers of the book will destroy their copies on Saturday, the day
the final Potter book launches.
On one of lakhs of live discussion forums on the Internet, people
gather from around the world as the word spreads. Each page is fed
into a scanner, which takes an extremely detailed image. Using
software which can recognise the shape of letters in images in a
process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR), the picture of the
page is automatically converted in a few seconds into digital text.
Since this is never error-free, OCR programs correct spellings and
allow you to proofread as you go along.
The scanning of each chapter is announced to avoid duplication of
work. As people join the forum, volunteers increase. Those with fast
connections volunteer to proofread, a difficult task as page images
are very large. As each chapter is proofread, it is converted into a
text file, a web page or a pdf document, a format designed for easy
printing. As chapters finish, people upload them to their own web
servers, giving the entire Internet access to them.
The mood on the forum last time was raucous, with people exhorting the
scanners, proofers and uploaders. Many were reading each chapter
eagerly online, and were discussing the series. Spoilers (persons who
revealed details of the plot to people who had not read as far) were
reviled and one particularly egregious individual was ejected and
banned. Some uploaders complained that their sites were being hacked
and, indeed, some sites did mysteriously disappear. More sprang up to
replace them. But nothing would interrupt the sacred objective: to
rip, scan, OCR, proofread, edit, convert and upload the entire book,
all 652 pages, in a single day.
As the hours passed and chapters were uploaded, tired scanners and
proofers took a break or stopped working. Replacements arrived and so
did more volunteers. Like revellers late to a party, they were loud,
enthusiastic and determined to do, and be seen doing. Their whoops and
cheers seemed to energise the veterans. Those who spotted editorial
mistakes and typos in the original text were cock-a-hoop at having
outdone Rowling's editors.
In the middle of it all, "CheezeDawg", who was to do Chapter 8, fell
silent. Chapters 9, 10, 11 and 14 had been uploaded by the mob but 8
remained missing. Those who had finished Chapter 7 and couldn't bear
the wait wailed. CheezeDawg then lamented that he'd put the pages into
the scanner in the wrong order and would have to re-scan. With gleeful
cackles, Chapter 8 was divided into small sets by volunteers with
scissors ready and scanners warm. Like the rest, it was torn, scanned,
converted to text, proofed, edited, made into a web page and uploaded
in minutes.
Within 18 hours of the launch, the book was done. A compressed file
containing the book was tiny, the size of a large web page. It spread
explosively, forever, via email attachment, floppy, cd, pen drive,
printout and website.
Curious, I cornered some of the participants in the forum and quizzed
them. From countries such as the US, Britain, Germany, Mexico, Sri
Lanka, South Africa and Holland, with no leader and no agreed plan,
students, accountants, housewives and college lecturers, all strangers
before and after one crazy night came together and literally destroyed
their own property in, as one called it "a carnival of and for
reading", in order to provide the book, free, to other fans.
The South African said, simply, that she and her friends just could
not afford the book and would never have been able to buy it in the
first place. Some did it for fun, others for the challenge or for a
sense of personal satisfaction. One claimed that the world had changed
but publishers hadn't. Since the cost of making a digital copy is
almost nil, he claimed that if digital books were sold at an
appropriate price, he'd buy them unhesitatingly.
While most people will shun a 600-page book they have to read on a
monitor, publishers will scream blue murder and might force a
crackdown, disregarding the legal nightmare that transnational,
distributed bootlegging constitutes. If the actual progress against
music and video piracy is any indication, such a crackdown would be
futile.
People queue to gloat to friends about having read the Potter book.
But some, without hope of recompense or recognition, rip up their new
copies so that others, too, may read.
Bootleg Azkaban - Aniruddha Shankar
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main33.asp?filename=hub280707Bootleg_azkaban.asp
A scanner, a web page and a world-wide plot: this is Potter piracy
they just can't stop, says Aniruddha Shankar
Strangers came together and destroyed their own property in a carnival
of reading
You stand in line for hours to be one of the first to get your hands
on a copy of the latest Potter book. You gladly pay the large sum
required to buy the heavy, hardbound tome. You rush home and settle
down. You then tear each page out.
If the events I witnessed on July 16, 2005, when The Half-Blood Prince
was released, are any indication, a band of determined, quixotic
purchasers of the book will destroy their copies on Saturday, the day
the final Potter book launches.
On one of lakhs of live discussion forums on the Internet, people
gather from around the world as the word spreads. Each page is fed
into a scanner, which takes an extremely detailed image. Using
software which can recognise the shape of letters in images in a
process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR), the picture of the
page is automatically converted in a few seconds into digital text.
Since this is never error-free, OCR programs correct spellings and
allow you to proofread as you go along.
The scanning of each chapter is announced to avoid duplication of
work. As people join the forum, volunteers increase. Those with fast
connections volunteer to proofread, a difficult task as page images
are very large. As each chapter is proofread, it is converted into a
text file, a web page or a pdf document, a format designed for easy
printing. As chapters finish, people upload them to their own web
servers, giving the entire Internet access to them.
The mood on the forum last time was raucous, with people exhorting the
scanners, proofers and uploaders. Many were reading each chapter
eagerly online, and were discussing the series. Spoilers (persons who
revealed details of the plot to people who had not read as far) were
reviled and one particularly egregious individual was ejected and
banned. Some uploaders complained that their sites were being hacked
and, indeed, some sites did mysteriously disappear. More sprang up to
replace them. But nothing would interrupt the sacred objective: to
rip, scan, OCR, proofread, edit, convert and upload the entire book,
all 652 pages, in a single day.
As the hours passed and chapters were uploaded, tired scanners and
proofers took a break or stopped working. Replacements arrived and so
did more volunteers. Like revellers late to a party, they were loud,
enthusiastic and determined to do, and be seen doing. Their whoops and
cheers seemed to energise the veterans. Those who spotted editorial
mistakes and typos in the original text were cock-a-hoop at having
outdone Rowling's editors.
In the middle of it all, "CheezeDawg", who was to do Chapter 8, fell
silent. Chapters 9, 10, 11 and 14 had been uploaded by the mob but 8
remained missing. Those who had finished Chapter 7 and couldn't bear
the wait wailed. CheezeDawg then lamented that he'd put the pages into
the scanner in the wrong order and would have to re-scan. With gleeful
cackles, Chapter 8 was divided into small sets by volunteers with
scissors ready and scanners warm. Like the rest, it was torn, scanned,
converted to text, proofed, edited, made into a web page and uploaded
in minutes.
Within 18 hours of the launch, the book was done. A compressed file
containing the book was tiny, the size of a large web page. It spread
explosively, forever, via email attachment, floppy, cd, pen drive,
printout and website.
Curious, I cornered some of the participants in the forum and quizzed
them. From countries such as the US, Britain, Germany, Mexico, Sri
Lanka, South Africa and Holland, with no leader and no agreed plan,
students, accountants, housewives and college lecturers, all strangers
before and after one crazy night came together and literally destroyed
their own property in, as one called it "a carnival of and for
reading", in order to provide the book, free, to other fans.
The South African said, simply, that she and her friends just could
not afford the book and would never have been able to buy it in the
first place. Some did it for fun, others for the challenge or for a
sense of personal satisfaction. One claimed that the world had changed
but publishers hadn't. Since the cost of making a digital copy is
almost nil, he claimed that if digital books were sold at an
appropriate price, he'd buy them unhesitatingly.
While most people will shun a 600-page book they have to read on a
monitor, publishers will scream blue murder and might force a
crackdown, disregarding the legal nightmare that transnational,
distributed bootlegging constitutes. If the actual progress against
music and video piracy is any indication, such a crackdown would be
futile.
People queue to gloat to friends about having read the Potter book.
But some, without hope of recompense or recognition, rip up their new
copies so that others, too, may read.
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