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Comment by _kst_ | Hacker News Reader

From the 6th page:

If Xerox had legitimately released this to the public, surely they would have changed the copyright notice.

As far as I can tell, this is simply pirated.

From http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/ :

"I started to be fed up to see all the books I like to be out of print, so I started to contact authors and collect their old books. I would like to thanks them all and their publishers as well. If you know an author that is willing to give to the community a book, please give him my email."

I'm not sure that changes anything.

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He has permission from the authors and publishers. It is not that clear in this page but it used to be more explicit at the old site where he first started posting them.

I'd rather see it pirated than lost.

I'd rather not see Hacker News get in trouble for linking to pirated material.

The chances of anyone raising a copyright claim for a 36 year old book relating to obsolete technology are quite low.

To me, it's not the chance of somebody getting in trouble that worries me, but rather the blatant disregard and disrespect for intellectual property rights.

That's all fine and good but Xerox is no longer in the business of selling this book and does not suffer any harm from the reproduction, neither do the authors.

It's a bit like public libraries, which also 'hurt' book sales, and there the books might even still be in print. The Smalltalk 80 Blue Book is an important part of computer history, the more copies there are of it, digital or otherwise the better.

imho letting more people read this material shows higher respect to it and its creators than letting it be forgotten.

The book is out of print and not available otherwise. No one is making money off this book.

Have you talked to your representatives about changing copyright law so that out-of-print books can legally be copied?

People can act without representatives too.

Remember Aaron Swartz?

It didn't work out too well for him, unfortunately.

No, but turned out OK for Rosa Parks...

Wait until you discover Archive Team...

Intellectual property rights aren't holy scriptures. Not every right should be respected and it seems dishonest to play that card. It's the same idea as law isn't moral just because it's the law. It can still be unjust and immoral, depending on the circumstances. To follow a hard line of always adhering to the law without any regard for the consequences or context can lead to bad outcomes.

To me it's the blatant regard and respect for intellectual property rights, as if they were some God-blessed rights.

And this on a forum called "_hacker_ news". What happened to "Information wants to be free"?

We're not talking about stealing some artist's latest album or pirating some fresh program. This is unmonetizable core CS lore 40 years old.

Anything after 20 years or so should get into the public domain.

I'm not sure anybody here cares, assuming we're not actively in favor of this.

> I would like to thanks them all and their publishers as well

When you get permission from the publishers, how on earth is it "piracy"??

If he got permission from the publishers, it wouldn't be piracy.

I see no evidence that he got permission from the publishers. (Thanking them doesn't imply anything.)

He is not required to prove to you - or anybody else - that he has permission, unless challenged by an author or a publisher. Lets assume he does until you have proof that he does not and even if he does not there is a pretty good fair use argument to be made for out of print books.

To me it looks as if you have an axe to grind and will stick to your mantra, even though by all the available evidence this is done by a highly respected academic and completely out in the open, if it was done illegally (as in, with the full knowledge that authors/publishers would object) this is the most stupid way to go about it. It is your claim that requires proof, not the other way around.

I didn't say he has to prove anything to me. I said I see no evidence.

It at least implies permission from the authors (and I guess the publishers, though that's less clear; though I also care about it less, personally).

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