Digital Shoplifting From Bookstores? 447
ipandithurts writes "According to a report from Tokyo via IOL, Japanese publishers have launched a campaign to stop 'digital shoplifters.' These 'digital shoplifters' are using cellphones to photograph magazine pages in bookstores, rather than buying them. 'Digital shoplifting is becoming a big problem as camera-equipped mobile handsets are spreading fast and their quality is improving greatly,' said Kenji Takahashi, an official at the Japan Magazine Publishers Association. Will entry into a bookstore soon include a 'cell-phone patdown?'"
I don't see a point. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, if someone didn't spend so much money on the cell phone to take 600 pictures of a book, they probably could.. well.. buy the book.
Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
All of modern technology seems to be going that way: A constant arms race between the people trying to sell a device to perform a function and the people trying to sell a device or service to prevent the function from being performed.
Digital magazines? (Score:3, Interesting)
We need a cheap source of e-readers / tablets. I mean *super* cheap, like $10 each. When they're everywhere, sell all magazine content digitally, pass the savings through lack of physical printing on to the consumer and be done with it.
what about analog shoplifting? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:sounds like a big hassle (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:cell phone camera resolution (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, the libraries can often be quite a way away, as there tends to be only one library per ward/city area.
It's the RIAA all over again! (Score:3, Interesting)
The local newspapers' articles were light on content so I can't say for sure, but I suspect the main "violators" are teenage kids who don't have a lot of pocket money in the first place. That aside, though, this has all the markings of an industry not being able to cope with technology. The main "victims" seem to be information magazines and books--restaurant guides and whatnot--but given that the same information is already available with a quick Internet search, I fail to see what effect disallowing pictures would have on readers, other than driving them away. I guess alienating your customer base is the "in" thing these days...
(I'll save my comments that you could do this just as easily with pen and paper for another post.)
Just rude but not a crime. (Score:2, Interesting)
Aside from someone (the newspaper? the publishers?) calling this "digital shoplifting", thus implying a crime, I see nothing worse than rudeness.
I was wondering, if instead of a phone camera, what if you just walked in with a real, good camera and started clicking away? And on the subject, what if you had a digital camera that encrypted the photos on the fly, so that there would be no evidence of what you may or may not have in there. Is there "self incrimination" protection that permits you to withhold encryption keys?
Re:Uhh.. is this real? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it so much more unrealistic then somebody going to a Star Wars movie and sets up his video camera in the middle of the movie theatre? That's happened too!
Don't underestimate what people are willing to do if they can save a buck...
>
Magazines maybe, but whole books never go (fully) online. So flipping 197 pages is the only alternative.
Also, you can make PDF's of a row of images, therefore no flipping needed. Or you could use ACDSee where you only need to push to PgDown key to go to the next image.
P.S. Don't you mean asinine?
Main Entry: asinine
Pronunciation: 'a-s&n-"In
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin asininus, from asinus ass
Date: 15th century
1 : marked by inexcusable failure to exercise intelligence or sound judgment
2 : of, relating to, or resembling an ass
synonym see SIMPLE
- asininely adverb
- asininity
How long till camera phones are no more? (Score:4, Interesting)
Given this, I can see that camera phones will get killed off in the near future, before they get a chance to become deeply entrenched. At the moment, there's no real "killer app" for these devices and not huge market penetration, so I wouldn't expect a massive public outcry if governments were to ban either the phones themselves or legislate to stop phone networks carrying MMS data (which would be as good as banning the phones themselves).
seems legitimate to me (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's all they can do. Being able to keep you from taking pictures doesn't mean that the act of taking pictures itself would be illegal. In fact, the article itself states that it is not.
This basically means that stores have a choice: disgruntle their customers or live with it. It doesn't sound like a big problem to me.
Things like this attack the heart of capitalism. (Score:5, Interesting)
The store owners are simply angry becuase an old system they've been using for years is finally beginning to fade away into obsolecence. What people are doing isn't even a crime; as far as the law is conserned you can take all the pictures you want in public in america you want. If you go into a store, it's considered rude to try to make a copy of something that way like it's rude to stand there and read the magazine in the store without buying it.
Digital Camera Arms Race (Score:3, Interesting)
No, seriously, this might actually enhance the word-of-mouth publicity for certain magazines. If I were a porno magazine owner in Japan, (let's face it, I bet porno is the first thing people are copying), I'd embed the magazine logo and its url in each photograph worth taking.
And before banning anything, I'd also run some numbers on the effect of digital cameras on the marketplace. Here in the US, Barnes&Noble and Borders let us open and read books for hours on end. In Europe, some book chains have started doing this as well (I've read many books that way). This practice seems profitable for them, otherwise, I don't think they would be doing it.
Just Browsing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Digital Shoplifting" a misnomer (Score:5, Interesting)
You are not actually stealing something unless you are depriving someone else of an object. Money only counts if you take the money directly; depriving someone of a sale is not theft. HOWEVER, interfering with someone doing legal business is illegal, and so is violation of copyright.
So you're a little bit right, in that it is illegal, it should be illegal, and it is arguably immoral. But your flaming of the comment you flamed is goofy, because the poor guy doesn't actually appear to disagree with you. You were out of place.
Re:a little info on magazine selling in japan (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason for that is the way book distribution works in Japan. The publisher sends the book data to the printer, where it's printed; it's then shipped to the toritsugi company, which is basically a distributor. From there, it's sent to however many bookstores the publisher has paid for it to be sent to. Quite often, if the bookstore doesn't want the books it has been sent, they just leave them in the box and send them right back (at no cost to the bookstore).
The problem is that publishers have no (easy) way of getting their books out to bookstores other than through the toritsugi, with which they have a rather uneasy relationship. If the publisher starts selling magazines directly to consumers by subscription at a discount, the toritsugi will start getting annoyed with them and may increase the cost for the publisher to distribute their other products. Thus, the publisher is blocked from offering cheaper subscriptions.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
and lets kill file swappers and hang their stinking corpses on the door of every major ISP.
Where are the "condemn the act" posts? (Score:4, Interesting)
- the magazines are too expensive
- porn-related and other lame jokes
- it's not "stealing" it's "infringement"
- and so on..
(I'm surprised i haven't seen anybody screaming about corporations have abused 'fair use' yet).Now, this is slashdot, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I was hoping against hope that for one /. would actually live up to its own tripe and condemn the violators while not blaming the technology. In fact, I was hoping against all hope that somebody might actually suggest a credible scheme or two to curb such behavior. "Japaneses publishers should lower their prices" is not a credible scheme.
Do we have anybody with any credible schemes to prevent this, short of shrink-wrapping magazines, which sounds like sort of a cop-out?
Cell Phone Jamming (Score:3, Interesting)
This is what we need. Just last week I was in Barnes and Noble and some dimwitted, inconsiderate ignoramus was chatting loudly on her mobile. I consider the bookstore to be like the library - it should have a certain level of quiet. Having yammering idiots with cell phones stuck to their heads ( which are often stuck up their asses in return ) yacking away kind of defeats all that.
By blocking the cell signal outright, you'd eliminate the Cameras ( from what I've seen alot of these camera phones lack the storage to do a picture locally - rather, they send them off to a server for storage almost immediately
Re:Cell Phone Jamming (Score:3, Interesting)
I use my digicam (Score:3, Interesting)
I travel to washington DC from time to time and like to visit the gift shops at the smithsoneon museums. The one in the basement of American History has a particularly good collection of books for sale. If the book is reasonable, I buy it. If it's overpriced, I take out the digital camera (not an unusual thing to have in a musuem) and snap a photo of the ISBN number then visit Half.com [half.com] when I get back to the office and buy it, often for half of what I saw it for in the bookstore.
This is the only reason I can see for having a camera equiped phone, a different sort of notepad.
Re:"Digital Shoplifting" a misnomer (Score:1, Interesting)
So when I see stuff on
Wrong.
In an extreme case, the shopkeeper doesn't sell the magazine so that's money out of their pocket for buying the stock. The magazine gets sent back to the distribution company on their dime who then sends it back to the publisher for credit who then could raise prices or at worst cancel the mag due to low sales.
How does this relate to stealing? You stole potential money by copying the magazine from the shopkeeper. Not only is the act of purchasing about getting a product, but it's also a service. Your money goes to pay for the store's stock, its lights, heat, taxes, employees, rent/loan/lease, etc. which is all provided to be able to give you the customer the opportunity to purchase that magazine.
Re:"Digital Shoplifting" a misnomer (Score:3, Interesting)
How many people on the planet do you think give a flying about the difference between the two? In most peoples minds a hacker = a bad computer guy and a cracker = is either a type of food or a slur against white people.
And to most folks copying IP without renumeration = stealing. I know you and RMS and the other open sourcers burn at the thought of this but thats just the way it is.
Situation resolution. (Score:3, Interesting)
Native American lore says that when you take someone's picture you capture a part of their soul. There is a very significant psychological impression of having a camera flash in your face, the stronger the flash bulb, the stronger the impression
This will not be a joke in the near future... (Score:3, Interesting)
This kind of thing will be feasible in ten to twenty years if Moore's law continues to hold.
And a few years after that, it may be possible to have something like this, without the glasses - the microphones are implanted in your earlobes, the camera sits inside your eye on your blind spot, and you can't take it off...
I choose so many books by browsing the shelf... (Score:2, Interesting)
Perspective from an ex Barnes & noble lackey (Score:3, Interesting)
People do this all the time at the Barnes & Noble where I used to work, except they would plop down in the art section with a stack of books, whip out a bigass digital camera and start snapping away. When politely informed that they were breaking the law and would be removed from the store if they continued they got amazingly indignant, like we actually WERE a library.
Sometimes I cannot believe the ballsiness of people.
Triv