Latvian Police Raid Teacher's Home for Uploading $4.00 Textbook

richlv writes "Latvian police recently raided the home of a history teacher and confiscated his computer. The crime? Scanning a history book and making it available on his website covering various topics on history. The raid was based on a complaint from the publisher (Google Translate to English), which has a near-monopoly on educational materials in Latvia, often linked with shady connections in the Ministry of Education."

Don't copy that floppy!

[bhlowe]

Doesn't seem like fair use.. seems like blatant copyright infringement. As I learned in Boy Scouts, if you don't like the law, try to have it changed in an orderly manner, rather than disobey it. Failing that, if you're going to break the law, don't get caught.

Re:Don't copy that floppy!

[amiga3D]

I agree. On the other hand the response should be proportional. Uploading a textbook should have involved an officer serving a warrant. A raid and seizing equipment is more in line with a massive copyright ring. This over the top shit is really ridiculous and unwarranted. It's like someone caught jaywalking getting clubbed down, handcuffed, dragged away and thrown in the pokey. Enough with the over reactions already.

please stop calling it piracy

[Ralph Spoilsport]

It's file sharing. Piracy is the kind of stuff the next Tom Hanks movie is all about. Killing people. Brutality. That's piracy. Some educator uploading educational materials or some 12 year old in his mommy's basement downloading Katy Perry's bilge is NOT piracy. By letting the proprietarians label it as piracy, and then taking the LGBT tack of "owning the epithet" has been a complete failure. We need to call it what it is: file sharing, and demand that others call it that as well. Abandon notions of piracy and enter the next phase of human information distribution, and the access to knowledge it provides. Because It's The Right Thing To Do.

Re:Don't copy that floppy!

[AK Marc]

"educational use" is one of the fair use reasons, but applying US fair use to a Latvian action would be silly. Do they even have fair use in Latvia?

Re:price tag is irrelavant

[Anonymous Coward]

price tag is irrelavant

So you're saying the police should come bust down my door and shoot my dog in the face if I walk off with your pencil?

Don't forget: 'intellectual property' is not real property; otherwise it would be covered under property laws and wouldn't need it's own.

Re:and in the us the same book will be $200-$400 u

[flayzernax]

And most likely full of spin, error, omission, or propaganda... lol

Re:and in the us the same book will be $200-$400 u

[ATMAvatar]

Why limit it to one? At premium prices, customers demand premium quality. US history books will have all four.

Re:Don't copy that floppy!

[devloop]

What a wonderful compliant, obedient little boy the Scouts helped you become!

I'd prefer my kid to be more defiant and incredulous of authority and status quo,
and to consider that sometimes great corruption demands extreme measures to
correct it and sometimes one must disobey and rebel in a disorderly manner.

Washington, Revere and Franklin would probably make awful little scouts.

Re:textbook publishers use all kinds of BS to keep

[Anonymous Coward]

textbook publishers use all kinds of BS to keep there monopoly on educational materials in place.

I'm not sure. When in Finland these teachers had the over-the-weekend marathon to create a math textbook and put it into Github, they commented that they might as well release it for free, as the profit they get from books is always so small anyway

Do note that author != publisher... [in the very most cases]

Re:textbook publishers use all kinds of BS to keep

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't get no edumacation.

What do you expect? He couldn't afford the textbooks!

Perhaps not, but you know who CAN afford it?

Google.

"Do no evil" my fucking ass...