Okay...seems like a good time for a brief interlude of happy thoughts, I reckon.

It is truly heartwarming to know that nearly 6,000,000,000 poor people of the world identified by our Robin Hood will have access to knowledge. [Just think of them all enjoying their Japanese Anki decks!]

The name of the site created to host the unpaid-for material?   "Share it and don't be stingy".

Ain't life grand

Last edited by Thora (2009 June 17, 12:54 am)

vosmiura wrote:

I don't see how people in a group who all own the book making a private access list is the same as publicly giving copies of the book's content.  Whoever put the list on the torrent is the same as ahibba & xarg, and certainly not in the spirit of what the forum members have done before.

Spirit is what it's about, and it's why this thread is weird and got fingers pointed at.

No it's not just about "spirit".  It's about copyright law as you have clearly stated.

When the spreadsheet group decided to take Coscoms material and post it as a Google document it is no longer private.  As far as I know none of you own Google.  Regardless of the "privacy" settings you just posted that document on a database that you do not control.

Also, when you traded the material you simply ASSUMED people owned the book based on your own guidelines.  Where in the copyright law does it say "Other people can copy your work as long as they just make up nice sounding guidelines on the internet as to how to share it"?  According to the statements you've already decided to stand behind you had no right to decide how to distribute Coscom's sentences because you are not Coscom.

It would also take an extreme amount of ignorance to believe those files would never wind up on a torrent.  You're on the internet, posting the files on a Google server, and trading them between people you've never met in real life and yet now you think it's ok because you can just blame the person that leaked them lol?  No sorry, that's not how legal responsibility works.

The spreadsheet group took the work of another company and is now DIRECTLY responsible for releasing that work onto the internet.  Play the blame game or argue words like "spirit" all you want but those are the facts.

activeaero wrote:

blackmacros wrote:

The spreadsheet group took great care to minimise any potential harm that could occur to CosCom by limiting access to only those who can prove ownership. Further, as has already been stated, the spreadsheets add value to CosCom's products by providing a text script (something not provided by the original) of the sentences. Your deck, on the other hand, is a complete reproduction of the book.

Nice attempt a justifying doing the exact same thing, just at a lower level.   Limiting access doesn't make the other project any more right.  That project got leaked onto torrents and if someone wanted to make an issue of it you guys would be just as responsible as anyone else.

And what do you mean the spreadsheets added a text script that was "not provided by the original"?  I'm looking at my books and CD right now and yes they most certainly do have text script that goes along with them..........they're just in the book.  Want you mean to say is "they didn't provide a text script in a form that we could use in an Anki deck so we could distribute it on the internet while pretending it would never wind up on a torrent." 

The very fact that you guys attempted to limit access is all the proof one needs.  If you're project was nothing more than an enhancement with no copyright issues then why didn't you give it out freely?  The answer: Because you were scared of what might happen.  To turn around and point fingers at someone else who has done the same thing, except better in many ways, is simply ridiculous.

You'll notice that I stated both are copyright infringements. In reality there is no difference between the two in terms of legality. The point I was making was that this community makes a social distinction between the two. And a lack of understanding by ahibba of that social distinction is what turned this thread into a mess. The resulting trainwreck has very little to do with actual questions of legality (I happen to agree with your assessment about the illegality of both projects); it has everything to do with how the community on whole perceives the differences between the two.

Last edited by blackmacros (2009 June 17, 12:35 am)

xaarg wrote:

ahibba wrote:

Congratulate me! This morning I succeded in converting the images to text using an excellent OCR. So I'll add the text to the deck.

Do you mind sharing the text right now?

blackmacros wrote:

You'll notice that I stated both are copyright infringements.

I am not so sure about this one. As the Google spreadsheet is hosted in the USA and access is given only to those that already own the specific content in question, it should be fully legal as fair use. What could be more fair than sharing content with people that alreay bought it?

Good point. I had originally considered fair use but I'm not a lawyer, so I decided not to make that sort of legality judgement myself and instead base my argument on the non-legal factors in question. Anyway, I think both of these projects are great; I was just trying to weigh in on why this thread turned ugly.

Last edited by blackmacros (2009 June 17, 12:46 am)

nest0r wrote:

It's great that we can anonymously come onto this site for RTK and general Japanese learning, share pirated works and/or engage in amateurish debates on copyright and intellectual property, and leave the responsibility for handling the headaches and potential trouble involved to Fabrice D., who merely invests effort and resources in the site out of goodwill for purposes unrelated to piracy, and has provided guidelines and has encouraged such topics to be moved elsewhere purely so you can nitpick on how closely you can pretend to respect his wishes by editing your posts, missing the point entirely. Fortunately, what's fair and simple always wins through on these matters because companies and creators are very understanding and the laws are so clear cut, so it doesn't matter that the confidence in this thread relies on being able to place the burden of accountability on Fabrice. /end complicated sarcasm

I agree.  Thanks Fabrice! 

Well I also added a lot of stuff to my SRS.  Maybe this is infringing on some level too - I don't know.  I also sync with Anki's server - maybe Damien doesn't own my books - anyway I can't decide for myself if it's Ok to copy my deck's on Damien's server - this is probably infringing too.  I also review over the internet so it's going through my ISP's servers.  A hacker could copy it and leak on a torrent - then I will be in trouble.  Am I just as culpable as if I had put it on a torrent myself?  / end sarcasm

Maybe I am wrong, but even though they have some relation at some points, it seems quite different.  Anyway, time to learn some more blood stained sentences .

xaarg wrote:

Do you mind sharing the text right now?

See the first post.

Wikipedia wrote:

Common misunderstandings:

* ...
* ...
* If you're copying an entire work, it's not fair use. While copying an entire work may make it harder to justify the amount and substantiality test, it does not make it impossible that a use is fair use.

ahibba wrote:

[quoting Wikipedia]Common misunderstandings: [...] * If you're copying an entire work, it's not fair use. While copying an entire work may make it harder to justify the amount and substantiality test, it does not make it impossible that a use is fair use.

Ahibba, no one is suggesting it does. No one test is conclusive and they're sometimes interdependent (e.g. completeness and market erosion.) It's kind of a fuzzy endeavour. That flexibility is a good and necessary thing, even though it makes it harder for users to predict with certainty.

I'd like to think this means you're considering different perspectives on what is actually a fascinating topic. That can only enhance decision-making and ability to persuade. cheers.

Unfortunately the text version has gone down on rapidshare. Is anyone able to post a mirror?

I wonder how good the OCR is.  For me ReadIRIS mixes a lot of characters.
り -> リ, 間 -> 聞, い coming out as "し\" and that sort of thing.

Last edited by vosmiura (2009 June 18, 1:01 am)

vosmiura wrote:

I wonder how good the OCR is.  For me ReadIRIS mixes a lot of characters.
り -> リ, 間 -> 聞, い coming out as "し\" and that sort of thing.

Well, I believe you can easily fix those manually. There should be a button to jump to the next ambiguous character, then just right-click on it and select the proper character. In the case of "し\" and "し," you can select both characters at the same time and it should display "い". It is quite a bit of work, but of course much less than typing all the sentences by hand.

activeaero wrote:

Having the specific listening sentences interwoven between the standard sentences is a huge benefit I could have never imagined. [...] I can already tell this is going to help my listening ability a ton while at the same time reinforcing my reading practice. [...] It gives my brain a little variety in terms of tasks which keeps things interesting for far longer.

Glad you like it.

Last edited by xaarg (2009 June 18, 3:10 am)

Herbo wrote:

Unfortunately the text version has gone down on rapidshare. Is anyone able to post a mirror?

xaarg wrote:

Yeah, that would be nice, because I did not manage to get it in time.

@ahibba
You need to put the files into a collector's account at rapidshare or they will be automatically disabled after 10 downloads.

Check the new link. I re-uploaded the searchable text deck.

zazaen666 wrote:

the file names of the mp3 are strange like "0a2daa7e0011.......mp3" for example.

How do I recognize which sentence this is with out using Anki? In otherwords, what kanji is the mp3 related to?

I know that they're strange, and I don't like them. I think xaarg has the solution.

I will try to rename the files to something like 0016ex01.mp3 (016 = kanji number 16, ex01 = first example.)

You can rename the files automatically using freeware software like Renamer or JoeJoe's Rename Master. But the the problem is that they are not in the same order as the Anki deck. I'll try to fix it.

vosmiura wrote:

I wonder how good the OCR is.  For me ReadIRIS mixes a lot of characters.
り -> リ, 間 -> 聞, い coming out as "し\" and that sort of thing.

I have the last Asian edition. No mixing, no wrong characters, and no strange symbols.  Everything is accurate and like the original images exactly. Amazing OCR!

In my earlier trials, I used an old version, yes, the the result was full of mistakes.