Welcome to the forum!

No.

Luigi Sam said:

1. there was a published 'specification' for each bible programs layout of that type of resource.

There is not, nor will there be, ever.

Luigi Sam said:

1. put a pertition on each bible software forum we participate in.

Start over at the Accordance or WordSearch forums and see how far you get. [:D]

Luigi Sam said:

3. dont purchase any books until that particular bible software allows the 'basic' conversion of the books

The publishers that license copyrighted works to different software companies will not allow them to do this. The software companies fear the courts and irate publishers more than they fear a boycott from consumers. In other words, it is illegal for publishers to violate copyright laws.

Luigi Sam said:

As I dont believe the Bible software industry ( book publishers included ) have the right to force us to repurchase

What you believe is not half as important as what reality is....   Your stance is about as silly as requiring General Motors to sell car parts that will work on Fords and Chryslers.  You would end up with an International pickup truck. They don't make them anymore.

With about 10,000 books and the world's best Bible software (Logos 5 Portfolio+) why would I want to run inferior brands?

It is quite simple to allow a basic 'open format' for viewing and navigating.  Each bible software company can attract the main purchase by advertising the features that come with their version. otherwise they are stuck with the 'view and navigate' features.

In fact the reason is greed not DRM / Copy protection.  

The open standard can still allow satisfactory copy protection (ie an agreed copy protection standard and interface which only reputable bible software partners can register for ).

In summary 'any idiot'  can come up with a solution for the copy protection excuses.

Of course I'm not disagreeing with you that such excuses are raised however :-)   

regards Mick

Luigi

Luigi Sam said:

  As I dont believe the Bible software industry ( book publishers included ) have the right to force us to repurchase the exact same product for use on a different bible program. Infact this should be illegal.

They own the Copyrights: they can do what ever they please.  Also the copyright statements on most of the STEP format files I have [some 700 files] limit the use of those files to the bible software program that they were bought with [not just any STEP reader but theirs only]. And that company recently "updated" its format to somethings else [that is they dumped the STEP format - most likely just so that we are forced to use their software to read the new files]

Why does Logos not have some publishers books?  Most likely because Logos allows use everywhere and the publishers want their fee on each device.

If as of April 1, 2013 no book sold unless they included an e-copy that allowed it to be used everywhere then they all would very soon provide an every where e-copy.  

But as most people only want it on the one device that they own and are not thinking about using it on some other device the only people that will stop buying  will be us and we are too few. Our non buying will not be noticed -  the e-copy would never be produced.   

Good idea - it just might work - in the next life - no greed, no money - just eternal love

Luigi Sam said:

Personally I am open to participating in this.  As I dont believe the Bible software industry ( book publishers included ) have the right to force us to repurchase the exact same product for use on a different bible program. Infact this should be illegal.

Why?  What gives anyone the right to tell an owner of a business how to conduct his / her business?  Illegal?  Are you kidding? 

You have no right to all the tagging and work included in a Logos book, which causes it to integrate with your Logos Library, unless you buy the book in Logos format.  And what you ask is impossible because who would do the many hours of tagging to make a book in another format work with your Logos library?

Everybody wants something for nothing. 

I bought a book in paperback, but I want it in hardback now!  Shouldn't Barnes and Noble be required to give it to me??!!!  I already bought the book once!

Luigi Sam said:

In summary 'any idiot'  can come up with a solution for the copy protection excuses.

Then why wait? Go ahead and convert all the different formats for your own personal use. 

Just because I can push an old lady down and take her purse does not mean I should. (In Oklahoma the old lady is probably packing a semi-automatic.)

Michael Childs said:

Why?  What gives anyone the right to tell an owner of a business how to conduct his / her business?  Illegal?  Are you kidding? 

[Y][Y][Y]

WOW  The responses im getting are typical of the average yogi bear.

To the rest of the readers: IT IS PEOPLE LIKE THAT WHO KEEP THE MASSES BLINDED TO SIMPLE, HONEST, AND REASONABLE SOLUTIONS TO THE BUY ONE RESOURCE ONCE ISSUE.

LISTEN.  READ THIS SLOOWLY.

1. you purchase the book in AN OPEN STANDARD electronic format WITH COPY PROTECTION.

2. you can read & navigate in any BSW (bible software)

3. EACH BSW CAN THEN CHARGE A SMALLER PROPRIETARY FEATURE SET FOR THIS RESOURCE.

some of you guys are really naive - and know very little when it comes to solving an issue in a fair manner. 

Doc B said:

Michael Childs said:

Why?  What gives anyone the right to tell an owner of a business how to conduct his / her business?  Illegal?  Are you kidding? 

• Ever heard of price fixing (banks, stock market, petrol/gas, super markets)?  It is illegal.
• Was Microsoft allowed to keep its DOC standard secret so no other software can use it?  They were FORCED to play fair.  ( a little off the point but slightly relevant )

did you know it is illegal for the BDAG to have a price fix on it?   retailers are given a RRP.  It is illegal to fix the price so that one retailer cannot make a temporary sale price on it for a cheaper price which merely eats into their own profit mark up.   ILLEGAL...

WHAT I MEAN BY ILLEGAL IN THIS CASE IS:

 - a publisher sold one copy of the product electronically. they should have no Legal right for making more than one sale per customer. the consumer should have the right to use it in any 'honest and copyright supported manner they wish'.   Dont be childish.

Luigi Sam said:

did you know it is illegal for the BDAG to have a price fix on it?   retailers are given a RRP.

Now this is getting silly. [:P]  Did you know that Logos prices are almost always different than that of other Bible software publishers?

Where did you get your law degree? My sister's husband graduated law school, passed the bar on the first try, was a JAG in the USAF, attained full-bird Colonel, and was a judge. Want me to run this by him?  [C]

Someone brought up automakers so I'll respond to that here although it is only tangentially relevant. However, I think in future this issue will have to be addressed as it was in the auto industry.

If you buy a Ford you can then go to any auto parts store in the country and buy parts for it. You don't have to go back to the dealership because they cannot force you to buy their parts. They also cannot void your warranty if you use aftermarket parts. There is also the "right to repair" laws which mean that auto makers have to share information about how to repair their cars with independent repair shops. None of these things happened overnight and they were fought over in courts and the court of public opinion for years. At the end of the day people have won the right to have their vehicles fixed wherever they want with whatever brand of parts they want.

Your rights concerning ordinary paper books have long been protected under the right of first sale which means that the purchaser of a product can do whatever they want with it: lend it out, sell it, give it away, write all over it, burn it, etc. That's why no one will sell you ebooks or software. They do not want you to have those rights so they will only license it to you. There is currently a case before the courts in which John Wiley is arguing that you should only be able to resell their books if you have their permission. This would then apply to books and anything else not produced in the US. cf. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04. This cannot apply to items made in the US because the first sale doctrine protects your right to do whatever you want with them. Right now we have to pay Logos a fee whenever we want to sell a book to someone else. Imagine if this applied to almost everything in your possession? Corporations would love it if you had to purchase everything new - no more ebay, garage sales, craigslist. In other words, instead of moving in the OP's direction of freedom of movement for your ebooks they are trying to move us in the direction of not being able to ever transfer/sell/loan/gift anything.

Ebooks - the industrial utopia: 

Build it once, sell it a million times.

Luigi Sam said:

I do not possess a law degree, however I have completed a business/commercial law subject - and have come across this subject on the news

Oh, he's had a B-Law class and watched the news.

My bad.  I'll shut up now.

Super Tramp said:

Did you know that Logos prices are almost always different than that of other Bible software publishers?

Oh, I missed that point.

So then, what "price-fixing" is everyone harping about? If WordSearch, Accordance, and BibleWorks all charged the same price for a resource (they do not), then how is that different from a book publisher offering a "SRP" and seeing Amazon sell it higher or lower than B&N or AbeBooks?

This whole issue is "gimme somethin' for nothin' " 'coz I'm too cheap to pay for it and too lazy to write the software myself.

I wonder if Logos would be interested in giving some kind of deal to quit using another program and give a HUGE discount on the books in the other program since you already own a "license" to use them.

There is a program called step2rtf that converts STEP books to rtf.  You would still have to do a lot of formatting with Logos formats to get the most use out of them, but it is doable.

Quickverse the most prolific of the STEP publishers has gone to the CROSS format.

Luigi Sam said:

WOW  The responses im getting are typical of the average yogi bear.

 

You are getting "Yogi Bear" answers because you are reasoning like "Boo Boo".

Tom Reynolds said:

You'll see that this isn't the case of one man but a fundamental question of what Americans can do with the goods they buy and how they can be legally distributed.

This is a case of an illegal product being imported into the USA. It is a case of whether or not a sovereign nation has the right to control what crosses it's borders. Back in the 1970's I witnessed US Customs confiscating vinyl records from people entering the USA from Taiwan. The records were bootleg and the artist never received any royalties from the sale. 

The American Civil Liberties Union argues that once child pornography has been printed, it's sale and distribution should be protected by law. Until 1980 child pornography was legal in Denmark. The extension of "first sale" rights would have allowed the importation of child pornography into the USA. Is this the society we want?

Just because China or Thailand create knock-offs of Nike shoes or Microsoft software (holograms & all) does not mean we should allow the importation of stolen goods. I side with Wiley on this one.

Michael Childs said:

Luigi Sam said:

WOW  The responses im getting are typical of the average yogi bear.

You are getting "Yogi Bear" answers because you are reasoning like "Boo Boo".

Not sure if thats supposed to be nasty... You should know better anyway.  You didn't even present any useful criticism (much less any reasons explaining / justifying your position) to start with.

EDIT: also you didn't even take to time to reply regarding my answers I have already given you. 

So why continue with one liners that do not benefit anyone except yourself (by trying to defend your pride regarding your ill put original post).

anyway oh well we all make mistakes so there's no need to snowball the matter. I hope you see my point.

Kind regards.

Tom Reynolds said:

 David, 

This, second article, is clearer.  US Copyright law recognizes the copyright laws of other nations for items bought in other nations.  Thus the US courts MUST [by that law] enforce Thai copyright law.  

Re my comment on “extraditing him to Thailand”.  The question seems to be that law in Thailand is different than US law.  That statement is tied to my comment that he “violated the laws of Thailand” so that is where I thought that the fix was to ship him to Thailand for trial BUT 

My question was “So why are the US courts involved?” Now I know – we have obligations to enforce the copyright laws of other nations so that they will also enforce the copyright laws of the US. [[warning - if we tell them we are not going to enforce their laws they will not enforce ours]]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.   I agree with Super Tramp,  he was wrong.   IMHO if they sell it here then US law applies. It they sell it 'there' then the US courts MUST by international law enforce the laws of 'there'  [[and that is why our government needs to really be careful what they agree to do with international law - and this is simple compared to other items that ''international law'' is forcing us to do like cap and trade and other carbon taxes]]   [[if anything I said upset you know that that was not my intent]]

James William Roberts, Jr. said:

I wonder if Logos would be interested in giving some kind of deal to quit using another program and give a HUGE discount on the books in the other program since you already own a "license" to use them.

The above is an Interesting thought.

--------------------

Regarding STEP

 I didn't mention it for similar reasons like you mentioned. It was abandoned by most for reasons other than copyright management of the individual books. (ie copyright issues of the STEP format (it was not free support), inability to solve various issues on the level of coverage of 'features' of the format - and separation of those from proprietary additions.  Or similar.

Tom Reynolds said:

uper Tramp - please please please read the articles. There are NOT illegal products or knockoffs.

I did and you missed the real issue in the lawsuit:

" When he discovered that his textbooks, produced by Wiley, were substantially cheaper to buy in Thailand than they were in Ithaca, N.Y., he rallied his Thai relatives to buy the books and ship them to him in the United States.

He then sold them on eBay, making upward of $1.2 million, according to court documents."

If you believe the defendant bought these textbooks strictly for personal use, you are naive. With the average Thai income hovering around $8000 annually Wiley priced their regionally licensed textbooks lower to make them affordable to impoverished students. (A bit like Logos offering an Academic Discount for seminary students.) If you require Wiley (or Logos) to offer textbooks at a globally fixed price you can bet it won't be the lower price of the two.

Under your theory of "first sale" the child porn from Denmark should have been allowed into the USA. Also, fruit containing the Mediterranean fruit fly larva should have been allowed into California. Governments all around the globe protect their economies daily by banning or taxing importation of products they deem detrimental. Japan taxed the import of USA made autos 100% of the sticker price (when I lived there.) Japan does not allow foreigners to import guns or ham radios. The USA says it is illegal to import foreign printed books that are underpriced. This is nothing new.

To really shake things up consider this: We do not own our Logos resources, nor our Accordance resources, our WordSearch resources or our BibleWorks resources. We don't own Microsoft Windows or Office that is installed on our computers.They are licensed for our use in accordance to the various EULA ("End User License Agreement")

Question: Did the publisher have a printing run for Thailand or having printed extra copies did they sell the extras that had not sold in the US to the poor students in Thailand rather then burn them?  Often manufacturers sell the extras at a cheep price because they get something for the scrap good.  Have heard that some of the clothing items that you see in the cheep stores are the overruns of the items sold in the expensive stores. The manufacturer (or an agent) removes the high price label and adds a cheep label.  If you know where to shop the only difference is the label. Or in the case of text books where they were sold.  The under the table importer stole millions from the publisher.  

Some drugs sold in Canada are sold there at a lower price so that the manufacturer can get something for the overruns on lots made mainly for the US market.  When the laws change and drugs to be sold in Canada are allowed back into the US the result will be that Canada will have to start paying the same super high price that we pay in the US.  

The car parts [to keep cars in the discussion] are being made for use in the US.  As soon as the other nations are given the right to tell us we can not resell our [whatever] that was sold in the US the people in the US will only buy items manufactured in the US.   [[If they want to import into the US then they don't want to make the rules too tight or they will kill the golden goose.]]

David Ames said:

Question: Did the publisher have a printing run for Thailand or having printed extra copies did they sell the extras that had not sold in the US to the poor students in Thailand rather then burn them?

I have seen a lot of these type of  textbooks. They are specially printed for their specific foreign markets. They frequently lack graphics and are many times monochrome. I am also aware of the over-runs practice. In Korea you can buy Botany 500 suits very cheaply. In Vietnam they will sell you over-runs of Dillon Guitars. These are the actual product of the same quality but they have been re-branded or de-branded. 

The original post for this thread seeks to buy cheap resources from other Bible software companies and use them in Logos or to buy resources created by Logos and run them under inferior or cheapo programs. This is just a step away from pirating Logos.software.