The stolen book: Communication significance beyond the criminal act

— The research is an attempt to be made a reassessment of the phenomenon „theft of book“ in the foreshortening of the information-communication treatments, the theory of the feedback and the reflexive model of the communication. The theft of book is rationalized as reader’s reflexion and as a specific social resonance towards it. The research thesis is, that it is accumulated a critical mass of circumstances for liberation of the attitude towards the stolen book as a communication phenomenon and for its emancipation on the field of marketing and advertising. Based on retrospective document and discourse analysis are searched proofs about the positive connotation of the phenomenon „theft of book“ in the context of the concept of the book as a medium. In order to be revealed as objectively as possible the communication energetics of the act of the theft of book, the authors set aside from the criminal aspect of the phenomenon. The present text excludes from the subject of the research interest the crime theft, and also any action, causing material damage. The empirical examination the thesis is accomplished through the method of the anonymous inquiry survey about the attitude towards the stolen book. The consultation was done twice – in 2013 and in 2016 among commonly 283 respondents, which represent widest range of active readers. The research supports and summarizes the changes in the mass connotation of the stolen book in the foreshortening of the communicative practice „reading“ and supports the formulation of proposals about relevant tactics and approaches in the marketing and advertising of the books.


INTRODUCTION
For the realization of the communication with the book, like any media, it is necessary to receive a feedback. Without a feedback any book is just a "message in a state of expectation", a latent communication unit. The tracing of the social resonance, of the reflexion, of the relations, caused and generated by a book, is especially important for its authors and editors, because namely the "feedback" is this one, which gives meaning to the interaction with it and makes it "alive", operational. Namely the feedback is sealing the book as media phenomenon, because by definition it is a reaction and a process of re-reflexion of the displayed content in the book.
The question about the nature of the theft of book as feedback in the field of the reading is practically not been studied not only in the knowledge of the book and in the science of reading, but also in the psychology and sociology.
The concept of the "stolen book" is not necessarily negative. In order to reveal in a most objective way the communication energetics about the act of the theft of book, we should disregard from the criminal aspect of the phenomenon. The present text excludes from the subject of the research interest the crime theft, as any action, causing material damage. The choice of the theory about the feedback for the defence of the present thesis is motivated by its potential to upgrade the legal and economic interpretations of the theft of the book and to continue the rationalization of this act beyond the sphere of the criminal and of the pathological.

II. METHODOLOGY. MATERIALS AND METHODS
The thesis, defended in this exposition, is that it is accumulated a critical mass of circumstances for liberation of the attitude towards the stolen book as a communication phenomenon and for its emancipation in the field of marketing and advertising. For the first time this thesis is probated in a research report titled "The poor reader is unforgiving: The Bulgarian book is uncomfortable and it is made in unhygienic environment", presented at the round table "The EU integration and the space of the book", held on 26 th of May 2006 at the Book Fair in the National Palace of Culture in Sofia [1]. The new evidences for intensification of the positive connotation of the phenomenon "theft of book" in the context of the changing reader and accordingly to the concept about the book as medium will be seeked through document and discourse analysis. For the empirical examination of the thesis is used quantative toola survey. The method of the registration of the information is anonymous questionnaire, filled independently by every respondent. The survey was conducted twicethe first was held in 2013, and the second in 2016. The total number of processed questionnaires is 283 (57 from 2013 and 226 from 2016). The results are analyzed and summarized with a view to the objectivea check of the changes in the reader"s attitude towards the stolen book.

III. DEFINING THE TERMS
The process of the information communication in the classical cybernetic paradigm usually is featured through the linear scheme "source-recipient". The feedback (according to the principle of the complementarity) is an additional information channel in direction from the recipient towards the source. Technically this allows to the sender (the source) to derive information and to make conclusions regarding to the process of the information and regarding the way, by which the addressee (the recipient) receives the information. In general the purpose of the feedback is to check whether the result of the message coincides with the expected reaction.
By definition the feedback is a mechanism of interactive communication and means for control of the interactions. The feedback is the real mechanism of the interaction, as far as it is "the supporting reflex" of the heard, the read, the seen. But while the reflex is unconscious reaction, the fulfilling feedback is conscious information exchange with change of the direction and of the subject. As far as the book is neither only information, nor is only a communication channel, but mediatizised human extension, organoprojection of our intellectual body as an artificial medium for communication, it exists only through the reactions of its opposing forces.
For the concept "book" we will work with the following definition: the formatted medium (a notion for platform) abot the perception of strong ideas and knowledge, transferred by virtual image of some reality (a notion for text) [2, p. 69]. The encouragement of the reactions and the tracing of the effect of some book on the audience is a part of the cycle of the communication processthe reaction serves to stimulate, to lead, to activate or somehow to provoke an answer, change in the behavior or mass effect [3, p. 93].
The fact that there is a visible feedback with some book, already means, that it is accomplished as mediumthat it has found its readers, but not just buyers or owners, that it provoked in them some thoughts and impressions, that it provoked them to react in public, but not just to lurk in passivity or to self-satisfy in silence. The studies about resonance, which is achieved for instance through the reader"s requests in the libraries or through the citation, represent a necessary condition about the overall improvement of the system of the book.
In the present text the envisaged form of feedback towards a particular book (a theft) is from the type "stimulus -reaction‖ -it is implemented on the level of impulses, signals, reflex, but not on information exchange and fulfilling communication. In this sense one wider study on the same subject should be ralated with the behavioral theory of the behavior in the model "stimulusreaction", with psychology of attention, with sociology of the interest, with the cybernetic model of the communication and with the reflexive model of the book as medium.
Here the theft of book will be interpreted as reader"s reflexion and as specific social resonance of the actual interest to it.

A. The book is stimulant of the -mental content‖ of the reader
The resonance, the reflexions of a particular book, in the politics and show business, are shaping its "public image". However regarding the image of the book the situation is more different from the image of the people. According to the bibliopsychological theory of Nikolaï Roubakine the book is only a reagent, and its content (which is actually the object of the feedback in the process of the reading) is projection of the reader"s reactions [4]. According to this methodological treatment the book is an extension, extracorporal extension of second signal system of the author and acts as a reagent on the reader, as an external stimulus towards second signal system of the recipient. The book is neither a channel, nor translator, nor transmitter, but an exciter of individual psychic experiences. "The book content" is an exciter of "the psychic content" of the reader, its psychic correlate. In other words, the content of the book and its reader are in functional dependence: the content is not physical, but psychic phenomenon. As it is said in the terminology of Roubakine: the more are the readers of the book, the more are its contents [5]. And as far as every reader is building his projection of the read book, the total reflexion of the readers can never be objectiveit is objectified, personalized, group or prevailing social, but always subjective. Namely from this angle we should seek the reasons about the discrepancy in the reader"s estimates (among them are also the professional reviewers) of the "quality" of the book, in the perceptions and explanations about "the content" of the book. Therefore, by bibliopsychological position, if the author can have two facesa real (anthropological) and represented in public (an image), the book as an object of reading doesn"t have "a real" faceit has only image, besides always subjective.
It is quite logical that as a result from the concentration of the public attention, of the media and public propaganda around particular book, to appear criminal reflexions towards it, motivated by subjective, often irrational motives.

B. The bibliocleptomania as criminal act
Legally speaking the theft of book is an illegal act, a criminal act, a divesture of else"s property, a vandalism. But this criminal act can be examined as specific reader's reflexion by the type "bibliocleptomania". The bibliocleptomania is a pathological attraction to a theft of books and could be diagnosticized by six symptoms: collection of ubnormal amount of books, a sense of relief by the collection of books, reduce of the anxiety by the collection of books, obssessive collection of books, compulsive theft of books, reduced anxiety by theft of books.
In the conversation between Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière "This is not the end of the book" is touched just this topicabout the theft of bibliophilic editions and about the bibliocleptomania. According to Eco the most dangerous thieves are the bibliophiles, but not the ordinary robbers. They know for what kind of prey they are at the scene of a crime and they don"t stop until they carry it off. If the ordinary "panacea" thieves can"t steal the most precious book, this is the aim of the professionals. From the ordinary thieves we are protected by their ignorance, the owners of valuable libraries are his darlings, summarizes Carrière [6, pp. 329-330].

C. The theft of book as indicator of communication activity
Prior to argue the theft of book as form of feedback it is necessary to warn, that by media point of view as the buying of book, as the theft of book aren"t neither reading, nor feedback by passed process of reading.
The feedback is post-communication context process, which included the road of the reactive penetration of the book in the public mind, the developing of attitude towards it and its exteriorization back into reflexive field. In this sense the market interest towards the product, even if it is an indirect channel for the monitoring of the feedback, doesn"t provide relevant for the research purpose information. The theft of book is in the phase of the pre-communication and it is not necessarily bound by reading. Moreover the data about the circulation and about the sales of a particular book are often company secret or are exaggerated about the purposes of its marketing and advertising. And the theft of the book, as interest towards the object, is located in the pre-communication phase of the reading. However it is possible to appear in the post-communicative phase, as far as the reading is interruptible and susceptible to stretching and delaying in the time process. As the purchase, as also the thefts of the book are simultaneous practices. They are non-linear and they occur prior or during the reading by itself. The characteristic about them is that they are spontaneous, informal, non-directed and often anonymous.
Some important noticefor theft it is allowed to be discussed only in the context of the real relations and the real law. After theft the owner is deprived from something. And after "the transfer" of one content from one to another receptive world, the original is where it has been. As far as the terms "stolen reading" or "theft through reading" aren"t recognized in the law peace, the judgement would"t permit the readers to be equalized with thieves. Otherwise we should call "a thief" the 14-years-old Mozart, when in 1770, after a repeatedly listening of the liturgy in the cathedral "Saint Peter", memorizes the most guarded for its time musical composition "Miserere" by Gregorio Allegri and later transfers it on the music sheets.
The positive aspect of theftthe altruistic theft, has its roots in the mythology. Prometheus stoles the fire; the goddess Inanna/Ishtar stoles the knowledge Me from the Shumerian God Enki, to donate them to the people in her favorite city of Uruk. Only in Genesis and in the Book of Enoch the theft with altruistic purpose has a negative connotation. In the Book of Enoch we are reading, that all the arts, crafts, and even the cosmetic secrets are stolen by human daughters or by the angels, or by the giants. In the Old Testament Eve receives the knowledge by the snake and transmits it to Adam, which is also a kind of theft, because Lord is hiding it by then from the first people. But in the old alchemical tractates Isis accepts the secret knowledge from the angel and transmits them to her son Horus, than the New Time is beginning [7]. The receiving of the secret from Isis is considered for a great achievement. It happens a reversal of the values, despite the event by itself is the same: the female element (the female principle) takes the secret knowledge from deeper layers, and the mediator transmits it to the humanity.
The criminal reflextions towards the desired book we can define as alternative and marginal forms of feedback. The media theory of the book separates them in two categories: 1) Theft of the content.
2) Theft of the bearer.

1) Theft of the content
The actual theft of the content of a whole book or of part of it is known as "plagiarism". This phenomenon (with Latin origin: plagiooutrage, English meaning: plagiarismliterary theft) means appropriation of a big part of else"s literary work, publication of else"s work (or of parts of it) as own. The communication approach (besides the criminal) is considering it as a form of concealed feedback. The plagiarism, as the citation, is a powerful form of feedback with the book, because denotes a continuity and "a retun" towards read works. In this concrete case it is important to emphasize, that the plagiarism is a feedback with the purpose of theft, performed in state of "criptomnesia" (unconsciously) or intentional silence.
The stealing in the context of the intellectual race for the competition in the knowledge can be accepted as normal, as far as the activity "reading" by nature is poaching. The gene of this imperative characteristic of the reading occurs in the state of privatization and esoterisation of the objects for reading from changing during the time "pedagogical institutions" and "official interpretators", that are transforming the appetite readings in "reserves", in secured zones for "regulated hunting". In his "apology of the insolence of the reader" Michel de Certeau explains how the hating enclosures" reading human is forced to play tricks for a long time, to play out "the tunnel effect" as he "inserts his ingenuity in the cracks of the cultural orthodoxy" [8, pp. 275-277]. Like a poacher in the wood, he is watching the written; he is tracing it in a quiet step, he is finding new traces, he is making "hits" or he is surrending, he is feasting or he is starving, but he is never "conforming".
The reader with camera, who photographs parts of books or whole books with portable technical devices, can be found at all the places with physical booksin the library, at the bookfair, in the library reading room or just in the home library of the neighbor. The modern technically armed reader has invented a way "to steal" content by scanning with camera from his mobile phone. The Japanese booksellers tried in 2003 to increase their sellings as they forbided in all 20 000 bookstores the entry with a mobile phone [9]. The reason was that resourceful visitors, using miniature cameras with not bad qualities, started to photograph in the bookstores their needed pages from reference books and encyclopediasand then they instantly sent the photos to their personal email. The most zealous among them started to photograph thus even whole new books.
"A stolen" reading at the terrain of the trade facility was registered in Bulgaria. In February 2010 book sellers in Plovdiv told, that the clients are entering in the bookstores, not to shop, but isolated between the shelfs, to finish a book or to begin to read a new one. "Often during the lunch breaks we are visited by people, whom I observe and I note, that they are reading. They can"t afford to buy a book."is explaining compassionately one of the booksellers [10]. However this was an untypical symptom for the emergence of new type readers, born from the economic crisis.
"The thefts" of the content of books has marketing potential for the bookseller, which is expecting his profound research and use.

2) Theft of the bearer
The second nonconventional criteria about "read book"the theft of copies of concrete titles, deserves special attention. This is because the theft of book is a kind of risky individual reflection and sufficient reason for daring and risky activity regarding some readers.
From positive position we could say, that the true measure about the value and the popularity of one book is the frequency of its thefts. Realizing this painful for many people truth, from 2004 the members of one writer"s club from Kiev, Ukraine, awarded the prize "The most borrowed for reading and nonreturned author" [11]. The statistical information about the ranking the initiators of this prize receive from all the libraries in the country. But in them it is carried such kind of statisticsoperative and actual. In Bulgaria the fact of the theft is certified only when joins a new search for the same book or at the annual inventory of the library fund. In the passport of the book it is rarely said "stolen", but more often "non-returned", "not in place" or "missing".
A major breakthrough in the prejudices towards the theft of books happened during the Frankfurt Book Fair (10-14 October 2007), when the reader"s thievishness was experimentally recognized as positive. By a project of two media -Germany's ZDF Television and German tabloid Bild am Sonntag, was compiled a ranking of the titles, that are most often stolen from the stands of 15 leading German publishers. At this basis was announced indicator with an incredible marketing potential, that helps the publishers in the assessment of the public interest towards a new title, called "most stolen book" index. Gregor Moeller, marketing expert in "Luebbe Publishing House", sais: "This is unbelievable. People steal books, when they can. I just put the heap there and one hour later they were missing... We don"t know exactly how many books are stolen. But it is fair to say, that thousand of books are stolen every year. And of course, people steal only interesting books." [12]. According to Claudia Hanssen from Goldmann Verlag Publishing House the most stolen books are the same, ending the bestsellers lists. The marketologists, specializing in other trade shows, also confirmed, that the most stolen intellectual goods usually become subsequently the bestsellers [13].
Evidences about the positive connotation of the stolen book can be found in the PR-strategy of world famous writers. "The most read author in the Israeli prisons and the most stolen author in the Israeli bookstores"thus is announced the Israeli writer Etgar Keret in Bulgaria before the premiere of his collection of short stories "The bus driver, who wanted to be God" (at 21th of September 2010) [14]. "The brilliant storyteller Etgar Keret, the most read in the Israeli prisons and the most stolen in the Israeli bookstores"again with this accent was the advertising slogan of the most selling author in Israel for 2010 before his second visit in Bulgaria about the presentation of his new collection of short stories "The girl on the fridge" (13 th -15 th of September 2011) [15]. In an interview about a Bulgarian media the writer explains: "For me the ideal story is this one, with whom every person, young or old, identifies himself by one or another way. The fact, that the prisoners are reading my stories or that I am the most stolen author in Israel, is a great compliment. Nobody will steal a book, which he doesn"t care." [16] The thief of books is not necessarily dangerous, agree Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière in their conversation "This is not the end of the book". On the contrary, in history there are enough examples of thiefa savior of books and for books, that survived thanks to thieves [17, p. 177]. The bibliophile Carrière easily confesses that in him is hidden the profile of a thief of incunabula. He shares how he imagines in trance, that he breaks in the locked house of some snob collector and he burgles the most precious books [18, p. 182]. This shows that one of the natural features of the bibliophile is his tendency to bibliocleptomania.
Confessions about a bibliocleptoman experience serve us other writers. "I didn"t steal small books. I used to steal regularly and by many. Books, books, books. It was one significant criminal way for supply, because in fact I loved to read, and a possibility for gratis gave me the library."writes Falko Hennig in his book "Criminal career" [19]. "The book, which I remember in a best way, are those ones, which I stole in Mexico City, between aged seventeen and nineteen […] Later, when I stole this book ["The fall" by Camus] and when I read it, I transformed from attentive into insatiable reader and from thief of books into plunderer of books."this shares the great Latin American writer Roberto Bolaño in his collection of essays "Between parentheses" [20]. The theft of books as destiny and salvation is a theme in two other novelsin "Thieves of books" by Dimitar Korudziev [21] and in "The thief of book" by Markus Zusak [22].
It is not by chance that it exists "history of bibliocleptomania", found its scientific lobby in the study "History of reading" by Alberto Manguel: "We may not be inclined to justify the thefts of books, but the longing, which stays behind them, the desideration even for a moment to call one book yours is familiar to many more honest men and women, that we would like to admit" [23, p. 232].

V. PRESENTATION OF RESULTS
For the empirical examination of the accumulation of critical mass of circumstances for liberation of the attitude towards the stolen book as a communication phenomenon and for its emancipation on the field of marketing and advertising we used a survey. The method of registration of the information is anonymous questionnaire, filled individually by each respondent. We conducted the consultation twicefor the Profile of the respondents. In age respect in 2013 the majority of respondents are aged between 18 and 25. In 2016 in this age group also participated more people, but there is increase of the number of respondents aged between 25 and 40 (see Fig. 1). Regarding the education in 2013 the majority of respondents are with secondary education and students, and in 2016 the majority is from people with high education (see Fig.  2). Regarding the first key question the results from the both studies are very close and it shows a distance from the opinion of the theft of a book as criminal act. In 2013 40% accept as normal the act of theft of book, and in 2016 this answer is already given by the half of the respondents -50% (see Fig. 3).
The answer "I have never stolen books" is hidden in the second question, referred to the places of the theft. More than the half of the respondents in 2013 denied ever having committed theft of books -58%, and in 2016 these are only 29.1%. The others recognize for stolen book from a library, i.e. consciously non-returned -26% in 2013 and a little bit more -27% in 2016. In 2013 nobody admits that he has stolen a book from a library, but in 2016 an affirmative answer give 1% from the respondents. Approximately equal and low is the proportion of the people, that have stolen a book from open places, for instance from the street -4% in 2013 and 3.5% in 2016. Considerable number of respondents admit, that they have stolen a book from relatives, from friends, from colleagues, from a restaurant, from a fair/an exhibition, from the work place, from an old house etc. -12% in 2013 and many more -39.8% in 2016 (see Fig. 4). The third question reveals the reasons, because of which people seal books. It turns out that the majority can"t or doesn"t dare to show a concrete reasonan answer "I have no idea" in 2013 gave 40%, and in 2016 a little bit less -32.3%. The other mass answer is that the theft of book is due to the absence of financial possibility the thief to buy it -30% in 2013 and 31% in 2016. The acquittal of the theft because of financial reasons shows that this part of the respondents are not familiar with the possibilities of cheap legal use of books (for instance in a library). Convinced, that the thieves of books are doing this, in order to sell their prey, in 2013 are 11%, and in 2016 only 4.9%. According to 7% of the respondents in 2013 and 6% in 2016 the theft of book is due to a mental illness. In the column "Others" we find very original answers. For instance, that person steals a book, "in order not be stolen by others", or because "like this the book will bring more memories", or because "I wanted to read it right now!", or because this is credo of the reading person -"The stolen book is not like the bought. Every reader had to steal a book at least once in a lifetime... This is how it should be." (See Fig. 5).  Regarding the question that kind of books are mostly stolen, the respondents showed bigger activity in 2016. In 2013 almost the half of the respondents (47%) can"t show an answer, while in 2016 with "I don"t know" answered only 7.1%. To the answer "rare books" in 2013 have bet 23%, and in 2016 only 12.4%. The opinion, that people steal books because of the reading by itself, is shared in 2013 by a bigger number of respondents -19%, while in 2016 at this opinion are only 8%. At the open question the respondents in 2013 demonstrate high passivity, probably because they prefer the ready-made answers. Among the different answers we find matching positions: it is stolen the necessary, the interesting, the favorite, the valuable book. In the different variations it occurs the answer that people steal books, which are valuable only by their criteria, subjectively and personally significant books (see Fig. 6). The answers are in unison with the bibliophychological theory of Nikolaï Roubakine about the subjectivity of the book content.

VI. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the lead survey we can make a reassessment of the phenomenon "stolen book" beyond its criminal sense: 1. The theft of book is a manifestation of bibliophilic attitude, which in its pathological shape is famous as the collector"s mania or bibliocleptomania.
2. The theft of the book as a bearer is a sign of fetishism, a desire for possession of the object, a pragmatic materialism. The places for free and unlimited reading in the libraries are the more and more widespread accent in the book trading, but this doesn"t make senseless and doesn"t compensate the desire for thefts of copies. The conclusion is that the elimination of the theft of a book is possible only at the release of the book from its material carrier (its digitalization).
3. The theft of book is a manifestation of natural reader"s instinct, if we accept, that the reading by nature is "poaching" and the most expensive personal technology of the competition. The conclusion is that until there are reading people, the phenomenon is ineradicable.
4. The theft of book is a kind of individual privatized operation in the social-economical crisis and a sufficient cause for happiness for some readers.
5. The theft of book in cybernetic and informationcommunication sense is a form of reader"s feedback.
6. The theft of book is an alternative expression of reader"s reflexion towards it, of the provoked by the media social resonance and personal interest.
7. The stolen book doesn"t bring a negative connotation among the active and the natural readers.
8. The stolen book has a connotation of desired, interesting, necessary book. 9. The stolen book is a marketing correlate of the potential best-selling book. 2. For authors the stolen book is a marketing, PR and reputational tool. The fact, that particular book is often stolen, represents a compliment for the author.
3. The stolen book can be used as ingredient in the increasingly preferred provocative and daring marketing and provocative bookselling benefit both to the author and to the publisher.
It is fact, that confessions for tendency to bibliocleptomania among the bibliophiles are extremely rare; it is fact, that the majority of the best-selling authors rather feel ashamed of the statistics on thefts of their books; it is fact, that the recapitulation of the thefts of books from bookstores and libraries are puritan kept silent. But the outlined range of examples for emancipation of the positive connotation of the stolen book, supported by the empirical study, contains highly informative symptoms of one invisible and informal reader"s field, from which the marketers and the producers in the system of the book are bound to take advantage.