On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:43:22 -0400, retard <r...@tard.com.invalid> wrote:
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:18:26 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:36:49 -0400, retard <r...@tard.com.invalid> wrote:
Assume the library bought the damn book and someone always provides
copies of the books online. In that case it really doesn't make any
difference financially if I lent it or downloaded from the web and
destroyed the copy.
In fact it does. When the library has lent out the book, nobody else
can use it.
Actually they can. You can read it loud just like the teacher used to do
in the elementary school. You can also share the book with a friend
unlike in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html - the
copyright mafia is constantly inventing new ways to restrict use.
And that will never change. It hasn't in a hundred years. Richard
Stallman predicting the future is hardly evidence of anything ;)
Let's not forget that we have an open society where everything is openly
debated, and where our elected officials are held accountable for their
actions (like they will be this November). First, the chances of
copyright law being changed to alter the provisions of fair-use is 0. The
DMCA is an atrocity, and should be repealed, but it probably will lose its
teeth the first time it's tested in court. And second, any changes will
have to be judged against existing law by trials.
The point is, all types of fair-use are accounted for in the pricing
structure of the book. Once you start having "unfair use" or piracy, the
pricing model doesn't work, and without laws to protect against such
abuses, its quite possible that we would have a much less innovative
society, with less books or crappier books. Shit, just look at the
over-abundance of totally crappy open source software versus for-sale
software. For-sale software that sucks doesn't last very long.
The reason money is lost is
because you are destroying the publisher's assumption, and his entire
pricing structure is based on it. If he knew half the people who read
the book were going to download it without paying for it, he'd charge
more, or simply not publish because it's not worth it.
The loss of money might not be that important. The greater goal is to
educate people.
Educating people doesn't feed your family. Making money does. If
educating people doesn't make you money, then you're likely to do
something else, especially if you have the intelligence to write a good
book.
I suppose only millionaires with lots of time on their hands (although
that happens very rarely) would be the ones to write books?
The publisher must make such assumptions because the COG for a
book is not worth nearly as much as creating the IP that goes into the
book. The law protects them so they can make those assumptions and
remain a profitable company. Without the law, publishers go out of
business, and books are never created in the first place.
That's hardly the case. One reason why open sourced books are so rare is
that the capitalistic finance system competes with voluntary work. For
example, when Andrei writes a book about D, he probably wants money
(because life isn't free), money (because he wants to be richer than some
low class douchebag trolling in the newsgroups), he wants fame (talks,
job offers, other contacts), he wants to contribute to the development of
D. If the money was provided by other means, there wouldn't be a need for
profits from the book anymore, thus piracy would be acceptable.
Oh yeah, how dare people try to make money off of books. Who do they
think they are? People should just spend years writing books and give
them away for free, so I can benefit and they can starve. That's the way
it should be!
I can see where you got your name ;)
The plus side of capitalism is that it encourages writing books. The bad
thing is (if you're a novelist), you basically *have to* always write
something, because there's no other way to get money unless you change
your profession. If you have high moral and you know that you can only
write one good book during your lifetime, you should stop writing crappy
books after The book and collecting money with your previous fame. Here,
capitalism might encourage you to waste the rest of your time hurting the
society. Capitalism isn't equal to justice in all cases.
Crappy books don't sell, that's how capitalism works. You seem to have a
very twisted view on reality.
Here's another way to think about it: Let's say a publisher wants to
publish a book, but before doing so, accepts fees from all people who
potentially will buy the book, until it has enough to pay the author and
make a profit.
You can't know how much is enough.
Trust me, the publishers know exactly how many copies they need to sell to
make a sustainable profit.
Then when the book is finished, you get your copy. How
well do you think this model will work? Essentially it's the same as
the current model, but now *you* are taking all the risk, not the
publisher. Who wants to do that? I want to peruse a book before buying
it, how can that work if I have to pay for it before it's written?
I think sites like wikipedia work this way.
wikipedia writes books? And charges fees for the contract of writing
them? I've never heard of that...
What people don't understand is the *act* of copying something isn't
illegal.
They perfectly understand that it's illegal. They don't care because it
feels irrational and unjust. That's it.
No, it's *legal*. What's not legal is giving the copies to others. Many
people *do not get it*. They think if they can do something, and do it
easily, then why should it be illegal? Especially when they have legally
obtained all the items necessary to pirate.
Ignorance is probably less prevalent now that individuals are being sued
over their actions, but I'd say most people still don't get how copyright
works, and what rights they have. Almost everyone I've ever told that
copying music and giving it to a friend is illegal were defiantly ignorant
about it, not defiantly knowledgeable. I was probably in that majority
until I really studied copyright laws when the DMCA/decss controversy was
around.
-Steve
