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Old 10-05-2012, 02:15 AM   #60
HarryT
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Join Date: Nov 2006
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taosaur View Post
It sounds like you are much more interested in thinking nasty thoughts about those you believe have wronged you than you are in actually monetizing your work. People who acquire your work through backchannels have not taken income away from you because you never had the money. What they have done is expressed satisfaction with your work and dissatisfaction with your distribution system. You may feel righteous telling them "My way or the highway!" but technology will not let you make good on that threat. In the meantime you are alienating all those "slime" who may be simultaneously part of your paying audience (obtaining something from pirates does not mean you obtain everything from pirates) and/or may become paying customers if either their circumstances or your distribution methods change.
This is sophistry, pure and simple. I have a right - both moral and legal - to expect payment from those who use my work, and those who use it without paying are taking money from me to which I am legally entitled. The law provides no practical mechanism for me to prosecute these people, and that is unjust. Copyright infringement laws, as they currently stand, provide no protection for the ordinary person, since only large companies can afford to take civil action against the offenders. I can't go to the police and say "Fred Bloggs is using my software without paying for it", even if he stands up and shouts from the rooftops that he's doing so. This is not justice, by any definition. If the law says to someone "you have these rights" then it should provide a mechanism to enforce those rights.

I'm not "money grabbing". I give away a lot of stuff for free (all the eBooks I upload to MR, for example), but I do eBooks for fun, and software for money. I don't think I'm being unreasonable in expecting to get paid for that software by people who choose to use it. I don't know how you make your living, but, whatever you do for a job, you probably expect to get paid for it. Current copyright law does not provide a practical method for creators of intellectual property to ensure that they do get paid for their work.

Last edited by HarryT; 10-05-2012 at 03:08 AM.
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