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Old 10-22-2008, 09:06 AM   #61
LazyScot
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Posts: 3,201
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Hants, UK
Device: Kindle, Cybook
I have no idea how to answer this poll...

This is a fascinating poll, and one I cannot decide how to answer. In part, this is because I feel that, quite unintentionally, it suffers (in my view) from the Fallacy of Many Questions: it presupposes both that sales will increase if piracy isn't fought, and that anti-piracy techniques (legal and technical) are either present or not present (one might even argue that it presupposes that piracy is occuring!).

First off, I believe that a content creator has rights over their content and should be able to say what can be done with it. Without at least some action against piracy, does the content creator have any rights left? And if they don't, would they still create? (Money may not be the only motiviation -- think how you would feel if you created the most amazing song ever, and it was used to promote a political party you truly despise.)

I also believe most people are honest. Or at least are as honest as they know, and feel is justified. As has been said, at fair price they'll pay for content. However, taking a copy of something electronically is much less likely to be seen as dishonest. After all, its not like you are removing something physical, are you? I sometimes lend books to friends and neighbours. On more than one occasion, they have liked the author so much that rather than wait for me to perhaps get and finish the most recent book, they've gone out and bought it. If we have an electronic book which can be copied easily and trivially, what might happen?

On the other hand, assuming people are dishonest and forcing them to use complex systems that limit what they see as their "common law rights" can just generate the motivation to break DRM. It feels that too many DRM schemes have been designed by copyright lawyers let loose in a sweet shop--they've asked for everything they can possibly think of to constrain rights. At this point, I should mention that in my opinion some shops are trying to redress the balance somewhat, and should be supported in their efforts.

So I guess the question should be, how much effort (both technical and legal) should be put into fighting piracy?

I think this will be very much a sliding scale, in all dimensions. From a technical perspective I imagine this varying between nothing, through the occasional social conscience reminder "pop-up" all the way up to complex prevention systems that tightly constrain what you can read content on. In other words, their is no one answer.

So I think I agree with Lemurion's conclusion at the start, that it should be tailorable, but disagree in that I don't believe that that necessarily means completely ignoring piracy.
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