Let's pay authors directly

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

Which has nothing to to with a new 'Network', and has everything to do with people being able to make money off their work if they wish to.

Which means being able to keep control of their own works, and being allowed to continue to make their own choices about how it's presented, where it's presented, and for how much.

But how is the 'Newtwork' inadequate? Those who are interested in offering their works have been able to do so for ages, on their own sites. You've never pinpointed how the way the internet now works would be a sticking point for authors who wish to do their own thing. Nor pointed out how a new network would make their publishing chores easier.

Internet 2.0, but more likely 5.0 will not allow you to sell goods in the traditional manner. You will be allowed to upload. The price of your goods will then be determined algorithmically by demand. The network will also retain ownership over everything that is uploaded to it and send you royalty checks every quarter. (The network is a very strong AI at this point, it's all in the literature)

What exactly do you think the virtual space is? It is the collective consciousness of every user, everything contained within is owned by all.

The network is inadequate because it is unfinished.

But basically, once you show your work to another you have given up control about how it is presented and such, we've known this for thousands of years.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Internet 2.0, but more likely 5.0 will not allow you to sell goods in the traditional manner. You will be allowed to upload.

So an author will have less control over their artistic product than they do now?

Already sounding like a bad thing. All I see in that kind of future is the reinvention of the printing press, and then having to hide their illegal printed copies…

Sounds familiar. Read much Ray Bradbury?

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The price of your goods will then be determined algorithmically by demand.

So, no 100% free book society, because there are prices involved.

And how would this work exactly? Few sales mean the price stays low, and as it becomes popular the price gets higher? Or does slow 'sales' mean starting at a higher price?

Who decides how low is low, or how high is high? And does the New Internet take a cut to pay for it's own upkeep? Machines cost money to run. And who publicizes the new books? Lots of competition out there, how is anyone going to find what they want to read in the new stuff, so that the author gets more sales?

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The network will also retain ownership over everything that is uploaded to it and send you royalty checks every quarter. (The network is a very strong AI at this point, it's all in the literature)

So there still is Copyright. You can't retain complete control or ownership without specifying that there is and owner, and who it is, and define their rights and how they can protect it.

So your argument against Copyright just went out the window. Sounds just like an electronic Publisher, and how they gain control of an author's work by gaining Copyright and then selling the work on the open market, cutting the author in by the payment of advances and later by royalties, the amount being determined by the agreement by the author and publisher's contract.

And I wouldn't hold your breath on the AI thing. I've been around computers and knew some basic programming when everything entered on a computer was what the owner typed in. We're still 99% closer to computers being toasters with fancy, on-screen buttons than anything AI.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

What exactly do you think the virtual space is? It is the collective consciousness of every user, everything contained within is owned by all.

What, exactly do you mean my "Virtual Space"?

In computer terms, you mean to say "Virtual Reality" or "Virtual Environment". Which is defined as…

a computer-generated, three-dimensional representation of a setting in which the user of the technology perceives themselves to be and within which interaction takes place; also called virtual landscape, virtual space, virtual world

Which has nothing to do with "Collective Consciousness", nor shared ownership of anything.

If that's what you mean, then you don't understand what you're talking about. Not even close. Not a clue. If you mean something else, you need to explain how you define what you mean by "Virtual Space".

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The network is inadequate because it is unfinished.

I seriously doubt it will ever really be finished. We enjoy tweaking things too much. And we have yet to produce anything really perfect, anywhere.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

But basically, once you show your work to another you have given up control about how it is presented and such, we've known this for thousands of years.

I don't think we 'know' that at all. Creators have no control over how their work is seen and interpreted, whether it's admired/liked, abhor/hate or all the levels of disinterest in between.

But, no, I don't think control is given up. It just changes form and rules as time goes by.

[Giggleton]

You have zero control anyway, get over it. (to paraphrase some internet dude)

[carld]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

You have zero control anyway, get over it. (to paraphrase some internet dude)

"Get over it" is a discussion killing phrase. You automatically lose whatever point you're arguing.

[DavidKitson]

I think the most likely scenario for the future is this.

There will be a huge number of books of excellent quality available through e-method internationally and those wishing to make money from it will have to compete with those who don't. Functions such as editing and revision will be crowdsourced and the general quality of free and freely distributed books will exceed what the publishers can provide.

Authors will write books because they have a tale to tell and while some will develop a following and make money out of it, many will do it because they enjoy the creative process.

Educational texts will become almost predominantly covered by Creative Commons and only a few examples of non-fiction will be commercially produced. Even then, they will be widely copied despite improved public acceptance of copyright.

As a result, many authors will only write part-time and we'll see other forms of revenue generation become popular ( eg, linking a book to an online game service, with revenue provided by the game service, or linked advertising inside the story ).

Ultimately, people will see little value in paying for book-A when books B, C and D are free and of equal quality. DRM will remain for those who have to enforce payments, but it's more likely to be found on early-editions of expected bestsellers, technical books and restricted-access books.

I think the era of being able to write a book and expect to make a lot of money from is it well and truly behind us for the majority of writers. Internet 2.0 is a dream that some believe will protect their revenue, but I think when they wake up the realities of the world market will be colder than they would like.

Sure, they will be able to charge for their book and effectively restrict access without it being easily or widely compromised, but how well do you expect one vendor can sell icecreams when another vendor right next to him is not only giving them away for free, they have sprinkles on them too...

Same for books.

Regards
David

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by DavidKitson

Educational texts will become almost predominantly covered by Creative Commons and only a few examples of non-fiction will be commercially produced. Even then, they will be widely copied despite improved public acceptance of copyright.

But what is an educational text? I am educated by everything that I read, even your post And as such I should be able to invoke fair use and copy all texts, including your post as I have done, and I should be able to do so without any fear of legal repercussions. The idea of ownership is archaic, at least in the digital realm. Yes you might have created the ebook, but that does not mean I should not be restricted from sending that ebook to everyone I wish to,

There might be a case for not allowing me to share the ebook if the author has not already uploaded the book to internet 2.0, but once it's there it's free as the air to breathe as the saying goes.

The thing that is holding us back is in my opinion, the opinion that nothing free has any value.

As to OP, the sharing of an ebook could be taxed.

[Assassin]

All of this intelligent nonsense is about to make me throw up. I am not a great writer and never will be, but before I am forced to produce anything for free for a bunch of greedy "takers" I, and I believe I am not alone, will stop creating for the bunch of Socialist/Marxist who are incapable of creating on their own. The very idea that everything belongs to everyone is more idealistic crap that will never work because of one human characteristic; we are all lazy to some extent and only work and produce when there is something to be gained as individuals. Producing for the state and for my fellow man has never and will never work. All of this free nonsense will simply drive every endeavor to the point of mediocrity and failure. I'm just glad that I'm old enough that this garbage will not happen in my life time.

[Leyor]

Originally Posted by Assassin

I am not a great writer and never will be, but before I am forced to produce anything for free for a bunch of greedy "takers" I, and I believe I am not alone, will stop creating for the bunch of Socialist/Marxist who are incapable of creating on their own. ...we are all lazy to some extent and only work and produce when there is something to be gained as individuals. ...All of this free nonsense will simply drive every endeavor to the point of mediocrity and failure.

That's a pretty bleak outlook on things.

Taking the issue of giving or taking peoples work off the table, and just looking at your view on people and their motivations. Here's a really interesting short video of what really motivates us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

You can skip to 6:44 if you don't want to see it all, but its interesting.

It stipulates that you have highly skilled people volounteer their time, sometimes 20 and 30 hours a week and work for free. Challenge, Mastery and making a contribution is the key elements of what motivates us.

Working in a creative environment myself and seeing what my colleges are making in their sparetime, I agree with the above.

Some people might be lazy and only motivated by monetary rewards, but alot of people are motivated by more than that.

[elcreative]

But you can only give up this amount of time for free if you have already made enough to live on happily, are in an extremely high paid profession that only requires a limited amount of time or are a Mother Teresa...

It doesn't actually matter what motivates you, everybody is entitled to have a reasonable standard of living (reasonable being partially dependent on background) and if your creative endeavours can't provide this then surely your creativity is stifled regardless of "Challenge, Mastery and making a contribution..." Sounds great but means damn all if you end up on a production line 40 hours a week to earn something to live on...

Originally Posted by Leyor

It stipulates that you have highly skilled people volounteer their time, sometimes 20 and 30 hours a week and work for free. Challenge, Mastery and making a contribution is the key elements of what motivates us.

Working in a creative environment myself and seeing what my colleges are making in their sparetime, I agree with the above.

[Leyor]

True, you do need to earn a living.
But it's not like we have many full time authors being able to live off the profession as it is.

So my premise is really this: Much more than lazyness and greed motivates us.

My secondary premise is: People who are paid well in another profession, still takes their free time to create great works for free because they are motivated and want to contribute.

[elcreative]

As I've said in the other thread... money is not evil and there are actually quite a few authors who write full time, they do amount to only a small percentage of all authors but that's still a lot of people who produce a decent sized body of work... take their money away and the amount of work from any individual author will drop as they have to devote a considerable proportion of their time to earning a living... Money isn't the be all and end all for most of us but MONEY = TIME, time to do the things you want to do rather than the things you have to do...

Originally Posted by Leyor

True, you do need to earn a living.
But it's not like we have many full time authors being able to live off the profession as it is.

So my premise is really this: Much more than lazyness and greed motivates us.

My secondary premise is: People who are paid well in another profession, still takes their free time to create great works for free because they are motivated and want to contribute.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Assassin

All of this intelligent nonsense is about to make me throw up.

I agree with your sentiments. Except for the part about any of it being even slightly intelligent.

What I don't get is why so many people start with the presumption that the current system is broken--or even in the process of breaking. It's not. Most readers are not up in arms about the prices of ebooks. The concept of copyright is not under general attack. The vast majority of readers are perfectly fine with the way things are working (if they even bother to have an opinion). Ebooks are selling, regardless of the price tag that's put on them. Selling like hotcakes and gathering steam, in fact. There's just a tiny, vocal, online minority who are trying to convince the majority that the sky is falling. I assure you it's not. There will be tweaks and there will be concessions (and there should be), but what there won't be, is wholesale change. We're not capable.

I'm in favor of copyright reform. I'd like to see ebook prices come down. But acting like IP Zeigeist is some concrete, inevitable event that's just over the horizon is foolishness. The only thing on the horizon is stalemate... status quo with a new twist. And if that environment keeps my favorite authors in a state of mind conducive to creating works that I get vast amounts of pleasure out of (far more than I'm being charged for, in fact), then I'm more than OK with that.

A future where everyone has a right to do anything they want with anyone else's work, anytime they want is a pipe-dream--pipe-nightmare if you ask me.

[Assassin]

Thank you DiapDealer, I fully agree.

[Assassin]

Originally Posted by Leyor

That's a pretty bleak outlook on things.

I disagree. Our original discussion was on creativity and rewards and my reply is in that context. In my case I'm donating any profits from my second book to The Wounder Warrior Project to assist wounded soldiers and their families.

As for as donating, it is far different to compare people who have had successful and lucrative careers taking lower paying jobs for the enjoyment of a change, or giving their time in retirement to worthwhile causes against writers who are trying to build a following for their works. To that first group I would also include volunteers at hospital and library information desk etc. The difference is that while they give, they don't create anything. You're trying to compare apple to oranges.

There are many reason why writers will give their works away for free. Several I can think of are because the work is of poor quality, because there is no market for the subject matter, because they are unknown and are attempting to build a following and for marketing promotions. A few will even provide free works just because they are so inclined; but I believe these individuals do truly just enjoy writing but don't want to go through the hassle of marketing their works.
This issue of free works has only come about with the development of ebooks that carry minimal cost to the creator. Previously with pbooks the cost of publishing was so prohibitive that only groups with large endowments or some other source of funding could engage in giving them away. Or a writer might print his work and give it to a few immediate family members.

I fit into the free for marketing promotions group and expect at least a minimal payback for the months of work I put into creating a book and then the time spent marketing it. For without extensive marketing effort few ebooks are going to be noticed. Smashwords alone publishes over 5.000 books a month which makes the field extremely crowded.

[Leyor]

Originally Posted by Assassin

As for as donating, it is far different to compare people who have had successful and lucrative careers taking lower paying jobs for the enjoyment of a change, or giving their time in retirement to worthwhile causes against writers who are trying to build a following for their works. To that first group I would also include volunteers at hospital and library information desk etc. The difference is that while they give, they don't create anything. You're trying to compare apple to oranges.

I understand that you desire to profit from your hard work. I don't disagree with you at all on that expectation. I like to be paid for my work too.

My points here is that: Other things than money or expecting a reward comparable by the effort put in motivates many people, people who are creative and have the surplus energy and effort to dedicate to it.

I work in a creative work place, and while we aren't creative in a litterary sense, my coworkers are using alot of their spare time working on products that are free and innovative. Just as an example, my coworker in the office next to mine, is spending long hours into the evening trying to come up with a new type of contentshare application that'll allow you to make collaborative artworks.

As I've written, three things motivate people. I see helping out at as volounteering as wanting to Contribute. I see working on projects like that, and you writing a book as Mastery. So I don't think its apples or oranges at all.