03-28-2008, 03:36 AM | #16 |
Wizard
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That's not quite correct: a high risk of being caught is a good, and in fact the only known effective, deterrent. Which suggests a completely different approach to preventing piracy: watermarking each file you sell to someone, be it an mp3 or an e-book, with the identity of the buyer. This works reasonably well with music, AFAIK. I'm not quite sure how you'd implement effective watermarking (i.e. one that is hard or impossible to remove) on a text file, though.
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03-28-2008, 06:10 AM | #17 |
Grand Sorcerer
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You need to do real studies. The people you are interested in influencing is the people that want to read a book and then downloads it illegally for convenience reasons or other for them reasonable reasons.
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03-28-2008, 07:01 AM | #18 | |
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Since I'm one guy in the suburbs who works for a living, my studies are here: Initiating, participating in, and taking information from websites like this, and people like you. The message I'm getting from my "studies" is pretty clear, too: Unless I become blisteringly famous and can wrangle a deal with some big-name advertiser, this field will never make me more than lunch money, and eventually, I will give it up when I need to get a job that does pay. Because, between people who want a free ride, people who like defying authority, and people who are just plain crooks, this field will never amount to anything for most of the guys outside of the publishing castle... they'll be hacked to bits unless they can get on the inside track. I have yet to see or hear anything to convince me otherwise, nor have I heard much encouragement that there is a way that works, other than "just being reeeally, reeeealllly nice to us." Meh. We're all trying to find a way to help this market grow and prosper. So far, nothing we're doing is doing much good. Amazon's done more with one device than all of our posts and threads, multiplied by the number of other sites that engage in similar discussions, combined. I hope that worries some of you as much as it worries me. Of course, I know it doesn't worry some of you at all... so be it. But it's worth thinking about if we're accomplishing anything other than to hear ourselves talk. And speaking of which: Rant over. I guess there's no more to be learned from this discussion, anyway. |
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03-28-2008, 07:19 AM | #19 | |
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You have to distinguish between collectors of data files like books and actual readers. |
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03-28-2008, 07:21 AM | #20 |
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ISPs are not police and should not be expected to perform that role.
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03-28-2008, 08:59 AM | #21 | |
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Why would anyone give gifts no one wants, asks for, or uses? Even for this situation, that's phenomenally stupid. So I'd suggest there's a problem with this assumption... the fact that you have no hard data on reading means nothing, since no one's gathering data in the Darknet. Statements like that are anecdotal, but otherwise useless. If it could be ascertained that the Darknet held no threat, by sheer reliable data, publishers would not try to protect their content to keep it off of the Darknet. QED. We need more than beliefs that "I'm missing the point." |
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03-28-2008, 09:04 AM | #22 | |
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No business is above the law, and if they can take steps where they have influence to cut back on illegal activities, there's no reason why they shouldn't. I wasn't suggesting the ISPs would become the arm of the Justice Department... just that they should be willing to mitigate illegal activities that take place on their networks, and to alert authorities to activities they are aware of. (Cue "Big Brother" responses now.) |
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03-28-2008, 09:28 AM | #23 | |||
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Quote:
Quote:
One obvious use is that you want to search the book. And of course you can use the collection to combine it with other books and make an even better collection that you can give away. Quote:
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03-28-2008, 09:57 AM | #24 | |
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So, our discussions of the Darknet essentially cancel each other out, like matter and anti-matter, eh? (I won't get into which is which... ) It makes little difference, if the publishers feel that the Darknet is a threat. And if publishers don't want to release e-books without DRM, they're obviously threatened by something, real or perceived. |
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03-28-2008, 10:28 AM | #25 |
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At the risk of introducing some humor and lightness into the discussion, I read a comic who's strips for the last several days seem eerily relevant, though it doesn't become obvious how, until today's strip.
Starting here, and running through today. Past experience suggests that the cartoonist isn't done with the topic yet. |
03-28-2008, 12:33 PM | #26 | |
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03-28-2008, 12:47 PM | #27 | ||
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This has proven a workable model for TV and radio advertisers, but so far, it has not been demonstrated as successful for e-books. Quote:
Oh, by the way Natch: I laughed. On the inside. |
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03-28-2008, 01:54 PM | #28 |
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I think at least some of the differences of opinion in this thread can be ascribed to different people having different priorities. When dealing with the darknet we have three basic options: 1) attempt to minimize infringement and downloading at all costs. 2) accept that it exists and attempt to monetize as many downloads as possible. 3) work for some sort of balance between 1 and 2.
My personal opinion is that it's better to focus on converting downloads to sales and increasing monetization than on simply stopping illegal downloading. Among other things I think this is a more realizable goal in the relatively near term. I think the truth of the darknet is that not all downloads are lost sales. Some are simply people trying to amass the biggest collection of "free" stuff they can. They download what' there and ignore what's not. While an annoyance they aren't really a lost sale because they weren't going to buy anything anyway. I think of them as "indiscriminate" downloaders. The next category are what I think of as "discriminate" downloaders. They're looking for a specific book and some are lost sales and some aren't. If they're looking for something that's unavailable they are not a lost sale because there's nothing to sell. This is where people like J.K. Rowling seem to miss the boat. By not providing an electronic copy that's legally available they've guaranteed that no one who reads an electronic version of any Harry Potter book will have paid for it. Finding the balance is going to be hard, and I don't think anyone has worked out all the kinks yet. I think Baen has come closer than most and while I think Tor could follow their model quite successfully I don't know that it would work for everyone. (It might, but there's no way to tell). |
03-28-2008, 08:39 PM | #29 |
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03-28-2008, 08:41 PM | #30 |
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People tend to (more so) give away things they've had to break the DRM on then things that are user friendly like Baen's eBooks.
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