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Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
Are you saying it's acceptable to steal, then? I, as a member of the society at large, would disagree.
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I'm with you, here.
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Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
I also take umbrage to the implication that I, and all content producers, treat my customers as thieves. The act of applying security to one's goods to prevent theft is NOT treating all customers as thieves. Security is designed to deter actual thieves. Non-thieves should not be inconvenienced by the existence of security, any more than is necessary to deter actual thieves.
However, I also made clear in my comment that a balance should be struck between applying security and inconveniencing customers (by which, I mean honest customers... not the thieves).
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Here it is!
I think a new model has to be thought where security is not an issue at all.
No need for "security", no annoyed customers.
We need to accept that we can't do nothing against smart "thieves", though...
For how smart the business model is, there will always be a smarter pirate who gets the content for free. That's to be accepted, rather than dealt with.
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Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
Presently, digital security systems do not strike a good balance, and that needs to be fixed. However, "a good balance" doesn't mean "swing the doors open, turn your back and let the consumers do what they will." That particular sales method hasn't been successful for too many content producers, and it isn't going to get any better.
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The only acceptable balance is: make your customers happy, and ignore the irriducible pirates. If you try to act on the latter, you won't stop them, and you'll just annoy some of the former...
It will work well only if we abandon that obsolete "per copy" model, ad switch to a more efficient lifetime licensing model....
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Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
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THIS is the issue: A need to redesign our commercial and ownership traditions to accommodate the new technology, and to provide some product security to producers while allowing consumers to use the products appropriately.
Those 20-somethings won't "wonder" anything, as long as they can enjoy their digital media, and share it with their friends... something very little of the digital media make hard to do.
"Ownership" in a mass-production and/or digital world is largely an abstraction, and we shouldn't get hung up on definitions; what matters is finding the balance between a producer's right to protect and control their production, and the consumer's right to enjoy the production in a satisfying way.
Right now, that balance is tipped in the consumer's favor, and it needs to be brought to a more even level (for the producer's benefit) without ticking off the consumers and causing them to not buy (or to steal). It can be done, but the longer we wait and do nothing, the harder the transition will be.
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Here we are.
It's time to decouple the pricing of the content from the pricing of the medium.
I'd like to buy a lifetime unlimited access to "Verdant Skies", no matter the medium i read it on.
Having paid you for it, I will pay just the material value of the medium, without repaying the content every time.
For example: I pay you 10$ for the content. I don't have the book still, just a right to access it.
With this right in my hand, I can buy a special handcrafted print for 50$, an audio cd for 15$ or an epub file for 3$. Or all of them.
Whatever I choose, you don't get other money from every other "copy" I buy.
But everybody who works to produce those "hard" copies is paid.
And I know exactly what I'm buying.
Easy to implement with present time technology?
Yes. A smart card and a good database will do it.
Easy to enforce?
No.
But, like I said, you can't do nothing against smart pirates. They'll always get it for free.
Happy customers?
As long as you write good, well edited stories, yes. The better your books, the more likely they'll buy more.
