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Originally Posted by Nick_Djinn
There is another ignorant assumption that people are making......That every pirated book, or book borrowed for free from a library, necessarily = lost revenue to the seller/author. This is simply not the case.
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Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see anyone making this claim in this thread. I for one don't hold that view.
But it's not really relevant. Replacing piracy with library ebooks, which will still incur fees, is a) too expensive, b) not going to fly politically, and c) might fail anyway. None of these problems are addressed by pointing out the incorrect 1:1 piracy loss ratio.
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Originally Posted by Nick_Djinn
Also, as an example of the last point, Microsoft stated that piracy HELPS Microsofts bottom line.....
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Sort of. They were very unhappy that their software was relentlessly pirated in China, but Gates figured it was better they were using pirated Windows instead of legit Linux.
Other companies do hold this view more explicitly though, and view the costs of piracy as an acceptable alternative to other forms of marketing. O'Reilly views ebook piracy this way.
Although your assertions may be correct, it's not really relevant to your proposal.
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Originally Posted by Nick_Djinn
Sometimes artists will put SOME of their books out into the creative commons, but not all of their newer work, and these free copies get people hooked and they end up getting sales they never would have gotten.
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Yes. Also, lots of writers and publishers will offer ebooks at $0 as a promotional tool while maintaining the copyrights (and charging for the books later).
But again... Not relevant to your proposal.