|
I agree with what some others here have said about Stallman. He's a few years late in taking much-needed medication, apparently.
Are e-books currently restrictive? DRM'd ones are, sure. But you don't have to buy DRM'd e-books. There are plenty without DRM.
As far as Stallman's idea of paying an author based on his/her popularity: Well, duh. That's what the price of the e-book is for. The author gets a percentage of each sale, so more popular authors get more money. Seems fairly simple to me. But if you use tax dollars to pay authors, you're in for a world of hurt. Look at the brouhaha over the NEA (in the U.S., at least). People tend not to like it when you use tax money to support the arts, because some of that money inevitably goes towards supporting art they don't like.
As for the "pay only if you like it" model, that's a non-starter. Who, in their right mind, would work based on such a model over the long term? "Sure. I'll build that addition to your house. Don't worry about paying me unless you like it." Um...yeah. I don't think so. And Amazon already has a generous return policy on e-books. But the key difference is, you have to pay first. You don't just get a book and then decide if you're going to pay for it.
To sum up (at the risk of sounding repetitive to the posts before mine): Stallman is a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
|