Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
They don't have to "buy into" the system if they don't want to. They just have to be prevented from taking actions that corrupt that system.
We come back to the cable metaphor: Don't like your cable company? Don't buy cable, no one's got a gun to your head. Of course, in that case, there are legal alternatives to cable (satellite, airwaves, DVDs, theaters, etc) as well as not watching TV. Perhaps ebooks need an alternative delivery medium that can be more easily controlled, such as embedding them on hard storage medium as movies are embedded on DVDs. Not ideal for such a wonderfully digital medium, but perhaps in the name of practical legality, it might be desirable for many.
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What I was trying to say is that there is no way to make everyone in the world to do what you think they should do. No matter what you do there will always be someone wearing fake Prada or rocking a fake Louie. The fake Rolex is so well known that it's become a joke. Have you ever been to NYC? It's awash with people on the side of the street selling every fake thing you can ever imagine.
There is no way to get everyone to buy into the system so start ignoring
everyone and start focusing on your customer. That's where your sales are and those are the people you want to think about you and the quality work you produce. It's also become about branding. Publishers and booksellers need to brand themselves with quality and great customer service - which (with the exception of Amazon) they do not do.
Copyright Infringement is wrong and should come with punishment...but spending all the time and money looking for a thief behind every bush instead of polishing your product makes little to no sense.
I think that giving bootleg books the same social stigma of wearing fake christian louboutins would work. The idea of being a pirate is cool and invokes the idea of going against the establishment. You even get a cool skull and crossbones logo to go with it. The idea of toting a fake Louie invokes the vision of cheap and/or tacky. The same basic idea applies - if you can't afford it, don't pretend.