Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
This sounds good, too, providing you could work out the method of getting the appropriate monies to the copyright holder from any book production source (like, say, a Kinkos, or the office in my house). <SNIP!>
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But let's not try and set up a lawyer/government inspired system with with infinite complexity to prevent people avoiding paying - such systems end up paying their administrators more than their beneficiaries and are so expensive and complex to use that they provoke the end-user into trying to circumvent them.
How about a simple website where you enter the name of the work, the author, and the publisher - and a PayPal button (and a credit card payment system for the unPayPalled). And the option to send a letter with the same information and a currency note or postal order to an address. If you provide your name and (email?) address you get a receipt proving you have paid, if you don't then you don't. The existence of such a website/service must be well publicised and the website must be very easy to find.
If people don't pay the author is no worse off than at present, but the availability and promotion of a way of paying a small user fee when copying a copyright work will be a powerful incentive to the honest to encourage them to do so.
IMHO, to digress from the subject slightly, organisations like Project Gutenberg should do a deal with PayPal to let people give them 10 cents, if they wish - strictly voluntary, when downloading uncopyrighted work. At present PayPal take 30 cents plus their percentage from each payment which hurts with small donations, but as an organisation they care about their image and they might be prepared to devise a "micropay" system for small charitable donations.
James - who has been thinking about such things for many years