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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Wrong. The content is the value.
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Like I said - there is really no big difference between a p-book and an e-book because the important thing about the book is identical: The content.
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Copyright (yes, back to the point of the thread. Ha ha!) was invented by men who believed that content, ideas themselves, had value, and needed to be protected as much as manufactured inventions. Copyright served to protect the author whose books were printed by another publisher without his consent, and without compensation. And it worked, because people and governments agreed to enforce that protection.
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I agree. I have absolutely NO reason to object to copyrights - as I told some posts ago I develop software for a living. Both things - books and software - are protected by the same copyright laws (at least in Germany). (Okay, I lied - I also work as a system administrator - but most of my working time is nowadays spend developing and refactoring).
I have many reasons to protect against DRM. NOT against copyright.
I have no reason to not pay for the content - in fact I think, that e-books can in fact apply a higher margin "for the content itself" then p-books, because the container costs less. This does NOT reduce the worth of the e-book.
I would glady pay the same amount of money for an e-book as for an p-book if (and only if) the e-book is non-DRM'd - but then I WOULD pay that amount.
But - publishers and authors need to understand the position of readers. We do NOT want to limit ourselves to a special store or a special device or only reading when the moon is rising or any other arbitrary crap. I want to be able to read this e-book on whatever reader I want at whatever time I want and as often as I want.
Yes - I pay for that. As I pay for a p-book. But I essentially want to get the same accessibility and stuff.
E.g. a book gets released and at first it gets released as hard-cover for e.g. 25$. Sell the e-book for ~18$ (yeah, I know. But a hard-cover is really much more expensive to do). Then the soft-cover gets released for e.g. 9.95$ - sell the e-book for 9.95$ (without DRM or similar crap) - and we have an agreement. Let me use this e-book as I use a p-book and we are set.
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Only when (or if) governments, backed by the public, come to an agreement that e-books, regardless of their method of delivery, deserve protection, can we expect copyright to mean anything in regard to e-books.
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As far as it goes copyright laws enforce copyright protection no matter the method of delivery.
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I believe the public can be brought to understand that it is within their best interests to recognize e-books as objects of value, just like a paper-bound book, because they both carry valuable content. Not all the public is there yet... no one has yet made the compelling argument, the "Common Sense" doctrine, that everyone accepts... but I believe it will come.
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I agree - and I hope you are right.