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Originally Posted by tirsales
I repeat: There is actually NOTHING but the copyright law that prevents them from doing so AS IT IS.
DRM changes drek about that. It is much too easy to circumvent or rightout break DRM - and those books are available on the darknet. Only the law (not caring about DRM that law...) and a sense of "morally right" or "fair" makes e-book-readers buy your books.
So - DRM changes nothing for your security as an author and annoys your customers.
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And I repeat: I was not discussing DRM here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales
What can you do to make people buy your books? Make it easy for them. Make it comfortable. If it is more comfortable then the darknet - people will buy those books not "steal" them.
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My books are available with free excerpts and descriptions to check out, for a low price, in 5 of the most popular formats, including on the Kindle store (plus RTF, to roll your own), and with NO DRM. I couldn't make it more comfortable, short of
paying you to take my books... and I know for a fact that 2 of my books are already on the darknet.
Maybe "making it comfortable" isn't quite enough...
Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales
But really - this is a serious question: Why are you assuming that copyright will vanish?
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I am not assuming copyright will vanish. I believe it must be changed to accommodate the modern world, and electronic files. But I can also see it being stripped of all power and value by a misunderstanding or foolish public/government, and undoing centuries of progress related to intellectual property.
I think there's a serious possibility that copyright could be gone within a generation, if appropriate steps are not taken to modernize it, and to bring the public in-line with it.
Many people on the MR site and elsewhere have suggested that copyright is
already obsolete and useless. If it is rendered un-enforceable by open document copying and distribution via the darknet, coupled with widespread use of the darknet over paid distribution channels (like Amazon, say), with no method of securing compensation to the creator short of voluntary donations (as some MR members have openly suggested they'd prefer), copyright will effectively be dead.
Copyright law is not something that has absolutely no chance to be abolished... like any law, it can be removed by the public, or the government, at their whim. And given the current atmosphere with electronic files, and a public that largely sees them as having zero value, the future of copyright law is in serious doubt.