[tirsales]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

And I repeat: I was not discussing DRM here.

And I repeat: Why are you insisting that copyright is vanishing? Or at least your questions implie this.

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...

You will ALWAYS find your books on the darknet - wether you publish e-books or not. That is not a criteria. Nor is wether 5% of people download your books from the darknet. You cannot do anything about that - just as you cannot do anything about people stealing books from the shop.
But that is really not the point. The question is wether you continue to sell books and wether you sell enough books. Downloads from the darknet DO NOT cost you sale. Ask Photoshop or Adobe (or the music industrie).
Do you sell those two books? Yes? Then why should the darknet links bother you? If you write good (sorry, I havent read any book from you to this point) people will continue reading your books. They load the first book from the darknet, and buy the second and third.
Relly. There is a study - I think it was the Stanford university though I am not sure - stating that the darknet actually increases sales. Because people listen into cds, then buy them. Because they can listen to a song, find it nice - and buy the next album of the artist. But they wont buy this album if it is easier and faster to be found on the darknet (and please include time to change the crappy wma-format you get from "official distributors" to something useable on your player).
Why is iTunes successful? All this music (all of it!) is available on the darknet. Because it is easier and more comfortable to use iTunes. People pay for comfort...

And comfortable means: Direct downloads to the device, from the device, at whatever position your user is. I know this is not possible ATM - but we're speaking of the future - but I guess you are on a very good way.
Or at least using a nice, fast, comfortable, easy to use and navigate, nicely structured, software to buy those books and load them to your device.

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.

Oh please - government and laws all around the world do everything to enhance copyright up to a braind-dead point (where breaking copyright is the only way to continue using something).

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.

I disagree strongly with you.
Copyrights protects your creations in any format. What else do you want?

Many people on the MR site and elsewhere have suggested that copyright is already obsolete and useless.

Many? I dont know many people stating that. I know people fighting against patenting every crap, against DRM, against xyz but not many people fighting against copyright...
There are some problems with the new market - but none impossible to solve. And none others didnt solve beforehand (e.g. music, video, software, etc industrie).

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.

What is un-enforcable about the darknet? Aren't e.g. software companies and license holders all around the world sueing against darknet users?
(The music industrie e.g. has a home-grown problem. They charge to much money, they have jumped on the digital wagon much to late, they enforce crappy but annoying drm, etc - that annoys customers, and so they download from the darknet - and still they earn money. And dont give me that crap about "loosing sales". They lost sales, but less then other industries. And quite a bit because they are so brain-dead stupid about the new technologies, about "copyright protected CDs" - that you can't play in your player, about annoying everybody with ads "against piracy" on legally baught CDs or DVDs, etc. And quite a bit because they charge to much - the price of a single CD nearly doubled, etc - and as every business man can tell you: Higher your prices will loose you sales).

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.

Oh please.
1) Every constitution known to me protects copyrights and property - and copyright is directly related to property - and changing a constitution is not that easy
2) There are many people who have an interest in copyright - all the creatives, authors, developers, musicians, scientists, large companys (after all patents are derivates from copyright), etc - you just wont see a future without copyright. Without civil rights, freedom or human rights - quite probably. A third world war? Yeah, why not. No copyright? No way - not even when abolishing money and destroying civilisation. Not unless you loose every property
3) Did you have a look at the sales figures for e-books, e-music, e-videos, etc? Are they increasing? Are they increasing much faster then every "normal" market? Yes? So what are you suggesting there?

People have always broken laws to get a benefit - they stole, they embezzeled, they murderd, they downloaded from the darknet - and they will continue to do so. And there is NOTHING you can change. That does not mean that you should abolish the police or laws or whatever - and it certainly is nothing that excuses disposing of freedom, human rights, or similar.
It has always been a question of "What is easier? What is more comfortable?" stealing the loaf of bread or buying it (with the money you earned beforehand). It is just the same with e-books.