[tirsales]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Here we see our quandry: Each side can claim to have already made the "first step," yet both sides insist the other side has not come "far enough." Neither side is being fully honest with the other, and both sides have legitimate grievances that the other side seems (at face value) to ignore. How can this situation possibly play out well?

Again - who wants the money?
If you own a shop - you must do what it takes so that customers buy in your shop. If you apply to strong secutiry measures and customers stay out - you either get out of business or you take a different approach.
Its easy ... the customer dictates the market.

And - what first steps did the publishers do? Offering DRM with an unreasonable set of limitations is not a first step - perhaps a step backward, but not a step towards the customers.

How this can come out well? The industrie wants me to give them money, to buy their merchandise, etc. That's okay. Offer me what I want and I will buy it.

Personally, I can't see how (to return to the title of this thread) copyright concerns will ever be settled on the existing internet as we know it.

And I again state that those concerns are neither based on facts nor on any solid reasoning. They are based on hysteria, on an unreasonable fear of change.

The fact of the matter is: You can't trust everybody.

Okay. You, the shopkeeper, install a team of security guards in front of your shop doors. Then you throw everybody out and let only people enter your shop who you explicitely trust and who sign a contract to not use the stuff purchased at your shop in the following ways (enter long list) and let you the shopkeeper enter their flat and keep track of their (that is the customers) phone calls so you can control that contract.
Guess what - you will not have a single customer.
And that is the approach the industrie takes? Perhaps they should start thinking again.

You cant force anybody to buy stuff - you have to convince them.


@Steve Jordan: You are selling your e-books without drm. Thanks for that. Then you stated, that you know that two of your books are on the darknet. But: This books keep getting bought. Thus the market is functional. There is no need for DRM or that "enforced copyright protection" or stuff. Believe me: You would sell less books if you insisted on drm or some kind of "control over your merchandise". Even if you loose one or two sales to the darknet - you will loose more by applying drm or similar.

You need control, but no one wants to grant even an iota of it, despite the potential for enhancing web and personal safety and fairness for all, for fear of the personal freedoms they will lose. Somebody always pisses in the pool.

You simply dont have any right to force control onto a majority of people and limit their freedom just because you fear - without any evidence to base your fear on - that a small minority MIGHT cost you an amount of money - though you still sell the same amount of stuff, etc.

What do publishers want? Total control over telephony, over the internet, over computers and how their stuff is used? At least - that is what they demand. All that to enforce some copyright? Actually - that is more then some police forces are demanding to counter terrorism .. A bit of an overreaction, dont you think?

[editing quite a bit of political content out - its ot here]

e-Publishing cannot overcome copyright concerns, because it is not within its purview to control the elements that threaten copyright. e-Publishing is literally at the mercy of the structure of the web, which is by nature anarchic. The web itself needs to rein in the anarchy, and enact controls over those elements, through enhanced security protocols, or copyright protection simply won't happen. All e-publishers can do is wait to see if it ever happens.

I reply: e-Publishing cannot overcome copyright concerns because publishers seem to be a bunch of histerics.

Why does the media-industry still sell films, musik, e-books, etc? Because the market is functional. Thats why. There is simply no need to enhance "copyright protection". That stuff is on the darknet - and it will always be. If there was any reason in the ranting of the publishing industrie, they wouldnt sell a single song or book or film anymore.

I wouldnt buy in a shop that searched my pockets without any reason for it. I wouldnt buy in a shop that enforces me to tell the shop-keeper how I use the stuff bought at his shop.
I once knew a shop who had too many security guards. It was creepy - wherever you looked you saw one. You never felt like "simply stralling through the shop, looking at stuff, buying what looks nice" - but more like "running it, grabbing what you need, paying, running out".
They lost customers. They lost customers so fast they changed back. Now they are accepting some small percentage of theft - but they make more money that way.
Its not fair, its not how it would be in a perfect world, etc - but the world is not perfect.

I buy a book in a shop, I read it - and then I lend it to friends, I even resell some of my books. I wouldnt buy in a shop that would prohibit me from doing that.
Stop believing that the e-market is so much different from the p-market - the customers are the same. And they dont give money to people who insist on affronting them.

And btw: The web is neither anarchistic nor anarchic, just not centrally controled. There is a huge difference between that. And who should enforce new controls? Germany? The Unites States of America? Iran? The industry? Me?
Actually I could live with the last one

I am a liberal. I believe that every constraint to freedom, to human rights, etc needs to be based on strong reasoning - and that the benefit of that restriction needs to outweigh the cost (the restriction itself).
So e.g. forbidding murder is reasonable. Restricting human rights (e.g. the sanctities of the home) because someone MIGHT loose some sales isnt. Especially if their is NOT A SINGLE PROOF that he is really loosing sales - and not gaining them.