[tirsales]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

As was discussed a few pages back, my situation is not a good one to hold up to this particular light: I am not famous; I am not in print; I am not making my livelihood on my books; and therefore I am not one who is potentially losing a significant part of my income/profit through copyright infringement.

Yes. Potentially.
For a "potentially" publishers are giving up a whole market - a market that exists wether they take part or not. Wether publishers sell e-books or not: The darknet exists, people download content from the darknet, etc
The only way you can stop them from doing that is by giving them an alternative - an official ebook-market. A real, official, fair e-book-market.

The final point is the concrete problem. And yes, at this point in my writing "career," I do not suffer this problem. That does not mean others, especially published authors, are as lucky.

And I doubt it is that much of a problem as it is said to be. See the darknet as a possibility to get some advertisment.

I was not seeking to claim that this situation is costing me anything. I am trying to come to an understanding of why there is a copyright concern among publishers, why it should concern consumers as well, and what (if anything) can be done to mitigate those concerns and satisfy publishers and consumers alike.

I dont think that "the customers" can do anything about that problem. Nor do I think the law can do something - absolut control is not possible (or at least not in a democratic system) and short of absolut control nothing would change in the darknet-situation.

The only people who can change something are the publishers - by realizing this.
Tell "the public" about the problem - but tell them the real story, not the biased crap the industrie does.

Do you believe the system is fine the way it is?

The laws? No. They give publishers rights not even the police have.
But I believe we dont need any kind of tightening of the laws.
But we need more publishers willing to participate in that market, more people seeing that new market, more advertisement for the legal market - and less TV-spots criminalizing normal citizens, etc

Why are you in this thread? You could have simply answered the thread's question with "Yes," "No," or "Who cares?" and moved on. You must agree that there is a problem worth discussing here. What do you think the problem is?

I already stated what I think is the core of the problem: Hysteria. Fear of change. Ignorance of new technologies.

Who cares? I do. Because I love that new technologie and I really would love it to succeed.
Because I am very sensible about stuff like "freedom", "human rights", etc - and some publishers are acting against that.
Because I want to know what others think about the topic, what the problem is - because I really cannot see it that harsh.

There is a problem with the darknet. But it is a problem the publishers made themselves - by not giving real alternatives. And it is not a big a problem as the industrie would want us to believe.
I know some people who are downloading. Nearly none of the content would have been bought. And a fair amount gets bought because of downloads. In earlier times people recorded the radio or exchanged tapes - not that big of a difference for the media industrie.

I really do believe that a fair system, no-drm, fair prices, etc - much like Steve Jordans attempt so far I know it - would be a real alternative. A successfull alternative. An alternative that COULD "battle" the darknet much more successful then any law could do. THAT would be the alternative.