Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
3. a nationalistic and anti-Communist system of government like that of Italy 1922-43, where all aspects of society are controlled by the state and all criticism or opposition is suppressed.
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We're talking about protecting personal intellectual property... not locking people up because they look cross-eyed at a dictator.
When I mention China, it is not with the idea that we should emulate their political system,
nor have I ever advocated such... it is held up as only one example of the
fact that the internet, like any communications entity, can be regulated by an authority.
If you're so frightened of the very idea of "emulating" China, then fine... don't. Instead, you can emulate the corporate, democratic, capitalistic practices of Verizon and Comcast, who exercise monopolistic control of their communications systems, collect data on who we speak to and what we watch, hold our credit card numbers, can disconnect us at their whim, can refuse us access to communications lines at will, and are answerable to no public entity.
And who, I notice, don't have particularly large crowds with torches and pitchforks at their door, protesting their actions.
They do, however, have government regulations to answer to (thin as they are), preventing them from running rampant over us and charging $30 for a 2-minute call across town. And look... I'm not handcuffed to my cellphone. I can disable the built-in GPS system. I can even (shudder) turn it off at will. Government regulations accomplished that...
not the desires of the phone company.
If you really believe that taking steps to protect my intellectual property can only result in the world's population being manacled to their chairs, cameras pointed at them 24-7, and forced to watch propaganda videos until they are sufficiently brainwashed, I can only say that it will take much, much more than a few authors' desire to make a few bucks to accomplish that.
If, on the other hand, you see nothing wrong with a clearly broken system that presently upsets creators, publishers, and consumers alike, and gives no sign that it will magically fix itself, then I suppose you'd enjoy an e-book market that will see no appreciable progress, other than the Kindle, for the next 10 years.
But let's try to keep clear heads here, stop accusing each other of being monsters, and discuss the matter at hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
Change your concern to a concern of how to make money instead. I am pretty sure that you have to use the same methods as other authors to make money. Look at how people that self publish paper books makes money for example. Worrying about copyright infringement seems to be counter productive.
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If the solution is print... that's not much of a solution to me. Print makes little practical sense, it is only part of a closed, controlled, wasteful, elitist market, and it is not a direction I would prefer to go in at this time, even if I could. Self-printing, while less wasteful than corporate publishing, is still a wasteful process, too expensive at low volumes to be cost-effective. It is mainly a way to emulate the aforementioned Big Publisher's market, but without the cost-effectiveness of mass production.
This is why I have embraced e-books. However, e-books provide no protection to my intellectual property... they are the equivalent of attaching the complete recipe for Coca-Cola onto the side of the bottle. This also means that my IP is more at-risk than a print published author, who makes the bulk of their money off of print products, which in turn circulate through a Big Publishing machine already regulated to limit intellectual infringement and theft, and can therefore afford to give e-books away for free.
Using the drinks analogy, their Pepsi product is being dispensed at the bar that everyone already patronizes, no recipe for patrons, just a logo and a bill. And the bar doesn't want to sell my Coca-Cola, since they have Pepsi. Patrons can't go home and recreate Pepsi... but they can go home and recreate my Coke, because the recipe is right there.
Of course, they probably won't ever find out about my Coke. But if they do, and it actually turns out to be more desirable than Pepsi, there will be nothing stopping someone else from recreating, rebranding and selling my Coke and making the money from my recipe. Because my IP has no protection.
So: How do I compete with the makers of Pepsi, as well as the makers of Koack? Should I have no legal recourse to protecting my Coke recipe from bootleggers? Is it right for the Big Guys and the thieves to just walk all over me, steal my product, and leave me with scraps?
In short, am I condemned to be the small fish in the big pond, with no hope but that I don't see the big fish coming that inevitably gobbles me up?
(Minor point: I am a citizen, too.)