[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Even if they knew their life's work had been available for free on the internet all along? Again, changing your mind about wanting your life's work to be available on the internet for free is perfectly fine. Misrepresenting the facts about why/where/how your life's work came to be available on the internet for free is not fine—even if you were stressed.

I don't think she ever wanted her life's work on the Internet for free. Why do you think she did?

Originally Posted by sourcejedi

Ouch.

The quote from Baen's Bar suggests she feels she "acquiesced" to having the CD available online, after the fact. Maybe she didn't read the small print in advance. Maybe she was working from an outdated mental model - home taping, as opposed to bittorrent.

It's not inconceivable someone could go from a politely acknowledging its existence, to deciding to try and take it down.

I think this is probably right, especially about the mental model. She knew that people who bought Cryoburn would get access to her other works. (Still a great deal if Cryoburn was $6...) She likely knew that sharing would be permitted. She may well not have known that "sharing" is a euphemism for making something available to the universe at large, and thus that the right to share doesn't just mean you can give a free copy to your sister; it means that you can put all of her work on the internet for anyone to download for free.

So, yeah, I'm thinking the home taping model.

Originally Posted by Dahak

The quote was 'The CD-ROM was by explicit permission; the pirate site was by aquiesence.'.

Which I've always found rather fascinating.

"Pirate site" is not accurate, of course - but this term, plus the term "acquiescence" suggests that she wasn't aware of the implications of her agreement.

If this had been Baen's second or third or fifth CD release, I might be able to accept that the author didn't understand what they were getting into, but this was the nineteenth or twentieth CD release - eight years after their first - with the exact same liberal distribution license.

This doesn't necessarily follow; there's no reason to assume she knew that the availability of a CD with a purchased book means that the contents of the CD would be available to everyone to download for free.

People familiar with digital distribution know that this is true empirically. But if you look at it from her POV, it's isn't particularly *logical.*

I.e.: "People who buy Cryoburn will receive a free copy of all of your previous works" doesn't imply "people who don't buy Cryoburn will also be be entitled to free copies of your previous work."

Similarly, "We are making the first volume of the Vorkosigan Saga available for free download on the site, on the theory that this will induce people to try it and then buy the rest of the books" doesn't imply that "Of course, people can also download the rest of your work for free."

Again, the ability for people to freely share her work permits all of this. But I have no problem seeing why she would believe that things worked differently.

There's a saying about doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.

Yes, but I'm not sure it applies in her case.