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Originally Posted by garygibsonsf
Unless I've managed to miss it, nobody really seems to be talking about the actual relationship between free downloading of books and its effect of sales; ie, is there any evidence that downloading of ebooks is negatively affecting the purchase of the paper variety?
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Problem is, there is simply no reliable data on the issue. With only anecdotal evidence, there's little to be settled here. Only if (when?) ISPs have the ability to track actual traffic contents will we ever really know the "pirate" numbers, and can then infer actual relationships with legitimately-purchased material.
Quote:
Originally Posted by garygibsonsf
According to some of the arguments concerning copyright infringement, J.K. Rowling should be a pauper living on soup by candlelight since, presumably, nobody would bother buying any of her books over the last decade if they could download them free online instead. Similarly, nobody would bother going to the cinemas to see the related films because ... etc.
Yet despite this, and despite the fact every one of her books hits the 'net about as fast as you can say 'Microsoft Windows sucks', her personal wealth is in the reported region of three hundred million British pounds.
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Which effectively illustrates the point that anecdotal data is largely worthless here.
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Originally Posted by garygibsonsf
Surely the focus over the legality of c.i. should be not on technical or moral questions but rather on: who wins, who loses?
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Exactly: Remove the moral ambiguities and quantum physics, and reduce it to simple, understandable "fairness" issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by garygibsonsf
My conclusion: there is no threat.
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OCR'd texts may be bad now... but scanners, PC hardware and OCR software are improving day be day, and at some point, those OCR'd texts will be pretty close to verbatim what's on the printed page. Best not to wait until then to take steps... act now, while there is still time to get the public on-board with a quality product.