Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Perhaps you have not had the experience of seeing people steal your work day after day, year after year. If you had, you would perhaps understand the attitude of those of us who do not take these matters lightly. The sad fact is that the law provides us with virtually no recourse against these thieves. Copyright infringement is not something which only affects large corporations; it affects ordinary people, too.
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Since we are talking about electronic copies here...
Ebooks have opened a large new market for publishers. One that did not exist prior. In exchange for the billions of dollars (pounds, euros, etc), the publishers have to live with some shrinkage. The same as all businesses.
However, in the case of digital content, the publishers have only themselves to blame for this shrinkage. Because they made it so easy to copy their product.
The publishers could have established tight control of their electronic product. For example, ebooks could be published on read-only physical encrypted cards, say the size of a credit card (so you can still have a cover image). This card would be inserted in the ereader to read the book. While there would still be counterfeiting in this scenario, it would be done by only by serious criminals and not casually as is now the case.
While I agree that having people steal your work is bad, in many ways it is the fault of the publishers for taking the easy way out and making stealing from them so very easy.
If the figurative you set up a table in any High Street and put an inch thick stack five pound notes on it, and exited the scene (as they say), we'd all think that you were an idiot to not expect the money to be stolen. Even if it was only a single fiver, we'd still think you were an idiot.