Quote:
Originally Posted by ekaser
I agree, ebook copies of books should be MUCH cheaper (only enough over the standard author royalty to cover editorial and server/distribution costs plus a small profit). BUT, you comment:
shows a big loop-hole (I want to say bullshit, but I'm trying to be polite) in your logic. People who want (recent) books for free have obviously never put three months to a year of their life into creating something. Then they would perhaps feel differently about "free culture." Our "common culture" doesn't just "spring into being" by itself. It's created by hard-working people, people who work just as much and just as hard as brick-layers and hardware engineers and any other occupations that you feel are worthy enough to get paid for their services. Yes, current copyright laws are ridiculous and current prices for ebooks are WAY too high, but that doesn't mean that authors shouldn't be paid by the people enjoying the fruits of their labors.
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Your claim that people with differing opinions have obviously never invested time in creation, and that anyone who has would agree with you is misguided. I disagree with you, and I used to be a craftsman and independent artist, and have had a few projects that took months to complete. I even made money doing it from time to time. Feel free to disagree, but trying to dismiss any opinion on the fallacious logic that anyone who disagrees must not have experience...that's hogwash. Perhaps I'm an inferior businessman, or perhaps I have an overinflated sense of generosity and fairness that borders on socialism (living too close to China I guess, even though I'm in the renegade province), but my opinion is what it is.
I only started buying books for the
opportunity to read since I moved to Taiwan, since the library system is sparse in terms of English materials, and the only places to get books are online or via a couple big bookstores. Before that, it was predominantly library access. I'd buy the
books I wanted to own.
But I didn't say I want all books to be free, or that authors shouldn't benefit from their cash cows. I don't have the college activist idealism that believes writers are selfless and altruistic (cynically speaking, only unsuccessful ones are, successful ones are too pragmatic for that nonsense). I was merely commenting on how the system of
relatively free access to current literature is not really transferable to the digital domain...and that there's very little reason to buy inferior books in digital formats save for space conservation and showing off electronic toys to shallow friends who purchase AC adapters and other accessories from the Apple store.
It's that pesky library's fault...we should ban those things because they are making people believe you can read books (yes, even a lot of new ones and not just Penguin popular classics) without paying for them. The information was free when available. For the latest and not-so-greatest, when not available at a library within a few weeks or a month of release, I could read at a bookstore over the course of a few days or weeks, or I could talk to someone who read it and have it loaned to me. Were I still in the USA where English materials are so easily accessed, I would no doubt still be doing this until someone discovered me in a bookstore reading something I hadn't purchased, promptly contacting the authorities to have me dragged away. Living in another country gives me some appreciation for just how freely available information was. Yet for some reason, people still bought books when they wanted to.
I explicitly stated "book prices" because I am not completely averse to paying for ebooks. I currently do so to save space and to read what I expect will be somewhat inferior books that I would not want taking up physical space on a bookshelf. I'm willing to because I think once the technology develops into something more closely approximating a tangible entity, digital books will have a stronger, more justifiable value. That value will remain less than a tangible copy, but it would get closer as the medium improves. Consider my "information free" statement to be a form of hyperbole when it applies to the digital realm.