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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Okay, number 1 may or may not be a good assumption for e-books... they can be hard to find just because there's so much stuff out there, and they're not necessarily valuable.
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Basic economics: If you print 20 copies, but there are 100 people who want to buy them, you've made those 20 copies valuable.
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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Of course, Flint didn't mention one more point: That copying for a friend or relative is a popular e-pastime, is not done for profit or gain, and still constitutes "piracy." Sure, a friend can recommend an e-book to someone they know. But if they can send a copy, they just saved their friend a couple of bucks.
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But that implies that the library has engaged in piracy for a long time. And my giving books that I purchased and read to my dad is also piracy.
The media industry in general seems to have a mentality of "pay for play" when it comes to media. They seem to want you to pay every time you want to hear a song, watch a movie or read a book. The idea that you can purchase it once and then use it many times - even transferring ownership to someone else - seems to really bother them.
The problem is that consumers don't want this. Case in point: the DivX fiasco.
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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
I know we'll never eliminate "piracy." The key is to render it as harmless as possible, to bring its damage down to a workable level, and keep it there. The print industry does this now...
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Actually it doesn't. The physical-ness of a pBook make it difficult and time consuming to pirate. It's really not worth the time and money to make copies of pBooks (for the most part).
And the print industry hasn't done a darn thing to keep the latest Harry Potter book off the web hours after it went on sale.
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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
...and are satisfied with the system, but they haven't figured out how to control e-books yet. Adjusting the rules dictated by points 1-3 will eventually do that.
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You've used the right word - "control". That's what the issue is all about. Not just control over the work - copyright already provides for legal action against those copying the work - but over WHAT people read.
Right now, if publishers don't like author "Joe X", they can effectively stop him from getting published - at least in any significant amount. The same for any topic they don't like.