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Originally Posted by pietvo
If as an author you can't make a living it means that your books are not good enough, or your marketing sucks, or you make your potential customers unhappy. For example by putting unneeded restrictions on your product or just by treating your customers as potential criminals. The key to success in sales (and as an author you are a sales(wo)man) is to sell a quality product for a reasonable price and to make your customers happy. Sell a bad product or one that makes your customer unhappy because he has to go through hoops to use the product in a reasonable way, or make the price to high and you have a recipe for failure.
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Well, since I sell my novels in multiple formats, with no DRM, at $1.99, have had very good reviews of my most recent work easily found on this site, and only ask customers not to take advantage of me--for which I enjoy pathetically small sales and find my work on torrent sites--I might suggest there are other factors at work here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by pietvo
And then, there are already laws to prevent unauthorized copying. And they are already too unfair for the consumer with regard to digital stuff. So why would you need laws that are even more unfair for us readers?
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Why is it unfair to prevent "unauthorized copying"? I don't want to prevent fair use copying, and I don't want to see laws that do. However, I have no problem with laws that will prevent unauthorized copying, especially if they do not adversely impact fair use copying. (And if it does, it needs to be rewritten so it does not.)
Present laws "seem unfair," because they are written to overcompensate for the lack of technological security and the ease at which scofflaws break it and steal I.P. The only way to make those laws "seem fair," given today's technological state, would be to say, "Forget it: No laws." But that will simply open the floodgates for more illegal activity, so no government or organization will want to do that, any more than a shopkeeper is going to want to leave his doors open when he goes home at night.
When I offer an ebook today, without any form of security attached to it, I am essentially leaving my doors open when I go home at night. And I am discovering that, after I get a few meager sales during the day, my work is plundered at night, and ends up on torrent sites. My most critically-acclaimed work is on torrent sites now, and it has seen lower sales than any other book I have. That's not fair to me.
Laws are designed to protect everybody... even people who just want to make a buck, dirty capitalists that they are. True, laws can be more fair to some than to others, on an individual basis... but the only solution to that is to try to make the laws better.
I agree wholeheartedly that the existing laws and existing security technology are a bad combination. That doesn't mean they can't change, and despite the commonly-held belief, security technology (and laws) can be improved over time. We are not locked into our present technology 'til the end of time, any more than Ford's Model A would be the pinnacle of American automobile. Security technology will improve, simply because there are still things that need digital security in order to safeguard our lives, and to protect the privacy everyone demands.
I maintain that I deserve to be treated fairly, just as you do. And presently, I am being stolen from, while you are being inconvenienced with the ebooks you were able to get. Which of us is being treated more unfairly?