eBook piracy, how common is it?

[Good Old Neon]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

It fell apart cause I didn't like what they were doing, or what they wanted me to do. Let's chalk it up to my anti-authoritarian nature and leave it at that And I don't think donations would pay the bills, I think I've already stated that. What I do think is that there will be a lot of writers in the future and musicians, and whatever who will create because that is the end product for them. The payment option won't even figure into their minds. My job is pretty flexible, and I have lots of time at home so writing to me is as much relaxation as it is anything else. It's a hobby that I love to do, that I get energy from, rather than need energy to perform. I find it troublesome that the word 'work' comes up so often in relation to writing, as though it was some terribly difficult occupation that wrenches the very last drop of energy from your soul. I think what I'm getting at is that there should be no expectation of payment when it comes to writing; that's just icing on a cake that's already quite delicious to being with.

Again, just because this utopian, sort of hippie, free-love-by-way-of free books and music model works for you, why do you then assume it works for everyone? As you’ve already stated, a model to do so is already available to you, and that’s great, however, if others choose to restrict free access to their work, that choice should also be available.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Oooh, I like that one!

• Copyright a work: free, happens automatically on placing it in a fixed format (like a printout).
• 10 years later: register it for $10. Do this for anything that might remotely be publishable, including the fanzine you printed six copies of; your high school homework assignments fall into the public domain.
• 20 years later: Re-register for $100. Currently in-production stuff, and anything you have a good reason to believe will be commercially viable. This is the "hedge your bets" stage--if you guess wrong, you're not out much.
• 30 years later: Re-register for $1000. Only do this for books, movies, music currently in production and selling well. Out-of-print stuff only if you've got a buyer already lined up.
• 40 years later: Re-register for $10,000. Only major publishing houses and movie distributors bother with this level. (Will Harry Potter be a viable commercial property in 2037?)
• 50 years later: Disney registers Mickey for $100,000. Microsoft does the same with Windows OS. Everything else drops into the public domain.

The extra money (beyond what it takes to process the copyrights, including a public-access registry) can go into an "arts and sciences progress" fund.

Actually, you hardly even need to attach an ever-increasing price. Simply requiring re-registration would let most works fall quickly into the public domain. I must admit, however, that extracting large sums from Disney for the privilege of continuing their control of Mickey does rather tickle my fancy.

An alternative might be to have a much-decreased duration of copyright, while slightly expanding trademark protection to cover things like Mickey. This would let Disney continue to control new works involving Mickey while still letting "Steamboat Mickey" into the public domain.

Xenophon

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

if others choose to restrict free access to their work, that choice should also be available.

The important question is why it should be available? If the answer is to promote production of new books and music and so on then you have to start with that goal and see how to best achieve it. And the answer could be that the best way to achieve it is that everything is in the public domain. Whatever you think about this you can be sure that the current system is not the best way.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

Again, just because this utopian, sort of hippie, free-love-by-way-of free books and music model works for you, why do you then assume it works for everyone? As you’ve already stated, a model to do so is already available to you, and that’s great, however, if others choose to restrict free access to their work, that choice should also be available.

They can make all the choices they want, and they can hire every lawyer in the world to enforce their IP, won't make a jot of difference in a digital age when one copy may just as well be a million and everybody ignores copyright.

EDIT: and if there's going to be Free Love involved, I'm all the more for it

[Good Old Neon]

Originally Posted by tompe

The important question is why it should be available? If the answer is to promote production of new books and music and so on then you have to start with that goal and see how to best achieve it. And the answer could be that the best way to achieve it is that everything is in the public domain. Whatever you think about this you can be sure that the current system is not the best way.

I agree – but then the next best solution is not to simply allow folks to download whatever the hell they choose at no cost, to the very real detriment of artists who's lives often depend upon the proceeds of those sales.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

It fell apart cause I didn't like what they were doing, or what they wanted me to do. Let's chalk it up to my anti-authoritarian nature and leave it at that And I don't think donations would pay the bills, I think I've already stated that. What I do think is that there will be a lot of writers in the future and musicians, and whatever who will create because that is the end product for them. The payment option won't even figure into their minds. My job is pretty flexible, and I have lots of time at home so writing to me is as much relaxation as it is anything else. It's a hobby that I love to do, that I get energy from, rather than need energy to perform. I find it troublesome that the word 'work' comes up so often in relation to writing, as though it was some terribly difficult occupation that wrenches the very last drop of energy from your soul. I think what I'm getting at is that there should be no expectation of payment when it comes to writing; that's just icing on a cake that's already quite delicious to being with.

But I've seen interviews with writers, and read blogs of writers that insist that writing IS just what you say it shouldn't be: "some terribly difficult occupation that wrenches the very last drop of energy from your soul." They seem to do it in spite of that, even though they aren't getting rich. Or at least from what I can tell, they aren't getting rich.

I get what you are saying, and the point you are trying to make, I really do. But I think the problem might be that you're in a definite minority. Most artists, writers, potters, etc. and so forth love what they do (I hope, anyway), even if it's difficult, but the difficulty (or labor of love - think labor as in childbirth) is ameliorated by the remuneration.

[Stringer]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

What I do think is that there will be a lot of writers in the future and musicians, and whatever who will create because that is the end product for them. The payment option won't even figure into their minds.

There already is, at least on the fan-fiction side. It seems to come and go along the subjects they write about, although really good subjects (like the Xena) take a very long time to completely die (Xena is still somewhat alive after over 10 years). But as a consumer I wouldn't want that to be the mainstream, because like I said: the overall quality ain't so good. Fan-fiction also has two advantages that normal fiction might not have when written as a hobby:

1. already familiar setup that just needs another plot
2. and pre-motivated writers

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

But I've seen interviews with writers, and read blogs of writers that insist that writing IS just what you say it shouldn't be: "some terribly difficult occupation that wrenches the very last drop of energy from your soul." They seem to do it in spite of that, even though they aren't getting rich. Or at least from what I can tell, they aren't getting rich.

I get what you are saying, and the point you are trying to make, I really do. But I think the problem might be that you're in a definite minority. Most artists, writers, potters, etc. and so forth love what they do (I hope, anyway), even if it's difficult, but the difficulty (or labor of love - think labor as in childbirth) is ameliorated by the remuneration.

I think that attitude is a hangover from a million creative-writing coaches influenced by their own torturous journeys, and possibly a lot of backwash in the wake of Hemmingway and others. I was exactly the same until I discovered the secret of writing a few years back. Now writing is fun, its not torture, its not hard, its like when you learn to play a guitar, at first your fingers are sore, you can't bend them into the shapes, but after awhile you relax and forget entirely that you're playing, you're just enjoying the music.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Stringer

There already is, at least on the fan-fiction side. It seems to come and go along the subjects they write about, although really good subjects (like the Xena) take a very long time to completely die (Xena is still somewhat alive after over 10 years). But as a consumer I wouldn't want that to be the mainstream, because like I said: the overall quality ain't so good. Fan-fiction also has two advantages that normal fiction might not have when written as a hobby:

1. already familiar setup that just needs another plot
2. and pre-motivated writers

I've never read any 'official' fan-fiction, but I would assume that all fiction is written by fans in one way or another

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I think that attitude is a hangover from a million creative-writing coaches influenced by their own torturous journeys, and possibly a lot of backwash in the wake of Hemmingway and others. I was exactly the same until I discovered the secret of writing a few years back. Now writing is fun, its not torture, its not hard, its like when you learn to play a guitar, at first your fingers are sore, you can't bend them into the shapes, but after awhile you relax and forget entirely that you're playing, you're just enjoying the music.

Wish I could get by with this in the English Composition class I'm currently taking for my Associates Degree. I wish someone would please explain to me how on earth I'm supposed to write a narrative essay about any event in my life that I choose within the guidelines of a formal college paper. It's simply not possible. Oops I think that was a hijack. Someone give me an H!

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Believe me (speaking as a former author), writing for many is just a job like any other - a way of putting food on the table and paying the mortgage. This "romantic ideal" of people "writing for love" is all very nice, but, with all due respect, I really don't think it bears much connection with the "real world".

If you want people to carry on writing books, please support them by buying those books (whether paper books or eBooks).

Thats is what concerns me. Will the next Will Durant or Arnold Toynbee decide not to publish because all those years of work can be had for free in a matter of seconds. Of course I have owned several copies of the Durant set, which I never paid more than 12 dollars for and also have the ebooks that I got for free.

[Stringer]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I've never read any 'official' fan-fiction, but I would assume that all fiction is written by fans in one way or another

Yeah, but I think we can define the fan-fiction as something based on another work of art. Most often tv-series. Thus the fans writing it would be the ones that liked the original art. That is different to taking some random subject like outer space aliens and starting to write about them.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Wish I could get by with this in the English Composition class I'm currently taking for my Associates Degree. I wish someone would please explain to me how on earth I'm supposed to write a narrative essay about any event in my life that I choose within the guidelines of a formal college paper. It's simply not possible. Oops I think that was a hijack. Someone give me an H!

It's a tough one, but start with something that affects you deeply, something that excites, irritates or stirs your passion. Then use the single-story plot (there is only one after all). I'll detail it for you:

1: An event upsets the status quo
2: A protagonist decides to restore status quo
3: Protagonist, in his active endeavours to restore status quo meets obstacles
4: About three quarters of the way through said protagonist looks as if they are about to lose everything
5: Protagonist confronts the singular point of antagonism
6: Protagonist looks like he's on the edge of defeat
7: Protagonist wins out through brain, brawn or skill
8: Status quo is restored

PRO TIP: This also works for Professional Wrestling, Mysteries, and well, just about anything else.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

I agree – but then the next best solution is not to simply allow folks to download whatever the hell they choose at no cost, to the very real detriment of artists who's lives often depend upon the proceeds of those sales.

That is an empirical question. But I see no reason why not other models e.g. where you pay for performances or other added values can stimulate creative production at least as good as the current system.

I read somewhere that the total income for the music business is increasing but particular segments like selling CD:s are decreasing.

[amgoforth]

Originally Posted by HarryT

All the authors that I am personally acquainted with (and there are several) DO treat their writing as a "day job". They have a rigid routine of going to their desk and writing for a fixed number of hours a day. Anyone who writes professionally will tell you that that's pretty much the only way to do it. One difference between a "pro" and a "wanabee" is that the pro author churns out a pretty-much fixed number of words a day, regardless of whether they are "inspired by the muse" that day or not. You have to - you have a contract to deliver a book of a certain length by a certain date; you can't only write when you feel like it.

Publishers are not "going away" - whatever gives you that idea? I suspect that the majority of people who've never written a book don't have the faintest idea of what a publisher actually does. Virtually all that work applies equally to paper books and to eBooks. Books still need to be professionally edited, advertised, sold to retailers, and so on. The simple fact is that the majority of people who "self publish" do so because they aren't good enough to get published professionally. Self publishing is not going to replace "real" publishers any time in the foreseeable future, believe me!

I agree 100 %. There should always be a difference between the amateurs and the professionals. I guess the editors place is to discern the difference.