The Danger of E-books by RMS

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The internet levy would allow people access to all texts at no charge (the charge would be the levy, or access fee)

Wikipedia is free, and guess what? ... they are having money issues ... they are asking for donations. So many hits and so much database and server workload that the "free model" is not working anymore. Moreover, some information on Wikipedia is not even accurate or true. It's the risk of allowing anyone to publish and for free.

Sounds good on paper, but not feasible in practice ...

[PaulineDesigns]

Originally Posted by jocampo

... Even with PayPal. PayPal only ask for your cellphone or email but must be mapped to a Bank account ...

You don't have to link your PayPal account to a bank or credit card. In the last couple of weeks I helped 2 people set up PayPal accounts without linking financial info. When you get to the screen asking for that information then just click the 'My Account' link at the bottom of the page and you go straight to your PayPal homepage. Of course, in order to use it to buy anything you either have to sell something and get paid by PayPal or find someone local who will send you money via PayPal in return for cash.

ETA: I'm in Canada so it may not be the same for the International PayPal sites but one of the people I helped was from the US so set up with US info.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by PaulineDesigns

You don't have to link your PayPal account to a bank or credit card. In the last couple of weeks I helped 2 people set up PayPal accounts without linking financial info. When you get to the screen asking for that information then just click the 'My Account' link at the bottom of the page and you go straight to your PayPal homepage. Of course, in order to use it to buy anything you either have to sell something and get paid by PayPal or find someone local who will send you money via PayPal in return for cash.

ETA: I'm in Canada so it may not be the same for the International PayPal sites but one of the people I helped was from the US so set up with US info.

I mean, getting cash (if you have not sold anything). You need a bank account in order to transfer money. And once you have the money, you need it anyway in order to get the cash.

Yeah, you can create it without any bank info, but what's the point ...

[RockdaMan]

So he's never visited mobileread.com?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by leebase

eBooks being free with the Government following some formula for deciding how authors should be paid? That's not extreme?

Lee

I was mostly referring to the problem description part which seemed to be the part discussed in the thread.

[Barcey]

I agree with what he's saying about the unnecessary restrictions that are being bundled with the ebooks and agree that we should reject them. That obviously doesn't mean rejecting ebooks as a whole. I'm glad to see him speaking out against it and that's it's getting media attention.

I wish he would have left his two alternative methods for author compensation out of the discussion though. It has nothing to do with the restrictions and just distracts from the point he was making.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Wait. What?! I thought this whole monstrous idea was about freedom. Why would I give anyone -- let alone a government capable of imposing levies -- the power to see how long I've spent reading or listening to a work? And what's that supposed to be measuring, anyway? Just because I spent a long time reading a book, it doesn't mean the book was any good.

Why all this effort to create a more complicated system, just to avoid paying for things directly?

Yes it's about freedom, the freedom to govern yourself. Our elected officials should in internet theory be just as exposed as everyone else

Can we just abandon the monetary system already!!

[DiapDealer]

Can we just abandon the monetary system already!!

Sure. We can try feudalism again for a bit of a lark, but I'm pretty sure it'll end up with the serfs just rebelling.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Yes it's about freedom, the freedom to govern yourself. Our elected officials should in internet theory be just as exposed as everyone else

How does letting the government and/or corporate entities monitor more of your information lead to more freedom? I don't think you've thought that part through.

The easiest way to gain freedom is to have a system where people get paid for their work, and then don't care what you do with it. In the digital age, the "don't care what you do with it" part is the problem. There are too many reasons for the stakeholders (authors, publishers, etc.) to care. Current DRM techniques are an attempt at a solution to that problem, but they lead to other, worse restrictions. The lending mechanism, introduced first by Nook and then Kindle, is an attempt to find a middle ground, but the current restrictions on it (one lend per book, two weeks duration) are too restrictive. If the user could set the duration of the lend (or make it indefinite) and could lend a book as many times as they wanted, I think that would go a long way towards removing the most onerous restrictions on e-books.

And, of course, someone has to win the format war, as always happens with technology.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Can we just abandon the monetary system already!!

No. Money is good. It facilitates trade, and levels the playing field, so that you don't always have to be concerned that the person you want to barter with doesn't want anything you have to offer.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

The lending mechanism, introduced first by Nook and then Kindle, is an attempt to find a middle ground, but the current restrictions on it (one lend per book, two weeks duration) are too restrictive. If the user could set the duration of the lend (or make it indefinite) and could lend a book as many times as they wanted, I think that would go a long way towards removing the most onerous restrictions on e-books.

Kobo is implementing the one lend to rule them all plan as well. It would be interesting if we could chain lend books, lend your book to someone who can read it in its entirety and then lend it out to someone else, or decide that they don't enjoy it halfway through and then still lend it to someone else.

I suppose if the original lender wants the book back they could put a hold on the book and send a little popup message to the reader who is currently reading it, alerting them that the original lender would like their book back for a bit to read again. That sounds like a library inside of an ereader inside of a ebook.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If we stopped buying eBooks and went to pBooks until eBooks were fixed would not work at all. All that would happen is the publishers would think eBooks didn't work and just stop them altogether. We'd lose eBooks and we'd also just plain lose.

Since there are no politicians not in the pocket of big business, laws aren't going to change it.

It's simple enough to me. Buy ebooks with no DRM. Don't buy ebooks with DRM. Vote with your wallet.

There's a slim possibility at some point DRM comes up against the DMCA and we win in the court system...but who knows. The higher courts are often aligned with big business too.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

It's simple enough to me. Buy ebooks with no DRM. Don't buy ebooks with DRM. Vote with your wallet.

There's a slim possibility at some point DRM comes up against the DMCA and we win in the court system...but who knows. The higher courts are often aligned with big business too.

I don't think DRM will come up against the DMCA. If that was going to happen, wouldn't it have happened with music when there was still DRM on that?

Honestly, I think it's going to take the same thing that it took for music to go non-DRM: some (large-scale) big player has to go first. I remember eMusic was DRM-free a long time before Amazon (which was the big watershed event, I think), but I doubt we're going to be able to count on Amazon this time around. They haven't shown a lot of bravery when it comes to going toe to toe with the publishers.

It certainly won't be Apple.

It could possibly be B&N, I guess.

(Yes, I know Baen doesn't have DRM, but mention Baen to the average book consumer and they look at you a little like this):

[leebase]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

The lending mechanism, introduced first by Nook and then Kindle, is an attempt to find a middle ground, but the current restrictions on it (one lend per book, two weeks duration) are too restrictive. If the user could set the duration of the lend (or make it indefinite) and could lend a book as many times as they wanted, I think that would go a long way towards removing the most onerous restrictions on e-books.

There are already market places for "lending". This isn't lending a book to a friend. This technology basically makes ebooks free. If you can lend as many copies as you wish with no time limits -- that's leaves the producers with very few people buying their product.

There is no such thing as a "used" digital product.

Lee

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by leebase

If you can lend as many copies as you wish with no time limits -- that's leaves the producers with very few people buying their product.

We weren't talking about as many copies as you want, just the one you own, but not hampered with arbitrary restrictions (once, for two weeks). That said, even if multiple copies were allowed, it'd still be easier to find a "free" copy on the darknet, I suppose.

There is no such thing as a "used" digital product.

I don't see why not. Our (= small country in Europe) copyright act certainly begs to differ.