Brian Keene on piracy

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

This is pretty standard fare. It's one of the reasons why a lot of authors use multiple personas -- one for promoting themselves as inoffensively as possible and one for just bopping around on the internet.

I've always avoided doing that: It seemed as if I was hiding, as if I was too cowardly to stand for the things I believed in. To an extent, I even admit I feel the same way about any web-based pseudonym: If you aren't brave enough to tell me who you are, why should I believe/trust anything you say? Why should I believe you when you say "Hitler was wrong"... maybe you don't really believe that? (I think that's why so much web discourse is ultimately doomed to failure, with no way to know who you're discoursing with, or what they really believe. Fodder for another thread.)

But it seems the entire web has decided the digital equivalent of Guy Fawkes masks are perfectly fine; every day is Halloween. So maybe the new promotional tool for the web is multiple personalities, one for every use: The business persona (straight money-changing for services rendered); the agent/promoter/cheerleader; the "Clark Kent" (public persona, no one knows your true identity) and maybe the "Max Headroom" (public "id," do and say whatever you want with no fear of reprisal).

[Hellmark]

I have Hellmark as my web "identity", because many places have restrictions on namelength, and type of characters used, so it is easier to have that than my actual name. However, I fully associate myself with being Hellmark. If I state my full name, I give it as Keith Alexander "Hellmark" Brown. I have friends who call me Hellmark or some permutation of.

Now when it comes to other pseudonyms, there are other logical reasons. I've known people who've done it, just so they could have some personal private time. Yeah it is hiding, but sometimes it is better to hide from preconceptions and let people get to know the real you rather than the you they expect. Plus you can just enjoy your life, as any other normal person would, without people keep going "OMG! YOU'RE YOU!"

[Prestidigitweeze]

I'd argue that wearing a mask is half the fun of creating characters. You can be the most male-identified biker-boot-wearing sewage-boxing engine tooler and you still have to become a woman to write about her convincingly.

Masks are a form of play. Masks can free you from dead-end points of view, as Sade's ridiculous monologues show. Facebook's a depressing example of the pitfalls of literal-minded identity.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

But it seems the entire web has decided the digital equivalent of Guy Fawkes masks are perfectly fine; every day is Halloween. So maybe the new promotional tool for the web is multiple personalities, one for every use: The business persona (straight money-changing for services rendered); the agent/promoter/cheerleader; the "Clark Kent" (public persona, no one knows your true identity) and maybe the "Max Headroom" (public "id," do and say whatever you want with no fear of reprisal).

Are you assuming that people don't have multiple personalities IRL? What I advocate is an end to anonymity, but this has only come after years of anonymous web usage.

Perhaps the anonymous web can be called a failed experiment of transient minds interacting with no concern for the originator of the transmission? Folly for sure. But it was fun. Now we simply are who we are.

[Pulpmeister]

Professional writers are simply working for their living. To make the break from part-timer to full-time professional you need income enough from your writing to quit your day job. And if someone casually steals your work - and it is stealing - your income from writing may never be enough to allow you to make that break - you give up, and no more books are written by you. You've just been put out of business by thieves.

Perhaps those who think that "culture" should be free don't actually produce anything themselves that anybody would want to steal.

I have an interest here. I'm a published author of four (admittedly minor, modest-selling) niche works of non-fiction, and I can tell you from experience how much it hurts to find your hard work and yes, emotional commitment, casually stolen by others.

If you want to read a novel, you've got three honest choices: buy one; write one yourself; or confine your reading to bona fide free out-of-coypright books from legitimate sources such as this forum.

(Even they're not free, if you think about it; just royalty free. I downloaded a Gutenberg book, didn't like the way it looked on my reader--messy. Many hours later I had it re-formatted and recreated to my satisfaction. Cost: Well, I could have charged my time out to a client at 50 bucks an hour, so that 'free' book cost a bundle!

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Perhaps those who think that "culture" should be free don't actually produce anything themselves that anybody would want to steal.

If you want to read a novel, you've got three honest choices: buy one; write one yourself; or confine your reading to bona fide free out-of-coypright books from legitimate sources such as this forum.

Nothing is "free" Why, the power to run these ereaders depends on the sun continuing to do what it does for goodness sake. Do you not think the sun deserves to be compensated?? I'm being serious here, I am not anthropomorphizing the sun, I am simply saying that the sun is a physical presence in this universe we call constructed reality and we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we simply assume that the sun is not trying to communicate.

Should we be discussing these novels you speak of, and leave biographies and other historical accounts out of the copyright discussion? I would be the first to say that drawing the line between nonfiction and fiction is probably impossible but I think we can safely assume that if an author calls their "book" a novel then we should take them at their word. For theoretical purposes I would have to say that fictional narratives should be under some sort of compensatory protection unto the creator, simply because everybody needs to eat.

This protection should not be automatically granted upon the works creation however, we have been under such a system for a decent bit of time and it seems to make many people angry.

Everything is valuable however, everything is a record of the culture no matter how insignificant you might think any "piece" of text is to the advancement of the culture at any "point" in time.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

If you want to read a novel, you've got three honest choices: buy one; write one yourself; or confine your reading to bona fide free out-of-coypright books from legitimate sources such as this forum.

Or read free promotional copies--the "serialized at my blog; click here for combined version for $3" type, or the ones released by publishers as loss-leaders, or the free giveaways during read-an-ebook week. Or the free novels at Smashwords and Lulu. Or creative commons works. Or read library ebooks. Or read fanfiction. People willing to cope with DRM have the option of the Amazon lending library, and a lot more freebies through Kobo, Sony, B&N and iBooks.

There are plenty of legitimate, honorable ways to read novels for free, and they're not limited to public-domain works.

[Blue Tyson]

Read two freebies given away on Amazon today, actually. So as Elfwreck says, Pulpmeister speaks with forked tongue.

Pretty sure people have mentioned The Baen Free Library once or twice around here.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

There are plenty of legitimate, honorable ways to read novels for free, and they're not limited to public-domain works.

I wouldn't say that a library purchasing one copy of a printed book and then loaning it out 100 times while not compensating the author is very honorable, would you? It is a semi decent way for allowing alot of people access to information though. If we can just figure out how to get past that one copy problem...