E-Book Piracy: The Publishing Industry's Next Epic Saga?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tompe

You know that that is not the reason copyright was created. It was created as something unwanted but maybe necessary .... If some other method can be found to stimulate creatin than that could be used instead.

Absolutely not. Copyright (like patent) law was created to allow creators to benefit financially from their work while simultaneously allowing it to be shared with others.

If you have other suggestions for what might work in it's place, please do tell and do get involved in revising or changing the law.

[msundman]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, if you read a book and you have a perfect memory you can then type out the book and sell it. Copyright prohibit that but you have only used your own memory when creating the book so to me it seems that copyright say what you can do with your thoughts (memory, ideas).

Buying the book you are allowed to read it and remember it.

I have no idea what you're trying to claim regarding what you earlier wrote in reply to what I wrote. Do you think some claim of mine is incorrect, and if so then what are you basing your claim on?

(Copyright says nothing about your "thoughts (memory, ideas)", only about what you are prohibited from doing (note: doing, not thinking or somesuch). It says, e.g., that you are not allowed to distribute copies you've created from a "copyrighted" text. Whether the copying is made partly using "thoughts (memory, ideas)" or not is irrelevant.)

[msundman]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It was wanted because everyone benefited from it

This of course changed when it became affordable for common people to do mass-copying and -distribution.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

There's a reason why copyright has lasted for as long as it has: It's been proven over time to work better than any other method for stimulating creation.

What are you basing that seemingly absurd claim on? When/where has something else been tried in the absence of copyright?

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by Happ

Dreamy free-for-all piracy defenders argue that people are very nice and pay voluntarily if given the chance; publishers know this is bullshit, economists know that also. That is why we have security in supermarkets and bookstores. Sure, not all people will steal. But if stealing is easy and a few people do it without consequences, most people will feel cheated for paying and will stop paying and start stealing. Only a few morons like me will keep on paying.

I'm not a dreamy free-for-all privacy defenders but I do argue that people will pay voluntarily given the chance. I argue this because it's been proven when Amazon sells MP3's without DRM, when iTunes started selling music without DRM, when BAEN sells ebooks without DRM, when Harlequin started selling ebooks without DRM....

When have the publishers ever proven the theory that it's bullshit?

The potential market for any artist/author's work are those people that are willing and able to pay for it. Always has been and always will be. Anyone that believes they are owed payment any time someone reads their work is in for a lifetime of disappointment.

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by HarryT

In the UK, at least, cinema attendance has been steadily increasing for the last few years. I think that people realise that they offer an "experience" that can't be replicated watching a DVD at home, and are willing to pay for that.

In the States, the "experience" offered is listening to someone else's kids talk throughout the movie instead of your own. Then again teens have the courtesy to text their friends instead of vocally carrying on a conversation with them on the phone. That behavior is reserved for the parents/adults who don't know how to use the damn things. They're also often the ones who bring kids entirely too young for the movie. Our Blu-Ray players have just broken the $100 mark (for those of us who have a TV which justifies the purchase in the first place) and the popcorn's cheaper at home. Call me a Luddite but I've always thought that the purpose of going to a movie theater was to see a movie; even when I was a teenager I had that respect for others.

Shel and I have every intention of visiting the UK some time; now it seems we have one more reason.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And therein lies the major issue with the current law I think. It should be for the creator of the work, not some corporation or endless descendants....

Steve, Kennyc, here is the reality. All democratic forms of government are for sale, directly or indirectly. (directly is bribery, indirectly is providing load of campaign funds to help get a candidate elected that will fully support your views.) So....

Who provided for the public's side on copyright? Nobody. So those corporations that will benefit economically from longer copyright keep influencing the governments (see above), with no organized resistance. What you are getting is disorganized resistance (piracy). The corporations have been stealing from the public (by lengthening copyright terms), so they have lost most moral "high ground". The result is more and more totalitarian laws in order to "protect" copyright. It's actually to protect corporate profits. It's not to encourage artistic creation, it's to maintain former art as a perpetual property. And that is completely against the concept of copyright in the first place....

[tompe]

Originally Posted by msundman

I
(Copyright says nothing about your "thoughts (memory, ideas)", only about what you are prohibited from doing (note: doing, not thinking or somesuch). It says, e.g., that you are not allowed to distribute copies you've created from a "copyrighted" text. Whether the copying is made partly using "thoughts (memory, ideas)" or not is irrelevant.)

I do not see how this is irrelevant. You have not done something with the physical property that you was not allowed to to. And since copyright according to you only limited what you could do with physical objects (since you occluded ideas) then I do not see how my point is irrelevant.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Absolutely not. Copyright (like patent) law was created to allow creators to benefit financially from their work while simultaneously allowing it to be shared with others.

Well, no. Copyright was created to allow work to be shared and at the same time stimulate the process of creating such works that could be shared. The method chosen for that was to allow creators to earn money for a limited time on what they created.

The way you state it it sound like earning money was a primary reason.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Copyright was created in order to guarantee a creator a financial benefit from his or her creation for a set period of time, in order to give them the financial incentive to create in the first place (instead of blowing it off and continuing to till their fields), and to benefit society with their creations. No more and no less.

That I can agree with. But I did not read the text I commented that way. You wrote:

Well-said, Happ. Yes, this is an economics issue... economics is the exact reason copyright was invented... and any changes or revisions to copyright law will always be intended to maximize its economic potential

Here you seem to say that the primary reason for copyright is to maximize economic potential. And that seem to be in contradiction with your later statement.

[msundman]

Originally Posted by tompe

I do not see how this is irrelevant.

Uhh.. it's the (unauthorized) distribution that copyright makes illegal, not the thinking, memorizing or usually even the actual reproduction. If you're truly claiming that copyright differentiates between different ways in which the distributed artifact was created then please provide some support for those claims.

Originally Posted by tompe

You have not done something with the physical property that you was not allowed to to.

Yes, I have. I have sold it. Were it not for copyright I would have been allowed to trade the physical object containing the information in question, but copyright limits this central part of natural property rights.

Originally Posted by tompe

And since copyright according to you only limited what you could do with physical objects (since you occluded ideas) then I do not see how my point is irrelevant.

Copyright is not limited to what you could do with physical objects, according to me. (Copyright is an incursion into physical property rights, but it certainly also limits some non-physical things.)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

Here you seem to say that the primary reason for copyright is to maximize economic potential. And that seem to be in contradiction with your later statement.

Not at all. Maximizing the economic potential, both for the creator, and for the people who will benefit from the existence and use of the creation, is the point of copyright. Having a valuable creation available to be purchased and used is considered (in the long view) to be of economic benefit to the public.

This idea assumes, of course, that the public "benefits" from being able to read Harry Potter or watch a Disney DVD. It does not assume that the public has been "disadvantaged" because they had to pay for the product... supposedly, the enjoyment from the product should equal (or surpass) the cost of the product, making the net transaction positive, or advantageous. Whether it does, or not, is a marketing issue.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Who provided for the public's side on copyright? Nobody.

And whose fault is that? It's yours and mine, because we did not vote honest people into office, we did not vote into law regulations that would prevent corporations and lobbyists from influencing government, and we allowed Congress to build itself a house of impermeable luxury that guaranteed they wouldn't suffer for anything either during or ever after their tenure.

We voted for any liar that said they'd lower taxes, and let them do the rest. This is what we got. You can't blame the bull for crashing through your china shop, when you let them in...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by msundman

What are you basing that seemingly absurd claim on? When/where has something else been tried in the absence of copyright?

Before the copyright system, creators were financed by patrons willing to bankroll them for purely philanthropical reasons. The system was only workable for small numbers of creators, however, owing to the small number of available patrons.

Before the patronage system, lords kept creative people in their houses. If you were creative enough, you were given favor with the lords (you ate at their tables, warmed yourself at their fires and had access to their women). If you did not, you were kicked out of the castle, to work in the fields with the other peons.

Copyright created a government-regulated system to guarantee an income to a creator. Copyright essentially allowed creation to become a business in itself. Since its inception, the raw volume of creation and innovation, by individuals and organizations, has increased dramatically, proving it superior to patronization and enforced servitude to encourage creation.

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Steve, Kennyc, here is the reality. All democratic forms of government are for sale, directly or indirectly. (directly is bribery, indirectly is providing load of campaign funds to help get a candidate elected that will fully support your views.) So....

Who provided for the public's side on copyright? Nobody. So those corporations that will benefit economically from longer copyright keep influencing the governments (see above), with no organized resistance. What you are getting is disorganized resistance (piracy). The corporations have been stealing from the public (by lengthening copyright terms), so they have lost most moral "high ground". The result is more and more totalitarian laws in order to "protect" copyright. It's actually to protect corporate profits. It's not to encourage artistic creation, it's to maintain former art as a perpetual property. And that is completely against the concept of copyright in the first place....

For being disorganized resistance, it seems pretty effective. The *AAs might as well have government in their already-bulging hip-pocket, yet ever-more Draconian laws are put in place...this to me is a sign of desperation, not success. To me, it's a sign that despite the lack of organization, right or wrong, it's working. Until such behavior stops being a civil matter and becomes a criminal one, it will continue. Organized resistance will probably never happen in our lifetimes, because there are too many vested interests which will result in, at best, stalemate. One of two things needs to happen to break the cycle:

1. Self-publishing. I see self-published musicians/singers/songwriters on a daily basis, and their overhead is much higher, so don't tell me it's not possible/practical/convenient/whatever. I envision, in place of megapublishers, a string of micropublishers which would each consist of an editor/formatter, and a marketing rep/agent. Of course my view is that ebooks should be the rule and pbooks the exception, but that's a different debate. What does this have to do with the copyright discussion? Lobbyists will no longer be in control of IP as they are now, ergo less (if any) resistance to sane copyright law.
2. Honest elected officials. You show me an honest politician and I'll show you a dead one.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Hogwash.

I know of no western country that limits ones right to defend themselves beyond the very reasonable limitation of "reasonable force".

I don't know about the states but here in Australia one does have this right(the bold section) but with it comes certain responsibilities. For example, you will still be held responsible for any damage or injuries that may occur if you cause an accident. Even if you injure someone who was found to be on your property illegally.

On a side note, I always find it interesting that when "rights" are discussed there is very little discussion regarding the responsibilites that generally come along with the rights. I wonder why that is?

Cheers,
PKFFW

Probably because 1)Politicians routinely - and deliberately - confuse 'rights' with 'privileges' and 2)Rights are what GOVERNMENTS cannot - legally - deny the people (although they tend to do a bang-up job of taking them away by force), responsibility is also 'inherent' to the individual - although far too many are not taught to understand this. But then if the govvies can get the people confused enough, the sheeple will fall far more easily for polly-wog lies and promises of 'bread-and-circuses' for the 'small fee of a few minor laws'.

Derek