Fair Use?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

there may be local variances in this

True. Eg format shifting is not legal in the UK.

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Not in the US. If you have bought the ebook version, it is perfectly legal for you to remove the DRM. What is illegal is for someone to sell you the software to do it with. But that's his problem. If you can acquire the tools to remove the DRM, go right ahead without fear. Read the law - you will see that it is written this way.

It's just like Prohibition was. It was always legal for you to drink alcohol if you made it yourself & did not remove it from where you made it. What was illegal was selling or distributing the booze.

You need to go back and re-read the law (DMCA) again. It does criminalize the act of removing digital locks in the US.

[Krystian Galaj]

Im sorry for frequently going off on tangents to main discussion; it's just that usually I have nothing to add to it that hasn't been already said by someone else.

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

While I agree that copyright laws are too restrictive, mostly because the time period before expiration is way too long (which is moot since they can be renewed) and because of archaic restrictions on making backup copies and doing media changes, eliminating copyright laws would pretty much guarantee very few writers would continue to write. It takes a lot of time to write a large novel (even a small one) and, if they couldn't get paid for their work, they would have less time to devote to writing because they would be spending their time on a "real job" to put food on the table, etc.

I believe that's assumming that if copyright laws and concept of author owning his work are gone, everyone would immediately stop paying the author, or feel any gratitude.

That's just as improbable as assumming that with copyright laws in place no one is violating them.

There's a very good, concise and insightful blog post by J.A Konrath here: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/05/piracy-again.html
He states there clearly that he believes piracy is stealing, just not stealing of anything tangible - yet I agree with all practical conclusions he draws in that post. If you read his other posts, you'll see how much money he makes on books that were rejected by traditional publishers.

An author who sells books through Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, and at the same time offers lots of them for free on the website, and sees them on thousands of torrent can still get lots of money. Copyright law and philosophical stance on it is irrelevant - lost of readers don't even know what that is, never heard of it in their lives, and if they know, they don't care, that's not something that comes to their street. What matters is that when you're tearing through the last pages of the great novel, and feel all giddy when you read "The End", there should be a button to click, saying "if you loved it, here's a way to give the author's team some appreciation", and you should have ability to do this one click and the money goes. That's the moment of author's performance in reader's mind. That's the way of convenience, of gratitude, the way of "selling" compatible with human nature, that was impossible in the past, and that will work regardless of any state-issued laws and policing them. That's the way it will be.

I believe that when the aftereffects of digital revolution calm down, and everybody settles in slightly different roles and jobs, it will become obvious that sharing helps authors and editors gain money and recognition, and concepts of copyright law and "intellectual property" will gradually go away.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

True. Eg format shifting is not legal in the UK.

There was talk of allowing it a while ago, did that fizzle out?

[captcrouton]

Ok, here's my (possibly incorrect) perspective on the matter.

When I buy a Kindle book, they're not selling me the book (according to their terms), their selling me the rights to read the book. The download is not the book, per se. I disagree in principle, but it is something I've agreed with upon ordering and I've never violated. Call me a sucker if you like.

If you've actually bought the book, you've already bought the rights to read it. Therefore, putting a copy is simply exercising the rights you've purchased to read it in a different format.

I've yet to illegally download a book or re-distribute one. I have no need, there's still far more freebies and public domain-ers that I want to read that I haven't yet had the opportunity. I don't think that well's gonna run dry any time soon.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

True. Eg format shifting is not legal in the UK.

However, it's not prosecutable - not in the public interest. The de-facto situation is that it's allowed, for personal and family use.


captcrouton - Legally, in the EU, it's a sale. (EU law is that if it looks like a sell, smells like a sale and has a "buy" button? It's a sale!)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There was talk of allowing it a while ago, did that fizzle out?

There was talk, and I thought that it was going to be a part of the Digital Economy Act, but it appears not to have been. I don't know what happened to it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

What matters is that when you're tearing through the last pages of the great novel, and feel all giddy when you read "The End", there should be a button to click, saying "if you loved it, here's a way to give the author's team some appreciation", and you should have ability to do this one click and the money goes.

That's a very nice idea in theory, but if the "only pay if you liked it" business model actually worked as well as the "pay in advance" model, don't you think we'd have cinemas where you made a donation on leaving if you liked the film, or supermarkets where you only gave whatever you felt that the food was worth?

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Make it hard enough online, and it'll come back. That's one of the ironys of big media's stance.

Yeah, and with hard disks measured in terabytes, as opposed to flogging one VHS tape at a time.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a very nice idea in theory, but if the "only pay if you liked it" business model actually worked as well as the "pay in advance" model, don't you think we'd have cinemas where you made a donation on leaving if you liked the film, or supermarkets where you only gave whatever you felt that the food was worth?

I guess the source of much of the disagreement on this topic is captured by this comment. If you conceive as literature - and art more generally - as a commodity like any other, the sort of thing you might buy from a supermarket, then it follows that the economics of art are just like the economics of any other commodity.

But why does art have to function like a market? There are other ways of funding art - public funding, subscription - which doesn't necessarily make people rich but which does enable them to practice and produce.

Of course, these alternatives might not be appropriate if what is produced is simply a commodity produced with the primary aim of making money.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a very nice idea in theory, but if the "only pay if you liked it" business model actually worked as well as the "pay in advance" model, don't you think we'd have cinemas where you made a donation on leaving if you liked the film, or supermarkets where you only gave whatever you felt that the food was worth?

I went to lots of music concerts in my youth that were free with a donation bucket going round at the end. Have any cinemas or supermarkets even tried it?

[HarryT]

It's certainly been tried by restaurants - and failed.

[Moejoe]

For me, and knowing that normal supply side economics have little to no bearing in the digital realm, the only economic model we have left seems to be gift economics. As in my earlier busker analogy, culture becomes free in all instances, you may enjoy, share, change and modify that culture (giving props along the way) and the audience then sets any monetary price they deem worthwhile. Nobody gets rich, but then again, a lot more people might make a living along the way.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a very nice idea in theory, but if the "only pay if you liked it" business model actually worked as well as the "pay in advance" model, don't you think we'd have cinemas where you made a donation on leaving if you liked the film, or supermarkets where you only gave whatever you felt that the food was worth?

Well, it was only one example of technology adapting to human nature, allowing donation at the moment of maximal enjoyment for the reader. I didn't mean it as the only way to buy the book, personally I think I'd donate more than once on the same book, different readings, if I had the button to click available and the amount of money on my Paypal account shown at the right moment.
My point is, people are lazy, and love instant gratification, and there aren't many of those who prefer to hunt for all freebies on the darknet to going to the webstore and buying the book - those "pirates" are like Linux tinkerers, sure they can hoard/do much but that costs time, there's so few of them and not many others like that way of life. The more convenient buying and donating will be, the more people will choose that before resorting to darknet (or even hearing of it). Writers, editors and publishers have much more to gain by solving the problem of non-existent backlist, georgraphical restrictions and device/format incompatibility than they'll gain by battling piracy (especially if they choose to do it through DRM, then they'll just shoot themselves in the foot).
I believe this practical vision of the future stays valid, no matter whether piracy/sharing is seen as criminal acts or as just reactions of people to copyright owners chipping away at their cultural heritage.

EDIT: On the other hand if publishers take their sweet time concentrating on DRM, people might eventually make darknet convenient enough to deliver any title on one click, through a P2P network of distributed nodes with secure connection. Something like freenet. I'd prefer seeing publishers make it convenient first though, after all they're getting paid.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

For me, and knowing that normal supply side economics have little to no bearing in the digital realm, the only economic model we have left seems to be gift economics. As in my earlier busker analogy, culture becomes free in all instances, you may enjoy, share, change and modify that culture (giving props along the way) and the audience then sets any monetary price they deem worthwhile. Nobody gets rich, but then again, a lot more people might make a living along the way.

I think something like the UK library model, where creators get a small amount of money each time something they created gets downloaded would work better. Either funded through a purchase tax on internet connection, blank media, etc, or just through general taxation/lottery funding.

That wouldn't preclude extra donations to creators you deemed worthy, of course, or even old style pay in advance and then see if you like it for those who want to continue doing that. Or advertising, product placement, sponsorship, or any other way of monetising free content. This would just be extra revenue they are not getting now and wouldn't have any chance of getting.