Proposal for undercutting Pirates

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Redcard

Also, interestingly enough, in some cultures tipping is banned or not welcome. Especially Asian cultures. The gratuity is often built into the bill or cost of food.

Different culture different rules. For some it is not polite to leave food on the plate (you didn't like it) others get offended if you don't (also in Asia, since you did not get enough to be full, and thus you were not satisfied by the AMOUNT of food).

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

A combination of referrer tracking with simplified donation buttons is most likely the future for digital content.

Thank you for putting it that simple. That is partially what I meant - using a well established pirate distribution model (which is free) and try to turn that into revenue. If you don't "pirate" your own book, somebody else will and definately not include a donation-button.

[volwrath]

I believe Cory Doctorow has been using that same recipe for a while now

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by volwrath

I believe Cory Doctorow has been using that same recipe for a while now

He has And coincidentally, I have every one of his books

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Thank you for putting it that simple. That is partially what I meant - using a well established pirate distribution model (which is free) and try to turn that into revenue. If you don't "pirate" your own book, somebody else will and definately not include a donation-button.

Yes, with an end to anonymity, it will not be possible to pirate books. What we are mostly interested in is the discovery of texts by those who have not previously been known for writing texts.

All texts will have donation buttons inherent. All sharing will be tracked, a text's flow through the network will be mapped and time spent reading texts will be logged. Reviews of texts which produce more readers of the reviewed text will be rewarded with revenue sharing, initial revenues will most likely come from access fees to the pool of texts.

[speakingtohe]

While I would certainly support a donation standard, I don't think it should be mandatory.

An author should be free to distribute their works as they see fit. In democratic societies at least.

A person who writes is as much an owner of the fruits of their labor as a person who makes chocolate Easter Bunnies.

Total entitlement of all people to all information would lead to many people not sharing that information in any form whatsoever.

There are many people who do something solely because it needs to be done, but the majority of people expect recompense.

I would be more lenient towards someone stealing a medication that could save a loved one from cancer or even drugs if one is addicted, but a book or a movie? Where is the justification there.

Perhaps if it was a $10,000 book/movie that was needed to complete one's education so one could work for a pittance to benefit humanity. Even that theory has holes in it.

Helen

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Redcard

That's donationware. In the history of software, it doesn't work.

Here now, says who?

My husband is a bedroom programmer who writes donation-ware. (He wrote the Amazon Reviewer Analysis Tool - ARAT - for those of us who are Amazon reviewing enthusiasts.) He's not made thousands because it's a niche product, but he's made a tidy bit of change.

Calibre is donation supported. So is Sigil, iirc. So is PRS+, I think. So is Calibre2opds. (Reminder to self: Send new donations now that it's 2012).

[Redcard]

Okay, well, donationware works, per se.

Kovid is also got a few other things going on than Calibre That PhD from Caltech probably comes in handy.

And yeah, I do work on opensource software, too.. and I make money off the donations.. but we're talking beer and pizza (okay, and some really fun gadgets every once in awhile) money for the most part. Not mortgage and car payment money I think many authors would find it hard to survive on the generosity of others.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Redcard

And yeah, I do work on opensource software, too.. and I make money off the donations.. but we're talking beer and pizza (okay, and some really fun gadgets every once in awhile) money for the most part. Not mortgage and car payment money I think many authors would find it hard to survive on the generosity of others.

Oh sure, most donation-ware programmers have day jobs. Most writers do, too.

What's the percentage of writers who live entirely on their writing, and not from a day job or a spouse or some other source of income? I'll bet it's pretty small.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Oh sure, most donation-ware programmers have day jobs. Most writers do, too.

What's the percentage of writers who live entirely on their writing, and not from a day job or a spouse or some other source of income? I'll bet it's pretty small.

And there is few ones that stand out. Stumbled across: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...iction_authors.

I know you cannot always trust wikipedia - but anyway take it with a grain of salt. Very interesting how J.K. Rowling made it in that list into spot 11. There are not all that many others that made it there with fewer than 10 books. If memory serves right, until the 4th book (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) Rowling was practically unheard of. And then BOOM with pure dumb luck it exploded. The books get progressivly better throughout the series if you look at it writing wise, not story wise. Compare that to Lord of the Rings, which is written in 6 books, writing wise every single one of them books is high quality right from the beginning. And Tolkien is only in spot 33.

Don't get me wrong - I do enjoy reading Harry Potter - have most of them in hardcover, all in paperback twice. And I am not one single bit ashamed for having all of them in ebook in pdf, epub, and mobi. It is too bad that the ebooks are all based on the american version, and not the original. But then it is better than not having the ebooks.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

An author should be free to distribute their works as they see fit.

Total entitlement of all people to all information would lead to many people not sharing that information in any form whatsoever.

Perhaps if it was a book/movie that was needed to complete one's education...

Helen

An author can either keep their works hidden (author in the cave) or upload.

Once uploaded an authors texts should be available for anyone to access. Fees and compensation should not be demanded beforehand, but rather compensation can be drawn from the readers income tax. Public patronage of the arts, where the patrons are the actual public.

People choosing not to share their information under the total entitlement network would be a positive at first since there would be less dreck for potential readers to sift through. As the system began to work, by recompensing authors for enjoyable reads, more authors would begin to see the value of the network and the number of uploads would increase.

Every text I have ever read has contributed to my education, (the development of myself) everything is necessary, everything is valuable.

Originally Posted by Redcard

Okay, well, donationware works, per se.

And yeah, I do work on opensource software, too.. and I make money off the donations.. but we're talking beer and pizza (okay, and some really fun gadgets every once in awhile) money for the most part. Not mortgage and car payment money I think many authors would find it hard to survive on the generosity of others.

If you got rid of the car you could afford more pizza! Also, why not just think that authors would be able to survive on the generosity of others? If we're just thinking about stuff, might as well think positive.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Redcard

Kovid is also got a few other things going on than Calibre That PhD from Caltech probably comes in handy.

Actually, all of Kovid's income comes from Calibre. In the Calibre donations unacknowledged thread, he stated:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Indeed, I currently work full time on calibre and that is made possible only by the number of donations I receive.

So it would seem the PhD isn't helping him at the moment, at least in terms of generating income.

[scampos]

I am not a writer, but work with software, so here is an interesting data point. In the open source software community paid registration for the software usually gives you support. So you don't register just because you like the software (even though you can), but also to get support for it.

Statistics show that 1% of the downloads become paid registrations. Do you think that if a writer gets money from 1% of the readers he/she will be paid fairly ? I am asking, I don't know the answer.

[mr ploppy]

I did that, I got £1 from it (70p after Paypal took their cut). I was quite chuffed, and the person who sent it gets a free copy of everything I write now. The main problem, I think, is people don't generally tend to read stuff they download for free.

[speakingtohe]

If an author sells 50,000 copies and gets $1 royalty per copy, he gets $50,000.
If 1% only pay he gets $500.

$50,000 seems reasonable compensation at a glance, although if the author publishes once every 3 years and writes full time, it works out to a pretty small annual income.

And, of course, most open source software donations are above $1 per copy.

I don't think the buyer should have total control over whether payment is made, unless the author of software developer grants them that right.

It is like stealing carrots from a farmers field. One little carrot won't hurt him we think, but if 99% of all carrots are stolen, soon no-one would be tempted to grow carrots.

Helen