Publishers need to die

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

That is just about the scariest thing you've written. The "correct type of diversity" suggests that some person or organisation controls this. As you have been suggesting that the Govts lead on this, I'm assuming you want the Govts to control the diversity. I'm almost at a loss for words to describe just how scary I find that. Govts have enough powers as it is without making it even easier for them to censor material they find objectionable. Or do you really think that isn't what would happen? If so, you really need to open your eyes to what the various Govts around the world can already get up to.

I can't help agreeing with Am on this. John Stuart Mill wrote of the dangers of the tyranny of the majority. Governments and majorites habitually try to control minorities. There's no way that we ought to frant them extra powers to do just that.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by giddion

The publisher works as a form of insurance to him, they have lawyers and financial reserves by which to protect the authors IP rights - J.K. Rowlings will also speak strongly of this function as random house lawyers have worked hard on her behalf protecting her money when pre-releases were leaked to the web or fan translation were released prior to the official translation.

C'mon.. can't you think of any example of an author needing protection than a billionaire? I mean, really..

Originally Posted by giddion

Publishers handle publicity, you can speak all you want about ratings and reader recommendations etc but there is a HUGE and I do mean HUGE volume of readers that essentially don't think for themselves, I know readers and not thinking sounds like an oxymoron but it's true. Many people don't buy an author until a certain person (can we say Oprah) or reviewer tells them to. It's the publisher that gets the book into the hands of those important people and its all $$ based. It's also the publisher that gets those exciting little review snippets on the jackets and and again I've seen people making book choices simply because of how those mini reviews sound.

Yah.. but isn't it odd how they seem to be putting most of the promotional work into authors who basically sell themselves already? I mean, if I were to tell y'all here that Rowling was writing a $secret_new book, the rest of the world would know in minutes, and the book would be sold out before they opened the pre-order queue. There definitely seems to be something fishily pointless about these publishers.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

I suppose I should explain something with regard to my last post... The examples I gave of "least favorite politicians" are certainly somewhat contrived and are deliberately over-the-top. What I was trying to get at was this: When considering a government program and trying to decide whether I think it's a good idea, I often find it useful to imagine what it would be like if it was being administered by the politicians and bureaucrats of my nightmares. If it still looks like a good idea then, it's probably worth implementing as a government program. If not, it fails the test.

While thought experiments are certainly acceptable, isn't this one a bit too procrustean? It seems a tool that can be wielded by anyone to invalidate just about any government action whatever, just so long as you consider something "likely" (which will vary with the political views held by the wielder, which in turn means that it's ultimately pointless, as you're only using it to confirm your own intuitions with it).

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

That is just about the scariest thing you've written. The "correct type of diversity" suggests that some person or organisation controls this. As you have been suggesting that the Govts lead on this, I'm assuming you want the Govts to control the diversity. I'm almost at a loss for words to describe just how scary I find that. Govts have enough powers as it is without making it even easier for them to censor material they find objectionable. Or do you really think that isn't what would happen? If so, you really need to open your eyes to what the various Govts around the world can already get up to.

I find this somewhat amusing. Just how much diversity do you think is "accepted" even by today's major publishing houses? While i'm impressed by the fact that both Neal Stephenson and the guy who wrote the DaVinci Code are printed, I find the emphasis you all put on "scary government" a bit silly.
It is easily possible to set up a system where you have input from non-govt in govt-sponsored organs (see the Fed for a popular example), but that aside, isn't the whole bloody point of the "Web 2.0" religion that there are far fewer content controls, and that all you'd have to do is prove you're being read in order to be eligible for funding?
The question of the role played in all this by the Government seems more or less beside the point, other than as a tax collector. All they'd have to do is collect the cash, and send it to an NGO that redistributes it.

Far more "content control" happens due to self-censorship, in the "we're protecting you from all the fluff written" variety, or the variety exemplified by the behavior displayed by the US news media, if you compare the stuff they printed before and after Katrina happened, when it became acceptable again to criticize a president, and the media weren't scared they would stop being read and so go out of business if they wrote anything bad about the Savior, G.W. [this is very closely related to the "voting with purses" variety of content control] or just as voting-with-purses (resulting in that da vinci code writer guy making money) than through Shady Government putting out contracts on heterodox writers. If people still call their governments 'democratic' even while suspecting or knowing they're doing that sort of thing I think the word has sort of become meaningless anyway, and the same goes for when you really consider it "conceivable" that they would.
Still, all that goes on "legitimately", "now", and, most importantly, opaquely, through things like "market forces" (you know, that famous invisible hand that makes everything right in the world), so there really is nothing to worry about.

Originally Posted by Patricia

I can't help agreeing with Am on this. John Stuart Mill wrote of the dangers of the tyranny of the majority. Governments and majorites habitually try to control minorities. There's no way that we ought to frant them extra powers to do just that.

I suppose there isn't, no.. but accepting the status quo as the "best alternative" to "government controlling everything" seems a bit defeatist to me as well.
There are many faults with the current models, and many improvements that can be made, and I suspect there are decent enough ways to set them up without stifling "Creativity," that vaunted and elusive drive/charactertrait.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

I find this somewhat amusing. Just how much diversity do you think is "accepted" even by today's major publishing houses? While i'm impressed by the fact that both Neal Stephenson and the guy who wrote the DaVinci Code are printed, I find the emphasis you all put on "scary government" a bit silly.
It is easily possible to set up a system where you have input from non-govt in govt-sponsored organs (see the Fed for a popular example), but that aside, isn't the whole bloody point of the "Web 2.0" religion that there are far fewer content controls, and that all you'd have to do is prove you're being read in order to be eligible for funding?
The question of the role played in all this by the Government seems more or less beside the point, other than as a tax collector. All they'd have to do is collect the cash, and send it to an NGO that redistributes it.

I have a reasonably good idea how much diversity the major publishing houses accept. I don't for one moment believe this will increase if a country's Govt became respsonsible for ensuring "acceptable diversity", rather I would expect it to decrease.

Far more "content control" happens due to self-censorship, in the "we're protecting you from all the fluff written" variety, or the variety exemplified by the behavior displayed by the US news media, if you compare the stuff they printed before and after Katrina happened, when it became acceptable again to criticize a president, and the media weren't scared they would stop being read and so go out of business if they wrote anything bad about the Savior, G.W. [this is very closely related to the "voting with purses" variety of content control] or just as voting-with-purses (resulting in that da vinci code writer guy making money) than through Shady Government putting out contracts on heterodox writers.

Ahh, now it's a little different in the UK - most of the papers here will lay into our PM if there's any reason to (reason in this context depends on the paper's particular bias - what a paper with a left wing bias might find acceptable one with a right wing one might criticise. And so on.). And the US president, and the leaders of other countries. They may not do so as much as I'd personally like, and they may have too much by way of "celebrity fluff" than I'd like, but they still have one or two teeth left.

If people still call their governments 'democratic' even while suspecting or knowing they're doing that sort of thing I think the word has sort of become meaningless anyway, and the same goes for when you really consider it "conceivable" that they would.

There is nothing in that paragraph that I disagree with. Of all the things I call the current UK Government, democratic is not one of them - the best I can manage is that they were democratically elected to power - but when the majority don't seem bothered enough to vote, even that might be debatable.

Still, all that goes on "legitimately", "now", and, most importantly, opaquely, through things like "market forces" (you know, that famous invisible hand that makes everything right in the world), so there really is nothing to worry about.

The thing with market forces is that all it can do is make it harder for you to get what you want to read - the author has other options available to them. They can't make it illegal.

I suppose there isn't, no.. but accepting the status quo as the "best alternative" to "government controlling everything" seems a bit defeatist to me as well.
There are many faults with the current models, and many improvements that can be made, and I suspect there are decent enough ways to set them up without stifling "Creativity," that vaunted and elusive drive/charactertrait.

I know that was in response to Patricia, but "better than", which is my stance, is not the same as "best alternative". I agree there are improvements to the current system that could be made. I don't think putting the Govt (yours or mine) is the way to go.

(Apologies if this seems a bit disjointed, btw, I'm writing it in gaps at work...)

[pshrynk]

I'm not so much scared of "scary government" as i am of "stupid government."

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

I find this somewhat amusing. Just how much diversity do you think is "accepted" even by today's major publishing houses?

The point is, right now we have major publishing houses with different focuses (I buy a good deal from Weiser), and many minor publishing houses that publish content that major houses wouldn't touch (New Falcon, Freya's Bower, New Page, Loompanics). Remove their content controls and put them all in the hands of a single organization--one with a history of censorship and repression of "dangerous" ideas--and the diversity we now have gets stifled.

While i'm impressed by the fact that both Neal Stephenson and the guy who wrote the DaVinci Code are printed, I find the emphasis you all put on "scary government" a bit silly.

I'm not so much worried about "scary government," but the ridiculous ideas that (1) ALL governments on the planet will agree on what artistic content should be subsidized and (2) any one government will subsidize all the artists who are currently making a living selling their content to publishers.

I understand that the premise includes the idea that the gov't would subsidize artists who aren't currently published, and we would all be enriched thereby. I don't disagree with that notion--but I don't blithely accept that we'd be better off with the gov't choosing whose works to promote.

all you'd have to do is prove you're being read in order to be eligible for funding?

Such a sweet idea. How widely-read do you have to prove you are to be eligible? I predict a rash of spambot "readers" to drive up popularity numbers... and the authors who get the subsidies are the most technologically advanced ones, not the most skilled writers.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

While thought experiments are certainly acceptable, isn't this one a bit too procrustean? It seems a tool that can be wielded by anyone to invalidate just about any government action whatever, just so long as you consider something "likely" (which will vary with the political views held by the wielder, which in turn means that it's ultimately pointless, as you're only using it to confirm your own intuitions with it).

It's not intended as a hard and fast rule, but rather as a reminder of the possibility of an unfortunate combination of the law of unintended consequences and the fact that whatever it is that I support (or you support, or he supports, or...) there are plenty of people who disagree... and sometime (probably sooner than I/you/he would like!) those other folks will be running the government. It's probably better to think of "those other folks" as being more like the differences between "McCain/Obama/Clinton" rather than "FDR/Stalin/Pol Pot." The over all point is the same, only the magnitude of the problem is changed.

Xenophon

P.S. This thread gets really interesting when certain posts are just blank.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

I'm not so much scared of "scary government" as i am of "stupid government."

As far as I'm concerned "stupid government" is a pretty good definition of "scary government"...

[mjh215]

government = stupid government = scary government

-MJ

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

The "correct type of diversity" suggests that some person or organisation controls this. As you have been suggesting that the Govts lead on this, I'm assuming you want the Govts to control the diversity.

Again, I am suggesting that the Government is going to regulate the business of monetization of the arts, just as the Government is regulating just about every other business out there. There is no reason that Internet movie downloading, p2p networks, Google Books and Wirelessly connected E-Ink readers shouldn't also have some type of Government regulation regulating how they should work.

The way I expect the recommendations algorithms to be made available is by hooking into open APIs. Thus if you think you have a good algorithm, you may submit your algorithm and it will instantly start calculating recommendations for anyone who would like to try using your recommendations engine.

My point, is that I do not want Amazon to control the only recommendations engine out there for movies on IMDB and I do not want Google to control theirs being the only recommendations engines having access to their mountains worth of digitized books. It makes no sense that only one company has the databases and apply on it only their own proprietary recommendations algorithms. That is why the Government needs to regulate the way in which any algorithm can interact with the global database system for all the artists, all works, all digital and analog file fingerprints and for all the users.

It's basically like an Open Social for the database of all artists, works, files and users and then a centralized standard for monetizing all that. Basically the Government collecting tax or/and taxing at the ISP level or/and harmonizing subscription plans, and then them making sure that the money is redistributed to the artists that deserve it using totally open and fair principles of popularity, quality, influence and stuff like that which are in the open and verifiable by several independent institutes for audience and usage measurement and analytics.

You may still sell stuff however you want commercially if you want. You can still sell hard covers (if they don't destroy too many forests), you may still sell CDs and DVDs if that makes your corporation happy. But there absolutely needs to be a monetization standard for the bulk of the file transfers that will happen from peers to peers, without DRM and using only the open standards that users will accept to use.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I understand that the premise includes the idea that the gov't would subsidize artists who aren't currently published, and we would all be enriched thereby. I don't disagree with that notion--but I don't blithely accept that we'd be better off with the gov't choosing whose works to promote.

There are ways to measure popularity on the Internet which are pretty much infallible. They are in fact much more precise than whatever audience measurements Radio, TV, Newspapers, Libraries and Museums have been using for decades. In fact, computer and Internet based statistics can be 10s of thousands of times more precise and more representative of the real actual audiences.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

How widely-read do you have to prove you are to be eligible? I predict a rash of spambot "readers" to drive up popularity numbers... and the authors who get the subsidies are the most technologically advanced ones, not the most skilled writers.

Again, spambots don't work. There are other things on the Internet than just anonymous web hits and anonymous posts. The Internet can perfectly enable registration of users, even the verification of the real identity of users through very advanced "Human tests" and pretty secure identity verification systems using credit cards or real postal adresses or other real ID verification processes. For example Google has their algorithms that lets them know with 99.999999% certainty that Gmail users are real and unique real people. The way they know that is through months and years of clicks and usage scenarios for each Google account that are simply put totally impossible to emulate using a robot. And which would be completely ridiculous to suggest that cheaters would go through such efforts to spam and try to cheat the system.

The result is that whatever cheating there might be in the 0.0000001% of Gmail accounts can be made sure to have such a totally insignificant effect on the actual statistics. It makes really no sense to insist that all Internet systems are spamable and gamable. It is simply being much too primitive and to have much too little faith in the actual Internet and computer technologies to just disregard it all as unusable by design for anything other than spam and cheating.

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by Gaurnim

This has already been discussed more than 100 years ago, when copyright was put into place (in England I think).
I can't find the link, I'm sure somebody else on the forum will. If not, I'll have a more thorough look when I'm back at home.

It was said that copyright is the "least objectionable" way of paying authors for their works, as opposed to public or private funding, where the state's or the sponsor's opinions influence the authors they choose and the amount of money they give them.

When copyright was put into place, copyright pretty much only protected the incomes of authors (and the publishing houses they chose to work with) because anyone wanting to pirate their works would have to pay for the media to distribute the works on. Which means that copyright outlawing piracy didn't hurt the media consuming public much at all, since pirates would be charging close to the price of the original author.

Modern circumstances are different - copyright laws *do* hurt the media consuming public, since there is little to no distribution cost. Modern pirates charge nothing at all.

Not to say I'm wholeheartedly against copyright as a means to protect authors (certainly *something* needs to keep authors producing new books), but saying "the issue was decided a hundred years ago" fails to observe that the facts on the ground are different now.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Charbax

There are ways to measure popularity on the Internet which are pretty much infallible. They are in fact much more precise than whatever audience measurements Radio, TV, Newspapers, Libraries and Museums have been using for decades. In fact, computer and Internet based statistics can be 10s of thousands of times more precise and more representative of the real actual audiences.

"Tens of thousands?" Got any real statistics to back that up, or did you pull that number out of thin air?

Again, spambots don't work. There are other things on the Internet than just anonymous web hits and anonymous posts. The Internet can perfectly enable registration of users, even the verification of the real identity of users through very advanced "Human tests"

Yes... for those people willing to register for services.

And all internet popularity contests show is what's popular online... it cannot show what people are reading or watching offline. And a number of people are paranoid about online registrations, especially government ones (sometimes with good reason), and would not be willing to jump through whatever digital hoops are required to rate various artists.

and pretty secure identity verification systems using credit cards or real postal adresses or other real ID verification processes.

It's nice to see someone who trusts all government agencies with their personal data.

For example Google has their algorithms that lets them know with 99.999999% certainty that Gmail users are real and unique real people.

And it works--for those who want to use Gmail. My tax dollars don't support Gmail. Taking money from *everyone* to support a small group, no matter how worthy a group, will get plenty of complaints from people who aren't online (about 40% of the US population).

And which would be completely ridiculous to suggest that cheaters would go through such efforts to spam and try to cheat the system.

There's not much reason to create spambot gmail accounts. There IS a reason to create spambot "taxpaying voter" accounts, who get a voice in allocating tax dollars.

It makes really no sense to insist that all Internet systems are spamable and gamable.

Of course they're not. However, the more reward for gaming it, the more motivation to find a way to do so. Getting to decide which artists get tax subsidies is a substantial reward, much larger than is available for having a few hundred throwaway gmail accounts.

At the very least, someone will have the bright idea of collecting names & addresses of people not connected online, and creating their "votes." How do you propose this will be prevented?

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

"Tens of thousands?" Got any real statistics to back that up, or did you pull that number out of thin air?

Previous era TV, Radio, Newspaper, Libraries and Museum usage statistics are based on supposedly representative samples of usually hundreds or max about a thousand people. And using that supposedly representative sample of the people as ground for the whole redistribution of the centralized funds.

Internet statistics counts usage from every single user. Thus Internet statistics uses representativity only in cases where for example newly registered non verified users have activity that one can use verified old users to represent them using some algorithms. But mostly, on the Internet, you basically know exactly the usage statistics of every single registered verified user. Thus you get tens of millions of very precise measurements versus a thousand measurements in the old models.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Yes... for those people willing to register for services.

Well you seem to be okay registering to mobileread.com to post these forum messages..

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

And all internet popularity contests show is what's popular online... it cannot show what people are reading or watching offline. And a number of people are paranoid about online registrations, especially government ones (sometimes with good reason), and would not be willing to jump through whatever digital hoops are required to rate various artists.

You get those recommendations and you get access to certain services such as a legal global standard for on-demand access to all digital files.

Most Internet users today seem to have no problem logging into Facebooks, Myspaces, Google accounts, Forum profiles and post on blogs. And that is under the current mess of a system where you aren't getting much value out of giving your identity to private corporations to use without any rules protecting your privacy.

In the case of the new artistic revolution, it will be regulated by the Government which will also enable very strict rules concerning privacy. That would be part of what the whole standard would be about. It's like Open Social, like OpenID, privacy is perfectly manageable.

Connected E-readers can monitor usage, maintain logs on amount of time spent on each page and enable the user to rate the contents. That is of course all of it enabled voluntarily by the user. Cause the user will see a huge value in being part of this system. What you get is better recommendations, you get to manage for yourself what is in your digital library, you get to have an overview of your favorites among all the content that is available. Basically you get a much better Internet by opting in for this. And as soon as you have tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily opting in for reporting their "offline" usage statistics in their E-Readers, Mp3 players and multimedia players, then you already got enough data to have much more precise statistics on usage that are very representative of the overall usage. Much more representative then any previous measurements people could do with small samples of users filling out questionnaires.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

However, the more reward for gaming it, the more motivation to find a way to do so. Getting to decide which artists get tax subsidies is a substantial reward, much larger than is available for having a few hundred throwaway gmail accounts.

At the very least, someone will have the bright idea of collecting names & addresses of people not connected online, and creating their "votes." How do you propose this will be prevented?

How do you propose to coordinate the hacking of 100 thousand Google accounts of users which you know are not online for the period of 1 year and then make it look like they all enjoy your fake piece of music to try and get your artist paid through the subsidies. And how do you propose not getting caught when any of these 100'000 users may at any time decide to log-onto their account and can immediately see that there has been some illicit activity going on which they can then instantly report. And how do you propose that the spammed artist in this case not be instantly pointed out as being part of an attempt at gaming the system.