Register Guidelines E-Books Today's Posts Search

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book General > News

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 04-17-2009, 04:09 PM   #106
Good Old Neon
Zealot
Good Old Neon doesn't litterGood Old Neon doesn't litter
 
Good Old Neon's Avatar
 
Posts: 118
Karma: 114
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle
Quote:
Originally Posted by zerospinboson View Post
What's with all the hyperbole, though? It's annoying to have to read through.
As with the hippie movement, the goal was, I believe, to cut out the middle man. (that is, "corporations are bad, m'kay?").
Why is it always about the authors when we're talking about copyright, and never about the whole system? It's pretty easy to argue that they will suffer unduly, and you might even feel sorry for them, as they're usually individuals, but the big guy standing behind them forcing them to sign their extortionist contracts is always ignored in the debate. Very convenient, that. Businesses come, go, die, and resurrect. This is capitalism.
Why are copyright-businesses different? Why should they stay alive? It's not like some other business won't pop up to take it's place, to "serve" the content creator.
Copyright is excusable when it's in the interest of individuals, but when it's being used to prop up an entire industry, something has gone wrong, and protectionism (that is, favoring of specific, usually national, corporations) is happening.
While I don't at all believe in unfettered capitalism, I sure do believe in the pointlessness of protectionism.
This last sentence strikes me as hyperbolic.

I don’t buy the black and white idea that all corporations are bad – it’s simply not true.

And though I respect the hippie movement on some levels, many of the tenants it espoused are simply not sustainable (not to mention, attainable) in the real world. Which is why, outside of university life, the hippie movement is pretty much dead. The reason being, our parents came to the realization that in adult life, a free-loving, free-living lifestyle is not so good at keeping a roof over your head, and food on the table. I may not like that reality any more than you do, but like it or not, it is what it is – r.e.a.l.i.t.y

Whether you like it or not, art is a commodity, and it’s creators are every bit as entitled to profit from it’s sale as those who traffic in toasters and refrigerators.

Quote:
Why is it always about the authors when we're talking about copyright, and never about the whole system? It's pretty easy to argue that they will suffer unduly, and you might even feel sorry for them, as they're usually individuals, but the big guy standing behind them forcing them to sign their extortionist contracts is always ignored in the debate. Very convenient, that. Businesses come, go, die, and resurrect. This is capitalism.
Aside from being hyperbolic, what you’ve stated here reads like a cartoonish satire of the publishing industry. No one is being forced into anything. Don’t like the terms of a contract, fine, don’t sign it. As there are myriad publishing houses (both large and small, corporate and independent) available, not to mention the option to self-publish - no writer, musician, etc need sign a contract that does not serve their interests. As with any industry, there are good and bad eggs – who one chooses to sign/deal with is, ultimately, the responsibility of the individual.

Last edited by Good Old Neon; 04-17-2009 at 04:20 PM.
Good Old Neon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:14 PM   #107
bhartman36
Wizard
bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bhartman36 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
bhartman36's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,323
Karma: 1515835
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: New Jersey, USA
Device: Kobo Libra Colour, Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (2021)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Well, one could argue with c) - and this argument is purely semantic.
It's partially a semantic argument, but only because words have meanings, and those meanings have implications.

In the case of BitTorrent (and Pirate Bay, specifically), there's nothing being put in a shared space. The file resides on the seeder's hard drive, and it's copied, bit for bit, to the recipients' hard drives. It's not being shared. It's being copied.


Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Why? IF the market works without DRM (as demonstrated by music shops ATM) - then there is no need to test the market with a different instrument. In fact testing a market with a considerably different model (DRM) removes all sense of tests.
The fact that DRM-free content works for music (now) doesn't necessarily mean that it will work for ebooks (now).

The primary reason that DRM-free music works is because the hardware involved (primarily, the MP3 players) became easy enough to use, and the associated software (including the MP3 format) became good enough for consumers to easily download, store, play, search, manipulate (e.g., normalization), and catalogue their music -- with standards that were developed.

Ebooks, by contrast, have very few of those things. The reader hardware is good, but not necessarily great, and it's relatively expensive. Ebooks can come in several different formats (not including DRM formats), and there are metadata issues. Don't get me wrong: I love my Kindle, but there's a distance to go yet, before ebook readers will be ready for the masses. (The introduction of color e-Ink will obviously be a huge step in the right direction, as would the ability to have a light of some kind built-in to the book, which so far has proven difficult for e-Ink devices.)

On top of all this, DRM-free e-book experiments have not gone all that well. Consider what happened with Stephen King's The Plant. And that was Stephen King, who doesn't usually have problems getting people to pay for his books.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
DRM is a evil. Full stop.
That's an oversimplification. Like any other technology, DRM is only "evil" if you want to do something the DRM wasn't designed for. I have a TiVo that uses DRM, but the files it produces can be used in a lot of places, including other people's devices (although not TiVos) if I choose to let them use them. The DRM is simply a watermark that lets content providers know where a file came from, to discourage people from going to The Pirate Bay and "sharing" the video to 10,000 of their close, personal friends.



Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Nonsense. Without those sides music companies never would have started a download market without the concurrency through P2P (etc) - see their long, long fight against downloadable music, their continuing support of utterly useless formats (in low quality), etc.
MP3's were never delivered by the MP3 Fairy. The technology to rip music is what produced the motivation for selling music online. If anything, the download sites hindered the adoption of open formats by the music industry. Do you seriously believe that the record industry would've been skittish if WinAmp existed, but not Napster? The technology to exchange files online existed long before p2p did. p2p simply made it less painful to do so.



Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Why? Provide more service ... Keeping to this old market system is plain stupid.
I agree with you in part. The old model of selling a whole CD at a time, without letting consumers hear most of the songs first, is dying, if not dead. But no content provider with two neurons to rub together would put out more content or service, knowing full well that they'll get less in return (again, see what happened to Stephen King). From a business standpoint (and anyone who is selling their books, or representing someone who is selling books, is in it as a business), that would be suicidal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Why? You have not given a single argument that publishers will e.g. learn from the music industry (from their current development, not their errors) or that there even is a substantial ebook piracy or that it damages the market OR WHATEVER ELSE.
1) I can almost guarantee you that there is not currently "subbstantial ebook piracy". There is some ebook piracy, but it won't be substantial until the masses want to read electronic texts. Ebook readers quite there yet. While the Kindle has done fairly well, it's not, in its current incarnation, "the iPod of ebooks", so to speak. Widespread piracy will come with ebook popularity, if it gets that far, just like it did with music.

2) In regards to "damaging the market", there's nothing to "prove". Every time a person downloads a book that is under copyright and is being sold, that's another sale the author and publisher don't get. You can't even make the argument, like you can for music, that people can try a part and buy the rest if they like it, because ebooks are continuous works. (And in fact, selling by the chapter is the method that Stephen King tried for "The Plant").

3) Publishers have learned from the music industry. That's why you see them protecting their intellectual property now, before it's too late. Remember: DRM was a response to piracy for the music industry (which should have learned the lesson well from the software industry, but didn't). It started with copy protection on CDs, and then moved to copy-protection on music store files, once the music industry realized that copy-protected CDs weren't going to sell. It was the rejection by consumers of DRM'd CDs that backed the music industry into a corner. Because consumers rejected copyprotected CDs, there was no way for the music industry to stop the bleeding, other than selling music online. (If you can't sell a copy-protected CD, you can't prevent people from ripping to MP3, so you might as well give them a digital file.) The final leap to MP3 format (for most online music stores, at least) was the pressure of sites like eMusic.com, that did sell MP3 files (albeit from indie/less popular artists), that took the first step into the MP3 sales arena, and offered better quality sound (and certainly better tagging) than you could get for free.

Ebooks will be able to circumvent some of that experimentation (e.g., there's no need to copy-protect paper books, since the barrier to copying is so high in the first place), but some vendor is going to have to be the first DRM-free vendor to really make a success of it, before things start moving in the DRM-free direction. That won't happen until ebook readers are more than a niche product, which they still are, at this point.
bhartman36 is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 04-17-2009, 04:20 PM   #108
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Nate the great's Avatar
 
Posts: 12,375
Karma: 23555235
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
about the 100 neo-nazi candidates

Someone sent me a link, so I now know that it is mostly BS. Here is the original source:
http://translate.google.com/translat...ie=ISO-8859-1#


The 100 candidates were not running for political office; they were running for the board of a Swedish nonprofit called Skattebetalarnas förening (http://translate.google.com/translat...tbb=1&ie=UTF-8).

And the neo nazis were actually members of the Swedish Democrats. Having looked at Wikipedia entry, I have to say that if members of the SD party are neo nazis, then so is most of the Republican Party in the US. The positions as stated in the Wikipedia article are not that different.
Nate the great is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:21 PM   #109
tompe
Grand Sorcerer
tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 7,452
Karma: 7185064
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Linköpng, Sweden
Device: Kindle Voyage, Nexus 5, Kindle PW
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good Old Neon View Post
Originally Posted by Moejoe
Well well, this is good news The Swedish courts have just invigorated the file-sharing movement and turned the founders of the Pirate Bay into Rock Stars. Plus all the major media coverage (5 minute segment on Ch5 News in UK explaining in detail how to get "free stuff") and what you've got here is nothing but an EPIC win on the part of the Pirate Bay. They'll never see a day of jail, never pay a penny in compensation, and this will get thrown out in the Swedish higher courts just as it should have been thrown out in the first place.

Congratulations Major Media Corporations, you've just given the file sharing movement its biggest moment in the sun. This is the equivalent of arresting Mick Jagger for smoking pot. And we all know how that event turned a whole generation off the music of the Rolling Stones and smoking pot, don't we?
Was there a point in this? "simply by breaking the law" was the reason you assumed so please explain why you assumed that breaking the law was the thing that was referred to. Why did you not choose something more reasonable to be the intended meaning like "standing up for your opinions", "trying to change the world" and so on.
tompe is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:26 PM   #110
Good Old Neon
Zealot
Good Old Neon doesn't litterGood Old Neon doesn't litter
 
Good Old Neon's Avatar
 
Posts: 118
Karma: 114
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36 View Post
It's partially a semantic argument, but only because words have meanings, and those meanings have implications.

In the case of BitTorrent (and Pirate Bay, specifically), there's nothing being put in a shared space. The file resides on the seeder's hard drive, and it's copied, bit for bit, to the recipients' hard drives. It's not being shared. It's being copied.




The fact that DRM-free content works for music (now) doesn't necessarily mean that it will work for ebooks (now).

The primary reason that DRM-free music works is because the hardware involved (primarily, the MP3 players) became easy enough to use, and the associated software (including the MP3 format) became good enough for consumers to easily download, store, play, search, manipulate (e.g., normalization), and catalogue their music -- with standards that were developed.

Ebooks, by contrast, have very few of those things. The reader hardware is good, but not necessarily great, and it's relatively expensive. Ebooks can come in several different formats (not including DRM formats), and there are metadata issues. Don't get me wrong: I love my Kindle, but there's a distance to go yet, before ebook readers will be ready for the masses. (The introduction of color e-Ink will obviously be a huge step in the right direction, as would the ability to have a light of some kind built-in to the book, which so far has proven difficult for e-Ink devices.)

On top of all this, DRM-free e-book experiments have not gone all that well. Consider what happened with Stephen King's The Plant. And that was Stephen King, who doesn't usually have problems getting people to pay for his books.



That's an oversimplification. Like any other technology, DRM is only "evil" if you want to do something the DRM wasn't designed for. I have a TiVo that uses DRM, but the files it produces can be used in a lot of places, including other people's devices (although not TiVos) if I choose to let them use them. The DRM is simply a watermark that lets content providers know where a file came from, to discourage people from going to The Pirate Bay and "sharing" the video to 10,000 of their close, personal friends.





MP3's were never delivered by the MP3 Fairy. The technology to rip music is what produced the motivation for selling music online. If anything, the download sites hindered the adoption of open formats by the music industry. Do you seriously believe that the record industry would've been skittish if WinAmp existed, but not Napster? The technology to exchange files online existed long before p2p did. p2p simply made it less painful to do so.





I agree with you in part. The old model of selling a whole CD at a time, without letting consumers hear most of the songs first, is dying, if not dead. But no content provider with two neurons to rub together would put out more content or service, knowing full well that they'll get less in return (again, see what happened to Stephen King). From a business standpoint (and anyone who is selling their books, or representing someone who is selling books, is in it as a business), that would be suicidal.



1) I can almost guarantee you that there is not currently "subbstantial ebook piracy". There is some ebook piracy, but it won't be substantial until the masses want to read electronic texts. Ebook readers quite there yet. While the Kindle has done fairly well, it's not, in its current incarnation, "the iPod of ebooks", so to speak. Widespread piracy will come with ebook popularity, if it gets that far, just like it did with music.

2) In regards to "damaging the market", there's nothing to "prove". Every time a person downloads a book that is under copyright and is being sold, that's another sale the author and publisher don't get. You can't even make the argument, like you can for music, that people can try a part and buy the rest if they like it, because ebooks are continuous works. (And in fact, selling by the chapter is the method that Stephen King tried for "The Plant").

3) Publishers have learned from the music industry. That's why you see them protecting their intellectual property now, before it's too late. Remember: DRM was a response to piracy for the music industry (which should have learned the lesson well from the software industry, but didn't). It started with copy protection on CDs, and then moved to copy-protection on music store files, once the music industry realized that copy-protected CDs weren't going to sell. It was the rejection by consumers of DRM'd CDs that backed the music industry into a corner. Because consumers rejected copyprotected CDs, there was no way for the music industry to stop the bleeding, other than selling music online. (If you can't sell a copy-protected CD, you can't prevent people from ripping to MP3, so you might as well give them a digital file.) The final leap to MP3 format (for most online music stores, at least) was the pressure of sites like eMusic.com, that did sell MP3 files (albeit from indie/less popular artists), that took the first step into the MP3 sales arena, and offered better quality sound (and certainly better tagging) than you could get for free.

Ebooks will be able to circumvent some of that experimentation (e.g., there's no need to copy-protect paper books, since the barrier to copying is so high in the first place), but some vendor is going to have to be the first DRM-free vendor to really make a success of it, before things start moving in the DRM-free direction. That won't happen until ebook readers are more than a niche product, which they still are, at this point.
Excellent points.
Good Old Neon is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 04-17-2009, 04:34 PM   #111
gwynevans
Wizzard
gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.gwynevans ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
gwynevans's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,402
Karma: 2000000
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: UK
Device: iPad 2, iPhone 6s, Kindle Voyage & Kindle PaperWhite
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
Nate: "The Register", whose article I linked to, are a British Newspaper. They are not allowed, under UK law, to knowingly post false articles. If they did, anyone could complain to the "Press Complaints Commission" (the "watchdog" of the British press), and they could be fined as a result, or sued for libel. I therefore trust the veracity of their articles without having to independently personally verify the truth of what they are saying.
They're a "online tech publication", and as such, I'm less than convinced that they're under the remit of the PCA. I'd think that you'd be unwise to trust that the authors don't have their own agendas, one of which will almost certainly be that a certain amount of controversial material will help boost the page-stats...

Last edited by gwynevans; 04-17-2009 at 04:43 PM. Reason: Removed spurious apostrophe
gwynevans is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:37 PM   #112
Good Old Neon
Zealot
Good Old Neon doesn't litterGood Old Neon doesn't litter
 
Good Old Neon's Avatar
 
Posts: 118
Karma: 114
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle
Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe View Post
Was there a point in this? "simply by breaking the law" was the reason you assumed so please explain why you assumed that breaking the law was the thing that was referred to. Why did you not choose something more reasonable to be the intended meaning like "standing up for your opinions", "trying to change the world" and so on.
Quote:
Moejoe

Well well, this is good news The Swedish courts have just invigorated the file-sharing movement and turned the founders of the Pirate Bay into Rock Star.
I find the preceding quote entirely unambiguous, if you require clarification, perhaps you should question its author.

Moejoe has made his disdain for copyright law in relation to the “free-flow” of information rather clear – the use of “good news” to describe events he feels will result from this decision, suggests, to me, that he is pleased that those in question will be held up as Rock Stars or martyrs of some sort.

He may choose to regard them as freedom fighters of a sort, I, on the other hand, do not.

Last edited by Good Old Neon; 04-17-2009 at 04:56 PM.
Good Old Neon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:47 PM   #113
tirsales
MIA ... but returning som
tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
tirsales's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,600
Karma: 511342
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Germany
Device: PRS-505 and *Really* not owning a PRS-700
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36 View Post
In the case of BitTorrent (and Pirate Bay, specifically), there's nothing being put in a shared space. The file resides on the seeder's hard drive, and it's copied, bit for bit, to the recipients' hard drives. It's not being shared. It's being copied.
Whether you define "sharing" as "the same object residing in the shared space and being used by multiple people" or "the same *content* etc"
Actually that is the reasoning the publishing industry is using (its the content, not the container thats matters) - so P2P is sharing.

Quote:
The fact that DRM-free content works for music (now) doesn't necessarily mean that it will work for ebooks (now).
The fact that the market of today WILL die is a reason to change it, not to clang to it like .. I dont know.

Quote:
The primary reason that DRM-free music works is because the hardware involved (primarily, the MP3 players) became easy enough to use, and the associated software (including the MP3 format) became good enough for consumers to easily download, store, play, search, manipulate (e.g., normalization), and catalogue their music -- with standards that were developed.
This is actually why digital music is working and unrelated to DRM. DRM hinders the development of any market (see Kindle vs Sony vs ...)

Quote:
Ebooks, by contrast, have very few of those things. The reader hardware is good, but not necessarily great, and it's relatively expensive. Ebooks can come in several different formats (not including DRM formats), and there are metadata issues.
Yes. Thats why DRM is evil.

Quote:
Don't get me wrong: I love my Kindle, but there's a distance to go yet, before ebook readers will be ready for the masses. (The introduction of color e-Ink will obviously be a huge step in the right direction, as would the ability to have a light of some kind built-in to the book, which so far has proven difficult for e-Ink devices.)
This is understood and I agree.

Quote:
On top of all this, DRM-free e-book experiments have not gone all that well.
There are several publishers providing DRM-free e-books and they have worked fairly well.
There NEVER was a real test of drm-free e-books in a large market..

Quote:
That's an oversimplification. Like any other technology, DRM is only "evil" if you want to do something the DRM wasn't designed for.
It is not. DRM hinders any open development, it ties people to vendors, it hinders the development of readers (see e.g. Kindle vs Sony vs etc), etc
Apart from that: Why should I pay MORE for an ebook then for a pbook while getting much less? (and that is primarly drms fault).
I can understand the usage of DRM in SOME special markets - but not in large content-markets. Either I pay for the container (then do I want to be able to resell it and do whatever I want with this container) or I pay for the content - then I will be able to read it any way I like (etc).
NONE of this is given with DRM.


Quote:
The DRM is simply a watermark that lets content providers know where a file came from, to discourage people from going to The Pirate Bay and "sharing" the video to 10,000 of their close, personal friends.
This is then called watermarking, not DRM.

Quote:
MP3's were never delivered by the MP3 Fairy.
No, it was developed by the Frauenhofer Institute.

Quote:
The technology to rip music is what produced the motivation for selling music online.
Nope, those techniques where available for YEARS before the media industry ever started providing download services (or similar). At first they tried to kill any kind of MP3 (or similar), then they tried to enforce DRM'd low quality music (both to keep to the old CD market). This failed (gravely).
Thus they were forced to provide a better market - first trying medium quality DRM'd, then somehow better, now DRM-free.
No, I really believe P2P enabled this market change.

Quote:
If anything, the download sites hindered the adoption of open formats by the music industry. Do you seriously believe that the record industry would've been skittish if WinAmp existed, but not Napster? The technology to exchange files online existed long before p2p did. p2p simply made it less painful to do so.
Yes, I DO believe this. MP3 and stuff was available long before Napster and file sharing got large - the media industry would have been more then able to go for this market - they didnt even try.

Quote:
I agree with you in part. The old model of selling a whole CD at a time, without letting consumers hear most of the songs first, is dying, if not dead.
No, the whole "I am selling a piece of content that you (and only you) can listen to"-model is dead. New models have to be build - and they are very reluctant to even try.

Quote:
But no content provider with two neurons to rub together would put out more content or service, knowing full well that they'll get less in return (again, see what happened to Stephen King).
Stephen King was ONE try (and not a very large one). I for one didnt really hear of it - so it cannot have been a large test.
And whats the meaning of "knowing full that they will get less" - they do NOT know this. They never once tried.

Quote:
From a business standpoint (and anyone who is selling their books, or representing someone who is selling books, is in it as a business), that would be suicidal.
Now. Trying to hold to an old business model - no matter the cost - is suicidal.
They prefer suing and repelling their customers before they even try to test something. To quote Joda: That is why they fail.

Quote:
1) I can almost guarantee you that there is not currently "subbstantial ebook piracy". There is some ebook piracy, but it won't be substantial until the masses want to read electronic texts.
Yes. So - they now (and only now) have the chance to establish the new market before the piracy settles in.
And - you can see this with the (now) working music market - people do go for "legal" markets - if they are fair, provide at least some service (not what Thalia and Co are doing now) and provide high quality to fair prices.
Whatever - I am NOT arguing against publishers, authors, musicians, etc owning money. I want to do the same...

Quote:
Widespread piracy will come with ebook popularity, if it gets that far, just like it did with music.
Piracy came because there was no alternative - and it is declining since there is an alternative.

Quote:
Every time a person downloads a book that is under copyright and is being sold, that's another sale the author and publisher don't get. You can't even make the argument, like you can for music, that people can try a part and buy the rest if they like it, because ebooks are continuous works. (And in fact, selling by the chapter is the method that Stephen King tried for "The Plant").
As I said - Stephen Kings experiment has not been large (I have not heard of it ...), it does not count (or do you count the horror market as the largest market available?)
And yes - I can make this argument. Or you could say that libraries are destroying the market - essentially they provide the same.

Quote:
3) Publishers have learned from the music industry. That's why you see them protecting their intellectual property now, before it's too late.
No, they have NOT learned. Otherwise they wouldnt try to menace their customers before they even try to establish a market.
In Germany the ebook-market is a bad joke - its low quality, its nearly no service (to a point that I believe to be illegal), they are only supporting ONE format, etc - this is NOT learning from the music industry. This is redoing the same errors over and over again.

Quote:
Remember: DRM was a response to piracy for the music industry (which should have learned the lesson well from the software industry, but didn't).
Yeah - as if DRM has ever helped in the software industry. Sorry, DRM was a bad idea - thats why they are leaving it in the music industry AND (for parts) in the software industry.
They might have started DRM as a response to piracy - but it was the wrong one. They once jumped for the wrong horse, and they continue betting on it.

Quote:
It started with copy protection on CDs, and then moved to copy-protection on music store files, once the music industry realized that copy-protected CDs weren't going to sell. It was the rejection by consumers of DRM'd CDs that backed the music industry into a corner.
Yes - the rejection of DRM forced the industry to stop DRM. The very same will happen with the eBook-market (they just dont want to believe it).

Quote:
If you can't sell a copy-protected CD, you can't prevent people from ripping to MP3, so you might as well give them a digital file.
As I said - it was piracy that forced them to start "file" shops...

Quote:
that took the first step into the MP3 sales arena, and offered better quality sound (and certainly better tagging) than you could get for free.
YES - thats what I am trying to say.

Quote:
but some vendor is going to have to be the first DRM-free vendor to really make a success of it, before things start moving in the DRM-free direction. That won't happen until ebook readers are more than a niche product, which they still are, at this point.
YES - thats what I meant by "they have learned not a single point". They are even asking the same lawyers to help them menace their customers.
tirsales is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:48 PM   #114
tirsales
MIA ... but returning som
tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tirsales ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
tirsales's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,600
Karma: 511342
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Germany
Device: PRS-505 and *Really* not owning a PRS-700
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good Old Neon View Post
Excellent points.
Full quotes are still considered rude.
tirsales is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:51 PM   #115
Good Old Neon
Zealot
Good Old Neon doesn't litterGood Old Neon doesn't litter
 
Good Old Neon's Avatar
 
Posts: 118
Karma: 114
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Amazon Kindle
Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Full quotes are still considered rude.
Hey, you just full quoted me!
Good Old Neon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 04:53 PM   #116
kovidgoyal
creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 45,364
Karma: 27230406
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36 View Post
It's partially a semantic argument, but only because words have meanings, and those meanings have implications.

In the case of BitTorrent (and Pirate Bay, specifically), there's nothing being put in a shared space. The file resides on the seeder's hard drive, and it's copied, bit for bit, to the recipients' hard drives. It's not being shared. It's being copied.
Indeed, words have meaning and meanings have implications. To claim, as you do, that sharing music is not sharing because it involves copying the bits of files is silly at best and disingenuous at worst. The meaning of sharing is to make something that you have available to someone else. It does not imply that by sharing you must reduce the availabilty of the resource to yourself. In fact, the vast majority of things that people share have the property that sharing does not reduce their availabilty to the sharer. Some examples: Ideas, gossip, information of all kinds, stories, music, software.

So TPB and other content sharing methods are just that, content sharing methods.


Quote:

2) In regards to "damaging the market", there's nothing to "prove". Every time a person downloads a book that is under copyright and is being sold, that's another sale the author and publisher don't get. You can't even make the argument, like you can for music, that people can try a part and buy the rest if they like it, because ebooks are continuous works. (And in fact, selling by the chapter is the method that Stephen King tried for "The Plant").
Not it's not, in fact it is at best a fraction of a sale and indeed may even be negative. That is obvious, if you need me to spell out the reasons why, just ask.

Quote:
3) Publishers have learned from the music industry. That's why you see them protecting their intellectual property now, before it's too late.
DRM doesn't protect intellectual property. It doesn't even pretend to protect intellectual property. The only thing it protects against is casual copying. There are however people that pretend it protects intellectual property, in order to score debating points. The two should not be confused.
kovidgoyal is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 06:05 PM   #117
tompe
Grand Sorcerer
tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.tompe ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 7,452
Karma: 7185064
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Linköpng, Sweden
Device: Kindle Voyage, Nexus 5, Kindle PW
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good Old Neon View Post
I find the preceding quote entirely unambiguous, if you require clarification, perhaps you should question its author.
The quote does not support your opinion at all. The quote does not say that it is "simply (only) by breaking the law" that the rock star status will appear.

But this is diminishing returns so I will not respont more in this thread since you do not seem to understand at all what I am saying.
tompe is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 06:18 PM   #118
Moejoe
Banned
Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.Moejoe did not drink the Kool Aid.
 
Posts: 5,100
Karma: 72193
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: South of the Border
Device: Coffin
Clarification of my earlier statement (not that it should need any):

By putting them on trial and then convicting them of a "crime" that a lot of people don't consider a "crime" you make them into heroes, Rock Stars, lauded within the community that they represent. Once the conviction is then quashed at a later stage, they are not only seen as heroes, but as David's against the media "Goliath".

The victory of the prosecutors is pyrrhic at best. They've gained nothing but a short-lived victory, whilst at the same time giving file sharers worldwide exposure. They've further ostracised the very people who might be their customers now and in the future.

The example of Mick Jagger was apt in this situation for he was charged with an offense that his fans, and many others in society, thought was ludicrous. The victory of the prosecution in that case did nothing but gain The Rolling Stones more fans and popularise the idea of smoking pot. Make it "groovy" if you will
Moejoe is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 06:25 PM   #119
Patricia
Reader
Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Patricia ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Patricia's Avatar
 
Posts: 11,504
Karma: 8720163
Join Date: May 2007
Location: South Wales, UK
Device: Sony PRS-500, PRS-505, Asus EEEpc 4G
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate the great View Post
And the neo nazis were actually members of the Swedish Democrats. Having looked at Wikipedia entry, I have to say that if members of the SD party are neo nazis, then so is most of the Republican Party in the US. The positions as stated in the Wikipedia article are not that different.
Nate, unfortunately it is not always that straightforward. Various extreme right-wing groups in the UK, such as the British National Party, claim in their manifestos that they are not racist.
However, when undercover reporters record their meetings and rallies, it is an entirely different story, and racist hate-speech has often been recorded.
Currently UK police officers are not allowed to join the BNP because it is felt that they would not be impartial to all members of the community.

I've seen the effects of hate-speech. Racists murdered a refugee in the grounds of our local hospital a few years ago. They killed the man in front of his young step-daughter. Her father had been killed in her home country. Her mother had died after an illness. She lost the only other person in this country who was close to her.

The BNP failed to condemn the murder and have stood regularly for election in that constituency ever since.

If you are in the UK then I urge you to vote in the forthcoming EU elections. If you don't, then the BNP could benefit from the system of proportional representation.

Meanwhile, remember that political groups often say things for public consumption. It is safest to look at their actions and omissions.
Patricia is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2009, 10:58 PM   #120
Greg Anos
Grand Sorcerer
Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Greg Anos ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 11,528
Karma: 37057604
Join Date: Jan 2008
Device: Pocketbook
A few factual clarifcations first...


Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36 View Post
On top of all this, DRM-free e-book experiments have not gone all that well. Consider what happened with Stephen King's The Plant. And that was Stephen King, who doesn't usually have problems getting people to pay for his books.
Stephen King started writing a novel, The Plant, a chapter at a time, release as an e-book with no DRM by suscription. Half way through, he decided he was not getting enough suscribers for the next chapter, so he stopped. Please note, he made $440,000 US dollars from his subscribers for the half written book by the time he quit. Gone all that well, therefore is a matter of perspective. Many authors would beg, borrow, or steal for those sort of numbers.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36 View Post
Ebooks will be able to circumvent some of that experimentation (e.g., there's no need to copy-protect paper books, since the barrier to copying is so high in the first place), but some vendor is going to have to be the first DRM-free vendor to really make a success of it, before things start moving in the DRM-free direction. That won't happen until ebook readers are more than a niche product, which they still are, at this point.
Some vendor has, for a number of years. Baen books. Science fiction and Fantasy specialist, admittedly, but they have not been cutting back, dropping all new publishing, ect. that has been occurring at the top 6 publishers. I highly recommend reading Eric Flint's "Salvos Against Big Brother" colums in Baen's Universe magazine. Eric Flint is a sucessful professional niche writer, and has explicit sales numbers to back up (from his own published works!) why e-books without DRM have made him more successful.
Greg Anos is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Pirate Bay sold: now to become a legit site Patricia News 34 07-20-2009 05:51 PM
Copyright lobby targets "Pirate Bay for textbooks" gwynevans News 6 04-23-2009 08:33 PM
Shouldn't I feel guilty?! I don't! Stacey34 Sony Reader 9 03-18-2009 10:27 AM
Pirate Bay and the Torrent on Fire TadW Lounge 21 07-23-2008 07:16 PM
Cybook not found in linux, found in win XP fjf Bookeen 15 01-18-2008 06:57 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 01:59 PM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.