Sherman Alexie still hates ebooks

[ggareau]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

Piracy and DRM are separate issues. Your attacks on DRM assume it's the only possible "solution." That's analogous to saying the death penalty doesn't work, so we shouldn't try to stop murder.

No, it's not. It's saying (no analogy) that there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop piracy. You can mitigate it to some extent by the methods I mentioned, but you cannot stop it - especially in a litigious way.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I stand by my previous question. You can't stop murder, pedophilia, theft. You cannot possibly win. How is that different than what you're saying? It certainly is not clear to me here. Again, the crime is separate from the deterrent.

I think we misread each other. See above.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

By US laws, to copy a work without permission is theft. There is not a physical item involved in the case of digital works, but it is, by law, theft none the less.

By the book? Well, there's fair use, and the ability to make an archive copy. There's the ability to buy a second-hand version. If I download a file, am I making a copy? I mean, realistically a book is letters on paper. Transcribed onto a computer, it becomes letters in a file. But those letters in the file are really just a bunch of ones and zeros stored, and are meaningless without the software that knows what the file is and how to translate it. So what are you copying, exactly? In addition, I think it needs to be said that copyright law was written long before the internet, and as such it's a law that really needs to be looked at.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

Theft, murder, pedophilia all cause harm, but different kinds of harm. Similarly, the theft of music, or books, or any other digital works also caues harm. It causes yet another kind of harm, financial harm -- more similar to that of theft than murder or pedophilia, obviously -- but harm no less.

You may not want to address these, but they serve the analogy in terms of all being crimes, all causing harms, all having potential solutions with varying degrees of success, all having legal repercussions. Just like digital piracy.

Again, you cannot prove that any financial harm is taking place. You cannot, in fact, prove that any harm is taking place. It's tough to be proven guilty when harm cannot be established.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I'm in a similar boat. But, again, DRM is not the only solution. And DRM being wrong does not mean we should suddenly say piracy is not wrong.

You shouldn't be fighting piracy. You should be giving your customers something at a value that they approve of. Piracy is just a more visible black market. Because it's free it gives the customer more leverage, but there's nothing to "fight."

Oh, and Indian may as well be an unofficial racial slur. It doesn't cover the connotations that the n-word does (which is frankly amazing - millions dead vs slavery, you'd think it would be comparable) but most people find it at least highly disrespectful.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

This is a very interesting statement! Do you have a source to actually back it up? If it is true, the industry should take notice and change their methods of sales overall.

-Pie

Ummm... I hang out at Baen's authors' and groupies forum (Baen's Bar) and if you ask around amongst participants - including Toni Weisskopf the publisher, you'll get pretty much that feedback. It's common knowledge that ebooks are - whether purchased or pirated - good advertising for authors - at least it is at Baen.

Derek

[ggareau]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Ummm... I hang out at Baen's authors' and groupies forum (Baen's Bar) and if you ask around amongst participants - including Toni Weisskopf the publisher, you'll get pretty much that feedback. It's common knowledge that ebooks are - whether purchased or pirated - good advertising for authors - at least it is at Baen.

Derek

O'Reilly says something similar:

http://tim.oreilly.com/lpt/a/3015

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

"White"? That's cancelled out by the 'gimme-a-job-or-access-to-higher-education-because-I'm-not-white' programs.

Which have been around for many years.

Funny how the majority of managers, college students, and government officials are still white. Do you think that's because people who aren't white are just not as competent, even with all those advantages, or because there's somehow still discrimination that manages to get around those programs?

"Male"? Oh right. You mean the 'privilege' of being told you're not hireable because the company can't get the tax breaks they can by hiring a *female*, *lesbian*, *Wiccan*. "Able-bodied"? Now *here* I *SHOULD* shine, being disabled. Guess what? No one wants to make 'reasonable accomodations' for me! Looks like I won't be working for Yet Another Year!

So you really believe if you were an African-American woman with your disabilities, you'd have an *easier* time getting a job, and get *better* treatment in public?

Tell me again about all those benefits I have because I'm white, male and Christian?

How about:
Not being followed around in stores by security guards,
Not being groped by random strangers on public transit,
Not being accused of terrorism, baby-killing or demon worship for wearing your religious symbols in public.

In a vague attempt to drag the subject back to something resembling books:
Many publishers will only deal with books about non-white characters, non-white cultures, as "special, ethnic" subgenres.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

How about:
Not being followed around in stores by security guards,
Not being groped by random strangers on public transit,
Not being accused of terrorism, baby-killing or demon worship for wearing your religious symbols in public.

In a vague attempt to drag the subject back to something resembling books:
Many publishers will only deal with books about non-white characters, non-white cultures, as "special, ethnic" subgenres.

1 Hmmm... been there, got followed. Think it wass the beard and scooter (has a large rear-of-seat pouch)
2 Been pushed, kicked, shoved, spit on - does that count? Seems NON-mentally disabled who're NOT paralyzed are targets too.
3 No... but I *have* been so accused of same (terrorism) for daring to photograph.

Guess that means my 'privileged' race, sex and religion doesn't translate into protection and favoritism.

Given that I *read* at a voracious rate, my reading crosses so many booundaries that I've never really worried about 'racial' or 'sexual' genres.

Derek

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

you are kidding me right?

here, broaden your horizons. off the top of my head, Erdrich, Topahanso, Momaday, Black Elk, Silko, Deloria (Vine), Studi, Harjo... just to get started. and those aren't the angry writers

I was more interested in your own personal experience regarding discrimination. I confess I don't care enough about native American issues to read all those books. And I hope you're not suggesting that I'm not qualified to speak about these issues unless I have read them all - or unless I am a native American myself. I suppose I could try to sling back at you a bunch of books about the shameless exploitation of the race issue in America. But you know what, I'm guessing there probably aren't any - and not for the lack of shameless exploitation. Can't imagine a publisher who'd want to be hounded as a bigot, litigated into oblivion and driven out of business for offending one or another minority pressure group. Understand if you will, I'm not saying there aren't lingering traces of discrimination in America or Britain. But the ongoing campaign against those traces, spearheaded by the narrow interest/pressure groups, has itself become far more of an offense against fairness, equality, decency and common sense than those traces ever could.

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

How about:
Not being followed around in stores by security guards,
[/URL].

Oh, that's one of my favourites actually. Reminds be of one Muslim rights group rep who argued after the shoebomb plot that elderly Chinese ladies should be frisked just as often at Heathrow airport as young Asian or Arab males, so as to avoid discrimination.

Rather than blaming the young black shoplifters who do the shoplifting, or young Muslim extremists who do the bombings, giving a bad name to their communities, let's just blame the white racists and Christian bigots.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I'm not necessarily defending DRM here, but I do want to answer your question.

A used book is a single entity. There's that used book... or those used books. Each one was bought and paid for new at one time, gaining the publisher and author their due profits.

Each time that used book is resold rather than somebody buying a new copy it is a loss of a sale though, even more than the spurious logic of one download = 1 lost sale that is commonly used by the music, film, book etc. industries.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

So if they're so damned offensive, why would those who call them offensive *ever* use them? Why would so much of the music and literature that focuses on their culture use them? It makes me wonder, it does.

Derek

They do it because they are racist and self-justified. Double standards are a classic human stand-by.

Look, if you don't make it a point to complain about it when THEY do it, they will just figure they get away with it.

That's the "general you" not you specifically delphi.

Supposed "minority" groups are constantly making racist or other types of bigoted remarks and claims right in the face and even in the name of equal rights. It's ridiculous. It's like... they think they are owed back-rights or something from before rights were equal heh. So now they are cashing in? I dunno. I don't know what idiotic thought process they follow to come to this conclusion. Stranger things are done by people weekly at church, make-beliving they are eating the flesh of their savior. Cannabalism–The Freshmaker!

Until everyone calls out everyone on all racist actions not just those against races other than their own, it's never going to go away.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by Crowl

Each time that used book is resold rather than somebody buying a new copy it is a loss of a sale though, even more than the spurious logic of one download = 1 lost sale that is commonly used by the music, film, book etc. industries.

No, it's not a loss of a sale. Period. It's a COMPONENT OF THE ORIGINAL SALE. This is a fundamental aspect of retail markets that has existed as long as the very idea of bartering has been on the mind of mankind.

Where did you get indoctrinated with this nonsense idea? Whoever sold that book to the used book store, or sold it directly to the next owner has taken in cash as part of their personal economy which will and is retroactively a participant in their will and capability to further buy new books or other used books themselves.

Believing the lie that first sale doctrine is somehow theft is a blatant misunderstanding of the most basic type of economy. But, more likely, is the result of a long hard battle fought by huge industries built around benefiting from guilt-tripping people into wasting their money buying a new copy when it's unnecessary and inefficient to the consumers themselves.

And besides, if publishers really thought they could make even the slightest legal claim on the "lost sale" myth associated with resales, they could simply set the terms of the copy to be non-transferrable. It's not as though transferability is somehow limited to digitally rendered information. When you purchase a book you're purchasing a right to that copy. When you sell a book you're selling the right that you bought. You can do this because you never agreed to any artificial limitation on your right to first sale.

Seriously, I'm very tired of hearing this propaganda rhetoric about lost sales from the used market. Either the original buyer would have been less likely to make the original purchase, or the secondhand buyer would have been significantly less likely to make a purchase of the same item at all if secondhand sales could not be involved in that micro-economy.

Don't be a sucker for the IP industrial complex and their greed. Just because books don't lose much if any value from being read doesn't magically make them exempt from the standard function of retail economy.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

True......but still "disgraceful".

Hiring someone on basis of race, gender or whatever, instead of going for the best qualified, regardless of race gender or whatever, makes absolutely no sense.

Except to apologists.

Agreed, there is absolutely no way to logically rationalize affirmative action in the age of equal rights movements. Affirmative action is an affront to equality in every direction.

To justify an artificial offering of opportunity to someone on the basis of a fact that you can not use to offer the opportunity outside of affirmative action is a painfully obvious contradiction of laws and counterproductive to a true equal opportunity effort in the long run.

For every offering of opportunity that is made on the basis of race, gender, etc. there is an act of discrimination committed. The problem is that too many idiots think discrimination can only occur when it is performed to refuse service and opportunity.

When you hand off a job or seat in a school to someone who performs poorly, is not adequately qualified for the reward, you are potentially taking away from someone else who is more deserving based on merit alone.

I'm sure most people can see how this is bassackwards.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

AA isn't supposed to be "hire on the basis of gender/race/etc." It's supposed to be, "among qualified candidates--choose one of a nonprivileged category."

When supermarkets hire stock clerks, they don't look for "the most qualified candidates." There are no "most qualified" candidates. There are qualified candidates, and utterly incompetent candidates, and otherwise qualified candidates who will steal from them. They don't want to hire group B or C candidates... but among the (often very large) pool of group A candidates, affirmative action says they should hire the ones who started out at a disadvantage.

This is important to establish as a rule, because without some kind of outside nudge, people like others who are like themselves. They like *similar* people. Employers will hire to match the race, gender, nationalit and cultural background of the current management without thinking about it, because they "felt more comfortable" with those candidates. Oppression sustains itself without any overt bigotry at all; Affirmative Action is an attempt to correct that.

Assuming that because someone's race is not white that they are at a disadvantage is bigotry. Hands down. And just because you have good intentions behind that bigotry does not change that it's still bigotry.

The problems of discrimination are real, they still happen, and I know the ATTEMPT is to fight that through these affirmative action laws but in reality, it will never solve the real problem. It only goes on to show how exceptions to the rules of equality can be made at the convenience of those who wish for it. It is the same stupid self-promoting failure as telling a lie to explain a lie.

It would make far more sense to establish non-discriminatory standardized selection methodologies for at-risk scenarios than to specifically demand a percentage of selections be made from minority or risk groups. But that would be "hard" and it would be confusing to both the politicians and their constituents that they are trying to keep by passing such idiotic, unsuccessful laws in the first place.

One of the problems with voting for representation is that the voters are not qualified to make the decision and the candidates are motivated to get votes not to be a good candidate.

Striving for fair treatment is noble and justifiable but to use the same tactics you are fighting against in that effort is utterly lacking in integrity, unfortunately.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

By US laws, to copy a work without permission is theft. There is not a physical item involved in the case of digital works, but it is, by law, theft none the less.

And here is where the reality of computing defies the very possibility of adhering to such writing of these laws. It's impossible to even read an eBook without making at least one copy. That's one copy beyond the one you paid for. The fact that the data in that eBook is copied over the internet hundreds of times–literally–before it reaches your device or computer. The fact that simply writing data that comes through your network adapter (of every variety) to the hard drive or other storage devices involves making 3 copies or more, potentially many more depending on how poorly the software involved was written.

For example, the reading of the device bus that is mapped to memory and writing to real memory to process and buffer before then reading from the buffer to copy to the bus for the drive which will then instruct the drive to read from that bus buffer and write into the drive's own internal queue before eventually reading and writing to the real disk is only a minimum of actions for getting a file.

By the time you've received an eBook it's been "copied" hundreds of times.

Then you have to do a lot of all of that again to read that copy. Copy copy copy. That is what you do when you access data in a computer. You copy it over and over until eventually it's interpreted and somehow displayed. In the oldy days of simple terminals, even displaying the simplest possible text involved copying that text from system memory to the video bios, which likely had custom BUS interfaces between it too.

So to sit and vaguely refer to copyright law as written in a digital context is to be as ignorant of the technology and its realities as those who originally wrote the law. Except they didn't use this technology then, even though it largely existed when most modern copyright law was penned, and so they had a realistic excuse to make these mistakes.

Today, these mistakes are being invoked at convenience for rights-holders to take MORE rights than they were ever meant to be granted under the spirit of the original laws. To blindly obey law by the letter is to fail your civic duty of disobedience in the face of irrational and unreasonable law.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by meraxes

I was more interested in your own personal experience regarding discrimination. I confess I don't care enough about native American issues to read all those books. And I hope you're not suggesting that I'm not qualified to speak about these issues unless I have read them all - or unless I am a native American myself. I suppose I could try to sling back at you a bunch of books about the shameless exploitation of the race issue in America. But you know what, I'm guessing there probably aren't any - and not for the lack of shameless exploitation. Can't imagine a publisher who'd want to be hounded as a bigot, litigated into oblivion and driven out of business for offending one or another minority pressure group. Understand if you will, I'm not saying there aren't lingering traces of discrimination in America or Britain. But the ongoing campaign against those traces, spearheaded by the narrow interest/pressure groups, has itself become far more of an offense against fairness, equality, decency and common sense than those traces ever could.

I don't need to prove anything to you especially when so many others have done it so eloquently. you following me around in threads and baiting me is tiring. if your are truly interested, ask for the best title for me to refer you to. for me to expound a litany of the grievances on the various reservations is not in the best interest of the this particular thread

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

No, it's not a loss of a sale. Period.

Of course it's a "loss of a sale." If I buy a used copy of a book, I'm highly unlikely to re-purchase it as new.

Selling and buying used books is unquestionably a legal act, but the author is still not receiving royalties from that sale. It's not "theft" (which I don't think was Crowl's point anyway), it's not infringement, and it's not a one-to-one loss (the psychology of pricing is far more complex than that). I might even buy a new copy of a different book by that author at some point. But there is little doubt that the publisher loses part of a sale, and the author does not receive royalties, when used books change hands.

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

It's impossible to even read an eBook without making at least one copy. That's one copy beyond the one you paid for. The fact that the data in that eBook is copied over the internet hundreds of times–literally–before it reaches your device or computer....

So what?

Once I purchase a digital file, I have the right to make copies -- for personal use only. I can keep a copy on my Kindle, my iPhone, my computer, and dozens of copies in backups. All of this is perfectly legal.

However, you are not allowed to make a copy of the digital file and redistribute it to millions of your bestest Internet buddies whose names you don't even know.

While I concur that some aspects of current copyright law are less than ideal (specifically, copyright terms in the US and many countries are too long), the general concept still applies. More importantly, while it is correct that as end-users often lose some abilities and conveniences in the digital realm (e.g. transfer of ownership), you gain others (the ability to back up your purchases, and relocate them to a safe location; the ability to view content on multiple devices).

The goal of copyright is to protect the rights of the entities which have put their time and resources into producing and distributing content, without putting end-users into a death grip. Laws in cases like this will always require a compromise between the rights of the end-user and the rights-holder. If you land too hard on the side of the end user, the producer (e.g. artist, publisher) will suffer; and vice versa. Fortunately, we are already seeing a few inklings of restoring some of these rights; e.g. "loaning ebooks" now has a toe-hold with the Nook, and hopefully this will expand in the future. It may well be possible that a company like Amazon, whose DRM system relies on an Internet-connected database and has the ability to remove copies from some of your devices, will initiate a "used ebook" market some day -- possibly one that even gives the rights-holders a cut of that sale. (I don't have high expectations for this, but it's technically feasible, and Amazon has crossed swords with publishers on used books.)

It's also possible that ebooks will largely go DRM-free at some point, but even so I don't know of a legitimate way to actually "register" a used sale -- i.e. any such action would rely on an honor code, where you give me the $5, I give you the file, and then permanently delete it and all my backup copies. The mere fact that I can put those backups on a static container like a CD, though, pretty much quashes that as a legit ability.

And, last but not least, I'd say the loss of the ability to resell a used book is a justification for a lower price for ebooks (more than the 12% or so by eschewing the production of physical copies).

As such, while copyright law can use some improvements, and things would be better if certain abilities can be restored to the end-users, I'm not about to scream bloody murder because I've lost the right to re-sell a used ebook.