Dragaera

Artificial release dates and online publishing

Steve Simmons scs at di.org
Tue Dec 10 07:14:56 PST 2002

Matthew Hunter writes:

> While this is in fact a problem, it's not a serious one.  Sure,
> everyone in the industry yells about it.  The RIAA and MPAA
> complain loudly about piracy cannabalizing their sales and scheme
> up new and interesting ways to try to prevent unauthorized
> copying, while to date print media has continued in the long
> tradition of ... no protections whatsoever.

> Why?

> Because the law is sufficient when the people wish to do the
> right thing.

What I'm about to say will look like I'm intending to offend Matthew,
and I'm not.  Matthew, please accept my advance apologies for this,
and know that it's not intended at you personally but at the sentiment
quoted above.  You're not the first to say it, and you won't be the
last.

But it's dead wrong, and in fact, both naive about what people really
do and ignorant of history.

Historically, publishers have stolen at every opportunity.  Charles
Dickens toured the US on his own nickel, because US publishers had taken
his works and published them without him getting a dime.  This was
legal in the US at the time, and the US took full advantage of it.  The
situation did not change until US authors became popular overseas and
started getting the same treatment from the Europeans.  At that point,
the US signed on to the nascent international copyright laws and those
whose works had been pirated could sue in the appropriate venue.

The copyright laws worked because it was difficult to print and distribute
books.  Only an established firm could afford it, and they were easy to
track down and sue.

Music piracy worked the same way until recently.  But now anybody can
cut a CD, and it's rife.  Add on Napster and its descendents, and you
have a huge subculture that's (IMHO) ripping off artists right and left.
I quiz my son and his napsterizing peers, and not a one of them has ever
made a serious attempt to pay an artist for tunes downloaded.  Yes, in
most cases it's probably not possible -- but they've never even tried.

Nope, the only thing that keeps current books from being pirated is the
high cost of duplication.  Paper is expensive, scanners and character
recognition are unreliable, and typing is too much work.  But once
someone gets an electronic copy, it spreads far and wide.  To date,
I've never seen one distributed with even a hint of how to pay the author.

As soon as books are available in electronic format, they're going to be
traded with the same cavalier attitude as you see in MP3s.

Steve
-- 
  "In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world
is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."  -- author unknown