Steve Simmons wrote: > 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. As this mail proves ;-) > But it's dead wrong, and in fact, both naive about what people really > do and ignorant of history. > > 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. IMHO they are ripping off the record companies who are ripping off both the artists and the consumers but that is besides the point since ripping someone off is ripping someone off no matter who they are. Still there are a number of artists (even some signed ones) who have deliberately released there music that way. Some for publicity and others because they are unsigned and while they make some money downloads they make most of it from gigs etc. > 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. Personally I'd feel a lot happier buying CDs if I knew a reasonable amount of the money was going to the artist. Maybe normal CDs should have the same information. I have downloaded few tracks and the majority of those I have ordered the CD of. Of the tracks my husband has downloaded most of them he has got that way because they aren't available any other way and I know he is trying to get hold of the dvds they come from. Other people I know have downloaded stuff and then gone out and bought the CDs of the stuff they like. They didn't buy the stuff they didn't like but in most cases it wasn't something they were going to buy anyway. (Not that we are saints - I make music vids which is infinately worse ;-) ) Likewise we have a few divx's of stuff. All of which are not available in this country and which we are planning on buying when they are. However I suspect the real catch is that the people they are downloading it from are giving it away. You may download but you wouldn't buy a shoddy copy from the bloak on the corner (unless you are a student and can't afford anything else). What most people see as 'priracy' is someone making money out of someone else work (second hand shops not with standing - that right has been around for a while even if it isn't likely to stick around for much longer). I was making compelation tapes of songs I liked and recording songs from the radio years before I had even heard of the internet. I leant songs to friends and let them make compelation tracks. That has been going on for decades and it's only recently that the fact it is illegal has been pointed out to people. Admittedly that hasn't stopped me making compelation CDs or recording >from the radio. Ah well - I'm a criminal mastermind at heart. > 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. I doubt the person making the illegal copies took the information *out*. I suspect they just didn't add it in. Having checked a few of the dead tree books around here I can't see any that tell me how to pay the author. And that includes the many second hand ones I have. I can't speak for e-books since most of the electronic books I've seen are available for free (thank you Baen and Project Guttenburg. You guys rock.) but I'm guessing they don't have the information either. > 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. When Steven King brought out his short story on-line the encryption was cracked very quickly and unauthorized copies appeared on-line. However a staggering number of people chose to go the legitimate route and pay for it despite it being given away free both on-line (illegally) and in bookstores (legally). Equally now that the legitimate ways to download music are beginning to have stuff worth (for wide values of 'worth') downloading (even if they are crippled) people are beggining to use them instead. Yes loads of people are still swopping music but the music company sites are beginning to get the attract a large chunk of the market who don't realise they are crippled or don't care. They might not have got mindshare yet but they are only just beginning to get their acts together. Fides