----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Hunter" <matthew at infodancer.org> To: "Drageara List" <dragaera at dragaera.info> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 8:33 AM Subject: Re: Artificial release dates and online publishing > On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 04:34:31AM -0800, Caliann the Elf <calianng_graves at yahoo.com> wrote: > > The first problem with this has already been addressed: Most > > established authors already have contracts which they must > > fulfill. > > But not necessarily the new ones; that's the promise of any such > system. Without the stamp of the old, it must depend on the new. Have you READ amateur fantasy? As far as I'm concerned, when I buy a book, I'm not paying just for the paper and binding and author's royalties, I'm paying for the editing and the whole darned filtering process. There's whole lot of bad (yes, some of it reaches the shelves) fiction out there, and I really don't want to spend my time filtering it. I think that's why I prefer established authors and their series'. > > The second problem is copyright. No matter how hard you try > > and how many cascade transparencies you put up on a site, > > SOMEONE will manage to break it and steal the data. Once it is > > sent out once it will be sent out to whomever wants it. That > > means the work will be available free-of-charge to whomever > > want it...and the author won't get paid. > > 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. > > Of the people on this list, how many would steal a Brust novel if > they could do so? How many would rather buy it honestly? What percentage of Mr. Brust's readership does this mailing list represent? An insignificant one, I'd hope... also, I think most of us joined this list to establish some sort of 'limited' contact with Mr. Brust himself... so I doubt any of us would want to steal from him.... except while playing cards, of course. My point is, any answer to the above question generated by this mailing list membership would not be 'representative' of the unspoken readership. > > The fact is, even very simple technical protections function > sufficiently well to make people aware that the material is > copyrighted and that it should not be redistributed. And that is > the key point -- where people perceive purchasing the material to > be the right thing to do, and the material is reasonably priced, > that's what they will do. Define 'reasonable'. This amount varies from person to person, country to country. Certain items sell for a lot more in the US than they do in Canada, and certainly more in Canada than they sell for in some third-world nation. As for people being more likely to do what they perceive to be the right thing... well, I guess I'm more cynical than you are, and I'll leave it at that. > (How do I know this? When I'm wearing my professional hat I > manage a website that does almost exactly what I am describing, > for a different type of content, and makes not at all trivial > amounts of money doing so.) > > > Although theft of books has always been somewhat of a problem, > > it would be MUCH more of a problem if they were published > > online. > > That's entirely a matter of opinion at this point. As is the contrary point of view. -Scott Ingram