On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 10:14:56AM -0500, Steve Simmons <scs at di.org> 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. > But it's dead wrong, and in fact, both naive about what people really > do and ignorant of history. I disagree on all counts. > 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. As David noted downthread, this proves my point. It was legal, in the US, at the time... so it happened. If it wasn't legal, you would go after the publishers, and win. > Music piracy worked the same way until recently. But now anybody can > cut a CD, and it's rife. Anyone can dupe a tape (audio or VCR). You haven't noticed the movie industry starving, have you? > Add on Napster and its descendents, and you > have a huge subculture that's (IMHO) ripping off artists right and left. And buying CDs 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. How many CDs do your son and his peers buy? How many more could they afford? Fact is, CDs are hideously overpriced. They were BEFORE Napster and MP3, both of which lowered the costs of distribution in a free market tremendously. (But the RIAA is not a free market -- it's a copyright monopoly). The price so far exceeds the market-optimal price that people are willing to steal. This is an indication that the price is too high. > 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. Because it's already been stolen, what's the point? If you want to pay for it you buy a copy at a bookstore. > 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. If that has similar effects for books as it does for music (and Baen's betting it will) then they will be treated with the same cavalier attitude... and sales will rise. Even more than for CDs, I imagine, because the computer makes a far less than ideal book reader. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp