5 ms·

A few authors have Google to thank, as I've bought many books due to the content showing up in search results. On the other hand, I've also "consumed" some boo

by jenscow 11y ago

A few authors have Google to thank, as I've bought many books due to the content showing up in search results. On the other hand, I've also "consumed" some book content without purchasing it. In those cases, how is it different to me reading the book in a bookshop then putting it back on the shelf? A long time ago, I had a shareware product. I'm sure plenty of people benefited without paying (the free version was enough). Sites even benefited from distributing it. I didn't lose sleep over it, because without people being able to try it first I would have had less sales.

chris_wot 11y ago
I have to agree with this. I have, in the past, infringed on copyright (I no longer do this, as I reformed and whilst I am diametrically opposed to placing undue restrictions on creative work, I also think it's not something I want to break the law over). However, on many occasions I actually purchased the work that I infringed upon, and in many of those instances I don't think I would have paid any money at all to the author of the work because I didn't realise how valuable it was to me until I had (what's the word?) consumed it. In fact, this is sort of like pirating music, movies and TV shows - in particular music. With these items, it was increasingly the case that you didn't know you enjoyed the work or liked the artist until you had actually experienced listening to or watching their work. Most people have a very finite supply of money, and so if they decided not to infringe copyright then they would just decide not to buy the works. This is why the record companies were so incredibly stupid in not getting behind streaming services, instead attacking people with little resources for infringing copyright, such as suing mother of four Jammie Thomas-Rasset to the tune of $1.9 million. Apple and Netflix have essentially eaten their lunch because they have basically freed up content for a reasonable subscription fee. Apple iTunes was great even before Apple Music launched because you were finally able to purchase individual tracks instead of having to buy the entire work - and at a price that pretty much anyone could afford. Which is why I get so annoyed with rights holders dividing the globe into geographical regions. They do deals with big companies to maximise their profits, but this is perversely leading to increased copyright infringement and the bypassing of their geoblocking efforts. In essence, these distribution companies add almost nothing to the work produced by the original creators and artists, yet take a cut anyway and inflate the price paid by the consumer of the work. Sometimes it's even more perverse - as an example, I tried to purchase the Dragon Book on compilers from Amazon in eBook format to read on my iPad 2. This was not in any way possible to purchase, so I ended up purchasing the physical book from the U.S., had it shipped to Australia and found an unencumbered PDF with the content so I could read it on my iPad. In the printed world, this is currently the problem Elsevier and other companies are facing. They have restricted access to important research by in effect gouging the market, and so students from overseas countries (in particular in some Eastern-European nations) who could either never gain access to the material or couldn't afford it eventually just shared it and never paid for it. Then they got organised, and suddenly publishers discovered that they had a massive problem on their hands with no way of effectively countering it because those pirating the material are outside of the jurisdiction of the U.S. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thoma...
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
>In those cases, how is it different to me reading the book in a bookshop then putting it back on the shelf? // There are alternatives but one way might be that the bookshop have an established financial relationship with the publisher [who has rights to distribute the work via copyright] whilst Google have taken a book known to be in copyright [in many cases] have created copies and distributed copies without having such a relationship.
yomly 11y ago
This. My appreciation for classical music hockey sticked after things like Spotify became available. As a result I am now spending several hundreds of dollars to see artists perform live. Hopefully this helps also ensure a greater share of my money goes directly to the artists themselves. Before widespread music streaming, my interest in the space was barely growing and rarely ever more than a passing interest. This is largely due to the fact that discovery was inconvenient - as a comparatively niche (and vast) musical genre, it was harder to download. Buying the music was out of the question, it is prohibitively expensive to develop an appreciation for the genre - if one album costs $15, then just all of Beethoven's Symphonies alone would be $135 and only for one interpretation of each. My total lifetime expenditure towards Classical Music is probably approaching $1000, and the rate of spending is only accelerating. I can't help but think that if it weren't for things like Spotify and YouTube making it more accessible, I would not be spending even 1% of this on it. I wish more people could see the bigger picture when it comes to things like this...
jsjohnst 11y ago
Perfect analogy! I as well was someone who used to spend hours in book stores consuming books. I'd usually only need a few paragraphs at most and it was better for me to write a few notes in a notebook than spend $30-50 on a book when I needed so little of the content from it.

by jenscow 11y ago

chris_wot 11y ago

I have to agree with this. I have, in the past, infringed on copyright (I no longer do this, as I reformed and whilst I am diametrically opposed to placing undue restrictions on creative work, I also think it's not something I want to break the law over). However, on many occasions I actually purchased the work that I infringed upon, and in many of those instances I don't think I would have paid any money at all to the author of the work because I didn't realise how valuable it was to me until I had (what's the word?) consumed it. In fact, this is sort of like pirating music, movies and TV shows - in particular music. With these items, it was increasingly the case that you didn't know you enjoyed the work or liked the artist until you had actually experienced listening to or watching their work. Most people have a very finite supply of money, and so if they decided not to infringe copyright then they would just decide not to buy the works. This is why the record companies were so incredibly stupid in not getting behind streaming services, instead attacking people with little resources for infringing copyright, such as suing mother of four Jammie Thomas-Rasset to the tune of $1.9 million. Apple and Netflix have essentially eaten their lunch because they have basically freed up content for a reasonable subscription fee. Apple iTunes was great even before Apple Music launched because you were finally able to purchase individual tracks instead of having to buy the entire work - and at a price that pretty much anyone could afford. Which is why I get so annoyed with rights holders dividing the globe into geographical regions. They do deals with big companies to maximise their profits, but this is perversely leading to increased copyright infringement and the bypassing of their geoblocking efforts. In essence, these distribution companies add almost nothing to the work produced by the original creators and artists, yet take a cut anyway and inflate the price paid by the consumer of the work. Sometimes it's even more perverse - as an example, I tried to purchase the Dragon Book on compilers from Amazon in eBook format to read on my iPad 2. This was not in any way possible to purchase, so I ended up purchasing the physical book from the U.S., had it shipped to Australia and found an unencumbered PDF with the content so I could read it on my iPad. In the printed world, this is currently the problem Elsevier and other companies are facing. They have restricted access to important research by in effect gouging the market, and so students from overseas countries (in particular in some Eastern-European nations) who could either never gain access to the material or couldn't afford it eventually just shared it and never paid for it. Then they got organised, and suddenly publishers discovered that they had a massive problem on their hands with no way of effectively countering it because those pirating the material are outside of the jurisdiction of the U.S. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thoma...

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

>In those cases, how is it different to me reading the book in a bookshop then putting it back on the shelf? // There are alternatives but one way might be that the bookshop have an established financial relationship with the publisher [who has rights to distribute the work via copyright] whilst Google have taken a book known to be in copyright [in many cases] have created copies and distributed copies without having such a relationship.

yomly 11y ago

This. My appreciation for classical music hockey sticked after things like Spotify became available. As a result I am now spending several hundreds of dollars to see artists perform live. Hopefully this helps also ensure a greater share of my money goes directly to the artists themselves. Before widespread music streaming, my interest in the space was barely growing and rarely ever more than a passing interest. This is largely due to the fact that discovery was inconvenient - as a comparatively niche (and vast) musical genre, it was harder to download. Buying the music was out of the question, it is prohibitively expensive to develop an appreciation for the genre - if one album costs $15, then just all of Beethoven's Symphonies alone would be $135 and only for one interpretation of each. My total lifetime expenditure towards Classical Music is probably approaching $1000, and the rate of spending is only accelerating. I can't help but think that if it weren't for things like Spotify and YouTube making it more accessible, I would not be spending even 1% of this on it. I wish more people could see the bigger picture when it comes to things like this...

jsjohnst 11y ago

Perfect analogy! I as well was someone who used to spend hours in book stores consuming books. I'd usually only need a few paragraphs at most and it was better for me to write a few notes in a notebook than spend $30-50 on a book when I needed so little of the content from it.