6 ms·

Shallow Response: Why couldn't Dan just create a new user account for Lissa? It would allow her to use his computer without giving her access to his books. D

by MarkMc 9y ago

Shallow Response: Why couldn't Dan just create a new user account for Lissa? It would allow her to use his computer without giving her access to his books. Deeper Response: I'm not really convinced by Richard Stallman's argument here. When a movie studio sells Blu-ray discs, the studio can place restrictions on how you use that disc: the studio will charge you much more to play the movie in a cinema than at home. This is a good thing because it allows the studio to receive an income much closer to the total value that people receive from watching the movie. If the the studio was unable to place restrictions on how people watch the movie, maybe the movie would not get made in the first place and everyone loses. Books are in the same category. If the writer can sell you the right to read a book but not to share it with other people then the writer will receive a larger income in total. Without that larger income the book may not get written at all.

gkya 9y ago
If I buy a book it is MINE. Or, more broadly, when I buy something, I insist on it being mine. And once a thing is legally mine, I don't want any interference whatsoever from anybody in how I use it or whom I give it to or share it with. If I buy a Blu-Ray disc, the magnetic dents physically present in the matter that represent the ones and zeroes that make up the sights on my abyss belong to me. If a movie company want to restrict the use of their magnetic dents they better screen at theatres only as when I have the magnetic dents, I have the moral rights and the technology to reproduce and redistribute them. Also, in this day and age, disc sales probably mostly benefit disc sellers, and the best idea is to put your movie on YouTube/Vimeo/sth. after theatrical releases. Spinning disx with magnetic dents are by now primitive, and their use is to limit the consumption and sell peripherals. WRT books, I'm among those who prefer dead tree, because that's part of how I work, and I believe digital can't replace print books, but that does not mean no innovation is possible: Printing-press-on-demand should be introduced where I can order a printed copy of a book and then the seller prints one from a digital copy and sends me that. If book shops want to continue, they can just bulk-order print copies and put them on their shelves. Lots of money goes to intermediaries in book business and if you're not a world-wide best-seller, as an author you don't earn much if anything at all. And you're worse off if you want to be like Kafka or Calvino instead of J. K. Rowling.
- niceperson 9y ago
  Well, it's not yours. It belongs to the person (or voluntary group) that created it.They set a price on it and terms. You can either whine about the terms and refuse to buy it or accept the terms and buy it. Anything else is fraud. When you buy it and accept the conditions, it is yours but only if you follow those conditions. Otherwise, you're committing fraud.

by MarkMc 9y ago

gkya 9y ago

If I buy a book it is MINE. Or, more broadly, when I buy something, I insist on it being mine. And once a thing is legally mine, I don't want any interference whatsoever from anybody in how I use it or whom I give it to or share it with. If I buy a Blu-Ray disc, the magnetic dents physically present in the matter that represent the ones and zeroes that make up the sights on my abyss belong to me. If a movie company want to restrict the use of their magnetic dents they better screen at theatres only as when I have the magnetic dents, I have the moral rights and the technology to reproduce and redistribute them. Also, in this day and age, disc sales probably mostly benefit disc sellers, and the best idea is to put your movie on YouTube/Vimeo/sth. after theatrical releases. Spinning disx with magnetic dents are by now primitive, and their use is to limit the consumption and sell peripherals. WRT books, I'm among those who prefer dead tree, because that's part of how I work, and I believe digital can't replace print books, but that does not mean no innovation is possible: Printing-press-on-demand should be introduced where I can order a printed copy of a book and then the seller prints one from a digital copy and sends me that. If book shops want to continue, they can just bulk-order print copies and put them on their shelves. Lots of money goes to intermediaries in book business and if you're not a world-wide best-seller, as an author you don't earn much if anything at all. And you're worse off if you want to be like Kafka or Calvino instead of J. K. Rowling.

niceperson 9y ago
Well, it's not yours. It belongs to the person (or voluntary group) that created it.They set a price on it and terms. You can either whine about the terms and refuse to buy it or accept the terms and buy it. Anything else is fraud. When you buy it and accept the conditions, it is yours but only if you follow those conditions. Otherwise, you're committing fraud.