4 ms·

I agree that it's ridiculous. I'm not sure how to get from there to "screw copyright." Yes, it's weird that the law requires (at least under normal circumstanc

by geofft 7y ago

I agree that it's ridiculous. I'm not sure how to get from there to "screw copyright." Yes, it's weird that the law requires (at least under normal circumstances, and if the Internet Archive is wrong, also today) physical copies of books as essentially "reserves" for scanned versions of books. I don't think that it follows that it's weird that the law requires that you have to pay per copy. In the pre-digital world, if a library wanted to lend out ten copies of a book, they'd have to pay for ten copies, and that wasn't weird. And this isn't an argument about zero-marginal-cost products, because a good chunk of the money the library spent would not go to the physical cost of book printing. (In fact most people's intuitions would say it's fairer that there's a profit beyond the marginal cost, because that way the author and editor get compensated more for more successful books.) Yes, it'd be significantly better if the Internet Archive needed to have one physical copy (or even zero). I don't think it's weird that if they or any other library wants to lend out ten copies, they have to buy ten copies. (I'm sympathetic to arguments of the form "information wants to be free," but, well, people want to eat, too. If injustice A is mitigated by injustice B, snapping your fingers and getting rid of B without having a plan to deal for A isn't a just action. Whether or not authors should depend on copyright for their livelihood, many of them do. And yes, several don't - so in particular, I'm much more sympathetic to the Internet Archive's action when it comes to textbooks, journals, etc. written by people who have a primary livelihood other than book-writing, such as college faculty, and much less sympathetic when it comes to books written by people who's job title is "author.")

ddevault 7y ago
Copying a digital book incurs no material cost. You could charge for the bandwidth to download it from you, or you could charge for paper books, but it's ridiculous to me that you should be able to charge someone else for copying data from their hard drive to my hard drive. People have to eat, but having to sell books just to put food on the table is also obscene. Food is a basic human right and should never be staked on whether or not you can successfully sue your audience. Alternatively, you could simply ask your audience to support you financially, which is how I make a substantial amount of my own income. Digital books are not paper books. They are fundamentally different things. Paper books are scarce, digital books are not. Information is not scarce.
- geofft 7y ago
  Again - if that argument holds up, why is it reasonable to sell paper books for significantly more than the cost of reproduction? What's magical about the $0 price point? If it costs $5 to print a physical copy and you're okay with stores selling copies for $25, why is it a problem for stores to sell e-books for $20? In the pre-e-book world, libraries could always copy books on their own. They could say, we're buying one copy of this book at $25, and then we'll print another thousand copies ourselves at $5 each and sell them to other libraries. Quality might have been lower, but it would have gotten books into the hands of more people, right? Why didn't they? > People have to eat, but having to sell books just to put food on the table is also obscene. Food is a basic human right and should never be staked on whether or not you can successfully sue your audience. I don't disagree. But that's not the world we live in. Food shouldn't be staked on that, but it is. Let's solve that first, and then we can start taking people's livelihoods away. This is kind of like saying "Tipping is an unjust and evil and stupid system, so I'm not going to tip." Yes, it is an unjust and evil and stupid system - but the practical effect of not tipping is nothing more than underpaying people who, for better or worse, rely on that unjust and evil and stupid system. Fix the system first (e.g., petition your favorite restaurant to raise prices and have a no-tipping policy, and patronize those that have already done that), then you can stop tipping without hurting people
  - ddevault 7y ago
    >Again - if that argument holds up, why is it reasonable to sell paper books for significantly more than the cost of reproduction? What's magical about the $0 price point? If it costs $5 to print a physical copy and you're okay with stores selling copies for $25, why is it a problem for stores to sell e-books for $20? You can sell them for whatever people will pay for them. You can sell the bandwidth for the eBook for whatever people will pay. >In the pre-e-book world, libraries could always copy books on their own. They could say, we're buying one copy of this book at $25, and then we'll print another thousand copies ourselves at $5 each and sell them to other libraries. Quality might have been lower, but it would have gotten books into the hands of more people, right? Why didn't they? Because of the same broken copyright system which is going to have lawyers burning down the doors of archive.org once they're allowed to leave their caves post-coronavirus. They should be copying these books and sending them to other libraries for a fraction of the cost. >I don't disagree. But that's not the world we live in. Food shouldn't be staked on that, but it is. Let's solve that first, and then we can start taking people's livelihoods away. I didn't suggest we immediately transition to a copyright free world. I said "screw copyright". And, for the record, we are already in a world where this works. Thousands of content creators in all fields of media are making a living based on crowdsourced funding and free distribution of content to their audience. This model has been consistently growing and doesn't show any signs of slowing down. A lot of people are making more money with this model than they would be with traditional publishing and suing everyone who coughs on their book and lets someone else look at the tissue. Hell - all businesses face the risk of needing to pivot. Same holds true for authors. If the current approach isn't working because people are sharing your books, then you need to change your approach.

by geofft 7y ago

ddevault 7y ago

Copying a digital book incurs no material cost. You could charge for the bandwidth to download it from you, or you could charge for paper books, but it's ridiculous to me that you should be able to charge someone else for copying data from their hard drive to my hard drive. People have to eat, but having to sell books just to put food on the table is also obscene. Food is a basic human right and should never be staked on whether or not you can successfully sue your audience. Alternatively, you could simply ask your audience to support you financially, which is how I make a substantial amount of my own income. Digital books are not paper books. They are fundamentally different things. Paper books are scarce, digital books are not. Information is not scarce.

geofft 7y ago
Again - if that argument holds up, why is it reasonable to sell paper books for significantly more than the cost of reproduction? What's magical about the $0 price point? If it costs $5 to print a physical copy and you're okay with stores selling copies for $25, why is it a problem for stores to sell e-books for $20? In the pre-e-book world, libraries could always copy books on their own. They could say, we're buying one copy of this book at $25, and then we'll print another thousand copies ourselves at $5 each and sell them to other libraries. Quality might have been lower, but it would have gotten books into the hands of more people, right? Why didn't they? > People have to eat, but having to sell books just to put food on the table is also obscene. Food is a basic human right and should never be staked on whether or not you can successfully sue your audience. I don't disagree. But that's not the world we live in. Food shouldn't be staked on that, but it is. Let's solve that first, and then we can start taking people's livelihoods away. This is kind of like saying "Tipping is an unjust and evil and stupid system, so I'm not going to tip." Yes, it is an unjust and evil and stupid system - but the practical effect of not tipping is nothing more than underpaying people who, for better or worse, rely on that unjust and evil and stupid system. Fix the system first (e.g., petition your favorite restaurant to raise prices and have a no-tipping policy, and patronize those that have already done that), then you can stop tipping without hurting people
- ddevault 7y ago
  >Again - if that argument holds up, why is it reasonable to sell paper books for significantly more than the cost of reproduction? What's magical about the $0 price point? If it costs $5 to print a physical copy and you're okay with stores selling copies for $25, why is it a problem for stores to sell e-books for $20? You can sell them for whatever people will pay for them. You can sell the bandwidth for the eBook for whatever people will pay. >In the pre-e-book world, libraries could always copy books on their own. They could say, we're buying one copy of this book at $25, and then we'll print another thousand copies ourselves at $5 each and sell them to other libraries. Quality might have been lower, but it would have gotten books into the hands of more people, right? Why didn't they? Because of the same broken copyright system which is going to have lawyers burning down the doors of archive.org once they're allowed to leave their caves post-coronavirus. They should be copying these books and sending them to other libraries for a fraction of the cost. >I don't disagree. But that's not the world we live in. Food shouldn't be staked on that, but it is. Let's solve that first, and then we can start taking people's livelihoods away. I didn't suggest we immediately transition to a copyright free world. I said "screw copyright". And, for the record, we are already in a world where this works. Thousands of content creators in all fields of media are making a living based on crowdsourced funding and free distribution of content to their audience. This model has been consistently growing and doesn't show any signs of slowing down. A lot of people are making more money with this model than they would be with traditional publishing and suing everyone who coughs on their book and lets someone else look at the tissue. Hell - all businesses face the risk of needing to pivot. Same holds true for authors. If the current approach isn't working because people are sharing your books, then you need to change your approach.