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I am not opposed to copyright law that makes it illegal to sell somebody else's work for profit. But what's the difference between me giving you a copy of the b

I am not opposed to copyright law that makes it illegal to sell somebody else's work for profit. But what's the difference between me giving you a copy of the book for free (with attribution) and the author giving you a copy of the book? I am opposed to copyright that stops people from copying works they have purchased (or obtained elsewhere) and distributing them. And my argument was that, as shown by the post, giving copies away for free can actually increase overall sales rather than decrease them.

macintux 6y ago
This is weak evidence for that conclusion. LeanPub makes it possible to buy a free book, so everyone who came for the free copy had an opportunity to immediately “tip” the author.
- Thorentis 6y ago
  I'm not saying one anecdote along is sufficient evidence. But I've seen a fair few cases where content creators who previously had little audience or readership suddenly gained one by giving away their content for free. In the digital age, it is so easy to copy books, films, TV shows. The arguments against making it legal, is that film studios will make less money. But what percentage of people are currently not pirating content because it's illegal? I'd say a very very small handful. I would much rather have the option to obtain a copy for free, and donate to the author if I thought it was worth it. Patreon works exactly like this.
TylerE 6y ago
As a (hypothetical) author, one of my most obvious objections is that I can make sure I'm giving out the most recent, error-corrected version. I do not expect random 3rd parties to give much of a shit about such things.
- livueta 6y ago
  If anything, that's one of the reasons brought up in _opposition_ to monopolistic copyright laws: piracy is going to happen, legal or not. If you don't release your stuff freely, people will google "___ full PDF" and end up with some badly-OCR'd out-of-date version of your text. If you distribute it freely yourself, you're cutting the middleman out in a way, since by doing that you assure that there's a well-known, authoritative, up-to-date and free source of your work.

macintux 6y ago

This is weak evidence for that conclusion. LeanPub makes it possible to buy a free book, so everyone who came for the free copy had an opportunity to immediately “tip” the author.

Thorentis 6y ago
I'm not saying one anecdote along is sufficient evidence. But I've seen a fair few cases where content creators who previously had little audience or readership suddenly gained one by giving away their content for free. In the digital age, it is so easy to copy books, films, TV shows. The arguments against making it legal, is that film studios will make less money. But what percentage of people are currently not pirating content because it's illegal? I'd say a very very small handful. I would much rather have the option to obtain a copy for free, and donate to the author if I thought it was worth it. Patreon works exactly like this.

TylerE 6y ago

As a (hypothetical) author, one of my most obvious objections is that I can make sure I'm giving out the most recent, error-corrected version. I do not expect random 3rd parties to give much of a shit about such things.

livueta 6y ago
If anything, that's one of the reasons brought up in _opposition_ to monopolistic copyright laws: piracy is going to happen, legal or not. If you don't release your stuff freely, people will google "___ full PDF" and end up with some badly-OCR'd out-of-date version of your text. If you distribute it freely yourself, you're cutting the middleman out in a way, since by doing that you assure that there's a well-known, authoritative, up-to-date and free source of your work.