4 ms·

I don't understand how so many people here are commenting as if giving out books for free was a good idea. Considering that a large part of HN makes fat salarie

I don't understand how so many people here are commenting as if giving out books for free was a good idea. Considering that a large part of HN makes fat salaries writing software which is either sold for high price(MSFT types), or mining user data and advertising (GOOG types). If their work was being distributed for free (SQL server, Windows), software developers would make much less money and would be up in arms here. Why should authors be deprived of the value of their labour. If not, will you be happy if all software was made free in "National Emergency Software Library", and you were being paid peanuts? After all , people also need a good OS and Database apart from books.

chmod775 6y ago
Since I'm neither of the types you mentioned, do I get to say such things in your opinion?
- enitihas 6y ago
  Everyone gets to say anything in my opinion, I am no-one to stop people. But they should also try to ponder over the question over why authors don't deserve to be paid for their labour.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    No one deserves to be paid for their labor. The mere fact that you put labor into something does not entitle you to other people's money. You get paid because you have something other people want and they are willing to pay you to give it to them. This is completely at odds with the way publishers are used to operating, which is founded in legally-sanctioned monopolies and disproportionate punishment for anyone who dares to infringe their special privileges by using their own labor to create their own copies of existing works without consulting the copyright holder. If you want to be paid for your labor, withhold either the labor itself or the finished product (i.e. the original copy) until you have negotiated a contract for payment. Don't put the content out in public where it can easily be copied and then expect people to pay you large sums for the trivial work of distribution which they could easily accomplish on their own.
    - ketzu 6y ago
      As far as I can tell the main difference to software seems to be the ways the software businesses found ways to enforce the rules they dictate via SaaS or government sanctioned monopoly license contracts.
Nemo_bis 6y ago
Do you have any evidence that copyright on Windows has resulted in more wages for developers?
- enitihas 6y ago
  For developers working at Microsoft? How are they paid via? They are paid out of Microsoft profits. If Microsoft stops making the humongous amounts of money of Windows, Office, SQL Server, the salaries aren't going to be paid out of thin air. Majority of software firms either sell software (Sell fully or SaaS), or make money by advertising. If they are not going to make money by selling, who is going to pay the developers?
  - Nemo_bis 6y ago
    You can also sell free software https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html and, in the publishing world, many publishers make money selling public domain books. So your premise is incorrect. I'm not asking for hypothetical reasoning, I'm asking for evidence that more copyright brings more wages to developers and less copyright means less wages. Surely there are experiments that looked for such evidence? (And if not, how are you so sure?)
    - enitihas 6y ago
      Yeah, selling free software doesn't work out in the practical world. There are astonishingly few business (RedHat) making money selling free software, and we don't really want authors using that business model. (Want to know how Dumbledore died? Buy an expensive subscription and get access to Harry Potter technicians). The premise that because a handful of business are able to survive on a different business model, authors should be forced to do the same, is abusurd. > I'm asking for evidence that more copyright brings more wages to developers and less copyright means less wages. Very simple. Look at the real world and the business models of top 10000 software companies. There would be <10 companies selling free software. And authors can't go the subscription route. >many publishers make money selling public domain books. Nobody here is saying IA couldn't provide "public domain" books. The point is they shouldn't be giving out the labour of authors for free, just like you won't like if people took out your labour for free.
smcphile 6y ago
> I don't understand how so many people here are commenting as if giving out books for free was a good idea. I'm not sure how many people are thinking that. Some must be, but not necessarily many. There's a difference between "giving" and "lending". The IA have never given away copyrighted books. I've used the IA's lending library in the past and the copyrighted ebooks were protected by Adobe DRM. You were allowed to take out a few books for a few weeks (like in a real library). You were required to return the books before a given date. And if you didn't, the ADOBE software wouldn't let you read the book anymore (because of the DRM). According to the article, until recently, the IA would scan a book and would lend out the created ebook only to a limited number of people at a time, based on how many copies of the physical book that they had. What changed recently is that they began lending out to a potentially unlimited number of people at a time. But, you still didn't get to keep the book for more than two or three weeks (I forget the exact number).
- enitihas 6y ago
  I don't think anyone has any problem with the original lending scheme. That was totally fair. > What changed recently is that they began lending out to a potentially unlimited number of people at a time. But, you still didn't get to keep the book for more than two or three weeks (I forget the exact number). This is the relevant part, and what has prompted the publisher lawsuit. Do you think people should be allowed to take out any software they want for free for 2-3 weeks for a "National Software Emergency Library". If not, why books.
  - smcphile 6y ago
    > Do you think people should be allowed to take out any software they want for free for 2-3 weeks for a "National Software Emergency Library". If not, why books. I'm not sure what the IA was thinking when they made that modification. Perhaps they thought that during the pandemic such a change would be found temporarily acceptable. I agree with your point that programmers, software publishers, authors and publishers should all be able to make money and get paid for their work. I'm not sure though what are the best business models for making that happen. What I've settled on myself, for the moment, is buying physical (paper) books, buying ebooks without DRM, downloading old ebooks in the public domain for free (or buying them cheaply from sites that do a good job on the markup) and taking out books from my local library. My wife buys Kindle ebooks (with DRM) from Amazon, because she requires a very large font size, and the Amazon solution was the best that I found (biggest selection of books of the type that my wife reads).
mcguire 6y ago
"If their work was being distributed for free (SQL server, Windows), software developers would make much less money and would be up in arms here." Most of us are paid based on the value we provide to employers by the capabilities we provide through software, not based on the value of the software itself. (Trading software for money is a relatively niche market in the industry. Enterprise software for the win! :-)) Most of the software I write isn't distributed at all; that which is distributed is available for free.
darkarmani 6y ago
Who makes any salary on 50 year old software licenses? I expect most people's salary comes from software that was written in the last 10 years max.
- enitihas 6y ago
  That is because people don't want to use older software and use newer software that is better. It is not the fault of the authors that their work is more timeless than software.
indymike 6y ago
I don't see anyone saying the IA was giving away books for free. I see people saying they made it so people could check out books and they would allow people to do so on an unlimited checkouts basis. So they will lend to many instead of one at a time.

chmod775 6y ago

Since I'm neither of the types you mentioned, do I get to say such things in your opinion?

enitihas 6y ago
Everyone gets to say anything in my opinion, I am no-one to stop people. But they should also try to ponder over the question over why authors don't deserve to be paid for their labour.
- nybble41 6y ago
  No one deserves to be paid for their labor. The mere fact that you put labor into something does not entitle you to other people's money. You get paid because you have something other people want and they are willing to pay you to give it to them. This is completely at odds with the way publishers are used to operating, which is founded in legally-sanctioned monopolies and disproportionate punishment for anyone who dares to infringe their special privileges by using their own labor to create their own copies of existing works without consulting the copyright holder. If you want to be paid for your labor, withhold either the labor itself or the finished product (i.e. the original copy) until you have negotiated a contract for payment. Don't put the content out in public where it can easily be copied and then expect people to pay you large sums for the trivial work of distribution which they could easily accomplish on their own.
  - ketzu 6y ago
    As far as I can tell the main difference to software seems to be the ways the software businesses found ways to enforce the rules they dictate via SaaS or government sanctioned monopoly license contracts.

Nemo_bis 6y ago

Do you have any evidence that copyright on Windows has resulted in more wages for developers?

enitihas 6y ago
For developers working at Microsoft? How are they paid via? They are paid out of Microsoft profits. If Microsoft stops making the humongous amounts of money of Windows, Office, SQL Server, the salaries aren't going to be paid out of thin air. Majority of software firms either sell software (Sell fully or SaaS), or make money by advertising. If they are not going to make money by selling, who is going to pay the developers?
- Nemo_bis 6y ago
  You can also sell free software https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html and, in the publishing world, many publishers make money selling public domain books. So your premise is incorrect. I'm not asking for hypothetical reasoning, I'm asking for evidence that more copyright brings more wages to developers and less copyright means less wages. Surely there are experiments that looked for such evidence? (And if not, how are you so sure?)
  - enitihas 6y ago
    Yeah, selling free software doesn't work out in the practical world. There are astonishingly few business (RedHat) making money selling free software, and we don't really want authors using that business model. (Want to know how Dumbledore died? Buy an expensive subscription and get access to Harry Potter technicians). The premise that because a handful of business are able to survive on a different business model, authors should be forced to do the same, is abusurd. > I'm asking for evidence that more copyright brings more wages to developers and less copyright means less wages. Very simple. Look at the real world and the business models of top 10000 software companies. There would be <10 companies selling free software. And authors can't go the subscription route. >many publishers make money selling public domain books. Nobody here is saying IA couldn't provide "public domain" books. The point is they shouldn't be giving out the labour of authors for free, just like you won't like if people took out your labour for free.

smcphile 6y ago

> I don't understand how so many people here are commenting as if giving out books for free was a good idea. I'm not sure how many people are thinking that. Some must be, but not necessarily many. There's a difference between "giving" and "lending". The IA have never given away copyrighted books. I've used the IA's lending library in the past and the copyrighted ebooks were protected by Adobe DRM. You were allowed to take out a few books for a few weeks (like in a real library). You were required to return the books before a given date. And if you didn't, the ADOBE software wouldn't let you read the book anymore (because of the DRM). According to the article, until recently, the IA would scan a book and would lend out the created ebook only to a limited number of people at a time, based on how many copies of the physical book that they had. What changed recently is that they began lending out to a potentially unlimited number of people at a time. But, you still didn't get to keep the book for more than two or three weeks (I forget the exact number).

enitihas 6y ago
I don't think anyone has any problem with the original lending scheme. That was totally fair. > What changed recently is that they began lending out to a potentially unlimited number of people at a time. But, you still didn't get to keep the book for more than two or three weeks (I forget the exact number). This is the relevant part, and what has prompted the publisher lawsuit. Do you think people should be allowed to take out any software they want for free for 2-3 weeks for a "National Software Emergency Library". If not, why books.
- smcphile 6y ago
  > Do you think people should be allowed to take out any software they want for free for 2-3 weeks for a "National Software Emergency Library". If not, why books. I'm not sure what the IA was thinking when they made that modification. Perhaps they thought that during the pandemic such a change would be found temporarily acceptable. I agree with your point that programmers, software publishers, authors and publishers should all be able to make money and get paid for their work. I'm not sure though what are the best business models for making that happen. What I've settled on myself, for the moment, is buying physical (paper) books, buying ebooks without DRM, downloading old ebooks in the public domain for free (or buying them cheaply from sites that do a good job on the markup) and taking out books from my local library. My wife buys Kindle ebooks (with DRM) from Amazon, because she requires a very large font size, and the Amazon solution was the best that I found (biggest selection of books of the type that my wife reads).

mcguire 6y ago

"If their work was being distributed for free (SQL server, Windows), software developers would make much less money and would be up in arms here." Most of us are paid based on the value we provide to employers by the capabilities we provide through software, not based on the value of the software itself. (Trading software for money is a relatively niche market in the industry. Enterprise software for the win! :-)) Most of the software I write isn't distributed at all; that which is distributed is available for free.

darkarmani 6y ago

Who makes any salary on 50 year old software licenses? I expect most people's salary comes from software that was written in the last 10 years max.

enitihas 6y ago
That is because people don't want to use older software and use newer software that is better. It is not the fault of the authors that their work is more timeless than software.

indymike 6y ago

I don't see anyone saying the IA was giving away books for free. I see people saying they made it so people could check out books and they would allow people to do so on an unlimited checkouts basis. So they will lend to many instead of one at a time.