3 ms·
Information has been freely accessible and infinitely copiable for some decades now, and that has done far more social good than 'authors'. Authors should get w
by DoItToMe81 3y ago
Information has been freely accessible and infinitely copiable for some decades now, and that has done far more social good than 'authors'. Authors should get with the times instead of shacking up with cartels who absurdly overprice books whilst paying them a pittance.
- fractallyte 3y agoNo, the ability for an author to self-publish is the greater social good. You're belittling the work an author (without quote marks) must do to make knowledge accessible. You are not entitled to that effort, regardless of how easy it is to copy the end product. This is the Tragedy of the Commons. The solution is simple: pay for it, or lose it.
- DoItToMe81 3y agoI'm belittling it because it's obviously wrong. Every other field has survived digital piracy just fine, and the benefits of book piracy go weeeeeeeeeelll beyond short term entertainment. Like being able to educate yourself on any topic irrespective of your wealth. Beyond that, thirty years of digital piracy have had a negligible effect on the industry as a whole, as with all other industries. It is definitely not "small authors" pushing to close off what might be some of the greatest public sources of human knowledge in history, it's overwhelmingly the publishers, as they have catastrophized in every other field too.
- fractallyte 3y agoMusicians have emphatically not survived digital piracy. But at least they have another avenue for possibly generating income: live performance. Authors? Who goes to a live reading? Lastly, you will not benefit from book piracy if you destroy an author's ability to survive by writing books. That's why I wrote: Tragedy of the Commons. I was careful to write about authors, not publishers. Pirating a self-published author is ethically wrong.