4 ms·

Spotify has a free tier where you can listen to any song for free. YouTube lets you watch almost anything for free. Both of these also pay the creators. There a

Spotify has a free tier where you can listen to any song for free. YouTube lets you watch almost anything for free. Both of these also pay the creators. There are many more services peddling free content and even covering hosting costs. Libraries are free. We have plenty of completely non-hypothetical non-society-overhauling ways to access information for free. Lots of information is free, lots of it is accessible. > the current system is indeed necessary. Not all of the current system is equally necessary. Maybe not necessary at all, it just so happens to be the system we have now. There have been plenty of radically different models of society over the years. Yea, they're gone now, but this current one isn't particularly old either. Just to be more concrete - if you stop using and protecting your trademark, you can lose it. If you just hoard and don't use a copyright, you won't lose it. We already have systems in place that can provide similar info exchange for free.

ysavir 2y ago
You're comparing to the free tiers of Spotify and Youtube, which in effect is saying that we should put ads into our books.
- chii 2y ago
  Libraries tend not to put ads into books to fund them. The physical restrictions in a library - ala, only 1 person could read it at a time - is what prevents publishers from trying to charge more or prevent it. The basic issue is that if a library is filled with electronic books, the publishers will stand to lose a lot of profit. Now I'm not arguing that they deserve this profit, but there's no good model so far that both preserves the profit motive, but also make available the copyrighted material digitally and unrestrictedly. Perhaps there could be a form of library "fee" that is funded by tax payers, in a similar way to how public radio gets funded. The state pays some amount to each published author who make their book available in the library, from a pot of money collected from taxation.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > The basic issue is that if a library is filled with electronic books, the publishers will stand to lose a lot of profit. Profit they're only getting because they figured out a way to cheat the concept of ownership and get around the first sale doctrine. > The physical restrictions in a library - ala, only 1 person could read it at a time - is what prevents publishers from trying to charge more or prevent it. Publishers hate digital lending that doesn't give them money, even when it acts just like a physical book: one person at a time, takes hours to be restocked, etc. Restrictions like that don't stop publishers from fighting back; only precedent keeps them in check.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >they figured out a way to cheat the concept of ownership and get around the first sale doctrine. How do you figure we get around this problem? The ability to reshare infinite electronic copies of a work does make this a legitimate issue compared to a physical good. I don't have any good answer.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        I don't have a full plan, but I know exactly where I'd start: A scheme where you lend each copy you own to one person at a time and don't use it yourself, with them deleting the loaned copy at the end, and with a reasonably large granularity like "1 day", needs to be legal. And probably disallow publishers from blocking such a scheme.
        chii 2y ago
        Without draconian DRM to enforce, this is only going to work in a fantasy. I mean, piracy already exists today, and this could be achieved if people voluntarily follow these rules outlined.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        Nothing stops you from copying a book or a DVD from the library, but the lending process seems to work fine for those.
- theendisney4 2y ago
  I thought the same but imagine we put books in our ads(!) The newspaper is a pretty low effort barely useful thing. We could chop a book by its charters, put ads on every other page and stuff the 20 chapters into peoples mailbox. One per week. They are more likely to go on shelves than the current product has odds for eyeballs before bedding the litterbox. An idea so terrible it might just work.
- lemoncookiechip 2y ago
  This is more amusing than anything: https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publisher-inserted-a-soup-ad-into-his-novel/ https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...
ThunderSizzle 2y ago
Just to be fair, Spotify's free teir has changed significantly and no longer let's you play a specific song anymore.

ysavir 2y ago

You're comparing to the free tiers of Spotify and Youtube, which in effect is saying that we should put ads into our books.

chii 2y ago
Libraries tend not to put ads into books to fund them. The physical restrictions in a library - ala, only 1 person could read it at a time - is what prevents publishers from trying to charge more or prevent it. The basic issue is that if a library is filled with electronic books, the publishers will stand to lose a lot of profit. Now I'm not arguing that they deserve this profit, but there's no good model so far that both preserves the profit motive, but also make available the copyrighted material digitally and unrestrictedly. Perhaps there could be a form of library "fee" that is funded by tax payers, in a similar way to how public radio gets funded. The state pays some amount to each published author who make their book available in the library, from a pot of money collected from taxation.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > The basic issue is that if a library is filled with electronic books, the publishers will stand to lose a lot of profit. Profit they're only getting because they figured out a way to cheat the concept of ownership and get around the first sale doctrine. > The physical restrictions in a library - ala, only 1 person could read it at a time - is what prevents publishers from trying to charge more or prevent it. Publishers hate digital lending that doesn't give them money, even when it acts just like a physical book: one person at a time, takes hours to be restocked, etc. Restrictions like that don't stop publishers from fighting back; only precedent keeps them in check.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >they figured out a way to cheat the concept of ownership and get around the first sale doctrine. How do you figure we get around this problem? The ability to reshare infinite electronic copies of a work does make this a legitimate issue compared to a physical good. I don't have any good answer.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      I don't have a full plan, but I know exactly where I'd start: A scheme where you lend each copy you own to one person at a time and don't use it yourself, with them deleting the loaned copy at the end, and with a reasonably large granularity like "1 day", needs to be legal. And probably disallow publishers from blocking such a scheme.
      - chii 2y ago
        Without draconian DRM to enforce, this is only going to work in a fantasy. I mean, piracy already exists today, and this could be achieved if people voluntarily follow these rules outlined.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        Nothing stops you from copying a book or a DVD from the library, but the lending process seems to work fine for those.
theendisney4 2y ago
I thought the same but imagine we put books in our ads(!) The newspaper is a pretty low effort barely useful thing. We could chop a book by its charters, put ads on every other page and stuff the 20 chapters into peoples mailbox. One per week. They are more likely to go on shelves than the current product has odds for eyeballs before bedding the litterbox. An idea so terrible it might just work.
lemoncookiechip 2y ago
This is more amusing than anything: https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publisher-inserted-a-soup-ad-into-his-novel/ https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...

ThunderSizzle 2y ago

Just to be fair, Spotify's free teir has changed significantly and no longer let's you play a specific song anymore.