47 ms·

Now if whole music, movie and gaming industry could think like this: "If people buy my ebook and then distribute it to 20 people, and each of those distributes

Now if whole music, movie and gaming industry could think like this: "If people buy my ebook and then distribute it to 20 people, and each of those distributes it to 20 more, and those to 20 more … I’ve lost $76,000 in ebook revenues. Perhaps. That’s if you agree with the assumption that all those people would have bought the ebook if it hadn’t been freely distributed. I don’t buy that. In this example, thousands of people are reading my work (and learning about Zen Habits) who wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s good for any content creator. Also: I’ve made more money since releasing copyright, by far, than when I had copyright." -From the page. Love his viewpoint about copyright and piracy.

markyc 14y ago
it will get there, as distribution gets more focalised on the creator while losing the middle man. so everyone wins. authors are the tip of the spear because the blogosphere works so well in the current internet, but the rest are following
greyman 14y ago
Good for him, he is quite brave regarding how much he uncopyrighted. But still, I checked just now and - correct me if I am wrong - not all his books are free, for example "The Little Guide to Un-Procrastination". Also, he is selling courses. As I understand it, he is selling some products, and uncopyrighted some others for marketing purposes. Interestingly, some people will pay also for those works which are uncopyrighted. Still, it isn't the case that everything he offers is free and can be paid only voluntarily.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Free and uncopyrighted are different things. The author didn't claim the books were free.
  - adsr 14y ago
    But by giving up his right as an author to decide how his work is copied and distributed, he has no way of enforcing that. Instead he relies solely on the goodness of his "customers" hearts. Most open source licenses understands this and keep a final say in how the work can be used, for example.
- k-mcgrady 14y ago
  Uncopyrighted != free. The first thing he says in the statement is: "If people buy my ebook...".
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Nothing can ever be free if you use the logic that "People are allowed to donate in support of my work"
- psionski 14y ago
  So no hits in Google? Even if it isn't free, you can buy it and put it up on the Internet for everyone to download.
- pavs 14y ago
  I have been following his blog since the beginning and I can tell you when he went the uncopyright route he wasn't selling courses. He started doing it only recently, he might have written commercial books though. I found one of his book on torrent site when googling for review (google didn't penalize pirate search results during that time) and emailed him about it. He basically said he doesn't care and pointed me to his uncopyright page.
- kayoone 14y ago
  Agreed. His uncopyrighted books are basically marketing for his paid courses, so yeah, getting rid of copyright can work well in such a scenario where you just want to reach a big audience. For more niche books with only a small and professional audience i dont think it would work.
- leobabauta 14y ago
  I charge for pretty much all my products, including books and courses (except the blog, which is free). They are all uncopyrighted. Somehow, I still make a living.
citricsquid 14y ago
If a content creator wants to release everything they've ever created without copyright, or for free, they should absolutely have the right to do that. However a content creator should also have the right to be restrictive, to say that only people that pay $1000 for a license can access the content, or that another company can sell access in return for $1000. That’s good for any content creator That's good for any content creator if they value in-discriminatory consumption, which they are under no obligation to value. A content creator should have control over their content. It should be just as acceptable for this author to want everyone to have access for free as it is for another author to want $10 for every copy. If you love and agree with his view point, great, but so many people agree with him and then take it as far as "well this content creator is okay with it, so all content creators should be!".
- icebraining 14y ago
  A content creator should have control over their content. Absolutely! Up and until they decide to relinquish it by selling a copy to someone. Then that person should have control over his or her copy.
  - teraflop 14y ago
    But should that control extend to the right to make further copies? If you say yes, then you've effectively eliminated the creator's control over their work, since copies are effectively free to distribute. If you say no, then you're stuck with a policy that there's no practical way to enforce.
    - ishansharma 14y ago
      The only way here to accept that content will be pirated but trust users to do right thing as well. Many content creators put off users with their stupid DRM implementations. I remember buying a game for some $34 in 2008. But that game had 5 copy limit. Now I am what you can call a "regular formatter". Formatted PC twice, changed laptop and now I do not own license to that game. Let user make copies, but trust that they won't copy them further.
bobsy 14y ago
The trouble is you cannot make a business out of this. Imagine if Valve did this. I brought Half Life 3 for £30. I then launch a web store and sell it for £15. I make a few hundred thousand selling a half price copy of a full price uncopyrighted game. I think a lot of content owners are aware of piracy, copyright infringement and its benefits. The Game of Thrones director(?) was talking about the benefits of piracy recently. A lot of content owners don't enforce their copyright, don't send out the hounds and I think a lot of content owners actually benefit from this. I have seen software creators detect pirated installs and instead of shutting them down talk about their small studio and ask when you have the money to buy the software. For some companies this is far more effective than adding a kill switch. For others it really isn't.
- nawitus 14y ago
  You can make a business out of this, and there are plenty of examples of it. Just because some people would buy HL3 from your store, some other people would not. Just because people can already pirate games, doesn't mean everyone will. Just because someone downloads a game from a torrent site doesn't mean they won't buy the full copy. Why would people pay for content that is freely available? Pretty much all content nowadays can be downloaded freely, that doesn't mean there's no business around the production of such content. People still pay money to consume media. It doesn't matter why people do it, if one can show empirically that people pay for content. For example, I can download Cory Doctorow's books freely, but I choose to pay for the books. It doesn't matter why I do it, it just matters that I do. Just like thousands of other readers. There used to be a website where you could buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (without the trademarks) for a lot of smaller price than the official version. That business didn't lasted long. A lot of people like to pay for a service. They want to pay for Spotify, for example. It's a good service and it's priced correctly. Significant portion of Spotify users could download the music using P2P networks, but they kinda like the service that they're provided. The same applies to Steam, and Amazon's ebook store and so on. Is it more difficult to create a business without copyright protection? Probably yes. Is it impossible? Certainly not. Copyright is a monopoly which grants exclusive right to make copies. Monopolies should always be balanced to benefit the public, not corporations who are trying to make a profit. It's pretty clear that current copyright law is too strict. The duration should be reduced to 5-10 years (which according to studies is the timeframe to bring in 90% of the profit for the work of art). I personally don't see a case for copyright laws at all, but we should start with 5-10 years.

markyc 14y ago

it will get there, as distribution gets more focalised on the creator while losing the middle man. so everyone wins. authors are the tip of the spear because the blogosphere works so well in the current internet, but the rest are following

greyman 14y ago

Good for him, he is quite brave regarding how much he uncopyrighted. But still, I checked just now and - correct me if I am wrong - not all his books are free, for example "The Little Guide to Un-Procrastination". Also, he is selling courses. As I understand it, he is selling some products, and uncopyrighted some others for marketing purposes. Interestingly, some people will pay also for those works which are uncopyrighted. Still, it isn't the case that everything he offers is free and can be paid only voluntarily.

icebraining 14y ago
Free and uncopyrighted are different things. The author didn't claim the books were free.
- adsr 14y ago
  But by giving up his right as an author to decide how his work is copied and distributed, he has no way of enforcing that. Instead he relies solely on the goodness of his "customers" hearts. Most open source licenses understands this and keep a final say in how the work can be used, for example.
k-mcgrady 14y ago
Uncopyrighted != free. The first thing he says in the statement is: "If people buy my ebook...".
- mpyne 14y ago
  Nothing can ever be free if you use the logic that "People are allowed to donate in support of my work"
psionski 14y ago
So no hits in Google? Even if it isn't free, you can buy it and put it up on the Internet for everyone to download.
pavs 14y ago
I have been following his blog since the beginning and I can tell you when he went the uncopyright route he wasn't selling courses. He started doing it only recently, he might have written commercial books though. I found one of his book on torrent site when googling for review (google didn't penalize pirate search results during that time) and emailed him about it. He basically said he doesn't care and pointed me to his uncopyright page.
kayoone 14y ago
Agreed. His uncopyrighted books are basically marketing for his paid courses, so yeah, getting rid of copyright can work well in such a scenario where you just want to reach a big audience. For more niche books with only a small and professional audience i dont think it would work.
leobabauta 14y ago
I charge for pretty much all my products, including books and courses (except the blog, which is free). They are all uncopyrighted. Somehow, I still make a living.

citricsquid 14y ago

If a content creator wants to release everything they've ever created without copyright, or for free, they should absolutely have the right to do that. However a content creator should also have the right to be restrictive, to say that only people that pay $1000 for a license can access the content, or that another company can sell access in return for $1000. That’s good for any content creator That's good for any content creator if they value in-discriminatory consumption, which they are under no obligation to value. A content creator should have control over their content. It should be just as acceptable for this author to want everyone to have access for free as it is for another author to want $10 for every copy. If you love and agree with his view point, great, but so many people agree with him and then take it as far as "well this content creator is okay with it, so all content creators should be!".

icebraining 14y ago
A content creator should have control over their content. Absolutely! Up and until they decide to relinquish it by selling a copy to someone. Then that person should have control over his or her copy.
- teraflop 14y ago
  But should that control extend to the right to make further copies? If you say yes, then you've effectively eliminated the creator's control over their work, since copies are effectively free to distribute. If you say no, then you're stuck with a policy that there's no practical way to enforce.
  - ishansharma 14y ago
    The only way here to accept that content will be pirated but trust users to do right thing as well. Many content creators put off users with their stupid DRM implementations. I remember buying a game for some $34 in 2008. But that game had 5 copy limit. Now I am what you can call a "regular formatter". Formatted PC twice, changed laptop and now I do not own license to that game. Let user make copies, but trust that they won't copy them further.

bobsy 14y ago

The trouble is you cannot make a business out of this. Imagine if Valve did this. I brought Half Life 3 for £30. I then launch a web store and sell it for £15. I make a few hundred thousand selling a half price copy of a full price uncopyrighted game. I think a lot of content owners are aware of piracy, copyright infringement and its benefits. The Game of Thrones director(?) was talking about the benefits of piracy recently. A lot of content owners don't enforce their copyright, don't send out the hounds and I think a lot of content owners actually benefit from this. I have seen software creators detect pirated installs and instead of shutting them down talk about their small studio and ask when you have the money to buy the software. For some companies this is far more effective than adding a kill switch. For others it really isn't.

nawitus 14y ago
You can make a business out of this, and there are plenty of examples of it. Just because some people would buy HL3 from your store, some other people would not. Just because people can already pirate games, doesn't mean everyone will. Just because someone downloads a game from a torrent site doesn't mean they won't buy the full copy. Why would people pay for content that is freely available? Pretty much all content nowadays can be downloaded freely, that doesn't mean there's no business around the production of such content. People still pay money to consume media. It doesn't matter why people do it, if one can show empirically that people pay for content. For example, I can download Cory Doctorow's books freely, but I choose to pay for the books. It doesn't matter why I do it, it just matters that I do. Just like thousands of other readers. There used to be a website where you could buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (without the trademarks) for a lot of smaller price than the official version. That business didn't lasted long. A lot of people like to pay for a service. They want to pay for Spotify, for example. It's a good service and it's priced correctly. Significant portion of Spotify users could download the music using P2P networks, but they kinda like the service that they're provided. The same applies to Steam, and Amazon's ebook store and so on. Is it more difficult to create a business without copyright protection? Probably yes. Is it impossible? Certainly not. Copyright is a monopoly which grants exclusive right to make copies. Monopolies should always be balanced to benefit the public, not corporations who are trying to make a profit. It's pretty clear that current copyright law is too strict. The duration should be reduced to 5-10 years (which according to studies is the timeframe to bring in 90% of the profit for the work of art). I personally don't see a case for copyright laws at all, but we should start with 5-10 years.