Book People Archive

Re: [ebook-community] Sen. Hollings plans to introduce DMCA sequel: The SSSCA (fwd)

 Well I take your points Bob, a brief reply if I may...

1. You only get screwed if you play the Publishers game...why do you
have to? Big Business is a game of screwing and being screwed, no
surprises there. (I was a player in that game for thirty years, so I
speak from personal experience..ha!)

2. Non-profit in the real world does not and never has meant non-cost.
I don't personally need funding, but rather than have creative people
starving in garrets I would rather see them remunerated to enable them
to work. What I don't support is an industry off the back of that which
exploits both artist and public, nor do I support excessive money being
made once costs have been recovered. Internet costs are miniscule,
otherwise I couldn't publish as I do for free. Cost recovery is not a
big moral obstacle for me, excessive profit is.

 3. Your statement that writers have 'rights' to compensation is curious
if you believe in the market. You make it, and if it sells you get money
for it. That's the market. I dislike people assuming that things are
free if they are not intended to be, that is theft. (Though there are a
few thorny issues about who has the right to charge for things which is
what the whole after-death copyright mess fouls up on). If you don't
like thieves either, make laws, restrict your products, restrict the
technology. call the cops...that's what you can do. I can carry on
supporting freedom and lowest possible costs.

Cheers

Tony         
 
  Robert Raven <rraven@[redacted]> wrote:

> Tony,

> A couple of comments to your comments:

> "2. The new technology has created the means for the literary creator to
> dispense with the middle-men, and not be dependent on the marketplace to be
> able to publish. Let's fight to keep the means of production and
> distribution as freely available as possible."

> The new technology has also given publishers an excuse to screw over writers
> even more than they traditionally have done.

> "3. There are many people working to provide new free creative content,
> and create non profit making ventures and works. We should support them
> wholeheartedly, and if possible find ways to fund their work."

> If the work needs to be funded, it is by definition not non-profit. Why not
> let the marketplace fund the work? Point being, writers have a right to
> expect compensation for their product, just as the manufacturers of any
> other product do.
             
> I'm not arguing at all in defense of the current copyright situation, which
> is ludicrous and designed to protect big publishers and corporate entities
> and not much in the interests of authors. But there seem to be a lot of
> people who have taken the ease of reproduction of work via the Internet as a
> reason to think that all information should simply be freely available
> (e.g., Napster). This is a very slippery slope, and could easily result in
> a diminishing of both the quality and quantity of information available,
> rather than an increasing of it.

> Bob Raven