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Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

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Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#41

Post by dantheman »

WillyF wrote: post #9
hvs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that wildlife is a limited resource that needs to be protected from poachers. It's only like piracy if you think there is an unlimited supply of wildlife that anyone should be able to take as they like.

As an avid fly fisherman, I completely agree; however, it's often very difficult for people to conceptualize that wildlife is a limited resource. How does my taking a fish that is a half inch under the limit really hurt anyone? What about an extra fish? Or fishing after dark when it's illegal? The negative effects are often extremely far removed from the initial act. That doesn't make it ok, but it does explain why m…

True, but those breaking the fish and game laws may not be hurting anyone. They may disagree with the law. Especially because the fish and game laws only apply to public property. It'd be more analogous to going to a private reserve or piece of land and disregarding the owners regulations.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#42

Post by sethg »

arethuza wrote: post #28
showerst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it depends on your definition of 'foreseeable'. One of the first markets I can see this disrupting are things like war-gaming miniatures, and board gaming pieces, which have a HUGE markup, but could be reproduced in plastic relatively easily after a more few generations of this tech. I'm not sure about patents per-se, but it's certainly an intellectual property issue. Once these printers gain the ability…

This made me think of what is potentially a very large market - kids toys. As any parent will tell you, an awful lot of toys (especially for young kids) are cheap bits of plastic where the only "value" is the associated licensing of a brand/character from someone like Disney.

The relevant patents on Lego® bricks expired decades ago, and you would think clone bricks would have flooded the market by now. And yet Legos still sell—even the sets that aren’t licensed brands. My experience with Mega Blocks, cheaper bricks that are supposed to interlock with Legos, is that they don’t interlock very well—the tolerances are just far off enough to cause frustration. There must be something in Lego’s manufacturing process that keeps their quality high even though, on paper, nothing could be easier than replicating their technology.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#43

Post by steveklabnik »

showerst wrote: post #26
arethuza wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you actually think of any examples where "printing" 3D objects that are protected by patents is likely to be a problem in the foreseeable future?

I think that it depends on your definition of 'foreseeable'. One of the first markets I can see this disrupting are things like war-gaming miniatures, and board gaming pieces, which have a HUGE markup, but could be reproduced in plastic relatively easily after a more few generations of this tech. I'm not sure about patents per-se, but it's certainly an intellectual property issue. Once these printers gain the ability…

Games Workshop already asserts things like this, they get really touchy if you talk about casting models, and they only allow 'official' plastic in tournaments, etc...

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#45

Post by Tycho »

WillyF wrote: post #4

I think that humans have an inherent problem with seeing piracy as theft unless they are the victims. Theft in a traditional sense is almost always zero-sum, and piracy isn't. We weren't really built to deal with this. The closest thing that I can think of is having someone sleep with your spouse—it's kind of like stealing, but it's not zero-sum. And it's not illegal. It also doesn't help that our intellectual proper…

I disagree, it's the same as any other situation where people act unethically just because there's low risk of getting caught.

People steal items from hotel rooms, catch a train without buying a ticket, hack cable TV circuits, use others' unprotected wifi, keep a 20 when they were expecting a 10, insure items after they're damaged, etc etc. My last two flatmates have left without paying their share of the utility bills and ignored my messages. None of this is piracy but it's similar behaviour.

A lot of people just have no spine and only the threat of prosecution keeps them in line. Which makes it hard to swallow any of these elaborate justifications of media/software piracy.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#46

Post by flawawa2 »

rmc wrote: post #33
rick888 wrote: post #7

This still doesn't change the fact that piracy does hurt authors. The sad fact is that piracy is only getting worse. Even when you can get a song for 99 cents with no DRM or restrictions, music piracy is still rampant. I'm waiting for the next set of excuses. In '99, it was because music was too expensive and the artists were getting screwed (which is a funny excuse, because 1% of something is something, but 1% of 0…

I'm waiting for the next set of excuses. I use an operating system (Ubuntu Linux) that doesn't support the main digital music download software and live in a country (Ireland) where choice is limited. There are easily a billion people who can't legally purchase mainstream american music.

Then don't. You don't have to. Listen to the radio. Record the radio (in many countries that is legal). Listen to Youtube or streams. Listen to free music!

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#47

Post by psadauskas »

rick888 wrote: post #7

This still doesn't change the fact that piracy does hurt authors. The sad fact is that piracy is only getting worse. Even when you can get a song for 99 cents with no DRM or restrictions, music piracy is still rampant. I'm waiting for the next set of excuses. In '99, it was because music was too expensive and the artists were getting screwed (which is a funny excuse, because 1% of something is something, but 1% of 0…

In high school and college, I pirated plenty of music, because I was dead broke. Now that I'm older, and have a job, I'm buying a lot of the music that I downloaded 10 years ago. $1 a song is still too much, but when Amazon has digital albums for $5, I'll buy a few.

I've always gone to shows, though, to support the local artists as directly as I can.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#48

Post by kenjackson »

arethuza wrote: post #28
showerst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it depends on your definition of 'foreseeable'. One of the first markets I can see this disrupting are things like war-gaming miniatures, and board gaming pieces, which have a HUGE markup, but could be reproduced in plastic relatively easily after a more few generations of this tech. I'm not sure about patents per-se, but it's certainly an intellectual property issue. Once these printers gain the ability…

This made me think of what is potentially a very large market - kids toys. As any parent will tell you, an awful lot of toys (especially for young kids) are cheap bits of plastic where the only "value" is the associated licensing of a brand/character from someone like Disney.

Yes, yes. It's not patents that will be the issue for 3D replicas, but branding/trademark/licensing. I can make the Toy Story action figures for my kids, rather than pay Pixar for the rights. I can make Thomas the Train toys.

It's not that there's anything patentable in these items, but the licensing deals associated with things like TV shows and movies takes a serious hit.

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#49

Post by ctkrohn »

abstractbill wrote: post #21
ctkrohn wrote: post #19

Oh come on. It's easy to call someone a hypocrite -- everyone agrees its wrong, whatever their other moral principles might be. The failures of an individual don't really have much bearing on whether the individual's moral beliefs are right. EDIT: changed "everyone agrees its wrong" to "everyone agrees hypocrisy is wrong"

everyone agrees its wrong Are you saying everyone agrees piracy is wrong? In my mind that's very much still open to debate.

No, not at all. I certainly agree that piracy is open to debate. I meant to say that everyone agrees hypocrisy is wrong.

If that's the most obvious reading of my comment, the downvotes make a little more sense...

Re: Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

#50

Post by xtho »

> “Books are priced too high”

I don't think he (the "pirat") has an idea of how much time has to be invested in the production of good books. I personally think that books are drastically undervalued and that people are not willing to pay enough for good books which has the consequence that they are either served well targeted bestsellers, which can be produced at that price, or junk. Big publishing companies and bestseller authors don't have that much of a problem selling their books at a lower price so that people are less inclined to download a pirated book.

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