201–210 of 457 posts
This is why DRM isn't just anti-consumer, it's also morally evil using the same logic that says libraries are a good thing. This is also why I buy games on gog.com instead of steam if they both have them.
In a way paper books "stop working" after 10 years or so when the paper turns yellow and dusty
Pulp paper was much cheaper, which is how lurid mass-entertainment paperbacks came to (a) exist at all and (b) be called "pulp fiction".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've found this website very useful: https://archive.org/details/texts My favorite part: It has actual scans of centuries-old books taken from many major libraries (NYPL etc). I can read something printed and published in the 18th/19th centuries, on my iPhone. And I often do.
The question is what will stop working earlier: archive.org or the 18th century book?
Books have lots of failure modes too. Wide distribution is one way to protect them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It took the richest guy in the world funding them like crazy to start them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie#3,000_public_l... The one in Philadelphia cost the equivalent of $15,000,000 - and that didn't include the land, operation, or maintenance.
Exactly, dead tree books aren't a solution. I mean if a tiny library at my home or town burns up, there would be serious loss of a unique collection with that too! IMO, a more robust and resilient solution would be to bring native experience of books on the web. And tie it up with open source and paid model both in two separate states: of a manuscript and that of a book. If a processor of books dies (like in this cas…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The one in Washington DC is now an Apple store.
To be fair, it’s not like DC doesn’t have public libraries. Also, the original DC Carnegie building sits on some of the most expensive real estate in the country.
Or what better way to signal a change in values than to stop having one on that same real estate.
It's why I only buy games from Gog now. I just install the .exe and it works. I no longer tolerate DRM.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
DRM is a ludicrous solution to preventing ebook piracy. One of the first things I learned as a teenager online was that anything that can be read, seen or heard can also be copied. It's only with interactive things like games and programs that pirates have a real challenge.
There is a big difference between copying physical objects and digital ones. Books can be copied for sure, but the cost of copying a digital book is negligible compared to the cost of copying a real book. Zero cost of copying makes it possible to give it away for free (e.g. to drive traffic) and monetize otherwise (most digital piracy is business, not charity). In the physical world, copied books are not given away f…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Between lobbying and the general disdain for most things run by any type of government here, I’ve grown to distain the government because of how often it pushes strict bills like DMCA which are quickly out-of-date and ripe for abuse. It’s not just lobbying congress either, there have been some very strict cases coming out of prosecutors offices such as the case against MIT student David LaMacchia in 1994 who put fi…
> Every subreddit or Youtube channel or whatever online community I’ve been a part of has had to deal with people abusing DMCA takedown notices Are you sure you've seen DMCA abuse on YouTube? They have their own system for handling alleged copyright violation that has little to do with the DMCA takedown procedure, and almost all complaints I've seen about abuse on Google have been due to that system.
This is why DRM isn't just anti-consumer, it's also morally evil using the same logic that says libraries are a good thing. This is also why I buy games on gog.com instead of steam if they both have them.
Have you found a solution to piracy that doesn't involve DRM? What was its success rate? I'm sure the publishers would love to switch to a better system if it exists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we merely had the same copyright we had when the country first formed, this entire "your books turn off thing" would possibly be completely acceptable: a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them. Key here is that this means that within your lifetime this would quite possibly be the case. This also means that a very large var…
It could be longer than 100 years. I recently tried to find a copy of an article published in 1932. I can't find any version online and the nearest print version is in a library 1,000 km away. I asked the library if they could scan it and email it to me and they said no, it's still covered by copyright. This work was published early in the author's life; she died in 1983. So the Berne Convention would protect this wo…