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I would rather see my books get pirated than this

janefriedman.com

341–350 of 517 posts

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#341
post #44

I think this is the future of computers for people. they will open their phone and say "hey siri get this book or computer or car" and the browser will show them a bunch of made up products generated by an AI and they'll get the product drop shipped from china and it'll be a shitty counterfeit just like the $5 256GB USB drives. But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be ge…

I think people have a lower tolerance for this than that, and will just go back to relying on personal recommendations and other reliable forms of curation.

Yep. Case in point - I've given up buying on Amazon UK and use Argos as my go-to shop instead, for products of far better assured provenance without having to really overthink it all.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#342

Let me tell you how to buy a kindle book for my kid’s Kindle that is connected via a child account in “Amazon Household” to my Amazon account. (This opening sentence already signals how the rest of this will go). A child’s account can’t buy books - you have to do it for them. 1. I open Amazon app on my iphone and find the book - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 2. I open Kindle app on my iphone…

If a product is crap, don't buy it. Perhaps a real book on real paper is an alternative?

Or a open phone...

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#343
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be why physical bookstores are making a comeback. Trustworthy curation is essential, and worth paying a premium for. This has always been the case, but maybe not fully appreciated.

I think that's an ok workaround, but I don't want to go to physical bookstores, and I don't want physical books. As much as I do like the feel of a physical book, I much prefer the convenience and portability of a digital book. And speaking of convenience, it would be a big shame if we had to go back to physical stores for non-trivial purchases because we can't trust anything online.

Many physical bookstores have web pages where they sell e-books as well. Find the store that serves what you want, instead of finding faults with the ones who don't and going with the huge sell-everything-store.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#344
post #44

I think this is the future of computers for people. they will open their phone and say "hey siri get this book or computer or car" and the browser will show them a bunch of made up products generated by an AI and they'll get the product drop shipped from china and it'll be a shitty counterfeit just like the $5 256GB USB drives. But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be ge…

Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there? If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers who recognize the tremendous amount of value they can capture by not scamming people.

> Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there?

This already happens over and over, and with AI it’s only going to be worse. Company makes a decent product, gains reputation, and then strip mines their good will for quick cash while quality plummets. After a while, you just distrust the whole online shopping experience. Even if someone is selling a good product, the lemons are ruining the whole market.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#346
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cough mobilism.org/libgen.is/irc channels/z-library cough

Do the ends justify the means, matey? Have you considered accessing freely-licensed content instead, and supporting authors who believe in the freedom movement, such as Creative Commons? How would you feel, if you were an author, and people openly advocated piracy, such that you were deprived of sales, and earning an honest living?

> How would you feel, if you were an author

I think I'd feel pretty great if I were a perpetual monopolist and rent seeker. As a child I never really developed the reality warping field necessary to believe I can own bits and numbers.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#347

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

The US doesn't nationally have a Right of Publicity law (the UK does, the EU doesn't, India does -- it's a real mixed bag out there), so you can't actually stop someone from using your name as a pen name for the most part. But this was already becoming a problem long before AI reared its head, with public domain text put in verbatim in a book by "Stephen A. King" or whatever

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#348
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deprived of sales but the post above explain an arduous process for a purchase, and i would expect that there's not an insignificant number of people who would've given up in the middle. So do you also feel that you need to make the same complaint of a lost sale to amazon? Why target pirates specifically? Whether they _consumed_ content or not, is irrelevant - in both scenarios, you would've "lost" a sale.

Have you considered accessing freely-licensed content instead, and supporting authors who believe in the freedom movement, such as Creative Commons?

Have you considered not accepting intellectual property as a legitimate concept to begin with? It makes no sense to even speak of "freely licensed" anything once you do that.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#349
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK & US at least that's not true, there are de facto (unregistered) and (offering more protection) registered trademarks. In the UK at least if you could show your name gave it some weight, and that you'd suffered some financial harm as a result of its use, then you'd have a case without it being registered.

In the UK, Scotland, specifically, McDonalds has lost at least two lawsuits against a Scottish family for trademark violations.

[deleted]

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#350
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are too dumb to be useful, but smart enough to be destructive. I think this puts the blame in the wrong place; LLMs are too dumb to be useful, but it's the users who are too dumb to realise that, or too unethical to care.

It's also the creators, hosters, and startup founders who are overselling its capabilities.

I was lumping them in with 'users'; I don't think the evangelists are any less credulous than their marks.
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